Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Panopticon, a looming watchtower placed at the centre of the end of the world, slowly crumbling to pieces. Sharp bursts of explosions reverberating through the tower, dull thuds of debris crashing to the ground, discordant static rising in pitch. Blood coating his hand, blood sticking to the knife, blood drenching Jon’s shirt. Martin tries to focus on something else, anything at all, but he keeps coming back to the blood, blood everywhere, thick and dark and acrid, so much blood, more than any human being should be able to produce. More than any human being can lose and still have a hope of survival. He knows this, and yet he keeps the knife firmly lodged in Jon’s chest, as if it offers a twisted sort of protection, as if pulling it out would make all of this real.

What terrifies him most is how easy it was in the end. To splay his left hand over Jon’s chest as their lips met and feel the hummingbird pace of his heart under his palm, then break the kiss and swap his left hand for the knife clutched in his right, let it chase after the source of Jon’s heartbeat, sliding with horrible ease through the sagging valley where two of his ribs should have been. The one thing he had sworn he would never do, the one singular thing, and now even that promise had been wrenched from him.

Jon’s eyes lose focus, and he slumps forward into Martin’s chest, resting his head against his sternum like he’s done so many times before, after pulling him from the Lonely, in bed in the safehouse, during a snatched moment of peace between one hell domain and the next. Blood soaks into Martin’s jumper. He should just pull the knife out, it clearly doesn’t do anything to keep the blood inside, but he can’t bring himself to do it, can’t even bring himself to let go of the hilt. He wraps his free arm around Jon’s shoulders, holding him tight, desperate to offer him whatever small comfort he is capable of. His hand brushes over Jon’s neck until he finds his pulse, a faint flutter beneath his fingertips, growing slower by the second. Like sand running through an hourglass, counting down the time until the inevitable ending. They sway on the spot, a crude mockery of a slow dance; Jon’s whole body convulsing with pain though he doesn’t make a single sound, Martin shaking with the force of his sobs.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats through his tears, over and over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He thinks of what Jon had said, just before Martin picked up the knife. Maybe everything works out and we end up somewhere else…

A tiny grain of hope among all the despair, a flicker of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. They might yet get a happy ending. Perhaps if he holds on to that hope, if he believes in it hard enough, it will come true. Perhaps there’s a kind of dream logic at play here, but it might work in their favour for once.

Then Jon goes slack in his arms and the ground falls away beneath his feet and he doesn’t think of anything at all anymore.

~*~

Seagulls crying in the distance, cold water soaking his trousers, the smell of salt pervading the air. Sensation returns to him slowly, gradually, disjointed bits and pieces starting to add up to a coherent picture. He blinks his eyes open and sees an overcast sky above him, dark roiling waves behind him, a narrow stretch of sand before him. A beach. Right. Why is he on a beach?

Only then does he become aware of the body clutched in his arms, and only then does his memory catch up to him, hitting him like a fist in the solar plexus. Just moments ago, he stood atop the collapsing Panopticon, pressing a knife into Jon’s chest, and now he has washed up on an unfamiliar shore, kneeling in the shallow water, the sand soft beneath his shins. Jon is folded into his chest, limp and lifeless as a ragdoll, his eyes closed, not moving, not even breathing. A ragged sob is torn from Martin’s throat, and he buries his face in Jon’s hair, soaking it with his tears.

This can’t be true. This isn’t how it was meant to be. Whatever happened, whether they lived or died, they were supposed to be together. He can’t go on like this, not in this strange new world that doesn’t know him, not without Jon. He simply can’t.

But perhaps Martin is dead as well. Perhaps this is what the afterlife looks like. Jon couldn’t answer that question, even the Eye couldn’t See beyond death, so this might as well be the truth of it. Maybe Hell is real, and it means being forced to endure your greatest fear for all eternity, like all those people trapped in their personal nightmares during the apocalypse, but this time without even the faintest chance of salvation. Come to think of it, this place reminds him of the Lonely a little. The cloudy sky, the deep dark sea, the complete and utter hopelessness. It seems like Forsaken has managed to claim him after all, in the end. Maybe this will just be it, for all eternity: all alone on an abandoned beach, the lifeless body of the man he loves held in his arms, forever having to live with the knowledge that he died by his hands.

Something moves beneath his fingers. Something pulsates. He holds his breath; he ceases his sobs; his whole body freezes with the sudden, ferocious onslaught of hope, though he is half certain he has only imagined it. He presses his hand closer to the side of Jon’s neck, his fingertips digging into the soft skin, and chases that movement, chases that hope. And sure enough, there it is again. A beat, strong and steady and probably the most incredible sensation he’s felt in his entire life.

Martin lets out another sob, this time of relief. Jon’s breath is warm on his neck, a little laboured, a little wheezing, but so wonderfully alive. Jon is there. Jon is alive. He is not alone. His breath catches again when he feels him stirring in his arms, fingers scrabbling for purchase in Martin’s jumper, his head shifting from where it was tucked under Martin’s chin. He tightens his grip around Jon’s torso, keeping him safe and upright, and pulls back just a fraction so he can see Jon’s face, so he can watch his eyes slowly flicker open. There is no trace left of the eerie green glow that had suffused his irises during the apocalypse – and even before that, sometimes, when he read a statement or Knew something. They are back to their old familiar chocolate brown, the colour that had caught Martin off-guard the first time he had worked up the courage to look Jon in the eyes, so unexpected in their depth and warmth.

“Martin?” Jon’s voice is rough and hoarse, his tone hesitant and almost pleading, as if he is trying to convince himself that this is real, that it isn’t just a cruel illusion that will dissipate any second now.

That sets Martin’s tears flowing again, and it takes him several attempts before he can choke out Jon’s name in response.

Jon smiles then, that magical, genuine smile that he so rarely shows, the one that lights up his entire face and makes tiny creases appear around his eyes. Martin had once kissed those creases, every single one of them, charting the novel landscape of Jon’s happiness and trying to commit it all to memory. Vowing to himself that he’d do anything to see that smile again. And he did see it again, nearly every day in the safehouse and even on a select few precious occasions after the Change, even after reasons to smile had become a scarce resource. Martin liked knowing that he’d found the key to unlock that smile, and it seems like he still has it now.

“Martin,” Jon breathes again. He brings his hands up to frame Martin’s face, his thumbs tracing gently over his cheeks and brushing the tears away. “You’re here. You’re really here.”

Martin lets out a watery chuckle. “I’m here. And so are you. We’re both here.”

Jon flings his arms around Martin’s neck and presses his body into his with such a force that they both struggle to retain their balance, like he is trying to melt into him, like he can’t bear to be apart from him even for a second. Martin can’t say he doesn’t share the sentiment.

“Martin. You’re safe, you’re here, you’re with me…” Jon repeats over and over, the words muffled by the thick fabric of Martin’s jumper.

The water seeping into Martin’s trouser legs is starting to feel unpleasantly cold, and the fact that it now comes up to his thighs indicates that the tide is rising, but he pays it barely any mind. He would have gladly stayed here holding Jon until the waves came crashing over both their heads. But then again, there is… well, there are a number of pressing concerns, truth be told, but there’s one in particular right now.

Reluctantly, he grips Jon’s shoulders and gently manoeuvres him out of their embrace, not swayed by his low grunt of protest, then leans back on his heels with Jon held at arm’s length so he can examine him closer.

He winces when he sees the blood covering Jon’s shirt, most of it concentrated around his chest where the knife entered, but stray splotches of it spread across his collar, his sleeves, his stomach; the visceral red a stark contrast to the crisp white material, like a sickening piece of modern art. God, so much blood. Martin fights down the panic threatening to take him over, knowing it wouldn’t help either of them if he lost his composure now, and after the initial rush of anxiety has faded, he can finally take note of the colour. It’s the dark maroon of long-dried blood, not the vivid crimson of fresh carnage. No immediate danger, just the harrowing souvenir of an old wound.

“Is it-?” Martin asks shakily, nodding in the vague direction of Jon’s chest. He can’t bring himself to finish the question.

Jon furrows his brow in confusion, as if he has forgotten all about the stabbing. Then understanding dawns on his face, mingled with a touch of terror, and he runs a hand over his chest, gingerly at first and then with more pressure, his eyes growing wider and wider.

“It- it doesn’t hurt. I... don’t feel anything, actually. Like it never happened.”

“Oh! Oh, wow, okay.” Martin isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “That’s… that’s a good sign, right?”

Jon sighs. “Let’s hope so.”

A particularly powerful wave hits them at this moment, coming up nearly to Martin’s chest and soaking Jon’s legs even on his vantage point on Martin’s lap. Martin shivers, finally growing aware of the chill in the air and the dampness of his clothes.

“Er… we should probably move.”

“We should,” Jon hums, the smile audible in his voice. He tightens his arms even further around Martin and makes no effort to actually move.

Martin struggles to his feet, which isn’t an easy task with the water rising in steady increments and Jon’s sodden weight hanging off him, clinging to Martin like a limpet. He dislodges him as gently as he can, making sure he stands steadily on both feet before letting go, and takes his hand instead, keeping a firm grasp on it and lacing their fingers together. The stable drum of Jon’s pulse is a reassuring presence against his wrist. Together, they wade onto the shore.

This place is nothing like the Lonely, Martin realises now. Despite the gloomy weather, the view is clear in all directions, without even a whiff of fog; and the beach is not as deserted as it had seemed at first. He can make out the vague shapes of people in the distance – too far off to have noticed two men dropping out of the sky, fortunately – walking along the shore or tossing a beachball back and forth. Those people aren’t alone, and neither is Martin. Alright, so he isn’t in the Lonely. That’s always a relief. But then… where are they, exactly? In some kind of parallel universe, probably, but why have they ended up on this unfamiliar beach of all places?

“This… doesn’t look like London,” he says slowly, glancing over at Jon. Though perhaps in this universe, London is located by the sea. Or it doesn’t even exist. So much could be different here from the world they came from. Perhaps this is a world where dogs can fly and everyone sleeps during the day. Anything could be possible.

Even thinking about this leaves him slightly dizzy, so he decides to focus his attention on the here and now, on the things that are right before his eyes, and leave the hypotheticals for later. The beach seems ordinary enough, a stretch of sand and shingles dotted with seashells and algae and bordered by looming sandy cliffs. It certainly looks British, Martin thinks, though it’s not like he has much to go on – his beach experience is limited to a couple of unremarkable day trips to sleepy Lancashire seaside towns in his early childhood. (And, well- but he doesn’t think the Lonely counts.)

Jon is silent for a bit as he scans the beach with his eyes, as if examining it for evidence. When he looks back at Martin, his nose is scrunched and a little furrow has appeared between his eyebrows, the tell-tale signs that he is being confronted with a conundrum he doesn’t have a ready answer for.

“Hang on… I think I know where we are.”

“Wait, really? Where?”

Jon rakes his free hand through his hair. “It’s called Hengistbury Head Beach, I think? My grandmother took me here a few times when I was a child. It’s not far from Bournemouth.”

“Riiight,” Martin says slowly, unsure what to make of this. “So… why did we land here?”

“I have no idea.” There is a sort of wonder in Jon’s voice, a barely concealed excitement, like not knowing something is a rare thrill for him – and Martin has to remind himself that it is. Though in their current situation, he can’t deny that omniscient powers, even those gifted by a malevolent Eldritch entity, would come in pretty handy, actually.

“Do you think we should go back to London, then?” he asks, still expecting Jon to have all the answers. Old habits die hard.

Jon shrugs. “I suppose? Might be difficult to get there, though, since we don’t have any money, and, ah, probably not even a legal existence in this reality.”

Martin barely suppresses a groan of frustration. He hadn’t considered the actual logistics of travelling to a parallel universe. If this means they’ll have to embark on yet another prolonged trek just to get to London, he might just prefer to spend the rest of his life on this beach. He’s done enough walking for at least three lifetimes, thank you very much.

He slips his hand into his right front pocket where he used to keep his wallet, more out of habit than anything else, fully expecting it to be empty. But instead, his pocket is bulging with something that feels like paper, cool and slightly damp under his fingers. Could it be…? He pulls it out and brings it closer to his eyes, his mouth dropping open in disbelief. It’s a thick bundle of cash, held together with a rubber band. The notes are a little sodden from the water, but otherwise in decent condition. He flicks through them quickly, still half expecting the whole thing to be a cruel joke, but all he sees is an assortment of pound notes in various colours, the Queen’s face smiling from each and every one. It’s not like he knows much about how to identify signs of forgery, truth be told, but they certainly look authentic to his untrained eye.

“You’re bloody kidding me,” he gasps, gripping the notes tightly between his fingers as though they might dissolve into thin air the second he lets go of them. “That’s got to be at least five hundred quid…”

“Well, that’s one thing sorted,” Jon mutters.

He rummages around in his own pockets and produces a similar-sized bundle of notes, as well as a passport in his name, valid until September 2025. The picture on the inside is a strange little window into the past, a little younger and much less scarred than the Jon who is currently standing beside Martin, but still unmistakably him. In his other front pocket, Martin finds a passport of his own, and a set of keys that look identical to the ones to his old flat in Stockwell. He’d taken those keys to Scotland with him and kept them in his pocket throughout most of their post-apocalyptic journey to London, still clinging to the stubborn hope that he would need them again one day, but they had gotten lost during a predictably disconcerting visit to some Spiral domain, and he’d tried his hardest not to take that as a bad omen. And now they have miraculously reappeared, along with the means (well, some of the means) they need to start a new life.

There is something rather too fortuitous about how this has all played out, and the mere thought of who might have been pulling the strings to arrange this for them, who might still be orchestrating their every movement right now, is enough to send a shiver down his spine. But for now, he’d prefer not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’s tired beyond belief, his clothes are soggy, he’s had one hell of a day, and somehow, against all odds, he is alive and Jon is alive and they are together. That’s all that matters to him at the moment.

“This should be enough for two train tickets,” Jon says with cautious optimism, perhaps having arrived at the same conclusion.

Martin snorts. “Yeah, and it’s enough for a hotel room, too. I don’t know about you, but I’m really not in the mood for public transport right now.”

“Fair point,” Jon says, a small smile tugging at his lips. “There’s a hotel in Southbourne, I think, about an hour’s walk from here? Or, well, there was. Twenty years ago. In a different universe.”

“It’s worth a shot anyway.” Every muscle in Martin’s body is screaming for rest, and the downy softness of a hotel bed sounds like heaven right now.

But one look at Jon, at the sprawling rust-coloured stain covering most of his front, stops him in his tracks. He peers down at his own jumper and though close scrutiny reveals a dried blood stain on his stomach, it’s barely noticeable against the dark colour of the wool, and at least he’s wearing a t-shirt underneath. He pulls the jumper over his head and offers it to Jon. Even though he tends to run hot, the chilly air still sends goosebumps across the bare skin of his arms.

Jon eyes the proffered garment with distaste, as if Martin had dug it up from a bin. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll catch a cold.”

Martin sighs, only slightly exasperated. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but your shirt’s covered in blood. So if you don’t want my jumper, you have the choice between going shirtless or being taken for a serial killer. Up to you.”

“Oh. Right.”

Jon throws a puzzled glance down his front as if he’d genuinely forgotten about the stain, and something twists in Martin’s insides at how indifferent Jon seems about this, like he doesn’t even care that Martin… stabbed him. Killed him, in a way. Sure, the wound has mysteriously healed and Jon claims not to feel any pain, but that doesn’t erase the moment Martin pushed the knife between his ribs, doesn’t change the horrible reality of it. Martin doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it, not even if they’re lucky enough to make it to old age, not in a million lifetimes. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself. His weak jokes are just a substitute for the deluge of frantic apologies threatening to spill out of his mouth, because he knows that he can’t afford to break down right now. He needs to be strong. For Jon.

Even if it will never absolve him of his guilt.

~*~

The hotel turns out to be exactly where Jon remembered it, and the bored-looking clerk behind the front desk doesn’t even bother looking up from her computer screen as she books them into a room for the night, let alone ask unwanted questions.

No sooner has the door fallen shut behind them than Martin finds himself pushed against the wall and kissed rather thoroughly. He lets out a startled mmpf before he melts into the kiss like he always does, closing his eyes, parting his lips, wrapping his arms around Jon’s waist. Jon is not unaffectionate by any means, but it’s unusual for him to take initiative in such a confident way, and Martin relishes the intensity of it, how it leaves his mind blissfully empty save for the feeling of Jon’s lips against his, his tongue in his mouth, his hands in his hair. Jon kisses him like he is drowning and Martin is the shore, like he is suffocating and Martin is air, like this is their last day on Earth and they might as well make the most of it. Like he is trying to wipe out the memory of the last kiss they shared before this, the one that ended with a knife in Jon’s chest, and replace it with something better.

When the need for air at last forces them to pull apart, their breathing is ragged, their hair mussed, their lips shiny and swollen. Jon drops his head onto Martin’s shoulder and leans on him with almost his entire weight.

“You’re here,” he mumbles again, into the crook of Martin’s neck. “You’re here with me.”

Martin runs a hand along his spine, presses a kiss into his hair. “Of course I am. I’m not leaving you. Where you go, I go, remember?”

“I love you,” Jon whispers, hushed and reverent, like a sacred truth that should never be spoken lightly.

“I love you too,” Martin answers with just as much sincerity, pulling him even closer.

By now, it’s a legitimate struggle to keep his eyes open, and the double bed he can glimpse over the top of Jon’s head, with its creamy white covers and fluffed up pillows, is already beckoning to him. He wants nothing more than to burrow under the soft duvet with Jon in his arms and let exhaustion claim him, but he’s starting to become uncomfortably aware of the foul smell emanating from him – from both of them, really – and the apocalypse grime coating every inch of his skin.

“Should probably take a shower,” he mutters drowsily, making a weak attempt to slip out of Jon’s grasp.

Jon’s only reaction is to hold him even tighter and make a disgruntled noise that is actually quite adorable.

Martin chuckles, patting his back. “Come on, I’ll only be five minutes.”

Jon pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes, something almost bashful in his expression. “We could, um… go together. I-if you want.” He turns bright red as he seems to realise the potential implications of his words, and hastens to add, “J-just to shower, I mean! Not… you know. I, I just… I don’t want to be alone right now.”

That’s something Martin understands only too well, and all the convincing he needs.

The shower isn’t exactly spacious, but still large enough to fit both of them. Jon fiddles with the knobs before they get in, holding his hand under the stream until he is satisfied with the temperature. Then he shrugs off Martin’s jumper and begins fumbling with the buttons on his blood-caked shirt. Martin reaches for the hem of his own t-shirt, his fingers twisting in the fabric. It’s a little absurd, really, how after everything they’ve been through together, he still feels self-conscious about this. It’s not that he has a problem with his body, not in the least, and he knows Jon won’t either, but… well, this is uncharted territory. He’s run away with this man and followed him through an apocalyptic wasteland, he was willing to die by his side and stabbed him in the heart, but he has never before taken his clothes off in front of him.

He ventures a tentative glance over at Jon, who has now wrested himself free of his shirt and is undoing his belt buckle. He, for his part, seems to have no inhibitions about getting undressed. Martin’s gaze comes to rest on his bare chest, on the- Wait a minute. That scar hadn’t been there before. A raised pink line running along his sternum, marking the place where the knife had entered. Shiny scar tissue serving as a permanent reminder of what Martin had done. He has to fight the urge to vomit.

“Jon…” he chokes out, moving his hand towards the scar, but stopping short of actually touching it.

Jon pauses with his trousers halfway down his legs and runs a fingertip across the length of the scar, his face befuddled but not uncomfortable. “Hm, that’s… that’s strange. It’s completely healed. Like it happened months ago.”

Then why is there a scar? Martin wants to ask, rage, scream. Why does there have to be a scar? But he knows Jon won’t have the answer to that, so instead he sputters, “It- it doesn’t bother you?”

Jon just shrugs. “What’s another scar?”

The weariness in his tone, the resignation, something close to boredom, even, breaks Martin’s heart. He wants to hunt down every last Entity and monster and human being that ever left its cruel mark on Jon and make them pay. He wants to wrap Jon in a soft blanket and shield him from anything that could hurt him, forever. But he doesn’t have the power to do either of these things, and if he closes his eyes, he can still feel the dreadful weight of the knife in his hand and smell the acrid stench of blood. All he can do now is join Jon in the shower and comfort him in whatever small, ordinary, human way he can, so he works up the courage to divest himself of his clothes in hurried movements, leaving them in a crumpled heap on the floor.

The water is hot enough to be almost scalding, but Martin finds he doesn’t mind, that he rather likes the way it pours over his skin and rids it of dirt and sweat and stray traces of blood, the purifying heat scouring him of nearly all physical reminders of the past. If only the water could wash away the awful memories along with the muck, wash away rotting bodies and burning houses and above all Jon’s blood spilling over his hand, let it all float down the drain and leave him truly clean. If only the water could wash away every single one of Jon’s scars and the haunted look in his eyes.

The small shower cubicle doesn’t leave them much space to move, and so they need to stand close together so they can both fit under the stream, bare skin pressed against bare skin. Any burgeoning insecurity Martin might have felt at that is quickly replaced by a deep, lingering contentment when Jon wraps his arms around his waist and rests his face on Martin’s chest, dropping kisses wherever he can reach. Martin insists on washing his hair for him and cherishes the contented sigh he earns when massaging shampoo into Jon’s tangled locks. They should do this more often, he thinks after he has rinsed Jon’s hair, pressing his lips to the top of his head. How nice it is to have a future they can plan for, a future filled with many more mundane miracles like this. How close they’d come to never getting a future at all.

As soon as they’re settled in bed, towelled dry and dressed only in their underwear, Jon drapes himself over Martin’s chest, lying more on top of him than on the actual mattress, and tucks his face between Martin’s neck and shoulder. Martin lets his hands rest gingerly on Jon’s back, keeping the touch as light as possible. He thinks of the jagged line cutting across Jon’s chest, of the many other scars scattered all over his body, of his own shaking hand guiding the knife into Jon’s heart. How fragile he is. How easy it would be to break him.

“I’m not made of glass, Martin,” Jon grumbles.

Martin obligingly tightens his hold around Jon, though a part of him still recoils from using even the slightest amount of force. Of course he has noticed Jon’s issues around physical touch – how could he not? – and Jon has even given him his own account of it, however faltering and fragmentary, early on in their relationship. Martin knows that even a light touch can turn into a horrific violation for Jon, and he’s all too painfully aware of how it can be traced back to years of worm attacks and burning handshakes and kidnappings and… forcible moisturisation, years of his body receiving unimaginable violence and little to no kindness, the kind of trauma that leaves far deeper marks than just scars. And because he knows all this, Martin always knew what a privilege it was to be the sole exception to Jon’s aversion, the one person to have his complete and utter trust. He never took it for granted that Jon melted into his touch rather than flinching from it, that he sought shelter in Martin’s arms when he was in need of comfort. He’d sworn to himself to never abuse that trust, to touch him as gently as he could, to make sure Jon knew that his hands, at least, would never hurt him. And now that has become yet another promise he couldn’t keep; now he is just another in a long line of people who’d carved a permanent echo of pain into Jon’s skin. Yes, Jon asked him to do it; yes, the stab wound has healed much faster than medically possible; but that scar will always be there to taunt Martin with the terrible knowledge of what he has done, and he doesn’t think he will ever stop smelling the blood.

Jon should be shying from his touch rather than reaching for it. He should be running far away from Martin and surround himself only with people who would never dream of causing him pain. But instead, he gives a contented hum and goes boneless in Martin’s arms. He’s asleep within seconds. Despite his utter exhaustion, Martin takes a lot longer than that. He breathes in the familiar scent of Jon’s hair hidden beneath the cheap hotel shampoo, feels the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against his chest and wills it to go on, for today, for tomorrow, for an entire lifetime. He wishes he could see this as a happy ending.

~*~

They watch the sun set over the sea, a glowing ball of orange melting into the deep blue waves, as they sit on a low stone wall overlooking the beach, bags of fish and chips resting in their laps. Jon has momentarily abandoned his in favour of once again scrutinising the train schedule they’d been handed by the hotel receptionist, though it’s barely legible in the dim light of the street lamps and Martin is pretty sure they both know it by heart now. Jon has been over their itinerary countless times already, more because the repetition soothes his anxiety than for any functional purpose, Martin suspects. Take the bus to Christchurch, then get on the South Western Railway that will take them to London, make their way to Martin’s flat, and… the rest remains to be seen. By the time they woke, it was late in the afternoon, meaning they’d slept almost twenty-four hours straight, and Jon was as adamant about leaving immediately as Martin was about taking their time. In the end, Jon was forced to admit that they were badly in need of new clothes, and so they’d headed out to a drab charity shop two streets from the hotel. They weren’t exactly spoiled for choice there, but they couldn’t afford to be picky, and baggy hoodies and washed-out jeans definitely beat their blood-stained and sea-soaked wardrobe. On their way to the bus stop, they’d both started to feel dizzy with hunger – after fatigue, this seemed to be the next long-forgotten physical need catching up to them – and Martin had managed to talk Jon into waiting for the next bus and picking something up from one of the many chippies lining the promenade.

Martin takes a large bite of fish, frying oil greasing his fingers through the flimsy newspaper wrapping, and chews slowly. God, how he’s missed this during the apocalypse. Not mediocre takeaway, per se, but… the simple comforts. A soft bed. A hot meal. A tranquil sunset with no hidden terror behind it.

“So… I guess things worked out pretty well for us, all in all.”

He tests the taste of the words on his tongue, lets them float into the cool briny air in the hope that speaking them aloud will make them true, will make him believe in them. He’s referring to the passports, the money, the keys, the quick Google searches they’d conducted on one of the hotel’s computers. Aside from a couple of unrelated Jonathan Simses and Martin Blackwoods strewn across various parts of the country, there was… nothing. No social media profiles, no census records, no local news stories, not even the slightest shred of evidence that their counterparts had ever existed in this universe. Of course, they could just both be living off the grid, but still, the more likely explanation is that they just… don’t exist. Jon and Martin won’t have to navigate around their doppelgangers, won’t have to change their names and live incognito. There’s a gap in this world in which the two of them fit perfectly. A gap in which they can start building a life. And that’s what he’s referring to, most of all: that they’re both here, they’re both alive and as well as can be, all things considered, and they’re free to forge an existence unburdened by the end of the world or Eldritch fear gods or the looming threat of tragedy. That has to be enough. He has to believe that it’s enough.

Jon is silent for a while, his eyes riveted on a point on the distant horizon.

“I suppose,” he says at last, his voice flat.

Oh great, so he’s back to his closed-off, brooding shtick again. Sometimes, talking to him can be infuriating, like gathering crumbs and trying to assemble them into a full meal.

“Jon?” Martin probes.

More silence. Martin is not in the mood for an argument right now, so he does his best to temper his rising frustration and keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I can hear you thinking, you know. Care to share?”

Jon picks up a chip and turns it over between his long fingers, holding it not unlike a cigarette. He makes a cut-off sound that Martin can’t quite interpret, then clears his throat and starts again.

“I, I just- Don’t you think all of this is a little… too convenient?”

Martin had in fact been thinking the exact same thing, but he knows that if he lets himself dwell on that for too long, he’ll lose whatever fragile composure he has managed to maintain so far. One of them needs to keep it together, and he has a suspicion it won’t be Jon.

“What are you getting at?” he asks, feigning ignorance.

Jon brings the chip up to his lips, then lowers it again. “I… I can’t stop thinking… what if this has all been arranged by Annabelle Cane, o-or the Web in general?”

A shiver runs down Martin’s spine that has nothing to do with the cold. “Wait, do the Fears even exist in this universe?”

Jon shrugs. “They might. I can’t feel the Eye, at least, but that doesn’t mean it – and the others – aren’t present in this world. This could well be one of the universes that the Powers escaped into. They would most likely be lying dormant at first anyway, too weak to really do anything without any followers to do their bidding. It’ll... probably take some time before their influence can be seen.”

That’s not at all what Martin wanted to hear. “So you think the Web might… have it out for us?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. I think this might be a reward” – Jon spits the word out like a curse – “for… for going along with its plan. For doing exactly what it wanted.”

Martin doesn’t have an answer to that. He can still see Jon floating at the top of the Panopticon, his limbs bound by tape reel, his eyes glowing an unnatural fluorescent green, his voice reverberating with static. So ready to propel the whole world towards its grisly end. So convinced it was the right choice to make.

He takes another bite of his fish, though the sharp sting of the vinegar makes his stomach turn. Jon fiddles with the chip that is still trapped between his fingers, then drops it back into the bag to join the rest of his mostly untouched meal.

“I thought you were hungry,” Martin says, hating how needling his voice sounds in his own ears, how smothering.

Jon makes a noncommittal sound, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin. “Never much liked fish and chips anyway, to be honest.”

Martin bites back the urge to press the point – he is too weary to argue, and today will not be the day he finally persuades Jon to take better care of himself. He finishes his last chip and crumples the greasy newspaper into a ball.

“Maybe the Web has nothing to do with it,” he hazards. “Maybe we just… got lucky?”

It’s a feeble attempt and he knows it – when has fortune ever been on their side? – but god knows they can use some hope right now. Jon’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, but he says “maybe” like he truly wants to believe it, like it’s not just to humour Martin. Martin wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he leans into it, melting into Martin’s side with a sigh. They sit in companionable silence for a little while, watching the last faint rays of orange light disappear into the dark sea.

“We should start heading for the bus stop now,” Jon says eventually, checking his watch. “If we catch the 7:09 bus, we should be in London before 10. And then… we’ll see.”

Martin drops a kiss to his temple, feather-light and gentle. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

Chapter Text

Jon can’t sleep. That’s hardly an uncommon occurrence – he can count on one hand the nights where he’s been able to catch more than a few fitful hours of sleep in the two weeks they’ve been in London now – but tonight is even worse than usual. He’s woken sweat-drenched from yet another nightmare, swirling visions of endless hallways and crawling ants still swimming before his eyes, and it took him a good while to shake them off, to return to the quiet safety of their bedroom. The nightlight (neither of them can bear to sleep in the dark, not anymore) casts a dim glow over the room, bathing Martin’s face in its warm light. He looks so peaceful in his sleep, so at ease, that Jon doesn’t have the heart to wake him. He’s had to deal with the aftermath of Jon’s nightmares far too often already, and even though he’s never been anything less than patient as he gathered Jon close to his chest, stroking his back and whispering words of comfort into his hair, even though he’s assured him time and time again that he really doesn’t mind, that he wants to be there for Jon, Jon knows it isn’t fair on him. That’s Martin, always the caretaker, never the one being taken care of. Jon wants to break that tired old pattern, to finally give Martin what he has always deserved yet never gotten, but he doesn’t even know where to begin. He should, he thinks with a feeling that sinks heavy in his stomach. If he were in any way a good boyfriend, he would know. But as it is, all he can do is make himself a little less of a burden, and he owes Martin that at the very least.

He grabs his phone off the nightstand, plugs in his earbuds, and puts on a history podcast he’s been meaning to check out. He pulls the duvet over his head and tries his best to make himself comfortable, hoping that Francis Hutcheson’s influence on the Scottish Enlightenment will be enough to lull him to sleep or, failing that, keep him distracted until morning. But the soporific voice of the narrator droning on about Presbyterianism irritates rather than calms him. He yanks out his earbuds and slips out of bed, tiptoeing over the lino as quietly as he can, so as not to wake Martin. He wanders aimlessly around the flat for a bit, though there isn’t much space to walk, and not much to capture his interest, either. According to Martin, the flat is identical in almost every way to its counterpart in their original universe – that is to say, devoid of pretty much anything but the most essential furniture. The only things that could pass for personal touches are a handful of books lining a narrow shelf, a few generic art prints on the walls, a couple of cushions piled on the sofa. The place looks like a listing on a property website, like an empty vessel waiting to be filled with life. Jon has been here for two weeks and still feels like a guest at best and an intruder at worst. Has Martin really lived in this emptiness, this liminal space masquerading as a flat, for years on end? Been content to call it home? Jon wonders if Martin had at least kept some items of sentimental value in his old flat, some kitschy keepsakes or faded photographs stashed away at the back of a drawer. If he had, it seems they haven’t been replicated in this world, because Jon hasn’t been able to find anything of the sort in this flat. There’s nothing to even indicate who lives here save for the name tag above the doorbell.

Jon wishes there was something at least, just a tiny hint that would offer him a glimpse into Martin’s past, since his questions on the subject are so rarely met with straight answers. It’s strange, he thinks, how after everything they’ve been through together, there are still so many things he doesn’t know about Martin. For all he insists on Jon communicating his feelings, Martin keeps his own shrouded behind a cocoon of protective layers that are nigh-impossible to pierce through, and he doesn’t even seem to be aware of the irony. It’s not that he’s unemotional, far from it – he’s much more prone to tears or outward joy than Jon is – but the true core of him, the real depth of his feelings, he guards like a stronghold; and try as he might, Jon can’t find a way in. Back when he still had his Sight, the temptation had been nearly irresistible sometimes to just Look into Martin’s head and behold all his secrets, all the parts of him he keeps hidden away, to truly Know him inside and out. But he knew even then how deeply immoral that would be, and besides he had promised Martin to never read his mind, a promise he had kept right until the very end. And now he’s left with no choice but to go about it the human way.

If only he had the faintest clue where to start.

The dry warmth inside the flat is starting to become oppressive, weighing down heavy on his chest until he can barely breathe. He’s desperate for a breath of fresh air, for the cold wind on his face, for an escape, however brief, from these narrow walls that seem to be closing in on him. The flat doesn’t have a balcony, so instead he opens the kitchen window as wide as it gets, then climbs onto the windowsill and lets his legs dangle over the edge. He’s only wearing boxers and one of Martin’s t-shirts, and the icy November air is invigorating on his bare skin, the sharp sting of the bracing cold a welcome sort of pain, one that heightens his senses and throws everything into stark clarity.

He leans forward to peer down at the street five floors below him. The ground is so far away that it is not even fully visible in the darkness, like a gaping abyss with no bottom, like a hungry maw just waiting to swallow him. He thinks of all those Vast statements he’d read, that man’s brother thrown off Tour Montparnasse, that woman’s son claimed by the sky; he thinks of his own brushes with the Entity, of the terrifying, helpless sensation of freefalling in Mike Crew’s kitchen, of a rope ladder with an abrupt ending and a fall that didn’t kill but certainly hurt. For the first time in many years, he thinks of his father, who died slipping off a ladder while retiling the roof before Jon was old enough to remember his face.

If he pushed himself off the ledge now, there would be no supernatural meddling; he would hit the ground and die on impact, just like his father did three decades before. For a second, he wonders what it would feel like to just let himself fall, what shape his mangled corpse would make on the pavement.

But no, he reprimands himself immediately, enough of that. Those are exactly the kind of morbid thoughts he only gets when he’s awake in the middle of the night, and he knows better than to entertain them. He knows, too, that he needs to get more sleep. He’s no stranger to sleep deprivation, of course, but this level is unprecedented even for him. He spends his nights mostly awake and his days unfocused and sluggish, constantly fighting the urge to doze off. He’s even gotten in the habit of drinking coffee, though he’s never had much of a taste for it, and now needs inordinate amounts of it just to get through the day. He’s tried to keep it from Martin, to lie still beside him and pretend to be asleep, to stifle his yawns and hide the incessant twitching of his eyes, but he can see the worry written all over his face, and hates himself for being the reason for it.

This isn’t sustainable, he knows that as well. Sooner or later, he will just crash, and Martin will be left to pick up the pieces. It’s so much less than what he deserves, Jon is so much less than what he deserves; and if Jon were any less of a selfish coward, he would just pack his bags and leave, let Martin find the happiness Jon would never be able to give him. But as it is, even the thought of forging an existence in this unfamiliar world without Martin by his side is enough to make his stomach turn; and as it is, he tries not to think about what he will do when he can’t keep this up any longer.

At any rate, he’d rather deal with the unpleasant effects of sleep deprivation than be at the mercy of the nightmares that plague his sleep. What does it say about him that his nightmares were so much easier to endure when they involved other people’s trauma and not his own? He almost misses them now, walking through the shifting stories of statement givers’ ordeals in their familiar succession, Seeing all but untouched by any of it. Now, his nightmares are personal, always personal; a colourful collection of his most harrowing memories mixed with hypothetical scenarios that are even more horrible, often swirling and blurring together until he can’t tell reality from imagination anymore. In the very bad ones, spiders crawl all over his body and spin silken threads around his limbs, until they control his every movement like a helpless puppet on a string. In the really bad ones, Martin is crushed under a piece of debris as the Panopticon collapses around them, and dies a slow and agonising death while Jon can do nothing but watch. In some of them, he is a creature of eyes and static, drunk on power and absolute knowledge as he reigns over the ruined world suffering beneath his feet, and those dreams are the worst by far, because they don’t feel like nightmares at all.

God, what he wouldn’t do for a cigarette right now. The clouds his breath leaves in the frigid air almost look like smoke. The space between his index and middle finger feels empty without something to hold between them. All he needs is something to take the edge off, just a tiny glimmer of light in the darkness of the night. Not for the first time in the past two weeks, he seriously considers taking up smoking again – compared to his most recent addiction, it would be almost harmless – but the habit was hard enough to break the first time around, and he doubts that Martin would be fine with it.

Whenever he denies himself a craving for a cigarette, his mind begins to itch for a statement instead. The physical, all-encompassing need isn’t there anymore (if the Eye exists in this reality, it has left him alone so far), but he finds himself yearning for the emotional component instead, how everything else had disappeared as he got sucked into the story, the intensity of the aftermath when his body was overflowing with electric energy, every nerve ending alight, every neuron firing. He had never felt less human than during those moments, but he had also never felt more alive.

He knows he shouldn’t miss the statements, like he shouldn’t miss the dreams, like he shouldn’t miss his brief, terrible godhood. Like he shouldn’t have made an abrupt stop in front of a small vintage shop on one of the few occasions Martin had managed to get him out of the flat, his gaze fixed on the old-fashioned tape recorder displayed in the shop window. His hand was ready to smash through the glass and press the record button even as every other muscle in his body screamed at him to run, and in the end, Martin had to grasp him by the hand and steer him back into the bustling street.

He shouldn’t miss those things, but a part of him does, and perhaps always will. He thought he’d eradicated every last trace of the Archivist, left him buried in the ruins of the Panopticon, but it turns out that he lives on inside him. What does that make him? When does a monster stop being a monster? When it subsists on food and water rather than other people’s terror, when its questions carry no compulsion, when there is no static in its voice and no green glow in its eyes? When it meets all the requirements of being human?

There he goes again with the morbid thoughts. Even worse a habit than smoking, perhaps, and certainly one that he needs to keep from Martin. He lets out a small sigh as he twists around to grab his phone off the kitchen table, squinting his eyes against the blinding brightness of the screen. He increases the font size as far as it will get – he’s left his glasses on the nightstand, and besides, he tries to go without them when he can. Losing his connection to the Eye has also meant returning to the weak eyesight he had before becoming an avatar, and the process of readjusting to glasses has been a rather flat learning curve so far. It doesn’t help that he only owns a pair of cheap reading glasses picked up from Boots, which aren’t properly adjusted for his eyes and tend to leave him vaguely dizzy, since he has so far resisted Martin’s attempts to drag him to an optometrist. He hasn’t figured out how to communicate his persistent suspicion that any medical care professional, regardless of their specialisation, will take one look at him and immediately sense that there is something very wrong with him in a way that sounds even remotely reasonable. Maybe he isn’t being reasonable. Maybe he has nothing to fear. But telling himself that doesn’t make the fear go away, and he remains terrified that they are just living on borrowed time, that the small measure of comfort they have found could be snatched from them at any point. He needs to be vigilant. It’s for the best.

Phone held close to his face, he goes through his familiar ritual of scrolling through the headlines of the five different news apps he has installed, tapping on any article that seems in any way suspicious and scrutinising it for possible hints. Could the recent outbreak of the swine flu in Hungary be connected to the Corruption? Did the Flesh have a hand in the suspected cannibalism case in Birmingham? Can the forest fires in Brazil be attributed to climate change, or are they a manifestation of the Desolation? But the evidence is inconclusive, and as always, his search leaves him with more questions than answers.

Ever since they arrived in London and invested in some second-hand electronics, he’s been scouring the internet every chance he can get, hunting for clues that might point towards the emergence of the Fears. But for all his extensive research, he hasn’t found anything that might constitute definite proof, though he can’t be sure if that means that they don’t exist in this universe, or if they are simply laying low, waiting for him to let his guard down. So he keeps searching, trawling through international news and local tabloids and true crime blogs. On one memorable occasion, he’d fallen down a rabbit hole of subreddits dedicated to paranormal sightings, only escaping when a picture of a badly photoshopped ‘ghost’ had made him close the tab for good.

After a few days of this, Martin had gotten fed up with constantly finding Jon hunched over his phone or laptop (“for god’s sake, Jon, this can’t be healthy, it’s like a, a really messed-up version of doomscrolling”), and since Jon had neither a convincing counter-argument to offer nor any inclination to stop, he’d resigned himself to continuing his research in private instead, when Martin is out grocery shopping or during sleepless nights like this one.

None of this is what he had imagined, when the Panopticon came crashing down around him, and the faint hope of a future with Martin was enough to shatter his conviction. Though, truth be told, he hadn’t been imagining much at all back then, hadn’t given any thought to the specifics of their hypothetical new existence, had hinged it all on the simple certainty that somehow, as long as they were together, everything would be alright. Then why can’t it be enough? Why is he awake at three in the morning, his limbs turning numb in the freezing air, longing for a cigarette or a statement or anything that will let him escape his own mind for a little while, when he could be safe and warm in bed with Martin, where he belongs? Isn’t this supposed to be their fresh start? A chance to turn over a new leaf, to finally let go of the past and embrace the future? But as much as you may try to let go of the past, that doesn’t mean the past will let go of you. He’s learned that the hard way.

These days, he’s torn between guilt for not appreciating his new life enough and guilt for not rioting against it. He’s grateful to have been given this chance, this happy ending that he’d never even dared to dream about, that he knows full well he doesn’t deserve. But he can’t forget that all of it, every tiny morsel of happiness they may find here, is founded upon the potential suffering of countless people in countless worlds, is founded upon his complicity in the Web’s masterplan.

A solitary car passes through the deserted street, the low rumble of its engine the only sound to break the ghostly silence. The night sky is dotted with faint specks of light, those select few stars that have defied London’s intense light pollution, and he wonders if they are different in this universe, if there are new galaxies and unfamiliar constellations. He can’t feel his hands anymore. Nor his feet. That’s probably a bad sign, he thinks dimly somewhere in the back of his mind, but the thought evaporates before he can hold on to it, gets lost in the murky soup that used to be his brain. The cold doesn’t touch him anymore. Nothing can. It’s so peaceful out here, almost comfortable, even. God, he’s tired. How easy it would be to just fall asleep right here, just let himself slip away…

Strong arms wrap around his waist, hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs, and he’s hauled bodily back inside, then deposited on the kitchen table in a rough motion that makes him wince.

“Christ, Jon, what the hell were you thinking?”

Martin’s voice is shrill as a siren, and his eyes are blazing with an incandescent fury that he doesn’t even try to conceal. Jon feels a familiar shame rising within him, thick and acrid as bile.

“I, I c-c-couldn’t… sleep,” he stammers through chattering teeth, well aware of the inadequacy of his excuse.

Martin leans over the table to close the window, swearing under his breath as he fumbles with the latch. When he turns back to face Jon, blotches of red have appeared on his cheeks and his normally round face is squared by the hard set of his jaw. Jon swallows. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Martin this angry.

“Oh, of course. You couldn’t sleep.” His voice starts out level and coated in sarcasm, but rises rapidly in pitch and volume as he goes on, losing all pretence of detachment. “So you decide to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to sit in an open window for god knows how long when it’s what, five degrees outside, and you could’ve easily fallen to your fucking death.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say to that, or rather, he knows there is nothing he can say, no possible explanation that would in any way make up for his actions. The only thing he can think of is I’m sorry, and that would seem woefully insufficient even if he hadn’t said those words often enough that they must have lost all meaning by now. It isn’t what Martin wants from him, and it isn’t what Martin deserves. But he can’t for the life of him find the words to put everything right, so he stays silent instead, staring down at his hands. Feeling is starting to return to his fingers, and they tingle unpleasantly, assailed by pinpricks of stinging heat.

Martin rakes a hand through his tousled hair and sighs, long and drawn-out.

“Go back to bed,” he says quietly. “We need to get you warm again. I’ll make you some tea.”

His tone is so cold, colder than the November night outside, and it chills Jon to the core, unsettles him even more than the anger.

“You don’t have to-“ he protests weakly, but Martin cuts him off with a stern look.

“Yes, I have to. I’m not letting you get hypothermia. Now go. To. Bed.”

He takes the kettle off the counter and begins to fill it with tap water, and Jon tries to catch his eyes again, to inject into his gaze all the contrition and gratitude and love he can’t put into words, and hope that Martin will understand. But Martin refuses to spare him more than a passing glance before stubbornly fixing his eyes on the sink again. Is there a red tinge to his sclera or is that just a trick of the light? Jon can’t quite tell.

While Martin flicks the kettle on and fetches a mug from one of the cupboards, Jon slides off the table and drags his heavy limbs over to the bedroom. He more or less collapses onto his side of the bed and has just enough energy left to pull the covers over his body, burrowing his head into the welcome softness of his pillow. While the tea is steeping, Martin rummages around in the wardrobe until he unearths a jumper, a pair of sweatpants, and a pair of thick woollen socks, silently dumping them onto the bed before retreating to the kitchen again. Jon reluctantly manoeuvres himself into a half-seated position and puts on the clothes, immediately diving back under the duvet once he’s done. The jumper is one of Martin’s and his smell still clings to every fibre, enveloping Jon like a gentle hug. He lets one of his hands foray into Martin’s half of the bed, seeking out its warmth, though he doesn’t dare to shift towards it properly.

Martin returns a few minutes later to set a steaming mug down on the bedside table, the calming scent of chamomile wafting off it.

“There you go,” he says, in a markedly gentler tone than before. “Anything else I can do for you? Do you want me to draw you a bath?”

The complete and utter sincerity of the offer, the absence of even a hint of sarcasm, closes like a fist around Jon’s heart, hurts him worse than the anger or the disappointment. Martin is back to caretaking, back to the only way he knows how to deal with a crisis, back to putting Jon’s well-being first and masking his own emotions, and Jon wishes he could break through his walls and make him believe that he is worth caring for too. He wishes he were better at this.

“I’ll be fine,” he says quickly, with his best approximation of a smile. “I’ve put you through enough trouble already. Just get some rest. Oh, and Martin- thank you. Just… thank you.”

Martin merely nods and crawls into bed, sticking firmly to his side rather than curling up beside Jon like he usually does. Jon pushes himself up until he is sitting with his back pressed against the headboard, then lifts the mug off the nightstand and brings it to his lips, inhaling the chamomile-scented steam, savouring the gentle warmth of the mug cradled in both his hands. Martin has added a spoonful of honey to the tea, which Jon secretly likes though he would never admit to it, and he is touched by the thoughtfulness of the gesture. The hot liquid thaws his frozen insides, the honey leaves a sweet taste on his tongue, and for just a moment, everything is alright. He drinks in small sips until he has dutifully drained the whole mug, then sets it back on the nightstand and slides down until he is reclined on his back, staring up at the dents scattered across the ceiling. He squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself to fall asleep, but in spite of his deep exhaustion, he remains wide awake – and it’s not just because of the threat of nightmares. He grinds the heel of his hand into his eye, suppressing a groan of frustration. He hates the thought of ending the night like this, of leaving their argument unresolved and giving their irritation space to fester until morning, when every word that comes out of their mouths will be sharp as a blade and they won’t be able to talk without hurting each other. That’s the last thing he wants.

He rolls over onto his side, careful not to disturb Martin, and is faced with Martin’s back like an impenetrable wall between them, like a wide river that brooks no crossing. The message is clear enough: Martin doesn’t want to talk to him. Still, the slow pace of his breathing indicates that he is already fast asleep, and that familiar, comforting sound might be enough to lull Jon to sleep as well. He has almost drifted off, in that stage halfway between awake and asleep when thoughts begin to blur into dreams, when a noise shakes him from his stupor. It’s quieter than a whisper, so low that he has to strain his ears to hear it, but it’s definitely there, and it sounds an awful lot like… sobbing. Like someone well-practised in crying quietly.

Oh. Oh no. Jon could kick himself. Of course Martin’s eyes had been red-rimmed earlier in the kitchen, of course it wasn’t just a trick of the light, of course Jon should have asked about it rather than selfishly focusing on his own issues. What an idiot he’s been, what a total fucking fool.

He reaches out a tentative hand and lets it hover just above Martin’s shoulder, not wanting to make matters worse by touching him without his consent. “Martin?”

There’s no response, but the noise grows louder, now unmistakable as sobbing, though it’s still mostly muffled by Martin’s pillow. Jon can’t help himself, can’t bear to see Martin suffer without at least attempting to give him some comfort; he brings his hand down to rest on Martin’s shoulder, his fingers lightly caressing his bicep through the thin cotton of his sleep shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he says desperately, all the apologies he’d fought so hard to keep locked inside now spilling out of him like a tidal wave. “God, I’m so sorry, Martin. I don’t know what I was- well, I wasn’t thinking anything, I suppose. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry if I- if I did hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

He feels Martin’s shoulder shaking under his hand, and each sob sends a pulse of guilt through him, but he is at an utter loss for what to say next, what he can do to fix this. If only Martin would turn around so he could at least see his face, if only he would say something, if only he would give Jon anything at all to work with. But he doesn’t, and so they just lie in tense silence for minutes that feel like hours, until at last Martin seems to compose himself, taking a ragged breath and mumbling something unintelligible into his pillow.

“Sorry?” Jon prompts timidly, punctuating the question with a light squeeze to Martin’s arm.

Martin takes another shuddering inhale and lifts his face off the pillow, turning his head slightly but still refusing to meet Jon’s eyes.

“I… I had a bad dream.” He grinds out the words like they leave a bad taste in his mouth. “I woke up and you were g-gone, and I thought you’d… I thought you’d l-l-left.”

His voice breaks on the last word, and something shatters in Jon’s chest, falls apart into a thousand tiny shards that pierce his insides.

“Oh, Martin.” His own eyes are beginning to glaze over with tears, but still he lifts them to meet Martin’s, praying that he won’t look away. “Come here.”

Martin bites his lip and hesitates, like his need for comfort is warring with his ingrained fear of accepting it, but the former wins out in the end, and he rolls over to more or less throw himself into Jon’s open arms. He’s clinging to him like a shipwrecked man to a life raft, clutching him so tightly it almost hurts, but Jon couldn’t care less about that. Martin buries his face in Jon’s chest, tears soaking into the fabric of his jumper. Jon holds him through it all, the fingers of one hand carding gently through Martin’s curls, while his other hand rubs soothing circles over his back. He tilts his head to kiss Martin’s temple, then brushes his lips against the shell of his ear, whispering words that he hopes to be reassuring.

“Shhh, it’s okay, I’ve got you. I’m here, I’m right here. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

It seems to work, because Martin’s sobs die down and his breathing evens out, and he loosens his chokehold on Jon, though keeping his arms wrapped snugly around his waist, then shifts his position so he can nuzzle his face into Jon’s neck.

“Promise you won’t leave?” His voice is thick with tears and tender with hope, and Jon would promise him anything at that moment, anything at all, no matter how outlandish or troublesome, no matter what it would cost him.

He hides his face in Martin’s hair, like he could make his home there and be lost to the world, and presses a soft, lingering kiss to his crown. He tries not to think of that night in the tunnels when he stood silent vigil over Martin’s sleeping body with a knife clutched in his hand, wishing he could stay despite knowing he was going to leave. Tries not to think about tape reel binding his limbs and unlimited Knowledge coursing through his mind. Tries not to think about the promises he’s already broken.

“I promise I will never leave you,” he swears, solemn as a sacred oath. And he means it. With every inch of his being, with every part of his wretched, broken soul.

He can only hope this world will not make a liar out of him.

Chapter Text

It’s just another of those mornings. The ones where even opening his eyes feels like a chore, where the stillness of the empty bedroom weighs heavy as lead on his chest, where his head is too foggy to form a semblance of a coherent thought. They’re nothing new, those mornings. Martin has had them for as long as he can remember, really; throughout most of his childhood and adolescence, during his time at the Institute, once or twice in their three weeks in the safehouse… He suspects he was only spared them after the Change because there were no mornings to speak of anyway, and, well, everything was already depressing enough. Point being, he should be used to them by now, but he was still caught off-guard when they started appearing again not long after their arrival in this parallel London. Somehow, despite knowing that all of this had begun long before the Institute, long before he had encountered any of the Fears, he had been chalking it up to the influence of the Lonely. It was a neat way to compartmentalise the feelings he would rather not examine too closely, and strangely comforting to blame everything on some Eldritch horror draining his lifeforce, rather than coming to terms with the fact that the source of this might be somewhere within him, carved deep into his bones and impossible to exorcise.

But if the Lonely has a presence in this universe (a big if – Jon’s research on the matter has been unenlightening, and frankly a tad obsessive), it hasn’t staked a claim on him yet. He’s all too familiar with the trademarks of Forsaken – the impenetrable fog, the shrill whistle of tinny static, the sea salt scent in the air – and they are all absent now. Sure, the emotional components might be similar, that feeling like there’s an invisible wall between him and the rest of the world, that diffuse haze that makes it hard to think clearly, that urge to vanish into smoke and never speak to another human being ever again. But without their more supernatural accompaniments, he is forced to admit that those feelings are all his, and they have been for much longer than he cares to remember. And they are not going away.

He groans at the unpleasantly bright sunlight streaming through the gaps between the window slats and shining right into his eyes, blindly reaching for the nearest pillow he can find and pressing it onto his face. It turns out to be one of Jon’s, and being hit with the near-overpowering scent of the man he loves is enough to alleviate the numbness just a little, and almost coaxes a smile out of Martin as he pushes his nose further into the pillow and inhales deeply. Where is Jon, anyway?

His question is answered almost at once by faint noises drifting over from the living room, creaking floorboards and the low murmur of the television. He wonders briefly if Jon is already awake or still awake, then concludes with a sinking feeling that the answer is pretty obvious.

After that one night a few weeks back (Martin still winces to think of it), Jon had insisted on not leaving the bedroom until Martin woke up, so he wouldn’t find himself alone after another nightmare. Martin had tried to convince him otherwise with a series of well-worn lies – that he hardly ever had nightmares, that he’d just overreacted that night, that he was fine, really – but Jon, stubborn as ever, wouldn’t budge (“for god’s sake, Martin, why can’t you just let me do this one thing for you?”), so after a fruitless back-and-forth, Martin saw no choice but to give in, at least for the time being. That was before he would wake to find Jon hunched over a book at ungodly hours of the night, or be robbed of sleep by his incessant fidgeting, or, worst of all, blink his eyes open in the morning to see Jon staring off into space, his lips parted and his eyes terrifyingly vacant. After one too many of those episodes, he had more or less banished Jon into the living room, telling him with as much kindness as he could muster in his frazzled state to remove himself from the bed if he was just going to stay awake anyway, please and thank you. This time, Jon hadn’t put up a fight, though the dejected look in his eyes was almost enough to change Martin’s mind.

Since then, Jon has made good on his promise and only ever used the bed to sleep – that is to say, hardly at all. In the last two weeks or so, Martin can only recall a couple of occasions where he was stirred awake late at night by Jon clambering into the bed, pressing himself against Martin, and immediately conking out. But he was always gone by the morning, and Martin can’t be entirely sure he hasn’t dreamed it all. The bedroom feels much too empty now, in a way it never had when he was still living alone, and he is beginning to regret his ultimatum. It turns out even Jon’s irritating restlessness was easier to bear than the heavy weight of his absence.

He's well aware, of course, that Jon’s insomnia (or would deliberate sleep deprivation be a better term?) is connected to his dreams, that it is some sort of messed-up coping mechanism to spare him the torment of his night terrors. But Martin thinks the nightmares might be the easier option, comparatively speaking. He hates seeing Jon in the aftermath of one – shaking and soaked in sweat, panic written so clearly across every line of his face – but at least he knows how to handle it. Knows just the right way to bundle Jon up in his arms that will make him feel protected rather than suffocated, knows just the right words to whisper that will make the shaking subside. He has no idea how to deal with this version of Jon, so obviously suffering and so unconvincingly trying to hide it, jittery from caffeine, bags under his eyes as dark as bruises, zoning out in the middle of a conversation. He doesn’t know how to help him, and that frightens him more than any dread power ever could.

Martin peels the pillow off his face and wills his stubborn limbs to move. A glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand tells him that it’s gone nine, well past the time he usually gets up in the morning. (He was forced to become an early riser while still taking care of his mother, and he’s never quite managed to shake the habit.) If he stays in bed for much longer, Jon might start to worry, and that’s the last thing Martin wants. But if he gets up now, he will have to fake a smile and act like everything is normal, and the mere thought of that makes him want to punch a pillow in frustration. It will get better over the course of the day, or at least it usually does, but the mornings are always the hardest, the mornings are bad, and he has to admit that he rather wishes he were alone in the flat right now, just to have the space to wallow in his misery for a while.

Of course he could just talk to Jon about it, it’s not like that thought has never crossed his mind, but even if he had the faintest clue of how to put it into words, he knows it wouldn’t be fair to burden Jon with his problems. This is something he needs to handle on his own. Jon has enough on his plate as it is. Besides the paranoia and the sleepless nights, there are his increasingly concerning eating habits. At breakfast, he’ll nibble on a single slice of toast until it has long gone cold; at lunch, he’ll tend to eschew a proper meal in favour of a handful of crisps and yet another cup of coffee; at dinner, he’ll pick at his food and leave at least half of his portion uneaten, then put the leftovers in the fridge with a vague comment about finishing them later, and Martin will be forced to throw them away after a few days. Whether the Fears exist in this world or not, it’s clear that Jon needs nourishment from actual food and not statements, and without a sufficient amount of it, he is… well, wasting away, really. He’s always been a thin man, and has only lost more weight during his time as the Archivist, but now he’s little more than skin wrapped around a skeleton. When Martin holds him, he is frightened by the sharp lines of his ribs, by his shoulder blades protruding like bony wings, by the peaks of his hipbones rising above the deep valley of his abdomen. It’s like the slightest gust of wind could blow him away, like the gentlest touch could snap him in half. Back when everything was so terribly uncertain, Martin had liked to daydream about a future where they could live together without the threat of impending doom, and he’d always imagined that in that illusory future, he would finally get Jon to gain some weight, would set regular mealtimes and make the most of his limited cooking skills to serve him food he actually enjoyed. But now that, against all odds, that future has arrived and Martin has the chance to turn his dreams into reality, Jon seems determined to resist his best efforts.

Deep down, Martin has a suspicion that Jon’s erratic eating habits are like his refusal to sleep, or like that night he caught him sitting out in the cold: less of a coping mechanism and more of a punishment, a slow-acting poison that Martin doesn’t have the antidote to. He’s well-acquainted with Jon’s tendency towards self-destruction, but he’s never realised the true extent of it before, and witnessing it with his own eyes chills him to the marrow of his bones.

One of them has to be the strong one now; one of them has to keep it together. That is non-negotiable. If he can’t figure out how to help Jon (fix Jon, save Jon), the least he can do is not add to his problems. That much, at least, he is prepared for. If his mother has given him one thing, it is a lifetime of experience in making himself unnoticeable, in tiptoeing carefully around someone so fragile that a single wrong touch would be enough to break them, in crying quietly and waking from his nightmares quietly and doing everything so quietly that he sometimes wonders if anyone can hear him at all.

He thinks back to the night when Jon had held him as he cried, remembers how once he’d gotten past the initial waves of embarrassment and shame, it had been such a comfort to just let go, to abandon all pretence and let himself be sad, let himself be consoled. That was the worst part of it, how right it had felt in that moment. Even though he knew that sort of comfort is something he neither needs nor deserves, and certainly something Jon shouldn’t have to give him. Not when he has far too many issues of his own to deal with, when he doesn’t need Martin weighing him down further. Martin can’t have a repeat of that night. He won’t let that happen.

So he forces himself to crawl out of bed, to brush his teeth in the bathroom while avoiding eye contact with his own reflection, to throw on some clothes drawn at random from his side of the wardrobe, and then drag himself over to the living room. Jon is pacing back and forth in front of the television (which is currently broadcasting some kind of news programme), the remote clutched like a dagger in his hand, a harrowed look in his eyes akin to that of a caged animal. He doesn’t seem to register Martin’s presence until he clears his throat awkwardly, at which point Jon freezes in his tracks, mutes the TV with a flick of the remote, and offers him an unconvincing smile. Martin responds with a smile of his own, though no more sincere than Jon’s, and strides over to peck him on the cheek.

“Good morning,” he says, aiming for cheerful but landing way off the mark. “I was just going to make breakfast, do you want anything?”

“Maybe later,” Jon mutters, his gaze fixed on the grisly images of a war-torn city flashing past on the screen. He makes a low noise of protest when Martin snatches the remote out of his hand and switches off the TV.

“Are you sure? Not even a little bit?” Martin knows his tone is veering on pleading now, but he can’t bring himself to care. “You barely touched your dinner last night. I could make pancakes, y’know, those American-style ones with the-“

“I’m fine,” Jon interrupts. “Just not that hungry, that’s all. Thanks for the offer, though.”

He manages to reclaim the remote from Martin and promptly turns the television back on, intently observing a report on the aftermath of a tsunami in Japan. A clear signal that the conversation is over, as far he is concerned.

Martin sighs, debating with himself whether he should surrender in what is clearly a losing battle and just retreat to the kitchen. He could make tea for Jon, at least, and if he prepares some food, he might be able to coax Jon into eating a little of it anyway. It’s not like his nagging has proven helpful in the past – if anything, it’s only made Jon double down on his stubborn refusal to perform even the most basic self-care – so maybe it’s time to switch to a different tactic. Maybe if he leaves Jon alone, if he gives him enough space to work on his own terms through the tangled mess of grief and guilt that he’s done such a poor job of hiding, everything will be alright in the end. Maybe Jon just needs more time. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But all these hypotheticals do nothing to soothe the anxiety that settles on his lungs and makes it hard to breathe, to banish the fear that he will still lose Jon, not to some apocalyptic ritual or inhuman creature out for revenge, but to his own self-destruction. And as always, his natural reaction to anxiety is falling back on his deep-seated instinct to make it better, to foist cups of tea and sandwiches and probing questions onto the object of his concern in the desperate, futile hope that it will change anything. He knows, of course, that Jon is nothing like his mother, that it isn’t a fair comparison in any way, but sometimes he can’t help but note that there are certain parallels. And he wonders if he is doomed to spend the rest of his life like this, caring for someone who refuses to be cared for, pouring all his time and energy and love into someone who was always a lost cause.

But no, he chides himself, Jon isn’t a lost cause, Jon isn’t his mother, and he can still help him. He can still help. He brushes his fingers over Jon’s cheek and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind his ear, taking care to infuse both the gesture and his voice with as much gentleness as he can muster.

“Do you want to go back to bed for a bit? How much did you sleep last night?”

“I said I’m fine, Martin,” Jon snaps. “Would you just stop… smothering me all the goddamn time?”

Martin withdraws his hand, flinching as if he’s been slapped. Hurt and fury wrestle for dominance inside him, and he decides to let the latter have the upper hand. It’d be satisfying to finally release some of that pent-up anger, at least.

“Oh right,” he says, every word drenched in bitter sarcasm, “because it’s so unreasonable to worry about your boyfriend turning himself into a walking corpse right in front of you. Forgive me for giving a shit, Jon. So sorry for trying to help.”

Jon bites down hard on his bottom lip, averting his eyes. The frustration has drained from his face and been replaced by something resembling contrition, and god, is Martin not ready to handle that right now. An apology would only dilute that delicious rage burning within him, and he needs it pure now, needs it bright and devastating as wildfire. So he goes on the offence.

“Why did you leave me?”

Jon is shocked into silence for a moment, before stammering, “Wh-what do you mean?”

“You bloody well know what I mean.” The news programme has transitioned into the weather forecast, and Martin stares at the innocuous symbols of suns and rain clouds displayed on the screen. It’s easier than looking at Jon. “When you left on your little solo mission, to become the Pupil of the Eye. Even after we’d discussed our options, after we’d come to an agreement between the five of us. Yes, yes, I know you didn’t like the plan, but it was four against one, so, you know, tough. And even after… even after you made me a promise.”

In spite of his best efforts, his voice hitches a little on those last words. He swallows down the thick lump in his throat, and continues in a firmer tone. “And ever since we got here, you’ve been pretending like nothing happened. And okay, maybe that kind of worked for a little while, but did you seriously think we were never gonna talk about it?”

As much as they do need to talk about it, this is probably the worst time to do so, with both of them in such a foul mood. Martin knows this, and yet he’s unable to put a stop to it. It’s like a thunderstorm finally unleashing itself after hours and hours of dark foreboding clouds, as exhilarating as it is frightening.

Jon rubs his hand over his face, betraying his exhaustion. “I had my reasons, you know. It wasn’t as simple as you make it out to be.”

“Oh yeah? Well, from where I’m standing, it looks a lot like you were just reaching for the first chance to martyr yourself. Which is the one thing you promised me you wouldn’t do.”

“For god’s sake, Martin, will you just listen-” Jon cuts himself off with a frustrated groan, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. “It may have slipped your mind, but there was a lot more at stake than just you and me. A great deal more.”

“Of course,” Martin retorts. “How could I forget that your self-sacrifice happened to come with the added perk of killing the whole world?”

“Speeding up its progression towards the End, actually-”

“Oh, don’t get into semantics with me.”

“The point is…” Jon enunciates each word carefully, as if speaking to an obstinate toddler. “…that ‘killing the whole world’, as you so nicely put it, meant keeping countless other worlds from harm. It meant containing the Fears and destroying them once and for all.”

“Yeah, but there isn’t going to be an actual apocalypse in any of those worlds, is there? The Fears will just be… lingering on the sidelines or whatever, like they used to in our universe, and most people won’t even know they exist.”

“They will still do damage,” Jon says quietly. “They will still kill people, or trap them, or injure them, or traumatise them for life. They won’t go completely unnoticed.”

“But still, isn’t that better than murdering everyone on Earth? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s still awful, but it can’t be as bad as the alternative, right?”

Jon shrugs. “Maybe so. But don’t forget that we’re talking about many other universes here, not just the one. Is it really better for a thousand worlds to be suffering a little than for one world to be wiped out? Can you actually quantify those things?”

Martin doesn’t have an answer to that. Of course he doesn’t. The whole thing is an epic entanglement of moral philosophy and quantum physics, dealing with conjectures he cannot even begin to comprehend, making the trolley problem seem trivial in comparison. No human being should ever have to consider this kind of dilemma, damn it.

“And besides,” Jon continues, “it’s very well possible that in one of those universes, someone manages to pull off a successful ritual. It happened in our world, after all, so it can’t be that unlikely. It might even be in multiple universes. Many of them, perhaps.”

“But maybe it won’t. We can’t know that. And even if there is another apocalypse in one of the universes, maybe the people there will find a better way to reverse it? Maybe they’ll… maybe they’ll know what to do.”

Martin knows he’s clutching at straws here, but seeing it confirmed in Jon’s patronising smile only serves to irritate him further.

“That’s a nice thought,” Jon says. “But I doubt that, to be honest. Either way, we will never know for sure. It’s not like we can travel to those other universes and see what’s happening, let alone do anything to help. If the Entities exist in this universe, we might be able to take action against them in some way, alleviate the suffering at least a little, but that won’t change anything for all those other worlds. We can’t save them.”

“That’s not our responsibility, though,” Martin counters feebly.

“Then whose is it?”

They’ve reached an impasse here, just as Martin had suspected they would, a point past which their arguments will run in infinite circles without ever reaching a conclusion. On some level, Martin will always believe in one choice and Jon will always believe in the other, and no amount of debate is going to change that. They should end this fruitless discussion right now, before the simmering tension between them boils over and erupts in a full shouting match, but once again, Martin’s treacherous mouth acts against his common sense.

“Do you regret it? Changing your mind in the end?”

Jon is silent for a long time, so long that Martin begins to think he hasn’t heard him.

At last, he says, “I don’t regret keeping you safe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, Jon,” Martin sighs, “it really, really isn’t.”

The lingering acrimony of their unresolved argument hovers in the air between them, thick and caustic as a poisonous gas. If he stays in this room even a moment longer, he will suffocate, he is sure of that. So he heads into the hallway, grabbing his keys from the little bowl atop the fuse box and his coat from its hook.

“I’m going out for a bit,” he calls over his shoulder as he laces his boots. “Need to clear my head. I’ll be back in… I’ll be back.”

Jon sticks his head through the living room door, peering over at Martin with those wide brown eyes, and the crestfallen expression on his face is almost enough to melt Martin’s residual anger. Almost.

“Martin, let me just- I, I don’t think I was making myself clear- I mean, this isn’t… I, um, despite it all, I never- This doesn’t mean…”

He grows increasingly agitated as he fumbles for words that clearly elude him, tapping his fingers together in a frantic rhythm, one of his characteristic nervous habits. Martin reaches for the door handle. He’s tired of waiting patiently until Jon screws up the courage to Articulate A Feeling, like it’s some sort of heroic effort.

“I love you,” Jon says simply, in the end.

Martin is halfway out of the door already, but he turns his head at those words. How could he not? Some part of him will always be astonished to hear them. The obvious response is already sitting on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to be let out. I love you too.  Words that will never lose any of their meaning regardless of how often he says them, words that never fail to give him a little private thrill, no matter how dire the circumstances. His very last words, in fact, before they were pulled into this new world. If their path had taken a different direction, they would have been the last words he ever spoke in his life.

He remembers the knife in his hand, the explosions resounding all around them, the echo to Jon’s voice. He remembers the sacrifices they had to make, and how easily they could have been avoided. The words turn to ash on his lips.

“Yeah,” he says instead. “So you’ve said.”

He leaves without giving Jon the chance to respond, the door slamming shut behind him like a gunshot, like a thunderclap.

He wanders around Stockwell for a while, no clear goal in mind and barely paying attention to his surroundings, until he winds up at the tube station. Well, at least it’ll be a chance to finally make use of the Oyster card he had bought weeks ago. The platform is packed with the usual bustle of commuters and students and stray tourists, and he shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets and hunches his shoulders, attempting to make himself invisible. For a man his size, he’s surprisingly good at disappearing into a crowd. He steps onto the Northern line and watches the stations drift past, and only gets off when the press of people all around him becomes nearly unbearable, which turns out to be at London Bridge. He crosses the bridge and begins to stroll along the Thames, keeping an eye out for anything unfamiliar. Strange as it may sound, they haven’t really ventured outside of their neighbourhood since arriving in London over four weeks ago, haven’t bothered to check whether the rest of the city is in any way different in this world. Martin has spotted a few idiosyncrasies here and there – his local Tesco is significantly smaller, Mary Berry is still judging Bake Off – but all in all, this universe is almost eerily similar to their own. The City of London is every bit the grimy giant he remembers, the same imposing buildings, the same stench of car exhausts, the same annoyingly cheery tourists. Not for the first time in the past weeks, he wonders what is still keeping him here. He’d never questioned that before the apocalypse. Ever since moving to London at eighteen, he’d simply accepted that he didn’t have anywhere else to go, that like so many others drawn there by work or study or the hollow illusion of a brighter future, the city had swallowed him up like a metropolitan black hole, and there was no escaping its gravity. And it wasn’t even that bad, he’d tried to reason with himself. Sure, he wasn’t exactly fond of the crowds or the air pollution or the sheer bloody size of the place, but it was still a far cry from the dreary suburbs of Manchester.

Now, there’s nothing tying him to London but bad memories, and the same goes for Jon. And then there’s the issue of his flat, which is on the small side for one person, let alone two, and also serves as a constant reminder of some of those chapters in his life that he would rather forget. Like the two weeks he’d spent holed up in there, terrified out of his mind, while Jane Prentiss and her army of worms lurked outside the door; like those miserable months when he’d return to the flat after yet another dull day of working for Peter, and sit on the sofa for hours with only the flickering light of the TV screen for company, and no amount of heating could banish the cold. No, the sooner they both turn their back on that place for good, the better.

He’s taken to browsing housing websites whenever he has a spare moment, trawling through property listings in small towns and villages all across the country. Nothing as remote as the safehouse, but still rural enough to be close to nature, to remember their neighbours’ names, to see the stars at night. Wouldn’t that be nice? Tranquil, idyllic, the kind of peace he never expected to find. Maybe a change of scenery is all they need, maybe it will sand down their jagged edges and smooth over their rough patches, and finally give them their happy ending. Maybe it really is as simple as that.

At least money won’t be an issue for now. A shiny new credit card with Martin’s name imprinted on it had been waiting on the kitchen table when they first arrived at the flat, and the PIN was the same as it had been in their universe. The account turned out to contain quite a hefty sum, not enough to last them for the rest of their lives (they will have to think about finding jobs at some point), but more than enough to cover their expenses for at least a year, and certainly enough to put down a deposit on a new place. It would be so easy to arrange a few viewings, or at least to bring the topic up with Jon, but somehow he can never make himself take that step, and always ends up closing the tabs instead with a vague sense of guilt, like he’d been caught looking at something inappropriate. He supposes a part of him still believes it would be tempting fate if they actually made an effort to build a proper life together, rather than hiding out in this interim space that would never become a home. Perhaps Jon’s suspicions about the Web aren’t just paranoid ravings; perhaps it really is lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike, to pull the rug from under their feet and watch them freefalling. How have they come to a point where the mere idea of happiness feels treacherous?

It's starting to rain as he walks on, a light drizzle that builds up to a steady patter, dampening his clothes and turning his glasses blurry. Maybe he should have taken an umbrella, but then again, he likes the rain. Always has, really. He likes the soothing noise, the earthy smell of the pavement, the way it envelops everything in a gentle melancholy that makes his sadness feel less out of place. The rain seems to wash out what little colour London had, transforming the entire cityscape into a grey monotony. He can’t remember the last time he felt so alone. But there’s no icy fog this time, no tea kettle static, no sign of the Lonely whatsoever. He only has himself to blame. He suddenly wishes he had Jon beside him, a longing so powerful that it takes hold of his chest and closes like a vice around his heart. He wishes he could sink into the comfort of Jon’s embrace and think of nothing else. He wishes he could take back all those awful things he’d said. He wishes he hadn’t left Jon on his own back in that soulless flat. He wishes, above all, that he knew how to help him.

The rain has grown into a proper torrent now, like a solid sheet of water coming down from the sky and soaking his hair and clothes. All he wants now is to go home – and by that, he doesn’t mean his flat, which would never deserve that name, but Jon, who has always been and will always be his true home, his only safe haven. How could he lose sight of that so quickly? How could one pointless argument make him forget how immeasurably lucky he is? Why is he wandering the streets in the pouring rain when he could – should – be making amends?

He returns to the flat, breathless and still dripping wet, to find Jon stooped over the kitchen sink, his brow furrowed in concentration as he scrubs at a dinner plate with the same sort of dogged determination he used to apply to misfiled statements. Martin is overcome by a wave of fondness that is nearly dizzying in its force, and he only just remembers to take off his sodden coat and hang it up to dry before rushing into the kitchen to sidle up behind Jon and wrap his arms around his waist. Jon acknowledges this with a grumble of indeterminate meaning, and remains stiff as a board in Martin’s hold, though at least he doesn’t try to wriggle out of it. He dips the sponge into the sudsy water and rubs vigorously at a non-existent stain on the sparkling clean plate.

“I’m sorry,” Martin breathes into his hair. “I shouldn’t have said all that. I didn’t mean it, not really, I was just… in a bad mood.”

Jon lets out a long exhalation and finally relaxes in Martin’s arms, uncoiling like a tightly wound spring. He places the plate on the drying rack to join a handful of other dishes, dries his hands on a tea towel, and twists around in Martin’s embrace so he can loop his own arms around Martin’s middle, holding him close and tucking his head under Martin’s jaw.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry, too.”

Martin moves one arm from Jon’s back so he can reach behind himself and take Jon’s hand, lifting it to his lips and brushing a tender kiss across the knuckles.

“I love you so much,” he whispers against Jon’s fingers. “More than anything in the world. You know that, right?”

Jon nods, once, though nowhere near as assured as Martin would have liked. He untangles his hand from Martin’s grasp and brings it up to cup his face, thumb stroking gently over his cheek. He presses a kiss to the side of Martin’s neck.

“I love you too,” he says, and for now that’s all Martin needs to hear.

Chapter Text

3:17, the digital clock on the coffee table reads, its bright red digits like a warning sign. Jon squints at the display in suspicion, the numbers turning into a red blur before his eyes. Hadn’t it been 2:24 just a few minutes ago? Has he fallen asleep for a bit, or simply blacked out? Or is some unfathomable entity meddling with the clock, perhaps with the very fabric of time itself, shifting and twisting the numbers every time he makes the mistake to look away, until he can no longer trust his own perception? Seems like a signature move of the Spiral. It has always had it out for him, after all, with those damned doors and hallways, swirling fractals, twisted truths. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it sought him out in this universe as well; he’s sure he’s brought it much amusement over the years.

But when he dares to glance back at the clock, it still shows the same time, changing to 3:18 after ten seconds of intense staring. He’s not as comforted by this as he would have liked to be – he knows how treacherous the Spiral can be, knows how much it would delight in lulling him into an illusion of safety before making its next blow all the more devastating – but for now it will have to suffice as evidence to put his suspicions to rest. Or at least bottle them up, before he spirals (ha!) into more unfounded paranoia. He has enough self-awareness left to realise that he is not in the most stable condition at the moment. He’s perched on the back of the sofa, too exhausted to stand and too jittery to sit down properly, watching a 24-hour news channel with the volume turned all the way down so he won’t wake Martin. When was the last time he slept? Or the last time he ate, for that matter? Should it worry him that he can’t remember?

It’s about more than his nightmares now. More than his lack of appetite. There’s something about denying himself food and rest that reminds him of how it felt to sit out in the freezing cold in his flimsy sleepwear: painful but in a necessary way. Sometimes he thinks he might be able to live on hunger and fatigue alone. It’s a kind of penance. He knows he can never atone enough for the terrible things he’s done, for all the suffering he’s caused, but it has to be better than nothing. Better than letting himself forget, even just for a moment, who he used to be. Who he still is, in a way, even if his connection to the Eye has been severed for good. When does a monster stop being a monster? He knows the answer. Not until it is completely and irreversibly destroyed.

He should just go out and buy cigarettes. It’s London, there has to be some sort of vaguely sinister supermarket around that’s open at all hours. And the state of his lungs is hardly his biggest problem. He’s desperate for a smoke, desperate for anything that will get him out of his own head for a few precious minutes. But his limbs are trembling so heavily that he cannot even leave the sofa, let alone the flat. That’s probably bad, that’s probably really bad, but he doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with that right now.

He tries to take a deep breath, although it ends up weak and shaky. Alright, cigarettes are out of the question, then. What else is there? God, I need a statement. The thought comes unbidden and unwanted, takes up root in his mind and grows its thorny vines there. Was it sent by Beholding? Has the Eye returned for its Pupil? But no, he can’t detect any signs of its presence, no hum of tape hiss, no unnerving sensation like someone is looking over his shoulder, no alarming and intriguing new Knowledge. This craving is all his, as absurd as it may seem, because what good would a statement do him now? It would be a scary story, nothing more. He should be glad to be rid of them, and truly he is, but a part of him can’t help but miss the… satisfaction they used to bring him. The kind of nourishment he could never get from food, the kind of peace he could never get from sleep.

The door creaks open, and Jon’s head pivots around with such force that he nearly loses his balance. Annabelle Cane, he thinks for a panicked half-second. This universe’s version of the Distortion. Someone come to kidnap him yet again. But it’s only Martin, of course it’s only Martin, hair tousled and face pillow-creased. An almost unbearable fondness fills Jon’s chest at the sight of him, though it’s mingled with shame, for having potentially woken him, for not being in bed beside him, for not being the person Martin needs him to be.

Jon slides gingerly off the backrest onto the sofa cushions, landing in an ungainly sprawl.

“Hi,” he says with a feeble attempt at a smile. “D-Did I wake you?”

Martin gives a brief shake of his head. “No, I… I woke up on my own.”

Jon isn’t sure whether the double meaning was intentional, but he decides to apologise anyway. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Last thing I need is another bloody apology,” Martin mutters.

Jon catches himself just in time before he apologises for apologising. “Right. Yes. Got it. Did you, um, did you have a nightmare again?”

Martin sighs, rubbing his knuckles over his eyes. “No. Just couldn’t sleep. And I wanted to check on you, make sure you weren’t, you know, dead.”

His thin veneer of sarcasm drops altogether on the last word, which comes out as a shaky wobble. Jon’s chest clenches painfully.

“Martin…” he breathes. If only his legs would obey him, then he would be off the sofa and by Martin’s side in an instant, holding him close and stroking his back and vowing to protect him from anything that might hurt him. But as it is, all he seems capable of is causing him more pain. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, hard enough to taste blood, so he won’t let another I’m sorry escape.

Martin moves to stand by the edge of the couch, leaning his hip against the armrest.

“Just come to bed with me, Jon. Please. I’m tired of arguing. Can you do this one little thing for me, just this once?”

Jon gnaws on his bottom lip, his ingrained stubbornness fighting against the rapid rush of guilt he feels at Martin’s words. In the end, he gives an almost imperceptible nod. The way Martin’s face lights up at this small concession only makes him feel more ashamed. Martin bends over the couch, and before Jon can even think of protesting, Martin has scooped him into his arms and lifted him off the sofa as if he weighed nothing more than a bag of feathers. Jon flails his arms in the air for a dizzying second, unmoored by this sudden loss of control, but when Martin’s hold on him remains strong and steady, he wraps his arms around Martin’s neck instead and rests his head on his shoulder. It’s actually rather nice, being carried like this, being safely enveloped in Martin’s arms. If he’s being honest with himself, something about the idea had always appealed to him, though he was far too embarrassed to outright ask Martin to pick him up.

Martin carries him all the way to the bedroom, where he pulls back the covers on Jon’s side of the bed and lays him out gently on top of the mattress. He then drapes the duvet over Jon, covering him up to the tip of his nose, and slips under the covers on the other side. Neither of them says a word. The six inches of distance between them are like a gulf, like an abyss; the silence is heavy as lead. Jon fights against the near-physical urge to apologise again, but it’s not a battle he can win.

“I’m-” he starts, but Martin interrupts him at once, his voice hoarse but still gentle. “C’mere.”

Jon doesn’t need asking twice. He scoots over and lets himself be pressed against Martin’s chest, wrapped up tight in the one he loves. He would be happy to stay like this forever, to die in Martin’s embrace and not be separated even in their grave. He wonders what it would have been like if they had met their end amid the ruins of the Panopticon, if their bodies would remain entwined even as they decomposed, if their skeletons would be found centuries later still clutching each other close, like those pictures of ancient lovers unearthed by archaeological excavations that he had always considered overly sentimental. He thinks he gets the appeal of it now. To die in the arms of the love of your life, rather than living a life together in which you are doomed to disappoint him.

He doesn’t voice any of these thoughts, knows they would only add to Martin’s worry. Instead he burrows even closer and, for once, selfishly relishes in the life he doesn’t deserve, pressing his ear to the steady rhythm of Martin’s heartbeat and then a kiss to the same spot, hoping the gossamer brush of his lips through the thin fabric of Martin’s shirt will be enough to convey everything he cannot say.

But Martin doesn’t even stir, so he’ll have to try a different approach. He tilts his head upwards and presses another, slightly more assured, kiss to the junction of Martin’s neck and shoulder. Martin does shiver at this, even if it is barely noticeable, giving Jon the courage he needs to go on.

“I’m so glad you’re here with me,” he whispers into the divot of Martin’s collarbone.

Martin tightens his arms around Jon’s waist, drops a kiss into his hair. “Me too, love. Me too.”

Jon buries his head in Martin’s chest again, inhaling the familiar scent of his sleep shirt, and is asleep within seconds. If he dreams at all, he doesn’t remember any of it.

By the time he wakes, noon has passed already, and the sun is streaming relentlessly through the tiny gap where the edge of the blinds doesn’t quite reach the windowsill. Jon blinks against the sudden onslaught of light and shields his eyes with his forearm, then rolls onto his side to be met with the comforting softness of Martin’s stomach. He is sitting upright against the headboard, notebook perched on his lap as he chews on the end of his pen, the look of sullen concentration on his face so endearing that it releases something sweet and sticky as treacle in Jon’s chest.

He tries to catch his eyes, but Martin remains stubbornly focused on his writing, so Jon settles on a tried-and-tested distraction, slipping a hand under the hem of his shirt and trailing icy fingers along his side. Martin yelps at the sensation, mutters something about Jon having icicles in place of fingers, and attempts to swat his hand away, though there’s no real force behind it. A slow grin spreads over Jon’s face. After a final squeeze to Martin’s waist, he removes his hand and smooths down Martin’s shirt.

“Morning,” he says, though it’s no longer morning by any stretch of the imagination.

“Good morning,” Martin hums in return. He slides his fingers into Jon’s hair and begins massaging his scalp just the way he likes it, eliciting a contented sigh from him.

“Have you… been awake long?” Jon asks, feeling a twinge of guilt when he realises just how late it is.

Martin shrugs. “Couple of hours, give or take. I thought I’d better stay with you.”

The guilt grows thicker, nearly obstructs his throat. “You didn’t have to,” he manages to choke out.

Martin huffs an impatient laugh, and Jon is certain he has said the wrong thing yet again. “I wanted to, Jon. Don’t I get a say in that?”

“No, no, of course,” Jon is quick to assure him, eager to avoid another fight. “You’re right, you’re right.”

He pillows his head on Martin’s belly and closes his eyes, seeking out the comfort only Martin can give him. He no longer wants to die in his arms, last night’s morose ruminations be damned, but he wants to live in them instead, be held by him for an eternity or more, however long Martin is willing to give him. He would have been happy to while away the whole day like this; hell, in this moment, he would have been more than happy to spend the rest of his life in their bed. But Martin – lightly poking a finger into Jon’s side – has other plans.

“C’mon, sleepyhead. Time to get up.”

Jon’s only response is a groan of protest and an arm clamped tight around Martin’s middle.

Martin laughs, tapping Jon’s arm with his pen. “Hey, now. Can’t stay in bed forever, you know.”

Jon knows he’s being childish, knows he should just do the sensible thing and leave the bed, but every cell in his body refuses to even consider getting up. Why shouldn’t he stay here forever, anyway? Maybe then he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the reality of any of this. The things he’s done, the things he’s seen, the thing’s he’s still messing up on a daily basis even in this new world that was supposed to be their second chance. All invisible knives in his torso, all invisible wounds that will never heal. If he stayed in bed forever, safe in Martin’s comforting embrace, hovering in that dream-like state halfway between sleep and waking, perhaps those things would all fade into the distance. Perhaps the whole world would be reduced to the two of them and a love that is simple for once.

He clings even tighter to Martin, leaning into his side and throwing a leg across his lap. “Don’t care,” he mumbles into Martin’s shirt. “You’re warm. ‘S nice.”

Martin tries to extricate himself from Jon’s drowning grip, though it’s a halfhearted effort at best. He drops his pen onto the nightstand and cards both hands through Jon’s unruly hair, then bends down to press a kiss to it.

“When will you learn that flattery will get you nowhere?” His smile is audible. “Now get off me so I can make you breakfast.”

Martin instructs Jon to sit at the kitchen table while he puts the kettle on and labours over the stove, throwing him an exasperated look every time he offers to help. A few minutes later, he places a large bowl of steaming porridge before Jon, dumps a frankly obscene amount of brown sugar on top of it, and sets a spoon next to the bowl. As Martin turns to fetch their mugs from the counter, Jon is left staring doubtfully into the sticky mush like it is some sort of exotic concoction, watching the sugar melt slowly in golden rivulets.

Martin sits down opposite him and begins to butter his toast. “Eat up,” he tells him, a command rather than a request.

Jon obligingly dips his spoon into the porridge and takes an experimental mouthful. It’s sickeningly sweet and so hot it burns the roof of his mouth, but it’s so, so good. He’d almost forgotten how gratifying it could be to fill your stomach with something warm and nourishing. He ends up finishing the whole bowl, eating in slow and careful intervals to give his underused stomach time to adjust, and is rewarded with a bright smile on Martin’s face. He smiles back and washes down the last spoonful with a gulp of tea, which seems to contain more milk than water.

It could be so simple, he thinks. Every morning could be as peaceful as this one, every day could be dedicated to uncovering the future rather than dredging up the past, every night could be spent in each other’s arms. Why is he so intent on rejecting this gift that is being dangled right before his nose, on ruining his one chance of happiness? Worse than that, ruining Martin’s chance of happiness? It shouldn’t be so hard to eat and sleep and go through all the motions of being human, yet somehow he’s incapable of even the bare minimum. When does a monster stop being a monster? Not when its claws have been pared down; not when the stench of carnage no longer clings to its skin. There are always other ways to tear things apart.

Martin stares down into his empty mug. “I was thinking we could maybe… go out today?”

Jon throws him a startled look. “Go out? Where?” he asks, as if the mere suggestion is ludicrous.

“I don’t know, just… out, I guess? There’s this new exhibition on earthquakes at the Natural History Museum, that sounds really cool. Or, or we could take a walk in Hyde Park, the weather’s pretty nice today. Or check out one of those fancy cafes in Kensington… Your call.”

Jon scoffs. “We’re not tourists, Martin.”

Martin rolls his eyes and begins to count on his fingers. “Yeah, but A, it’s not like we’re born-and-bred Londoners either, B, you don’t have to be a tourist to do nice stuff, C, we are literally in another universe, which means that lots of things could be different here! Don’t you think that warrants exploring? And four-”

“D,” Jon mutters.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“And four, it’d be good to get out of the flat for a bit. It can’t be healthy for you to stay cooped up inside all the time.”

Jon frowns. “I go out sometimes.”

“Really? When was the last time you actually left this flat?”

Jon chews on his lip as he mulls over the question, scouring his muddled memory for anything of note that had happened recently. “I, uh… I went to the supermarket with you that one time?”

“That was three weeks ago, Jon.”

“Yeah, well, you explicitly told me to stay home next time because apparently my shopping habits didn’t live up to your discerning standards.”

“It took you ten minutes to pick a pack of bloody biscuits!”

“Eight at most. And in my defence, they had a very large selection. How am I supposed to make the right choice?”

“Well, you didn’t, considering you went with custard creams, which are objectively the worst-”

“I beg to differ.”

“Anyway, that’s hardly the point. I’m just saying, it would do you a whole lot of good to get some fresh air once in a while. Stretch your legs a bit.”

Jon decides to switch to a different tactic. “You know how bad my leg gets sometimes.”

While the stab wound on his chest has mysteriously healed, leaving only a scar behind, the rest of his manifold injuries still make themselves known from time to time, even more so now that he doesn’t have the dubious protection of the Eye anymore. His right leg, in particular, likes to lament the fact that a not-insignificant chunk of it had once been removed along with the worm that had burrowed into it. It has good days and bad days, and on the bad days, the pain and stiffness can be so debilitating that he can barely walk.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Martin sighs. “Actually, I meant to bring that up- I really think you should see a doctor. Not just about your leg, although that’s obviously a big part of it, but the other stuff as well. You know, make sure everything is properly healed and doesn’t get infected or anything. And you could get a cane for the days when your leg is acting up, that might help.”

“We’ve been over this, Martin,” Jon snaps, sharper than he’d intended. “I’m covered in scars and missing two ribs to boot. That doesn’t exactly point to an inconspicuous medical history. Our legal position in this world is precarious enough as it is, so we really can’t afford to draw any unnecessary attention to us. So no, unless it’s a matter of life or death, I’m not going to a doctor.”

He delivers the last sentence with a determined finality that he hopes will convince Martin to let it go, but he doubles down instead. “Yeah, but I’m sure we could find a doctor who… doesn’t ask too many questions? And I guess we could come up with some explanations for your injuries that aren’t too outlandish. Okay, the missing ribs might be hard to account for, but we’ll, we’ll think of something. Besides, aren’t doctors bound by medical confidentiality anyway?”

Jon makes a noncommittal sound that Martin seems to mistake for encouragement to go on.

“It’s just, it would really ease my mind if you were registered with a GP. With everything you’ve been through, you need to get regular medical check-ups. I just want to make sure you’re properly taken care of. And also, a GP could give you a referral… you know, we’ve talked about therapy.”

By that he means that he dropped the word into unrelated conversations a couple of times, and Jon immediately changed the subject, staunchly refusing to engage with that notion. Jon takes a sip of lukewarm tea and swallows slowly to calm the anger bubbling up in his throat, so his words won’t be tainted with bile.

“I don’t need a therapist. End of discussion.”

Martin gives him a wounded look, like a dog whose tail has been stepped on, and it sends another sharp stab of guilt through Jon. When has guilt become his natural state?

“Don’t you think it might help? Talking to someone? You’re clearly not doing well, anyone can see that.”

“And what am I supposed to tell them?” Jon counters. “That I used to serve an Eldritch fear god? That I ended the fucking world? That’s just going to get me committed, and you know that.”

“I mean, obviously you wouldn’t tell them that. But you could… talk around it somehow, use some kind of… metaphor.”

“I think you’re the expert on metaphors and not me,” Jon says drily. “And our… situation might be a little too complex to be turned into a metaphor. Besides, isn’t therapy supposed to be all about honesty?”

“Alright, fine, you win. Keep destroying yourself if you get such a kick out of it.” Martin glowers at him from across the table, then his face softens. “I just… I worry about you, that’s all. It… it hurts to see you like this, it really does. I wish you would let me help you.”

Jon offers him the nearest thing he can manage to a smile, which is probably closer to a tired grimace. “I’ll be fine,” he says, the transparent lie leaving a bitter taste on his tongue. “Really, Martin, I- Thank you. For caring. For sticking with me, even after… even after everything. Please don’t think I don’t appreciate everything you do. It’s much more than I deserve, I know that. I know things might be… difficult right now, but I… it will get better. I promise. I just need more time.”

Martin says nothing, just regards him with an expression of weary defeat, like he can see right through the words and take them as the empty platitudes they truly are, yet another promise Jon cannot keep. Jon longs to soothe his worry, to ease his pain, to give him more than shiny sentences that scatter like smoke. It would be so easy, so far from the realm of apocalyptic rituals and bloodthirsty avatars. All he’d have to do is be a normal person for once. But wouldn’t that be the greatest lie of all? If he allowed himself to live an ordinary life, to forget his happiness is founded on the suffering of others?

“You know what, don’t let me keep you,” he says when the silence has become unbearable. The light-hearted tone carefully threaded into his voice sounds horribly artificial to his own ears. “It sounds… lovely, what you’ve got planned. I just don’t think I can join you today, so why don’t you have a nice day out on your own? You can tell me all about it when you get back.”

“Oh forget it, this was a bad idea-”

“I’ll come with you next time,” Jon cuts in before Martin can finish. “And then we can go to the zoo, or to Covent Garden, or to every museum in London, all the proper tourist things, and I won’t complain even once. In a few days, maybe, or a week. Soon. Just not today.”

Another lie. Another tally mark to add to an already damning score. He should wipe the slate clean, he owes Martin that much at least, but what is he supposed to say? That he is damaged goods and always will be, that he is a wretched creature wrestling with hunger and destruction until they consume him from the inside out, that his body may be human, but his soul has been ravaged long ago by something unnatural and unforgivable? That he will never get better? That Martin should just cut his losses and move on while he still can?

But no, he could never speak those words out loud, regardless of their truth. He is selfish enough to not want Martin to leave, to dread that possibility more than any other evil that could befall him. Is that proof of his humanity? Or proof of his monstrosity? How can he tell where the boundary lies?

“Okay, fine,” Martin says at last, his voice cool and measured and without the faintest hint of emotion. “I’m going out, then. I could- use some time on my own, anyway.”

He deposits their dirty dishes in the sink and moves into the hallway, leaving Jon stranded at the kitchen table.

“Have a nice day!” Jon calls feebly into the distance between them, but if Martin hears him, he chooses not to reply.

~*~

How long has it been since he last slept? Three days? Four? An entire week, perhaps? Jon can’t tell anymore. His inner perception of time has warped and melted like a surrealist painting, and he doesn’t trust any of the clocks in this place, is convinced that they move in strange patterns and exist only to mock him. He’s been awake for a long time, far too long, he knows that much; although he might have snatched a few hours of sleep here and there, never more than one or two at a time, leaving holes in the threadbare fabric of time. These hours have given him even less rest than his waking vigil, have haunted and taunted him with horrible images now permanently stamped on his eyelids, ready to terrorise him every time he closes his eyes.

He tries to keep them open, these days.

He might have eaten something, every once in a while, though it’s doubtful whether he’s been able to keep it down. Even the thought of food makes him nauseous now. He craves another kind of sustenance, something that doesn’t leave him heaving up stomach acid with his cheek pressed to the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl, something pure and hallowed that will untether his mind from its paltry earthly vessel and let it float free far above the stratosphere. Something that will purge all his sins, wipe his hands clean of invisible bloodstains, erase the lingering crackle of static from his voice. Something that will exorcise his guilt, grow fresh and unblemished skin over his scars, and make him human again. He knows he can never get that kind of nourishment. Knows he will never be worthy of that kind of redemption.

The next best thing, then, is pain. He’s learned by now that pain can be an addiction too, more beguiling than nicotine or even statements, that when you’ve both endured and inflicted unfathomable amounts of it, you come to depend on it like on air or water, you seek it out like a lover. Its absence becomes something to be feared rather than desired. The near-constant dizziness and disorientation brought on by lack of food and sleep is a promising appetiser, satiates his deep-seated hunger just a little, but he needs more to be satisfied. He needs something visceral and unambiguous, something that will stab right through the murky veils of uncertainty and find the point, buried beneath protective layers of skin and muscle, where he will bleed the most.

The kitchen knives are beckoning to him every time he opens the cutlery drawer, their sharp silver blades singing ballads of slaughter, but he hasn’t yet dared to heed their call. He’s afraid of making a mistake he cannot reverse, a wound he cannot close, a mess he cannot clean.

Instead he’s let his fingernails grow long enough to break his skin, to gouge trenches of exquisite pain into the yielding canvas of his forearms, leaving them criss-crossed with ragged red lines. He’s careful to keep his sleeves pulled down to his wrists at all times, to wear dark colours on which the blood won’t show; but from the looks he catches Martin giving him sometimes, like he can’t decide between sadness and fury, he’s fairly certain he has guessed anyway. This, paradoxically, fires rather than douses his urge to further butcher his own arms. It’s a vicious cycle he cannot escape. He lets Martin down, he believes himself deserving of punishment for letting Martin down, which in turn lets Martin down even more, which merits further punishment, and so on, ad infinitum, until his arms have turned into gaping wounds or Martin has decided to leave him for good, whichever comes first.

If he were a better person, he would have given Martin the whole world and then some, everything he deserved, everything he should have gotten long ago, if the universe wasn’t such a cruel and hollow place. If he were a better person, at least, at the very very least, he’d have the decency not to tear himself to shreds right in front of Martin.

But he’s not a better person. He’s crouched on the sofa with his knees tucked up into his chest, at god-knows-what-time, his forearms burning with a stinging pain that almost feels like absolution, blood caked deep beneath his fingernails. His phone screen is the only source of light in the dim room, displaying an array of headlines flashing by as fast as his brain can process them. Not for the first time, he wonders if he is really pursuing this… project for research purposes anymore – it’s not like hours upon hours of scouring various news apps has given him even a shred of proof for the existence of the Fears in this universe, or like the lack of definitive evidence has done anything to reassure him – or if he is binging on the concentrated suffering of people all across the globe in an attempt to recover the feeling that statements used to give him, that kind of shameful relief. But his research never leaves him relieved, only weary, exhausted, disheartened to learn that this world may not be an apocalyptic wasteland, but it is by no means free of the more mundane terrors that had plagued their universe as well. Same old wars, same old natural catastrophes, same old sleazy politicians. Nothing ever changes.

There is… something. Movement, somewhere near him. A voice, saying words he cannot quite make out. His name, perhaps? Yes, definitely his name. He locks his phone and drops it in his lap, then squints up at Martin who is looking back at him with furrowed brows.

“Jesus, Jon, how long have you been sitting here in the dark?”

How am I supposed to know? he wants to retort. The clocks are all lying to me. But he knows Martin wouldn’t believe him, would only become more exasperated, so he contents himself with an indeterminate grumble. Martin walks over to the window and pulls back the curtains to let blinding sunlight stream into the room. Jon blinks against the sudden brightness. Has he drawn the curtains at some point? He must have, though he can’t for the life of him recall when or why. At least this means that it is clearly daytime and not some ungodly hour in the middle of the night, not a time when he could be expected to be asleep. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about sitting on the sofa during the day, it’s perfectly normal, nothing to worry about. Why can’t Martin understand that?

But, despite his burgeoning irritation, he is truly glad just to be in the same room as Martin. A distance has been growing between them lately that Jon has been unable to bridge. They haven’t been arguing, at least, but they haven’t been talking either, save for some perfunctory pleasantries, and Jon almost wishes for an open confrontation, no matter how vicious. He’d vastly prefer that to the dreadful coldness of that polite silence. Martin has been leaving the flat more and more often, sometimes staying out almost the whole day, and when he returns, he wards off Jon’s questions about where he has been. Sometimes his breath smells of alcohol when he leans in to brush the ghost of a kiss against Jon’s lips, but Jon pretends not to notice. Even when Martin is in the flat, he isn’t really there – he seems intent on spending most of his time in whatever room doesn’t have Jon in it, sequestering himself away with the door shut like an impenetrable wall. Jon can’t deny that all this feels horribly familiar, and he’s been watching out for symptoms of the Lonely on those rare occasions where he catches sight of Martin, half-expecting his voice to echo or his skin to turn transparent. But there is nothing supernatural about this. Jon knows (has known for a long time, on some level) that this has been festering inside Martin long before the Lonely staked its claim on him, that it is an ingrained part of Martin that merely served as a welcoming vessel for the Lonely to make its home in. But Jon is utterly at a loss for how to handle it. He’s pulled Martin from the Lonely, a fear domain beyond the laws of physics and with little hope of escape, just by the power of his own conviction. But now that there are no hellscapes to traverse, no monsters to slay, no fear entities to banish, now that the only thing he needs to do is find the right words, he proves himself completely useless.

When it doesn’t seem like Martin is interested in a conversation or any other form of human interaction, Jon unlocks his phone again, adjusting the screen brightness to make up for the new light condition, and resumes his frantic scrolling. However, he only gets about five headlines in before Martin strides over to him, wrests the phone from his hand and places it on the coffee table, then presses his fingers under Jon’s jaw and tips his chin up, forcing him to meet his eyes.

“Look, Jon, I know you won’t listen to anything I say-”

Jon begins to protest, but Martin speaks right over him. “I know you won’t listen, you never do, but… oh, what the hell, I’m going to try anyway.”

He slips a small rectangle of creamy paper out of his pocket and tucks it into Jon’s hand. Jon eyes it in suspicion. It’s a business card, imprinted with sleek letters that read Anna Enthwistle, counsellor, followed by an email address and a phone number. He lets out a grunt of distaste and is about to fling the loathsome thing aside (ripping it into pieces might be a little too dramatic), but Martin’s hand closes around his and traps the card against his palm.

“So I’ve been doing some digging,” Martin says, his hand still keeping Jon’s in a vice grip and leaving him no choice but to listen, “and she’s got excellent online reviews. I actually went to her practice the other day, just to check it out, and she seemed… nice. Really nice. Yeah, I know that’s not the most important criterion when choosing a therapist, but it’s a start, right? I told her a bit about you – taking a lot of liberties with the truth, of course – and she said she might be able to help. Help you get better. She specialises in trauma, apparently.”

“I don’t need a therapist,” Jon snarls. He’s starting to feel like a broken record, like a scratched old vinyl that keeps repeating the same tired fragment of melody, incapable of producing a proper tune.

Martin’s eyes are cold, colder than he’s ever seen them, colder than he thought brown could be. Colder even than when he’d been lost in the depths of the Lonely and his eyes were shrouded in murky grey. It frightens Jon more than he cares to admit.

“Yes, you need a fucking therapist,” Martin says. “I don’t care what you say, it can’t go on like this. I can’t take this anymore. I’m not going to keep watching while you destroy yourself. Either you call her right this instant and arrange an appointment, or… or…”

His voice wobbles and he doesn’t finish the sentence, leaves the unspoken threat hanging in the air where it settles like Damocles’ sword over both their heads.

Jon doesn’t ask for clarification, doesn’t think he’s ready to hear the answer. He can’t even stomach the idea of Martin leaving, much as he’s tried to convince himself that it would be the most merciful outcome. Instead he resorts to the well-worn grooves of a hollow platitude so far removed from the truth that ‘lie’ seems an inadequate term for it.

“I’ll be-”

“Oh, don’t you dare say you’ll be fine,” Martin spits. “Don’t you fucking dare. We both know that’s not true. At least have the decency to stop lying right to my face. You think this is what I sacrificed everything for? So you could find a new way to play the martyr? Well, I’m tired of the tortured hero bullshit. I want you, Jon, as a living human being and not… someone hanging to the world by a thread. I want this to be a new beginning. God, is that too much to ask for?”

He jabs a finger at the business card in Jon’s open palm. “Call her. Just… call her.”

The dejected exhaustion in his tone is so palpable that it sends electric pulses of guilt through Jon’s nerves, his insides aflame with shame. For a second, he seriously considers it. Considers picking up his phone and dialling the number printed on the card, considers taking the tube once a week to spend an hour in a tastefully decorated office answering an onslaught of personal questions with carefully constructed half-truths. Shouldn’t he be able to do it, for Martin if for nothing else? Shouldn’t he be able to do anything for Martin? After everything Martin had given up for him, an entire universe and more, risking it all on the off chance that they might end up together somewhere, shouldn’t Jon be willing to make this comparatively minor sacrifice?

But try as he might, the mere thought of therapy revolts him, acrid bile rising in his throat at the idea of sitting in that tasteful office and fabricating innocuous stories out of the indelible facts: that he ended the world, that some inhuman part of him took delight in its suffering, and that he only reversed the apocalypse by scattering that suffering across countless other worlds. There is no metaphor brutal enough to hold a candle to the truth. No language to speak around the terrible things he’s done.

He knows he should bite back the words that linger on the tip of his tongue, knows they will only make matters worse, but they have been swirling in the back of his mind for far too long. To hell with it, he thinks. Let them out.

“What about you, then?”

Martin bristles. “What do you mean, what about me?”

“If you think therapy is such a great solution, then why don’t you try it?”

Martin breathes a thin laugh, but there’s no humour in it. “Jon, don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’re the one who’s being ridiculous! Don’t you think it’s just a tad hypocritical, you singing the praises of therapy every goddamn chance you get, when you won’t even consider it for yourself?”

“It’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, I don’t need it. I’m not the one who hardly eats or sleeps; I’m not the one who scratches his arms until they bleed. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that, by the way.”

Jon sighs. “Alright, alright, point taken. But don’t think I haven’t noticed how you disappear into the bedroom for hours on end, h-how you seem miles away when I try to talk to you. And you can’t blame it on the Lonely this time. It’s just… you keep telling me I should be more open about my feelings, but when have you ever been open about yours? In any way? You don’t talk about your past, about your mother, about the Lonely, you change the subject whenever any of it comes up, and you refuse to acknowledge you need help.”

“I’ll be fine,” Martin grits out.

The irony is not lost on Jon. He huffs a bitter laugh. “Oh, so when I say that I’m lying to your face, but you’re allowed to say it?”

Martin doesn’t rise to the bait, just throws him an unimpressed look. “You’re doing it again, Jon.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“You know what I mean. Detracting from the real issue. Shifting the conversation into a new direction so you won’t be held accountable. I’m not falling for that anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Jon retorts at once, cringing inwardly at how much he sounds like a petulant child. He feels like one too, slumped uselessly on the couch while Martin towers over him with his arms crossed and his legs in a wide stance, glowering down at him.

He’ll have to get off the sofa if he wants to even the playing field a little (though not by that much, given that even standing up, Martin has at least five inches on him). He braces himself against the armrest as he pushes himself to his feet, ignoring how his joints creak like ancient floorboards or how his knees buckle in protest at the sudden motion. He just about manoeuvres himself into a standing position, though his limbs are trembling and he’s starting to sway on the spot, like he’s engaged in a graceless, solitary slow dance.

Martin’s eyes widen and he reaches out a hand as if to steady Jon, but stops short of actually touching him. “Christ, Jon, are you alright?”

Yes, Jon wants to say, or perhaps rather no. He can’t tell which of them is true. Maybe they both are, at the same time. But in the end, he doesn’t say anything at all. The room is spinning all around him, dark spots are appearing before his eyes, and opening his mouth is too much work. He can hear Martin shouting his name, though the sound is dim and garbled, like it is filtered through an old radio. His legs refuse to cooperate with him anymore and his brain seems to run on a fraction of its usual power. For one perfect moment, he feels utterly at peace.

He closes his eyes and lets go.

Chapter Text

Fortunately, Martin manages to catch Jon before he hits the ground; and fortunately, he regains consciousness after only a few seconds, blinking blearily up at Martin and mumbling a sheepish ‘sorry’. Aside from that, there is absolutely nothing fortunate about the whole situation.

Martin wishes he knew how to react. He wants to yell bitter recriminations, he wants to sob into Jon’s chest, he wants to storm out of the flat, all at once, but he doesn’t think any of these options would be helpful right now. So he just hoists Jon into his arms, holding him in a sad mockery of a bridal carry, and walks over to the bedroom. Jon makes no attempt to hold on, just lets himself hang limply in Martin’s arms like a dead weight, though he has grown so painfully thin that he doesn’t seem to weigh anything at all. The knobs of his spine form sharp peaks against Martin’s palm. He is suddenly terrified of dropping him by accident, convinced that his bones would shatter on impact, like he is a dainty porcelain cup that can only be handled with the utmost care. He makes sure that Jon is securely cradled in his hold, that every step he takes is cautious and deliberate, that he lays Jon out on the bed as gently as possible and drapes the duvet over him like a cocoon, like it will shield him from the world. But of course that doesn’t change the fact that the person Jon needs the most protection from is, as always, himself.

“Thank you,” Jon whispers once he is settled in bed. God, are there tears in his eyes or is it just a trick of the light?

Martin really hopes for the latter. If Jon started to cry now, he’s sure the dam behind his own eyes would break, and soon enough he’d be bawling uncontrollably, all the grief and worry and frustration of the past weeks flooding out of him in a deluge of inelegant blubbering. He can’t afford that now, not when Jon needs him to be strong. He leans down to kiss Jon on the forehead, just once.

“Be back in a sec.”

He flees into the kitchen, where he spends a few tense seconds trying to regain control of his emotions, wiping a tissue over his treacherous eyes that have already begun to water, biting his tongue to stifle the ragged sob rising in his throat. Then he lets his body go on autopilot, settling into the familiar motions of caretaking. He takes a clean glass off the drying rack and fills it to the brim with tap water; he makes a sandwich out of two slices of plain white bread and a generous helping of peanut butter, and cuts it into neat triangles. Jon hates peanut butter, but it’s calorie-dense and easy to digest, and it’s not like he’s in a position to complain.

He arranges the water and the sandwich on a tray, along with two little bowls containing apple slices and Ritz crackers, then carries the tray into the bedroom and sets it down on Jon’s lap.

“There you go. Drink the water, then eat as much as you can.”

“Thank you, Martin,” Jon says again as he reaches for the water glass. His grip is a little unsteady, but he still gulps down all of it.

He eyes the sandwich next, making a face when he realises it is peanut butter, but he doesn’t protest and even manages to finish the whole thing in tiny, careful bites. Then he picks up an apple slice and turns it over contemplatively between his long fingers, like he is scrutinising an unfamiliar object. He ends up wrinkling his nose in distaste and dropping the slice back into the bowl, and pushes the tray towards his knees. Martin resists the urge to badger him into eating more, and instead gives him a smile and a soft whisper of approval, to which Jon merely shrugs. Martin picks the tray off Jon’s legs and places it on the nightstand, where it rests in a precarious balance next to the reading lamp and a small stack of books. He should just return it to the kitchen, but he’s oddly reluctant to leave Jon alone again, even just for a few seconds, beset by the irrational fear that he will vaporise into smoke the second he lets him out of his sight.

So he perches on the edge of the bed and offers Jon a shaky smile. “Okay?”

Jon twists his lips in what appears to be an attempt to return his smile, though it looks more like a pained grimace. “Tired,” he mutters.

“Get some rest,” Martin says softly, stroking a gentle palm over Jon’s knobbly knee.

Jon lets his eyes fall shut with a sigh, like it took tremendous effort just to keep them open, and sinks even further beneath the covers. His fainting spell seems to have drained all the fight from him, absorbed all the sharpness and obstinacy that is so irritatingly and wonderfully him, and left him washed-out and malleable, somehow devoid of edges. Martin isn’t sure whether to be relieved or concerned. This eerily passive man may be easier to deal with, but he’s not the Jon Martin knows, not the Jon he loves. He is little more than a shadow, little more than a phantom. Still, Martin supposes he should count himself lucky that this version of Jon, this poor imitation of the real thing, will do everything he says. This is one of the rare occasions where he can get Jon to take care of himself, and that in itself is a small miracle.

For a little while, he just sits there and watches over Jon, takes some comfort in the steady rise and fall of his chest. He’s almost entirely hidden beneath the duvet, only his forehead and a tangled mass of salt-and-pepper hair peeking out at the top. Something twists in Martin’s chest when he realises just how small Jon looks, how little space his slight outline occupies in the vast plain of their double bed. Like he might sink into the mattress and be swallowed whole if Martin isn’t careful. His whole body is prickling with the urge to reach out and clamp a hand onto Jon’s arm, just to make sure he won’t disappear, but he doesn’t want to risk disturbing the sleep he so badly needs. He knows he needs to protect Jon, to save him from himself, but all he’s capable of at the moment is hovering by his side and hoping for the best. Hoping that it’s not already too late.

Jon has gone completely still save for the regular rhythm of his breathing, and Martin is sure he has fallen asleep. But then his right hand shoots out from the otherwise motionless shape underneath the duvet, and pats the empty space beside him. Martin isn’t tired in the least – it’s three in the afternoon and the sun is bright even through the closed blinds – but this is an invitation he will never have the heart to refuse. He hastily strips down to his t-shirt and boxers and crawls into bed, then pulls Jon close and wraps himself around him as tightly as he can, like he is trying to fold him into himself and keep him safe in the sanctuary of his own body. Like he could sew them both into one being, so closely joined that they could only be separated by force, by severing the threads with an unforgiving knife, and that cut would leave wounds neither of them could survive. One way or another, together. Never apart, not even in death.

Useless melodrama, Martin reprimands himself as Jon presses his face into his chest and exhales in a contented sigh. Overblown bullshit not even worthy of a bad poem. Jon is safe in his embrace, warm and pliant and so far from a cold and rigid corpse, and hasn’t Martin been thinking enough about death lately? Doesn’t he still see the gleam of the knife every time he closes his eyes, doesn’t he still hear the explosions shaking the Panopticon reverberating in his ears, doesn’t he still wake at night believing his hands to be sticky with Jon’s blood? He moves one hand – clean, untainted, pure – from Jon’s back and slides it into the narrow gap between their bodies, then presses it right over Jon’s heart. His heartbeat is a reassuring reminder against his palm, with its steady, unwavering rhythm of one-two one-two one-two, a song he will never grow tired of hearing. He tries not to wonder when the song will reach its coda, if the remaining beats of this battered heart have already been counted, and if the number is far less than he bargained for. He tries not to wonder about that, but of course he does. He keeps his hand firmly glued to Jon’s chest, as if that alone could serve as armour, as if his touch could be enough to keep Jon’s heart beating.

He doesn’t get a wink of sleep, but he watches over Jon as the languid afternoon gives way to a dreary evening, as the sun retreats and rain begins to pound on the window, as the room grows dark. He stares at Jon’s serene sleeping face and thinks of all the things he isn’t brave enough to say, hoping they will somehow manifest in Jon’s subconscious without him ever needing to speak them aloud. He thinks of how much he wishes he were a better person, kinder and more understanding, how much easier all this would be then. If he didn’t resort to anger to masquerade his anxiety, if he didn’t rely on nagging and passive-aggressive comments that he knows will fall on deaf ears. If, for once, he didn’t shroud his emotions in a protective cloak of metaphors and projection, if he looked them square in the face and didn’t flinch. As much as it pains him to admit it, Jon was right on some level. There is a part of Martin, caged in barbed wire and electric fencing, that knows he is not doing well, that knows he can only get better if he reaches a hand out of that protective shroud and asks for help. But if the past years have taught him anything, it’s that knowledge alone has never fixed anything, that it is a curse more often than it is a blessing.

Hours have passed by the time Jon stirs in his arms at last, blinking one eye open and muttering something unintelligible.

“Hi,” Martin whispers, brushing his knuckles over Jon’s cheek. “Sleep well?”

Jon merely grumbles in response and burrows even closer into Martin’s chest. Martin smiles and strokes his hair, carding his fingers through the soft strands. Moments like this one, as rare as they may be these days, are what keeps him going, tiny nuggets of gold amid all the debris. But as much as he wants to, he can’t preserve this ephemeral peace, is forced to tarnish its shine with a conversation that can no longer be delayed. He places his hands on Jon’s shoulders and gently pushes him back, until he can meet his eyes.

“So… about earlier…”

Jon has the grace to look contrite, at least. “I-I’m sorry, Martin. Really. I prom- It won’t happen again.”

He flushes as he seems to realise how obvious a lie that is, dropping his gaze and gnawing on his bottom lip yet again. It’s chapped and mangled, flecks of dried blood marking the places he constantly worries at with his teeth. Martin bites back a reproach, reminding himself that he needs to choose his battles wisely.

He sighs. “I mean, it’s not just the fainting – though that’s not good, obviously – but it’s… all the other stuff. Everything leading up to it. You’re running yourself ragged, Jon, and you can’t keep this up much longer. You know that.”

Jon doesn’t respond. It’s a silence that feels contentious rather than acquiescent, a silence that prickles like an electric current in the air between them, but Martin still takes advantage of it for one more desperate attempt to bore through Jon’s thick skull.

“Why don’t you just give her a call? The therapist, I mean. O-or I could call her for you, if you’d prefer that. You don’t have to make a commitment right away. You could just have a session or two to begin with, and if you don’t like it, we can… we can explore other options.” His voice is as soft as he can make it, sweet and mellow as honey. No trace of the fury born of worry he truly feels. “But I think it could really help you to talk to someone. Someone professional. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”

There’s a glint in Jon’s eyes that almost looks like triumph. “Why are you ashamed of it, then?”

Even now that he has been stripped of all supernatural powers, Jon still sometimes has the uncanny ability to read Martin’s mind. Or rather his subconscious, in this case, those hidden parts he has buried so deep within his mind that even he struggles to access them. The strangely meek and pliable imposter of just a few hours ago has vanished and the old Jon has taken his place again, the one who knows exactly how to forge his words into a sharp blade and stab right to the core, the one who won’t budge even a millimetre in an argument. Martin can’t let him see he’s struck a nerve. He simply can’t.

“You’re insufferable,” he snaps, with more venom than intended.

At that, Jon seems to shrink back on himself, like a flower drooping its petals once it is deprived of sunlight, and a wounded look crosses his face. A wave of guilt rushes over Martin, but it’s not enough to coax an apology out of him.

“I can’t do that,” Jon says feebly. “I- I just can’t. I’m sorry, Martin.”

Back to square one, then. Back to false promises and useless apologies and nothing ever changing. Martin keeps feeling like he is trapped in an endless game of chess and he has forgotten all the rules, moving pieces across the board at random and losing every single one of them, and yet somehow checkmate never comes. But no, he tells himself immediately, that’s a ridiculous analogy. This isn’t a game; it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about helping Jon to get better. If anyone wins, it should be both of them.

“Alright, let’s say you can’t,” he says. “Let’s say I accept that, at least for now. But in that case, you have to do something else, and that’s non-negotiable.”

“Martin-”

“Let me finish. You’ll eat three meals a day – proper meals, not just a tiny bite of something – you’ll get at least seven hours of sleep every night, and you won’t deliberately hurt yourself in any shape or form.”

Jon opens his mouth to protest again, but Martin shushes him before he can speak. “That’s not too much to ask for, is it? Plenty of people do that every day, and you don’t see them complaining.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jon says, a deep weariness in his voice, like he doesn’t have the energy left to argue. Martin feels another spike of guilt, but is determined to push past it.

“Then make it simple.”

Jon merely scoffs.

“Can’t you at least try?” Martin asks in a softer tone. “For me?”

Perhaps it is the for me that does it, or perhaps his constant badgering has just worn down the last thin shreds of Jon’s resolve. Either way, he lets out a long slow breath before looping his arms around Martin’s neck and hiding his face in his shoulder.

“Alright,” he mumbles, his voice muffled by Martin’s t-shirt. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” Martin whispers in return, holding him tight and stroking gentle paths along his back. Sometimes it is enough to break his heart, touching Jon like this. His body both a warzone and a testament to survival, his skin forever branded with the indelible memories of past trauma, his scapulae sharp as knives under Martin’s palms. Once again, Martin finds himself thinking of Jon as a precious porcelain cup, one that could all too easily slip through his clumsy fingers. Don’t let him shatter, he begs himself. Whatever you do, don’t let him shatter.

~*~

Midnight is just around the corner, and the City of London is an inferno of light and colour, the near-constant barrage of fireworks now edging towards its exultant crescendo. The crackling cacophony of noise is eerily reminiscent of the staccato of gunshots, and if Martin closes his eyes, he could almost believe himself back in the trenches at Kinloss Barracks, running for his life through the slick mud while being bombarded by bullets on all sides. So he tries to keep them open, to focus his attention on the vibrant display around him, so far removed from the dark and ever-watching sky of the apocalypse. There’s a nice symbolism to it all, putting aside for a moment the obvious arguments about environmental impacts and noise pollution. All around the globe, humanity paints the firmament to celebrate another successful rotation around the sun, another year they have lived to see the end of. Isn’t that what the New Year is meant to be, an opportunity to close the previous chapter and turn to a blank page, still waiting to be filled with life?

The two of them need that opportunity more than anyone else this year, probably. God knows they could use a fresh start. Of course, Martin knows that things will not just magically take a turn for the better the moment the clock strikes midnight, that life will carry on as usual without regard for humanity’s arbitrary demarcations of time. But sometimes it’s enough to be optimistic; it’s enough to believe in the power of fireworks and unwritten pages. And for once, he thinks he has reason to be hopeful. Jon has been getting better – in small, stumbling steps that are painful for both of them to take, and there have been plenty of obstacles along the path, but the improvement is notable. He still has restless nights, often waking sweat-drenched from nightmares that he refuses to talk about, but at least he now manages to get a minimum of four hours of sleep each night and no longer depends on caffeine just to stay awake during the day. He still struggles to stick to three full meals a day, sometimes only choking down a few bites before claiming to be too nauseous to continue, but at least he eats something and has finally begun to gain some weight, looking a little less like a walking skeleton. The fierce red gashes on his arms have almost completely healed, leaving only faint lines behind that pale in comparison to his other scars, and as far as Martin can tell, no fresh ones have appeared. He still sneers at the mere mention of therapy.

It’s far from perfect – under normal circumstances, it would probably be considered far from adequate, even – but Martin is grateful for it anyway, because he knows things could be (and have been) so much worse. It’s achingly plain to see that Jon is trying, that he is determined to make a real effort no matter how much it hurts sometimes, and that alone is enough to make Martin’s heart swell with immeasurable fondness. There are still times when the pressure reaches a breaking point, when one of them lashes out like a cornered animal and the other retaliates, trading scathing words like sword thrusts in a duel neither of them can win, then staying out of each other’s sight for the rest of the day. But without fail, they always return to the refuge of each other’s arms before night falls, hold each other close and whisper earnest apologies, and kiss like it could heal all their wounds. Even on their worst days, they still seek comfort in each other, and that’s what counts in the end.

That’s something worth celebrating, Martin thinks, and it’s nice to have an occasion for it. They hadn’t made any plans for New Year’s Eve – they don’t make plans for anything these days, as if it were tempting fate to have even the vaguest notion about the future – unless you count the bottle of cheap champagne they had bought from Lidl a few days before, and kept in the fridge just in case. They hadn’t prepared anything for Christmas either (neither of them associate the holiday with particularly fond memories anyway), and had been content to while away almost the entire time on the couch, eating mince pies and flipping through TV channels on the hunt for a holiday special they could both tolerate.

They would have spent tonight in much the same way, probably, watching the fireworks on TV rather than braving the throngs of drunken tourists assembled around the Thames, if Martin hadn’t insisted on bundling both of them up in their warmest coats and dragging Jon up the fire escape that led onto the roof of the building, a couple of blankets, the champagne, and an extra bottle of Merlot stowed away in his backpack.

“We’ll get a much better view from up there than down in the crowds, believe me,” he’d said. “Plus, you won’t have some dickhead stepping on your foot or spilling his drink on you. We’ll have the place all to ourselves. I went up there before on New Year’s Eve once, when I was…”

Sitting alone and depressed in his flat, already half-drunk on crappy bargain prosecco that failed to lighten his mood even the slightest bit. Hannah from the library had been kind enough to invite him to her New Year’s party, and he liked her well enough, but he didn’t really know her, did he, so what was he supposed to do? Go to the party, stammer his way through awkward small talk with complete strangers, then spend the rest of the night in the corner nursing his drink and counting the minutes until it was a socially acceptable time to leave? It had been nice up on the roof, watching the fireworks soar above the skyline, breathing in the fresh and invigorating night air, immersed in a kinder solitude than what awaited him in an empty flat or at a friendless party. But he couldn’t tell Jon that, could he?

 “…new to the Institute.”

Jon had laughed, just a little, and asked, “Is that even allowed?”

“I don’t think so, to be honest? But like, I somehow doubt my landlord is going to pay a visit on New Year’s Eve, so… who cares?”

That had startled a proper laugh out of Jon, the kind of laugh that makes everything worth it, and he’d followed Martin without complaint.

Now he is draped halfway across Martin’s chest, his head slumped onto his shoulder and his legs strewn over his lap, turned loose-limbed and cuddly by alcohol. Aside from a pleasant buzz, the wine has not had any effects on Martin, but Jon has always been a lightweight, which, as Martin has quickly discovered, can be very satisfying to exploit. He takes a large swig from the nearly empty bottle and then passes it to Jon, who lifts his head from Martin’s shoulder to bring the bottle to his lips, making a face when he finds there is only a tiny sip flavoured with bitter dregs left.

Martin grins in response to his disgruntled pout. “I think you’ve had enough for now, don’t you? We still have champagne for later.”

“Yes, yes,” Jon grumbles and climbs fully on Martin’s lap, wrapping his arms around his neck.

Martin places his hands on either side of Jon’s waist to steady him, trying to feel out the shape of him beneath the bulky cocoon of his puffer jacket. “You’ve got a perfectly good blanket right there,” he chides, though his stern tone is belied by the besotted smile he can’t keep off his face.

“You’re more comfortable,” Jon says, nestling even closer.

Martin is rather glad that the darkness obscures his blush. His smile is growing so wide that it is actually beginning to hurt his cheeks. “You won’t be able to see the fireworks from here,” he says, keeping up the act, though he punctuates the sentence with a kiss to the top of Jon’s head.

Jon raises his head until his face is no more than an inch from Martin’s, and Martin is struck by the full intensity of his gaze, those eyes that were once glowing with green light and powerful enough to obliterate someone with a simple look, those eyes that are now all human, warm and brown and absolutely gorgeous. “Don’t care about the fireworks,” Jon mumbles against Martin’s lips, before meeting him in a sloppy kiss.

Jon’s face is cold, his lips are dry and chapped, and his breath reeks of alcohol, but Martin still melts into the kiss like butter on a hot stove. He licks the wine off Jon’s lips, maps out the now familiar terrain of his mouth with his tongue, lets out a soft sigh. They kiss like that for a while, ardent but unhurried, until they are forced to draw apart to breathe. Martin takes advantage of the opportunity to simply stare at Jon’s face, like he is seeing him for the first time, like he is seeing him for the last time, like he will never get his fill of looking. Jon was right, damn the fireworks. He’d much rather look at the beautiful man in front of him than at all the gaudy light effects in every universe.

“What?” Jon asks when he catches Martin staring, a hint of an irresistible smile lighting up his face.

“Nothing,” Martin whispers in between the gentle kisses he scatters over the enticing column of skin between Jon’s jaw and the collar of his jacket. “Just… you. Just you.”

Jon hums happily in response, and Martin would have been glad to be buried within that moment, to live in it forever without it ever getting old. But the increasing intensity of the firecracker bursts all around them abruptly returns him to the present, and so he checks his phone to find it is only a minute until midnight. He hastily grabs the bottle of champagne and pours them both a glass - they may have foregone wine glasses on their hurried flight up the fire escape, but at least they remembered to bring champagne flutes – and hands one to Jon.

“’s it time already?” Jon mumbles, twisting around in Martin’s lap just enough so he can see the fireworks.

When the clock ticks from 23:59 to 00:00 and the explosions of colour and sound reach their triumphant peak, they clink their glasses together.

“To new beginnings,” Martin says. It’s the only toast that feels appropriate right now.

“To new beginnings,” Jon echoes.

They are silent for a little while after that, simply sipping their champagne and listening to the raucous bursts of fireworks and the jumbled shrieking of revellers, safely secluded on their private little island up on the roof. Maybe it’s the alcohol that brings it out in him, but Martin finds himself thinking of the world they left behind, the one that turns just alongside this one, like trains on parallel tracks, and is yet an impossible distance away.

“I wonder how they’re celebrating New Year’s in our… in the old universe.”

He only realises he’s been thinking out loud when Jon answers. “I’ve been thinking about that, too. 2018 hasn’t exactly been an ordinary year for them. The trauma it must have caused on a global scale… god, I can’t even imagine.”

“Tell me about it,” Martin says. “But, er, does that mean that they… remember all of it? Couldn’t it be possible that their memories were wiped or something? Like none of it ever happened, or, or like they just had a really bad dream?”

All he gets from Jon at first is a pensive hum, but Martin has learned by now that he needs to give him time to get his thoughts in order. “I, ah, I suppose it could be possible? Um, I h-have to admit I hadn’t even considered that before. The Eye certainly wasn’t clear on the matter, or keen to divulge any information on its potential downfall. It’s- it’s a nice thought, though. But also kind of… disquieting.”

Martin sighs. “Yeah, no, I get it. It’d be horrible for them to remember everything, but it also wouldn’t feel right if they just forgot all about it and carried on as usual. I mean,” he says with a grim laugh, “even if the world does remember, I wouldn’t be surprised if everything was just forced back to normal, like, immediately. Governments covering everything up, pretending the whole thing was just some sort of… temporary blip. Nothing to see here folks, get back to work ASAP, and no, we’re not paying for your therapy.”

Jon laughs softly. “I’m afraid you might be right. The only way to deal with the aftermath of an apocalypse in late-stage capitalism.” He pauses, chewing on his bottom lip as if deliberating whether or not to speak, then: “What about the others? Georgie and Melanie and Basira, do you think… do you think they’re alright?”

Martin squeezes his waist, runs his palm along the length of his back. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You know them, they always land on their feet. I bet they’ve found something they can do to help, to support the rest of the world in their recovery. They’ll be fine, love. I’m sure of it.”

Jon smiles, though not without sadness. “I miss them.”

Martin has never really known any of them, at least not as well as Jon has, but he thinks he would have liked to, one day. Just before the apocalypse ended, he’d liked to play with the thought of a future where they all made it out alive (and were in the same universe, of course), and they all became friends, the sort of friendship forged from adversity and cast in dedication and therefore unbreakable, the kind of family he had only ever dreamed of. He thinks he misses that fantasy more than he misses the people included in it.

“Yeah,” he says softly, rubbing circles on Jon’s back. “Me too.”

“The Admiral was always terrified of fireworks,” Jon muses. “He used to hide under the couch until everything was over. I hope he’s doing okay tonight.”

“I’m sure they’ll take care of him,” Martin soothes.

He knows a change of subject is needed, and soon. Jon is getting a little too maudlin for his comfort. After a few drinks, he tends to oscillate rapidly between elation and melancholia, and it requires finesse to steer him on the right track.

“So… any New Year’s resolutions?” he asks, cringing inwardly at the banality of the question, but he couldn’t come up with anything better on the spot.

Jon shrugs. “I think I’ve made my resolutions a few weeks ago already. Or rather, you made them for me.”

“Still going to stick to them, though, right?” Martin probes.

“To the best of my ability. That’s all I can offer you at the moment, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

Martin drops a kiss to his forehead. “That’s all I’m asking, love. No need to apologise.”

“What about you, then?” Jon asks. “Any resolutions?”

“I don’t know, I… haven’t really thought about it? Write more poetry, maybe. Or take up knitting again.”

Jon merely hums in response, as if he’s dissatisfied with the answer, but unwilling to press.

“What?” Martin asks irritably after a stretch of uncomfortable silence.

“I just think…” Jon gives a drawn-out sigh. “God, you’re not going to like this. But you, you keep telling me to see a therapist.”

“And you keep refusing to even listen to me whenever I bring it up.”

“Okay, okay, fair point. But I have listened to you about my… self-destructive habits, and I’ve been making an effort to work on those. Granted, it’s been slow going sometimes, but at least I’m trying. And I can’t help but notice that you haven’t been working on your own issues. At all.”

Martin is left speechless and sputtering for a few seconds, feeling like he just received a heavy blow to the chest that knocked all the air from his lungs. “My issues?” he says when he has regained the ability to speak, his voice shrill and grating even to his own ears, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Well, that’s fucking rich. In case you forgot, Jon, I’m not the one with the issues, the, the ‘self-destructive habits’ in this relationship. I’m not the one who hardly ate or slept for over a month, I’m not the one who h-hurt himself, I’m not the one who looked two seconds away from death… You need to quit projecting your own baggage onto me. It’s not helping.”

Jon eyes him with a cold mixture of disapproval and pity. It had been a mistake to think him mellowed by drink; he’s as astute as he’s ever been, and this is a fight he’s intending ot win.

“Martin,” he says with a hollow laugh, “I think if anyone’s projecting, it’s you.”

Part of Martin has to admit that he’s right, in a way; another, more vocal, part of Martin just wants to stomp his feet and cover his ears like a petulant child and hope that will get Jon to back off. Neither of them wins, in the end. All the fight has been drained from him.

“Leave it, Jon,” he says, his voice thin and exhausted.

But Jon won’t even grant him that small mercy, and ploughs on relentlessly instead. “Sometimes, you stay in bed until noon or even later, and you won’t let me keep you company. You go out without telling me where you’ve been, and sometimes you come back smelling of alcohol. You don’t talk about your feelings, not really, not about the important things. You just deflect and make it about me instead. You take care of me like it’s your goddamn vocation, but you get angry if I so much as try to do one little thing for you. You’re shutting me out, Martin, whether you realise it or not, and that can’t be good for you. It just can’t.”

Martin knows he’s right. That’s the worst thing about it all. He knows he doesn’t have a single counterargument to present that wouldn’t sound like yet another tired excuse. He knows those days where he feels less than human, less than alive, where all he’s capable of is hiding in the bedroom, pressing a pillow over his face, and wishing for the world to go away, are neither healthy nor normal. Nor are those days where he finds himself wandering the neighbourhood for hours on end with no clear goal in mind, and more than often than not ends up in the nearest pub nursing his pint in a solitary corner. He knows that having recurring periods where happiness feels like a mirage he’ll never see again, and willingly accepted kindness feels like a mark of shame, is a damn good reason for seeking help. He knows all this, on an intellectual level. But there is a part of him, deep in the marrow of his bones and the chambers of his heart, a part that has become as vital as an organ, as necessary as breathing, that refuses to accept it. That baulks at the mere thought of asking for support. It’s that part that controls his muscles, steers his limbs, bites his tongue and dries his tears. There is no escape.

He doesn’t say anything, knows the only words he could say won’t make it past his lips, so Jon presses on, in a softer tone this time. “You’ve been through so much – your childhood alone, and everything that’s happened in the past few years, of course. Anyone who had experienced even a fraction of that would need time to recover. A-and please don’t tell me you’re fine, because you’re clearly not. I know you’re suffering, and I… I hate to see you suffer. Especially in silence.”

“Tough,” Martin chokes out, though the word barely makes it past the thick lump blocking his throat.

Jon lifts a hand to Martin’s face, tracing gentle circles over his cheek with his thumb. “Martin?”

I’m fine dies in his throat. All he gets out is a strangled sob.

“Oh, Martin,” Jon whispers and wraps his arms around him, one hand sifting through his curls, the other rubbing his back. He presses a kiss to the side of Martin’s neck. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Martin can’t. He can only grab Jon by the shoulders and push him off his lap, with more force than intended, mumbling “don’t, just… don’t” through his sobs. Jon scoots onto his abandoned blanket without protest, leaving a respectable distance between them, but he doesn’t quite manage to disguise the crestfallen look on his face. Guilt twists Martin’s insides again, but he doesn’t know how to make it right. Doesn’t know how to explain that any form of contact hurts right now, that the barest amount of kindness, care, love is sharp stinging salt in his wounds. So he just presses his hands over his face in a fruitless attempt to stifle his messy sobs, to banish his tears back to the space behind his eyes and seek shelter in the hollow pretence that there’s nothing to worry about.

“Martin?” Jon asks again, in the gentlest tone Martin’s ever heard him use, but somehow it redoubles rather than eases his sobbing, somehow it hurts worse than anything else. “I-I’m not going to touch you i-if you don’t want me to, but… I’m not going to leave you either. Not when you’re like this. I, I really wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”

Go away, Martin thinks. Leave me alone. Save yourself while you still can. Don’t you get it? It’s not the Lonely, maybe it’s never really been the Lonely, maybe it was just me all along. Maybe I’m just not meant to be with other people.

But, to his terror, he finds himself saying something else. “It, it’s just not s-supposed to be this way. I sh-shouldn’t be the one who n-needs help.”

Jon is quiet for a second, as if mulling it over, then asks, “What do you mean?”

Nothing, he should say. He should change the subject, steer the conversation back onto safe ground, pretend unconvincingly that nothing happened. He’s already said too much. Jon is his boyfriend and not his therapist; he shouldn’t be forced to deal with Martin’s problems, especially when they are laughable in comparison to his own. The last thing Martin wants is to be a burden.

But for whatever reason, he can’t stop himself from talking; it’s like a dam has broken inside him and now he is defenceless against the merciless flood. He chokes out the words in between ragged breaths, words that leave an acrid taste in his mouth like bitter medicine, words that pain him physically to utter, words that he had sworn to never speak.

“I-I, I’m the one who’s s-supposed to help people. Th-that’s what I’ve always done, that’s my role, that’s what I’m for. If I can’t do that, then… then what am I even good for? I’ve always taken care of myself, th-that’s what I’m used to. I d-don’t know how to handle someone else caring for me instead. I… I just don’t.”

Jon makes a small sound of sympathy, but he doesn’t try to touch Martin again. Martin is grateful for that.

“I… It’s… My mum,” his voice breaks on that word, “she, she wasn’t well, she’s never been well, really, a-and I needed to be there for her. To be strong for her, no matter what was going on in my life. I couldn’t afford weakness, it- it just wasn’t possible. And… when she asked to be put in a care home, I-I was relieved, in a way, because it meant I didn’t have to run myself ragged anymore between caring for her and working to pay for her medical care. B-but it also felt like, like a rejection, like I wasn’t good enough at being her carer, at being her son. Never good enough for her.”

His voice has died down to the last quivering ember of a fire soon to be extinguished. “I was kind of glad when she died. Isn’t that horrible? Because it was finally over.”

There is only silence after that. He has no more words and no more tears left in him. His mind feels like it has been rubbed raw, like it’s been scoured of all the dark thoughts that have been festering in there like mould, and he can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad kind of emptiness.

Jon says nothing, but he holds out his hand, palm facing up, a silent invitation that doesn’t demand acceptance, that simply serves as a reminder that comfort is within Martin’s reach, if he is willing to take it. On some level, Martin will always believe that kindness will be the thing to tear him apart, but he has never before considered that it might also be what puts him back together instead. Perhaps not in the same way as before, but in a shape he will one day be happy to inhabit. He thinks of kintsugi, that style of Japanese pottery where the jagged fault lines joining shards of broken objects are highlighted rather than concealed, golden veins running along the surface. Taking something shattered and making it whole again, but without forgetting its history, without ignoring its injuries; creating beauty out of destruction. He thinks of the scars scattered all over Jon’s skin, how he hates them as an echo of agony but loves them as a proof of resilience. He thinks of his own scars, most of them invisible, but no less permanent. He thinks of how neither of them are who they used to be, how they’ve both been broken and glued back together in unfamiliar shapes. How that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

He reaches out a trembling hand and lets it find Jon’s, lets it gravitate towards its anchor like a compass needle drawn to the magnetic north, lets it return to its true home. Jon’s fingers are icy when he laces them between Martin’s, but Martin doesn’t mind, just holds them tighter and squeezes warmth back into them. It’s Jon’s right hand he’s holding, he realises only now. The one with a smooth burn scar the shape of a handshake wrapped around it like a cruel glove. He used to prefer Jon’s left hand, though he would have sooner swallowed his own tongue than admitted that to him, used to feel a shameful quiver of repulsion at the alien texture of the scar tissue against his own skin. Used to resent the ever-present reminder of what Jon had endured, what Martin had failed to protect him from. Now, he has come to accept it as just another part of Jon, one of the many parts he loves perhaps because of rather than in spite of their irregularity.

Jon must have caught on to Martin’s secret aversion at an early point in their relationship, because he soon started to walk on Martin’s right-hand side whenever possible and made a habit of tucking his right hand away in his pocket. Martin had never been brave enough to initiate a proper conversation about it, though as time went on, he began deliberately reaching for Jon’s right hand whenever he got the chance to. He knows what it means for Jon to offer it freely like this. He’s willing to show Martin his scars, both on a literal and on a figurative level, and he trusts him to treat them with care. Perhaps it’s time for Martin to return the favour.

“Thanks,” he whispers, though he’s not even sure what exactly he’s thanking Jon for. Everything, probably.

Jon slowly raises their joined hands to his lips and brushes a reverent kiss across Martin’s knuckles. The night is alive and radiant, fireworks lighting up the sky, drunken crowds cheering and singing in the streets, the soundtrack of a brand-new year being brought into life with a triumphant scream. But none of it matters up here. They are in a world of their own, far beyond the noise and bustle of the city, sheltered on a planet with only two inhabitants.

They have so many new beginnings ahead of them.

Chapter Text

In the end, making a fresh start is surprisingly easy. It requires weeks of poring over property websites and then spending a sizable chunk of their dwindling riches on the deposit and first two months of rent as well as a used car that has seen better days, yes, but after that it’s easy. All it takes is loading their meagre possessions into the aforementioned thing that could generously be described as a car, leaving the key to their old flat behind for the landlord to collect, and setting out for a small town unhaunted by the shadows of their past.

Jon presses his face against the cool surface of the car window, peering through the thin layer of condensation caused by the foggy morning air, and watches the streets of London zoom past him. Martin has insisted on taking the wheel for the first leg of their journey, claiming that Jon’s erratic driving would be easier to endure once they’d made it safely through the pandemonium of city traffic, and Jon has to admit he’s got a point. He’s rather glad, actually, to let his mind roam free for a while. He’d always thought he’d be happy to turn his back once and for all on the city that has stolen ten years of his life, but now he feels an unexpected wave of nostalgia. Too many memories are tied to this place, lingering in the cracks in the pavement and the glow of the streetlamps, ready to pounce on him the second he lets his guard down. He predicts that an echo of London will remain long after he’s escaped its boundaries, that it will turn into a city-shaped ghost. But it doesn’t have to haunt him forever. They can always make new memories.

It's absurd, really, how after traversing countless nightmare domains and then travelling across dimensions with little hope of survival, a simple move to a neighbouring country can feel so monumental. Perhaps it is because it’s a decision borne of deliberation rather than desperation, because it’s built on a solid foundation of plans and moving boxes and tenancy agreements rather than balanced on a flimsy construction of knives and tears and uncertainties. Perhaps it’s because this time, they are crafting a real, tangible future together, not just dreaming of the unlikely idea of one. Perhaps it’s because he is starting to realise that this could be the route to the happiness he’d never imagined he could have, never imagined he could deserve, and that thought terrifies him as much as it excites him.

The sun begins to peer out from behind the gloomy clouds by the time they reach Lancashire, and soon the clouds disperse entirely, unveiling a bright and beautiful day. They take a brief detour to a viewpoint Martin remembers from a school trip and eat their cheap petrol station sandwiches while looking out over the verdant hills of the Lake District, cast in golden light by the early afternoon sun.

As they approach the border to Scotland, Jon is struck by the strange parallels between this trip and the first one they embarked on together. But of course, there are some crucial differences this time. They are heading for Fife rather than going all the way up to the Highlands; they have had weeks of planning their departure and not just a few frenzied hours; they are seeking a home instead of a temporary shelter. Most importantly, they know each other now, in a depth their past selves had only dreamed of. They have walked through literal hell hand in hand and made it out alive; they have seen the ugliest parts of each other and still insisted on finding something worth loving; they have chosen each other again and again in a world that offered them no choice. They have beaten the odds and broken the conventions of their universe. They are alive and together, and oh, what a gift that is.

Still, he does an involuntary double take when the car pulls to a stop and he first lays eyes on the cottage, feeling for a moment like he’s been transported across dimensions and back in time, like the apocalypse and everything that followed in its wake was just an intense fever dream. He blinks and the illusion dissipates. It was silly, really, because save for a few minor details, this place bears little resemblance to the safehouse. It’s in much better shape for one thing, with its polished windows and well-tended front garden, radiating a sort of bucolic serenity that could never be found in something belonging to Daisy Tonner. Daisy… The thought of that name is a stab of pain in his chest, as sharp as her teeth digging into his leg in that dismal Hunt domain. He wonders, not for the first time, what this universe’s version of Daisy has made of her life. How different everything could have turned out for her, unshackled by the inexorable pull of the Hunt. Maybe she stayed in Wales, maybe she never joined the police, maybe she has a tight-knit circle of friends who value her fierce loyalty. Or maybe that murderous instinct was inside her all along; maybe in this world she had followed the intoxicating scent of blood down the road to destruction all of her own volition. He’s spent an excruciating amount of time contemplating that, how much of an Entity is a driving force and how much of it is just a convenient canvas to project your own desires onto, and he’s never found a satisfying answer.

The interior of the cottage further proves that this is a far cry from that austere cabin in the Highlands. While it is still somewhat lacking in personal touches, it’s inviting nonetheless, with its charming assembly of cosy furniture, the deep pile rugs adorning the wooden floor, the colourful art prints lining the walls. The living room is a strange blend of modern and antiquated, a rustic hearth in one corner and a flatscreen TV in another, an old grandfather clock set beside a wobbly IKEA shelf filled with thrillers and science fiction novels. Martin sets off to explore the other rooms, an excited grin splitting his face, while Jon lingers in the living room, running a tentative finger along the wood panelling on one of the walls, like he’s expecting the house to dissolve into dust the moment he touches it. He still can’t believe this is real. That after a long and fruitless search through available flats all across the country had nearly put them off the whole endeavour entirely, they just happened to chance upon an idyllic little cottage in a tranquil Scottish seaside town by the name of Kirkrothes, offered for a modest rent by the recently retired headmaster of the local primary school. It’s a stroke of luck so astronomical as to seem almost impossible, and as much as Jon has tried to convince himself that there’s nothing suspicious about it, it does little to remedy the nagging doubt that has settled in his chest. It all reminds him too much of the way they had arrived in this universe, with his stab wound mysteriously healed and money and documentation conveniently appeared in their pockets. Is the Spider ensnaring him in its gossamer threads even now, weaving a web so intricate that he cannot perceive its true shape until it’s too late? Is it luring him into a comforting illusion of domestic bliss, just so it can feast on his despair when the rug is inevitably pulled from under his feet?

But he has learned by now that he cannot allow his thoughts to travel down that path. If he does, he’ll only descend into paranoia and self-sabotage again, and that’s the last thing he needs right now – more importantly, it’s the last thing Martin needs right now. And after all, why shouldn’t it just be plain old good luck? They’ve both endured agonising years of having ill fortune piled on them like a giant rubbish heap, so why shouldn’t the universe decide to tip the scales in their favour for once? It’s only fair.

Jon takes his hand off the wall that is still solid, still there, and goes to join Martin in the kitchen. This, too, is a marked improvement from the one in the safehouse, or the one in Martin’s flat, which was closer to a kitchenette and didn’t lend itself well to anything more culinarily refined than ready meals. This one, on the other hand, has a spacious cooking area, complete with an old-fashioned gas stove, plenty of counter space, and an impressive collection of kitchen utensils. It’s practically begging to be used, and Jon feels a long-forgotten itch return to his fingers, an almost physical need to chop and stir and season, a powerful longing for the comforting scent of a delicious meal created by his own hands. He used to be a decent cook, a long time ago, back before… everything. Maybe it’s not too late to start again.

The walls are painted the bright green of the first leaves in spring, and the sturdy kitchen table is placed right beneath a wide window looking out over the back garden. Night has fallen hours ago, but it’s easy to imagine sunlight spilling through the glass and bathing the whole room in a warm golden glow.

Martin is rummaging through the cupboards, holding up every single novelty mug to see if it stands up to Jon’s scrutiny. So far, the parade has included one with a brief Scots dictionary (verdict: a rather shocking amount of profanity, but it might be useful for talking to the locals), one reading ‘Thirty & Flirty’ (verdict: not worth commenting on), and one with a cartoon design of a cat wearing a jumper (verdict: okay, that one’s kind of cute). Next, Martin presents a mug with a stylised drawing of a highland cow, brandishing it with a triumphant grin like it’s a rare treasure, and they both burst into laughter at the exact same time.

It’s the kind of raucous, unguarded laughter that springs from shared exhilaration at something that wasn’t even that funny, and they don’t stop laughing until they are both teary-eyed and out of breath. When was the last time Jon had laughed like that? God, he can’t even remember.

“So, what do you think?” Martin asks once he has managed to catch his breath. “A good cow?”

Jon lets out another, frankly undignified, snort of laughter. “The best cow.”

Martin abandons his exploration of the cupboards and moves to stand by the kitchen table, his fingers brushing lightly over the backrest of one of the wicker chairs, like he fears it will crumble under a firmer touch. “This is really nice,” he says, his voice straddling that thin line between wonder and incredulity. “I just… can’t believe how nice it is.”

Jon smiles. It seems like he is not the only one questioning the reality of their new home, of their new life. Not the only one dreading the moment everything will come crashing down on their heads. Perhaps they can assuage each other’s anxieties, at least, even if they can’t manage to banish them on their own. He sidles up behind Martin and winds his arms around his waist, folding his hands over his stomach, then presses a kiss to the space between his shoulder blades through the fabric of his shirt.

“Me neither,” he whispers against the back of Martin’s neck. “But we’ve got time. To… to learn to believe it.”

Martin gives a brief hum that could be assent or could be apathy, and his body remains tense in Jon’s arms, every muscle pulled taut as a bowstring. A familiar apprehension takes hold of Jon’s insides, as he feels the relaxed, languid peace of just a few moments ago slip into something darker, something cold and unforgiving. This is one of those times when Martin vanishes somewhere out of reach, like he is still lost in the unfathomable fog of Forsaken, and Jon is terrified that there’ll come a day when there’s nothing he can do to bring him back.

But today is not that day. Jon wraps his arms tighter around Martin’s middle, presses his face into his neck, hopes fervently that his touch, the physical reminder of his presence, will be enough to tether Martin to the world. After a few agonising minutes of this, of holding onto Martin like a piece of flotsam in a stormy sea, he finally feels Martin relax in his arms, the foreboding darkness broken by the first tentative rays of sun. He breathes a sigh of relief and squeezes Martin’s waist once more for good measure before loosening his iron grip.

Martin twists around until he faces Jon, cupping his jaw in one hand and tangling the other in his hair, then tilts his chin up so he can meet him in a soft kiss. Jon melts into it, closing his eyes and parting his lips, letting all residual worries fade into the distant background. So what if this seems too good to be true? They’ve had more than their fair share of things that seemed too bad to be true, so perhaps they’ve earned the other extreme by now. His train of thought is derailed completely when Martin shifts the positioning of his arms, and without warning, Jon is lifted into the air like he weighs nothing at all. He fails to stifle an undignified yelp and instinctively throws his arms around Martin’s neck, clutching onto him for dear life. A familiar tidal wave of panic washes over him, the terrifying sensation of being utterly powerless and no longer in control of your own body, but it dissolves as quickly as it came, flowing back into a tranquil sea. This is Martin. He trusts him with everything he has. He’s more than happy to hand control over to him, as daunting a notion as that would be with literally anyone else; he knows he can put his life into this man’s hands and trust him to keep it safe. He has collected enough scars over the years that now even gentle touches hurt like branding irons, but not from Martin, never from Martin. Even when Martin slid a knife between his ribs, Jon felt the kiss more than the blade. Martin is the only one whose touch he seeks out rather than recoils from, that gives him comfort rather than terror. The only one. That’s what makes a home, he thinks, not bricks and floorboards and furniture, not even the plants on the windowsills or the pictures stuck to the fridge, but that unwavering certainty that you can let yourself fall and have someone there to catch you.

So Jon relaxes into the embrace, burying his face in the crook of Martin’s neck and breathing in his scent, looping his legs around his waist. “Don’t drop me,” he mumbles, though he knows there’s no danger of that.

“I promise I won’t,” Martin says solemnly.

For a little while, Martin just stands there with Jon held securely in his arms, swaying slightly back and forth in a soothing rhythm like a slow dance, both of them having forgotten all about unpacking and exploring the rest of the house and other pressing responsibilities. Jon is still a little puzzled as to Martin’s motive behind this, but he’s very much not complaining. There’s a difference between being theoretically aware that your boyfriend is strong enough to pick you up with ease, and getting to experience it first-hand. The previous times Martin had carried him, he’d been in no fit state to properly register it, let alone give it the appreciation it deserved. He’ll have to make up for that now.

Martin seems to have finally remembered his reason for doing this, as he walks over to the closest kitchen counter in small, measured strides and deposits Jon on top of it. Jon’s legs are still wrapped around Martin’s waist, and so he has no difficulty in tugging him even closer to give him the kiss he’s clearly been waiting for. Martin deepens it immediately, nipping at Jon’s bottom lip and taking advantage of the resulting gasp to slip his tongue inside his mouth. They don’t draw apart until their lips are swollen and their hair dishevelled, until they are both breathless and giddy, until every possible cause for concern is forgotten.

“You know, I’ve kind of always wanted to do this,” Martin admits, a faint flush rising on his cheeks. “I used to daydream about it all the time. Just… moving into a nice little house with someone I love, a proper home and not just a place to sleep in, and snogging them senseless against the kitchen counter before we’d even unpacked any of the boxes. I mean, the ‘finding a home’ part was more important than the ‘snogging against the counter’ part, obviously, but that… was also there.” The flush deepens, and he lets out that little titter of nervous laughter that tends to betray his anxiety. “God, I sound ridiculous, don’t I?”

Jon leans in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Not at all.”

~*~

“So… I’ve been looking for a job,” Martin says casually over dinner.

Jon pauses with his fork lifted halfway to his mouth, letting the strands of spaghetti he’d carefully twirled around it dangle onto his plate. “Y-you have? When?”

Martin shrugs. “Last week, thereabouts.”

Jon takes a mouthful of spaghetti and chews slowly, trying to take time to process this before his next question comes out as an accusation. He knows that there are things Martin prefers to handle on his own, that he has a need for regular periods of solitude that Jon doesn’t share but can at least make an effort to understand. He knows this is neither a warning sign of the Lonely nor a personal slight against Jon, but simply an intrinsic part of who Martin is, and Jon would never ask him to change that. They have talked about it… kind of. They are working on communication, on talking about things that bother them rather than leaving them unspoken, letting them fester and rankle until they poison all their words and actions. They are working on communication, but they still have a long way to go. There are still times when Jon can’t help but feel wounded when Martin disappears on long solitary walks, can’t help but feel useless and left behind, can’t help but wish that the two of them could fuse into one being and never be apart again.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” he asks when his mouth is free again, careful to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d actually find something? Didn’t want to get your hopes up for nothing. Or mine, I suppose.”

Jon takes a sip of his wine, considering the implications of Martin’s words. “Does that mean you’ve found…?”

“Nothing definite yet!” Martin says quickly. “But Sarah – you know, that girl at the post office? – mentioned something the other day about there being a vacancy at the library, so I thought I might as well give it a shot. And, um, I’ve got an interview. On Tuesday.”

Jon’s initial irritation at having been kept out of the loop melts into a warm rush of pride. “That’s brilliant, darling,” he says, the endearment slipping out before he even notices it. Martin’s cheeks redden, but he doesn’t comment on it. Jon feels his own face heat up and busies himself with the rest of his spaghetti, clearing his plate at record speed.

“I’ll have to make it through the interview first,” Martin says, his voice a few notes above its usual pitch and his cheeks still lightly dusted with pink. “I don’t know how many other applicants there are. And they can’t look too closely at my qualifications or employment history. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten better at faking a CV since I was 18, so it hopefully won’t raise any eyebrows. But still, if they actually try to follow up on any of the stuff I put on there, that’s gonna be… a problem. Then again, according to Sarah, the head librarian is… a bit of an oddball, let’s put it that way, so I doubt she’ll care much about proper interview procedure. Plus, I might not actually be too bad at the job. I’ve got almost ten years of experience as a library assistant under my belt, after all, even if it was at… well. And it’s something I really want to do, not just a boring desk job that pays the bills, y’know? You’ve seen that library, it’s so nice and cosy, and you can just tell that someone truly cares about the place. And it’d be a good way to get involved with the local community...”

He breaks off when Jon is unable to keep the smile off his face any longer. “Sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Jon lets his smile grow wider, into the unabashed grin he only shows around Martin. “No, no,” he hastens to assure him, “I’m just… It’s nice to see you so excited.”

Martin smiles back, then critically eyes Jon’s empty plate, and scoops a second helping onto it without asking for permission. There was a time when that would have annoyed Jon to no end, but now he tucks in gladly. For most of his life, food was either a tedious chore he tended to avoid whenever possible or a pointless indulgence as his monstrous body hungered for far more sinister nourishment, but now he’s starting to appreciate it as a comfort and not just a necessity, to enjoy the simple pleasure of a delicious meal in good company. Getting back into cooking has been a big factor in this. He can spend hours in the kitchen as he tries to master increasingly complicated dishes, rewarded with the aromatic scent of spices and seared meat pervading the entire cottage. They’ve made a resolution to share homecooked meals as often as possible, and so far they’ve managed to stick to it, barring the occasional nights spent on the couch with takeaway boxes resting on their laps. Every Friday night, they treat themselves to something a little more special, lighting candles and opening a bottle of wine and getting out the gingham tablecloth they bought from a charity shop. It’s the little things that make all the difference – Jon had read that in the advice column of the local newspaper, and was forced to agree with it. Martin, for his part, has shown quite the knack for baking, something he rarely got to indulge in while still caring for his mother. While Jon revels in the fast-paced frenzy of juggling three different pans at once and ensuring the rice is cooked to the minute, Martin prefers the slower, more forgiving pace of baking, of kneading dough and leaving it to rise, of waiting patiently in front of the oven until the biscuits have turned golden brown. More than once in the past few weeks, Jon has woken early in the morning to the mouth-watering smell of cinnamon and nutmeg drifting from the kitchen, Martin having tried out a new recipe at the crack of dawn. Martin gifts most of his creations to their neighbours or other people around town, but not before making sure that Jon has gotten his fair share. Between that and their regular, generous meals, it’s no surprise that he’s been putting on a fair bit of weight, causing his once loose-fitting clothes to become uncomfortably tight. As much as he grumbled about the hassle of having to buy an almost completely new wardrobe, he’s actually rather happy about that recent development. The palpable reminder that he is healing. How his bruised and tortured body is now well-nourished and as healthy as it can be, how its sharp edges and harsh lines have been softened into something smooth and supple. Like a garden blossoming from a barren wasteland.

He made the sauce for today’s spaghetti from scratch, using fresh tomatoes they’d picked up from the farmer’s market, and he’s rather pleased with the result. This time, he’s let Martin help him, narrating him through the steps and delegating him some of the simpler tasks. When he was younger, he’d been adamant to be alone in the kitchen while he cooked, convinced that the presence of others would only disrupt the process, but now he thinks he can get used to cooking together. Maybe it’s not just a sentimental myth that a meal prepared with someone else always tastes just a little better. He eats slowly, savouring the light sweetness of the tomatoes, savouring the zesty hint of rosemary, savouring the fact that he’s alive and able to appreciate such humdrum miracles as homemade pasta sauce.

“Have you thought about… y’know, getting a job yourself?” Martin asks once both their plates are empty, jerking Jon out of his reverie.

He twirls the stem of his wine glass between his fingers, deliberating his answer. Of course he has thought about it – their steadily depleting bank account hasn’t left him much choice – but turning the thoughts into action has proven a near-insurmountable hurdle. What frustrates him most is that he can’t even pinpoint why.

“No pressure!” Martin hastens to add, seeming to sense Jon’s unease. “You really don’t have to if you don’t want to. I was just… curious.”

Jon still gropes for a reply, and settles on, “I suppose I could use something to keep me busy. Especially if you’re going to be out at work. You know how I get with too much unstructured time on my hands.”

True to his word, he hasn’t slipped back into his self-destructive patterns (notwithstanding the occasional minor lapse), but that doesn’t mean he’s found a satisfying substitute to scratch that incessant itch in him, that nagging urge to atone for his mistakes and prove himself worthy of this unearned second chance. He’s started to embrace the possibility, slowly, tentatively, that he’s not beyond saving, that he’s more than just a hateful creature that deserves only destruction. Regardless, he still struggles to be left alone with only his dark thoughts for company. Sometimes he feels like he is engaged in a vicious tug of war with his own mind, and Martin isn’t always around to anchor him back to reality. He’s tested out a variety of distractions – baking, origami, reality shows, to name but a few – but none of them have managed to capture his attention for longer than a day or two. At least the agitation of moving had given him something to focus on, but now that they have been here for several weeks and the novelty has mostly worn off, he finds himself getting restless again. Longing for a cigarette, longing for a statement, longing for… things he shouldn’t even think about.

“Like that time I tried to teach you how to knit?” Martin says with a teasing grin.

Jon groans. “Don’t remind me. I thought I’d successfully repressed that memory.”

Martin gets up to rinse their plates in the sink. “So… what kind of job would you be interested in? If you’re interested at all, of course, it’s- don’t stress yourself about it. If you want, I could ask around if anyone’s hiring. I know quite a few people here now.”

Well, there lies the crux of the issue. Jon sighs and takes a large swig of his wine. “I… don’t really know? I mean, archivist is out of the question, obviously…”

Martin doesn’t join in his mirthless laughter.

“And I can’t think of anything that particularly appeals to me,” Jon continues. “I never have, really, not even when I was younger. You don’t get a literature degree for the job prospects, you know? After I graduated, I worked as an editorial assistant for a few years and I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t much like it either. I suppose my research position was pretty decent, but now it’s all tangled up with my other memories of the… of the Institute.”

Martin sits back down and reaches for Jon’s hand across the table, which he only now realises he has balled into a tight fist. Martin curls his palm over it and coaxes him to open his hand and link their fingers together.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says softly. “We’ll figure something out. How about I just keep an eye out for job opportunities around here, and I’ll tell you if I find something and you can decide if you want to give it a try? Does that sound good?”

“Yeah. It does.” Jon squeezes his hand. “Thank you, Martin.”

“Any time, love.” Martin squeezes back, then gently untangles their fingers so he can stand up and return to the sink to wash their dishes properly.

“Oh, and let me know if you need a fake CV too,” he says over his shoulder as he reaches for the washing up liquid. “I spent a lot of time on mine, I’m kind of proud of it.”

“Mmm. I might just take you up on that offer.”

“Please do. Gotta say, I like that for once you, the Oxford graduate, have no advantages over me, the high school drop-out.”

Jon buries his head in his hands in mock despair. “What cruel fate. Where would we be without academic elitism?”

“Poor thing,” Martin coos. “Now, if your fancy degree from another universe permits it, would you mind lending me a hand with these dishes?”

After the dishes are done and Jon has been the target of several more jibes about Oxbridge pomposity (not entirely undeserved, he has to concede), they curl up together on the couch and put on some action movie from the 90s that Martin proclaims to be a cult classic and Jon has never even heard of. He hasn’t missed much, as it turns out. The whole thing is a travesty, an insult to the art of cinema, chock-full of drawn-out car chases and dialogue so inane it borders on incomprehensible. But Martin likes it, and Jon doesn’t want to spoil his fun, so he refrains from voicing his scathing commentary, content to simply be enveloped in Martin’s strong arms and nuzzle his face into his neck.

It’s getting harder and harder to pay attention to the movie, as his thoughts begin to drift to other matters. He tucks a smile into Martin’s neck and thinks back on the weeks since they arrived here. Kirkrothes has the same kind of sleepy charm he remembers from the village near the safehouse, but with a much better infrastructure and in reasonable proximity to Edinburgh. And the locals are almost disconcertingly friendly, chatty and cordial to a degree that takes him aback after being surrounded by taciturn Southerners for most of his life. They would have had reason to be wary of the two Englishmen with a mysterious past, but they have generally chosen to greet their arrival with kindness rather than suspicion, and Jon is deeply grateful for that. Granted, he hasn’t put that into words, or even exchanged more than a few standard pleasantries with most of his new neighbours. It turns out that Martin is quite adept at winning people over, in particular elderly ladies, who tend to show him pictures of their grandchildren and foist homemade biscuits and knitting patterns on him within minutes of meeting him, so Jon usually lets him do most of the talking while he hovers beside him with a strained smile. At least no one has commented on his scars yet. Or on his startling lack of social graces. Or on the numerous other things that clearly mark him as an oddity. He sometimes wonders what a picture he, scarred and scowling and scrawny, makes next to soft, kind, handsome Martin. They must look like the most mismatched couple you could imagine. He wonders if people secretly pity Martin for being stuck with this battered ruin of a man when he could have his pick of far more suitable partners, if they’re just too polite to point out the obvious. Once, he’d gone so far as to confess his insecurities to Martin – or at least, an abridged and sanitised version of them – but that had resulted in Martin gripping him by the shoulders and vehemently swearing that Jon was the most beautiful person he’d ever met, which, in Jon’s opinion, is far too hyperbolic to be even remotely true. So he’s opted instead for his usual approach to anxiety, a method he likes to call ‘ignore it and hope it goes away’. It’s not working as well as he’d like.

Of course, all this would be much easier if he actually made an effort to get to know people, and Martin’s unsubtle hints to that effect are getting hard to ignore. But then again, making friends has never been his forte, has it? It’s probably quite telling that his closest friends in recent years included his ex-girlfriend and a woman who had once tried to kill him. In spite of Martin’s insistence that it can’t be healthy for Jon to speak to no one but Martin all day, Jon fails to see what’s so wrong with that. Other people are… difficult. Hard to understand, and even less likely to understand him. Better to keep a polite distance and leave the socialising to Martin, he’s clearly doing a better job of it.

Seeing the way Martin’s face lights up when he chats to their neighbours or holds rambling conversations about poetry at the used book shop sends fondness spreading through Jon’s chest, like the gentle warmth of a freshly brewed cup of tea on a winter morning. But it’s mingled with something darker too, a feeling somewhere between grief and fury when he thinks of how isolated Martin has been for much of his life, even long before the Lonely, when it is so glaringly obvious how good he is with people, how much energy he derives from social contact. It makes Jon wish, not for the first time, that he could simply rip out the pages of Martin’s life, tear them into tiny pieces and then burn them to ashes, and write him a better story instead, one where every single word is brimming with love. But as much as it pains him to know that he can’t, he still has the consolation that they made it here in the end, that none of the atrocities they have endured have succeeded in destroying them. Perhaps Martin was right after all, and it took all that terror and hardship for them to get to this point. Perhaps the good and the bad are always inextricably entangled.

It’s a simple life they lead, but by no means a boring one. They take long walks along the beach if the weather and Jon’s fickle right leg allow it; if not, they huddle together on the couch in front of the fireplace with a large throw blanket covering their legs, reading and sipping tea and usually falling asleep sooner or later. They cycle between the town’s three charity shops and the weekly flea market to hunt down decorations for the cottage. Jon tends to get bored after about two minutes of this and skulks off to explore the books section, but Martin enjoys foraging through the motley assortment of knickknacks until he finds something that catches his fancy. And Jon can’t argue with his taste – between their various second-hand acquisitions and their ongoing experiments with rearranging the furniture, their little house looks and feels more like their own with every passing day, more like a home. A place they can mould to their wishes.

While Jon wouldn’t have minded if they sequestered themselves in the cottage and lived as hermits for the rest of their days, only occasionally venturing out for errands, Martin had insisted that they should try their best to become integrated in the community, and Jon couldn’t think of a convincing counterargument. So they went to the library, the heritage centre, the ruins of a 14^th century castle, and almost every single shop on the high street. Martin was determined to strike up a conversation whenever the opportunity arose – and opportunities for a chat are never in short supply around here. He’d even managed to drag Jon on one of the guided history tours, which Jon had been quick to dismiss as poorly researched tourist bait, but he was forced to revise his judgement not long into the surprisingly fascinating tour. On their next visit to the library, he borrowed a tall stack of books on the history of the area, and since then he’s been spending hours every day poring over them, or relating the most interesting facts to Martin.

Everything has been so good since their arrival in Kirkrothes – close to perfect, really – that it’s easy to forget that the months before have been far from smooth sailing for them. Have they moved through the difficult part, Jon wonders, have they weathered the storm and are now free to enjoy the sun? Have their stumbling blocks turned into stepping stones? But he knows, deep down, that it’s never as simple as that. His paralysing guilt and his needling hunger for something haven’t evaporated just because they have faded into the background for now, and he assumes that the same goes for the vague sadness that sometimes hangs over Martin like a heavy raincloud and his deeply ingrained need to care for others but never himself.

Jon thinks he understands now what the greatest threat to their peaceful new lives is: not the resurgence of the Fears or some cunning ploy of the Web, but their own traumas and insecurities, even those unconnected to the supernatural, those stubborn weeds whose roots lie deep and seem impossible to pull out. But they will be able to pull them; he has to believe that. Perhaps not quite all of them, but the majority at least, and they will plant bright flowers in their place, until they have a garden so vivid and flourishing that the odd weed won’t matter. All they need is to be prepared. To be ready for the bad days, and to be sure that better days will follow.

He has taken one small step onto the right path already, by paying a visit to the local GP for a thorough check-up. He gave her a flimsy explanation to account for his multitude of scars, and glossed over the matter of his missing ribs entirely. She raised her eyebrows so much during the initial examination that they seemed permanently glued to her hairline, but at least she didn’t ask any more questions than strictly necessary. She confirmed afterwards that with a moderate amount of exercise, a healthy diet, and some painkillers if needed, most of his lingering symptoms were going to be manageable to non-existent. She referred him to a specialist in Edinburgh that could get a cane fitted for him, to help him on the days when his leg is acting up, and, on his request, gave him the contact details of a therapist based in Dunfermline with a special focus on trauma.

Jon hasn’t called her yet, but he is planning to, and just telling Martin that earned him a relieved smile and a tight hug. Martin has been decidedly less enthusiastic about giving therapy a try himself, dodging every one of Jon’s carefully worded questions with a shrug and a half-hearted promise to think about it. But at least he hasn’t dismissed the idea entirely, and Jon knows this is progress too, even if it may not look like it. Sometimes, small changes are all you get. Sometimes, they are the best you can do.

Things will not always be as untroubled as they are now, but that’s okay. Whatever happens, they’ll face it together. Whatever happens, he wakes up beside Martin every morning and falls asleep in his arms every night. He will get to grow old with this man, and that is so much more than he thought he would ever get; that is a miracle by itself.

The end credits start to roll, and Jon realises he has zoned out for almost the entire second half of the movie, though he doubts it has picked up in quality during the last 45 minutes. He tilts his head to catch Martin’s eye, only to find him fast asleep, his face slack and his glasses askew. Jon plucks them off his nose, gently brushing a stray curl behind his ear as he does so, and grins to himself. Seems like Martin wasn’t all that captivated by the movie either. Just as he is starting to think that simply staring at Martin’s sleeping face (which is the opposite of graceful, and all the more charming for it) would be the perfect way to occupy his time for a while, the credits music switches to an obnoxiously cheerful pop song that should have never survived beyond the 80s. Jon reaches for the remote on the coffee table to turn off the infernal noise, but with Martin’s arms still wrapped snugly around his waist, doing so without waking him proves to be a difficult undertaking. Despite Jon’s best efforts to be cautious, Martin shifts and mumbles a string of nonsense words, and when Jon turns to face him again, he slowly blinks one eye open, keeping the other squeezed shut as if it refuses to be awake.

“Hi,” he whispers blearily. “’d I fall asleep?”

There it is again, that warm rush of fondness that still catches Jon off-guard every time. A feeling he would gladly drown in.

“You did,” he teases. “You know, if you can’t even stay awake past ten anymore, I’d say that’s a clear sign that you really are getting old.”

Martin takes a playful swat at his chest. “Hey! ‘m only three months older than you. ‘sides, I’ve been tired all day. Didn’t really… sleep well last night.”

He bites his lip as if he’s said too much, and averts his eyes. He had a nightmare the night before, one that left him shaken enough that his erratic breathing managed to wake Jon, who sleeps like the dead on those treasured occasions that he is given a break from his own nightmares. As usual when something like this happens, Martin wouldn’t say what his dream had been about; and as usual, he rejected even the smallest form of comfort, tolerating only a few brushes of Jon’s fingers through his sweat-drenched hair and a light kiss dropped to his temple before bundling Jon up in his arms and holding him tight against his chest, as if he was the one in need of consolation. Jon didn’t press, because he knew it would make Martin shut down more rather than open up, but it took him a long time to fall back asleep, even after Martin’s breathing finally evened out. He wishes he could find the key to access those parts of Martin that he keeps hidden like secret chambers. Those parts that are always, always locked. Jon tries not to show how much it grieves him that even after everything, even despite how much progress they’ve made, there are still times when Martin seems as distant as a stranger, when nothing Jon says or does can get through to him. Sometimes, Jon feels like they are once again on that foggy beach beneath the Institute, but this time, Martin won’t see him.

But this isn’t one of those times, and Jon is determined not to let it turn into one.

“Okay, okay, fair point,” he says, steering them back to comfortable banter before the silence can start to fester. “Maybe we’re both getting on a bit, though. You’ve heard what my joints sound like every time I stand up.”

Martin gives a mock shudder of horror. “Actively trying not to hear it, thanks. Anyway, you’ve always been an old man, at least in spirit. I mean, rum and raisin ice cream? Seriously?”

That might have been more of a ridiculous attempt to appear more mature in front of his co-workers than a genuine preference, but if Jon admits that now, he’ll never live it down.

“You’re one to talk! With your knitting, and your baking, and your retro aesthetic – what was it again you said about ‘low-fi charm’? Face it, Martin, we’re both old men.”

“Mmm, I like the sound of that, actually,” Martin hums. “We’re like a couple of proper octogenie- octogona- octowhatever, I’m too tired for this.”

Jon chuckles. “All that’s missing are a couple of lawn chairs.”

Martin makes a sleepy noise of approval, his eyelids drooping again. As much as Jon would like to let him fall asleep again and snuggle against his soft, warm body with his head pillowed on his comfortingly regular heartbeat, he knows that manoeuvring a sleeping Martin off the sofa and into bed would be an impossible task for him, and Martin’s back would not take kindly to a night spent on the sofa. (Neither would Jon’s, for that matter. They are both senior citizens masquerading as thirtysomethings, after all.)

“C’mon, darling,” he whispers. “Time to go to bed.”

They both freeze, and Martin’s face sports an impressive blush that Jon is pretty sure is mirrored on his own. This is the second time this evening that that particular term of endearment has escaped him seemingly of its own accord, damn it. It’s not that he’s opposed to pet names on principle – it still makes his heart flutter when Martin calls him love, and the occasional sweetheart has proven highly effective in utterly destroying Jon’s ability to function – but he’s never seen himself as the kind of person to actually use them. He hasn’t in past relationships, and he saw no need to start with Martin – nothing wrong with his name, after all. So why is this word, this hackneyed term that is practically dripping with sentimentality, just slipping out now? Why does it feel so natural to say it?

“I-” he begins without knowing how to continue the sentence. An apology, perhaps?

But Martin’s dumbstruck expression quickly morphs into a warm smile. “I like it when you call me that.”

It’s beginning to rain outside when they curl up together in bed, and Jon listens to its gentle patter on the windowpane, listens to the soft susurrus of Martin’s breathing, listens to the steady thumping of his heart below his ear, and waits for the kind of sleep that feels like an oasis and not a battlefield. On nights like this one, it’s easy to believe in happy endings.

Chapter Text

It’s a slow afternoon at the library. No more than ten people or so have visited since they opened at 10 AM, and the last one left half an hour ago, leaving the place almost entirely deserted. No wonder – the weather is unusually nice today, not a single cloud marring the bright blue sky and the temperature inching towards those rare 20 degrees. It’s the first proper spring day of the year. (About time, given it’s almost May.) Martin has lived in Scotland long enough now to have learned that Scots take advantage of every little ray of sun they get, flocking to parks and beaches and town squares as soon as the weather turns from ‘horrid’ to ‘acceptable’. He can’t blame them, really – far too many days lately have been what the locals would call ‘dreich’, and Martin is grateful for the faintest promise of summer.

He’s rather missing the usual rainy day hubbub, though. Most of the joy in his job lies in the people he meets, the little snippets of insight into others’ lives: excitable toddlers covered in fingerpaint and clamouring for a snack, bespectacled pensioners squinting at a computer screen as they wrestle with the concept of email, housewives eager to impart their opinions on the latest Nicholas Sparks. Today, it’s as silent as people who have never set foot inside a library imagine a library to be, with only the staff inside the building. Catriona has retreated to the office to do god-knows-what; Molly is manning the front desk and frowning down at her phone instead of doing any work; and Martin is slowly pushing the returns cart along the aisles as he goes about the strangely meditative process of reshelving.

He stifles a yawn. The sudden heat is making him drowsy, and five o’clock seems to be approaching at a snail’s pace. He likes his job, he really does – not just because after his previous job, any position that didn’t literally keep him trapped at his workplace and involved an almost certain risk of meeting a horrific end would have seemed like a dream come true, but because he genuinely enjoys the work – but today he wouldn’t mind clocking out earlier. It seems such a shame to waste this beautiful day stuck inside, when he could be making the most of it with Jon, maybe having a picnic out on the meadow behind their cottage like they’ve been talking about. Or, more likely, just taking a nap on the bench in the front garden.

Martin is at the start of the crime and thrillers section, removing a Tesco receipt repurposed as bookmark from a worn copy of The Da Vinci Code, when he hears a voice behind him.

“Say, young man, you wouldnae happen tae ken where I can find the works of this Keats laddie? I’m in need of some decent kindling for my fireplace.”

The voice is almost absurdly gravelly and the Scottish accent is… an atrocious imitation. Martin whirls around, nearly dropping the Dan Brown in the process, and of course it is Jon, who immediately erupts into a burst of laughter.

“Y-your face,” he manages to get out, before being taken over by another laughing fit.

Martin crosses his arms over his chest and glowers down at Jon, though there’s no real malice in it. “For the record, I wasn’t buying it for a second.”

“Sure you weren’t,” Jon says, still sniggering.

Martin rolls his eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway? If you didn’t just come all this way to insult my taste in poetry.”

“Does a man need an excuse to see his boyfriend? I was all alone at home, and the weather was so nice, and people kept passing by the cottage on their way to the beach. I counted five couples in twenty minutes alone. I missed you.”

His little pout is adorably petulant, and it’s even more adorable how he still insists on never having been adorable even once in his life, and Martin’s face softens. “Aw, I missed you too.”

It’s the truth; and though Martin knows it seems silly to miss your partner after only a few hours apart when you spend most of your time around them anyway, he thinks what they have been through warrants a certain amount of co-dependency. He quickly slides The Da Vinci Code into its correct position on the shelf, pushes aside the returns cart so he can grab Jon around the waist and pull him closer, then leans down into a thorough kiss. By the time they draw apart, gasping for air, Jon’s pupils are blown wide and his lips still parted.

“I should visit you at work more often,” he mumbles, his voice a little hoarse.

Martin grins. “Not a bad idea. Wait, scratch that, it’s a terrible idea. I’d never get any work done, and I’d be fired within a week.”

“Worth it,” Jon says, and leans in again.

This kiss is even longer and deeper than the one before, only broken by a few hurried intervals so they can catch their breath. Jon walks Martin backwards until his spine is braced against the hard wooden slats connecting two of the bookshelves, which should be an uncomfortable position, but Martin’s nerves do not have the capacity to register any sensations other than the feeling of Jon’s spit-slick lips against his own, the light scrape of his teeth, his hands fisting in the soft fabric of Martin’s jumper, the length of his body pressed against Martin’s. Jon begins to trail kisses along Martin’s jaw and then over his neck, and when he homes in on a particularly sensitive spot just above the hollow of Martin’s throat, Martin is sad to have to gently redirect him back to his lips before he can start to suck. If Catriona saw him with a hickey, he doesn’t think he would survive the non-stop teasing. He opens his mouth to let Jon’s tongue slip inside and tangles one hand in Jon’s hair, lightly pulling on the strands until Jon emits a soft gasp. They lose themselves in the kiss for an uncertain period of time, the returns cart and Martin’s responsibilities and the whole library long forgotten. Martin is dimly aware that the noises they’re making would be embarrassing in the extreme if anyone were to hear them, but he figures there’s no danger of that in the deserted library.

Or so he thought. A pointed cough startles them both out of their fervour, and they pull apart at once, a flood of jumbled apologies spilling from both their mouths.

Catriona watches them fumble for words with a steely gaze in her blue-grey eyes, then breaks into her characteristic deep belly laugh. “No need to apologise,” she says once the laughter has faded to a wry chuckle. “You have no idea what I’ve gotten up to between those shelves when I was young. Oh, the stories I could tell you…”

She has a nostalgic glint in her eyes, like she is actually about to launch into one of those tales, and while Martin is admittedly rather curious to hear it, he thinks now might not be the best time.

“Um, this is Jon,” he says quickly. “My… my boyfriend.”

Not for the first time, he feels like that word is woefully inadequate for what they are to each other, but what alternatives are there? ‘Partner’ is too formal for his taste, and most of the other options are too ridiculous to even consider. Of course, there is always ‘husband’…

Thankfully, Catriona interrupts his train of thought that has been rapidly veering off track. “Well, I should hope so, given that you’ve just been snogging his face off.”

She extends a heavily beringed hand to a blushing Jon, who takes it with all the caution one would afford a potentially dangerous animal. “Nice to meet you, Jon. I’m Catriona. Martin’s boss. I take it he’s told you about me?”

“Er… yes,” Jon says lamely.

Catriona winks at him. “Only good things, I hope. I’ve certainly heard only good things about you, Jon. Rather too many good things, if you ask me. You’re a lucky man. That boy thinks you hung the bloody moon.”

Now it’s Martin’s turn to blush. But Catriona pays him no mind, instead focusing all her attention on a thorough scrutiny of Jon, eyeing him from top to toe as if he’s a book in danger of ending up on the reject pile. Martin can sense Jon squirming under her probing gaze, but then he squares up and meets it with a piercing gaze of his own, not flinching or even blinking. Whatever faint echo of Beholding still reverberates within him, he is certainly adept at channelling it. And it has the desired effect, because Catriona finally relents and takes her eyes off him.

“Thought you’d be taller,” she mutters, but offers no further comments, which means that Jon has passed her inspection.

Martin smiles. He doesn’t think Jon realises what a compliment that is. Catriona may have a cordial, if a little eccentric, attitude around just about everyone, but he knows by now how rare it is for her to take a genuine liking to someone. Martin has been accepted into that select circle for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, and now Jon has as well.

Jon, for his part, is still fixing Catriona with the same mixture of intrigue and scepticism he used to reserve for particularly bizarre statements, and Martin wonders what he makes of her, the multi-coloured shawls draped around her neck, the messy grey bun with a pencil stuck inside it, the surprisingly astute eyes peering out from behind her half-moon spectacles, the chipped purple nail polish.

“Well, I’d be delighted to see you around here again, Jon – though I’d rather you keep your mouth off my assistant until closing time.” Jon flushes again, clearly still unused to Catriona’s particular brand of humour. She glances down at her wristwatch and tuts. “Much as I’d love to have a chat, I have a mountain of paperwork to get back to. Martin, do you think you can finish shelving the returns without any more… distractions?”

“Er… of course.”

Catriona has already turned to leave and flashes them a crooked grin over her shoulder. “Excellent. Be seeing you.”

Jon waits cautiously until Catriona has disappeared behind the staff door and out of earshot, before erupting into a fit of breathless laughter.

Martin grins at him. “What did I tell you? She’s… an acquired taste.”

“Oh no, don’t get me wrong, I like her,” Jon says once he has caught his breath. “Though the feeling doesn’t seem to be mutual.”

“No, no, I’m sure she likes you.” Seeing Jon’s sceptically arched eyebrow, he hastens to add, “She has her own way of showing it, that’s all. You’ll get used to it in no time.”

“I suppose I’ll have to,” Jon says with a sigh. “You two hit it off right away, didn’t you?”

“I guess? We exchanged knitting patterns and talked about our favourite poems, and that was the end of the interview. If you can call it that.”

Jon rolls his eyes fondly. “Of course. I forgot about your talent for charming old ladies.”

“Yeah, remember that time I spoke to every Angela over the age of 50 in Bexley? I had some really nice conversations about jigsaws. Okay, one of them could have been an agent of the Flesh, but they all made great tea and didn’t murder me, so who cares?”

“Good old Angela! I’d almost forgotten about her. She really had her fun during the apocalypse… though I suppose ‘fun’ is the wrong word for it. You didn’t meet the right one, though, back in the day. I checked up on that at one point when I could still… See.”

Martin pretends to sulk. “Aw, that’s a pity. I’ve always wanted to be served tea and biscuits by a cold-blooded serial killer.”

“Well, I’m glad you steered clear of her,” Jon says pointedly.

“Really? You’ve changed your tune. Not so keen on me getting chopped into tiny pieces anymore then, are you?”

What was meant to be a light-hearted quip comes out with more bitterness than intended. He winces as he watches Jon’s face fall, the teasing glint in his eyes replaced with something dark and sorrowful. He reaches for Jon’s hands, grasping them tight before Jon can stuff them in his pockets.

“Hey, it was just a joke,” he says softly, squeezing both his hands. “Just a stupid joke. I’m sorry.”

Jon makes a strangled noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob, and raises their joined hands to his lips. “No, I’m sorry,” he says in between gentle kisses delivered to each of Martin’s knuckles in turn. “I’m so sorry, Martin. For all of it. For taking my insecurities out on you, for not treating you like you deserved, for not seeing how brilliant you truly are. I know I’ve never apologised for it before, not properly, and… I’m sorry about that too. I really am.”

Martin looks down at him then, looks at his own hand still glued to Jon’s lips, looks into the warm brown eyes glistening with unshed tears, and allows himself a few seconds to process these words that are so far from what he would’ve expected to hear. Those early days in the Archives seem so far removed from their reality now, like they happened in another lifetime, to different people. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek so he won’t let out a surprised laugh.

He raises one of Jon’s hands – no, not just one of them, the burnt one in particular, he’s made sure of that – to his own mouth and places a lingering kiss on the back of it. A kiss like a prayer, like a promise, like a binding oath. “I’ve forgiven you for all that already,” he whispers into the tender skin on the inside of Jon’s wrist. “Completely and unconditionally. I thought you knew that.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Jon says sharply. “Not so quickly. I was a real arsehole, you probably know that better than anyone. You deserved much more than that, much more than me. You still do.”

Martin returns his attention to Jon’s hand, gently coaxing his fingers apart so he can kiss the centre of his palm. “Okay, maybe you were a bit of an arsehole. But you got over it, and that’s what matters. And even back then, I know you cared, even if you couldn’t really show it. You know, I think I only started falling for you properly after… after Jane Prentiss locked me in my flat for two weeks. I went back to the Institute so certain that you were going to laugh in my face and dismiss everything I said, but you believed me without question. Did everything in your power to keep me safe. You offered me your cot in document storage, even. This is going to sound so pathetic, but I honestly couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared for me like that. It meant… a lot to me. Before that, you were just a prick who unfortunately happened to be my boss – annoyingly hot, yeah, but still a prick. But after… I saw you in a new light. More like you really are.”

Jon quirks an eyebrow and mumbles what sounds like the beginning of a self-deprecating remark, but he cuts himself off. Martin is unable to contain his giddy smile at this small, but significant sign of progress. Jon prefers not to discuss the details of his therapy sessions (and Martin doesn’t want to pry), but he has revealed that one of the central aims at the moment is to challenge his self-loathing thoughts as they appear instead of taking them at face value. For obvious reasons, Jon has been vague about the specifics of his backstory, apparently letting just enough slip to convince his therapist that he was involved in some sort of cult, but still it’s clear to see how much he benefits from therapy. His gait seems to grow lighter by the day, like he is Atlas and the weight of the world is gradually lifted from his shoulders.

Martin is happy for him, of course, a happiness so vast and dizzying that it overwhelms him sometimes. It’s the same kind of feeling, a wondrous ache that seems too grand for his chest to contain, that he has every time he wraps an arm around Jon’s middle as they get settled in bed and brushes his hand over the softness that has settled on his stomach, over the healthy layer of padding now covering his ribs. It’s the relief of knowing Jon to be alive and finally thriving, mingled with the bitter awareness of how easily that fragile body could have ceased its functions, how easily Jon could have been taken away from him forever. It still feels like a house of cards sometimes, their new life, like a light breeze could be enough to destroy it.

He doesn’t voice these thoughts to Jon, doesn’t want to pile them on top of his existing anxieties, and he doesn’t really have anyone else to share them with, so he does as he’s always done and bites his tongue, lets his worries take root in his mind like stubborn weeds that refuse to be pulled out. He’s done this for so long, long before he first encountered the Lonely, as long as his memory reaches back, that it has become second nature by now. Of course, he knows that it’s the opposite of a healthy coping mechanism. He knows that it’s not sustainable in the long run, that sooner or later he will crack under the pressure, perhaps enough to be irreversibly broken. He knows that his worth is not measured by his usefulness, that Jon will not stop loving him if Martin is the one in need of care sometimes. He knows that relationships are built on mutual vulnerability, and he can’t demand that vulnerability from Jon while failing to hold up his end of the bargain. He knows that, objectively speaking, therapy would be the best option for him. He knows all this, but what he doesn’t know is what to do about it, how to break through the impenetrable glass wall that seems to prevent him from reaching out for help. Self-awareness is the first step on the way to recovery, he’d once read somewhere. If only someone could tell him what the next steps are supposed to be.

He doesn’t realise he has zoned out for a while until he feels Jon’s thumb stroking along his cheekbone, sees the concerned gaze levelled at him. “…Martin?”

He pastes on a well-practised smile, and hopes Jon won’t see right through it. He can’t talk to him about it; he just can’t. He can’t burden Jon with his made-up problems. What does he have to be sad about, really? Doesn’t he have enough reasons to get out of bed in the morning? Maybe he’s just being over-dramatic. He’s happy. They’re both happy. Whatever he does, he won’t let himself ruin that happiness.

“Anyway, you’re forgiven,” he says with a final kiss to the back of Jon’s hand. “I forgave you a long time ago, actually. But… thanks. For the apology. Even if it was kind of unnecessary.”

Jon gives him a small smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Martin nods towards the neglected returns cart. “Um, I should probably get on with this. If I don’t want to be stuck here all night.”

“R-right, of course,” Jon says. “I… I’ve got some books I need to return anyway.”

He squeezes Martin’s hand once more before letting go of it and making a beeline for the front desk, leaving Martin alone surrounded by the musty smell of old books and the fading imprint of Jon’s scent, a strange feeling of guilt burrowing deep into his chest and making its home there. Everything had been so easy just five minutes ago, the sort of effortless familiarity that spread gentle warmth throughout his body, that tricked him into believing it could always be this way. How had it evaporated so quickly? Why is that kind of comfort doomed to be fleeting? Of course, there are happy moments as well, filled with fond smiles and teasing banter and breathless kisses, far more than Martin ever dared to dream he would get, and he knows he will never start taking them for granted. But they are inevitably followed by periods of withdrawal that can last hours and sometimes even the better part of a day, like a door shutting in his face, the distance between them like a solid wall of ice. They don’t have arguments anymore, at least not properly, but Martin thinks that artificial politeness, that feeling like they’re strangers forced to navigate around each other, is even worse. There are times when he almost wishes for a real fight, a no-holds-barred shouting match, anything that would make him feel something.

Then, the ice thaws and they are back to domestic bliss as if nothing had happened, but it’s made bittersweet by the certainty that the next dry spell is lurking just around the corner. Martin knows, deep down, that he is the one to blame for this. Jon makes a genuine effort to reach out, at least, even if his attempts can only be described as clumsy. But there are days when Martin is too numb to accept any form of affection, when the lightest touch feels like a blade and the kindest word like a condemnation. When it feels like he is back in the Lonely, like there is seawater running through his veins and solitude baked into his bones, like he has never truly escaped. Perhaps the Fears have followed them into this universe after all, and Forsaken has chosen him as its scion. Perhaps that’s why he’s so terrible at this.

In his darkest hours, in that liminal space between 3 and 5 AM on the nights where he can’t sleep and the chilling vestiges of his nightmares are still lingering in his mind, when he hears Jon shifting beside him and knows he is awake as well, but can’t figure out what to say to him so pretends to be asleep instead, he catches himself wondering if they are really meant to be as a couple. If love is enough to keep them together. What if they are lacking something else, something essential like stability or a decent support network or, hell, a proper legal existence in this universe? Something without which they are destined to fail? Maybe love is just the water, and they are doomed to drown without a boat to navigate its treacherous currents.

He still maintains that it is trauma first and foremost that brought them together, no matter what Jon might say, and he refuses to see that as an inherently bad thing. It’s comforting to know that at least one good thing came out of all the disaster, one shiny treasure salvaged from the wreckage, a bond forged by fire and blood and all the more precious for it. It’s comforting to know that there’s at least one good thing they wouldn’t have in that illusory parallel reality where they lived a mundane, painless life. One thing that proves that all their ordeals had not been in vain. But Martin can’t shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, hardship is also the only thing that could keep them together. Maybe, by some twisted logic, they would have been alright if the apocalypse had never ended, if they’d had to spend their lives travelling through interminable terror domains, because no matter what horrors they endured, they could have relied on the other, on their relationship, to be their sanctuary. Now they have clawed their way out of the murky darkness and into the unforgiving light; now their wounds are laid bare for the world to see as they slowly heal into jagged scars; and the true extent of their dysfunction has only revealed itself once they have settled down, once the wolf is no longer scratching at their door. Now that they are finally free to breathe again, they seem to have forgotten how.

That’s another thing he should really discuss in therapy, provided he found the right lies to shroud it in. That’s another thing he keeps to himself instead, another thing he allows to fester in his mind like mould at the back of a fridge, until everything is contaminated. He returns his attention to the cart, trying to draw some comfort from the gentle weight of the books in his arms, from the reassuring exactitude of the alphabetical sorting system, from the soothing mundanity of the familiar motions. It can’t be helped, can it? Even on your darkest days, you still have to live. You still have to have to make breakfast and go to work and chat with your co-workers, and return home at the end of the day to greet the man you love with a kiss and hope he doesn’t ask how you’re feeling, because you’re terrified you might start to cry and not know how to stop.

Jon returns just as Martin has replaced the last book on the shelf and is about to wheel the cart back to the front desk. He offers Martin a smile, open and inviting as an outstretched hand. There have been times in the past when Martin had rejected a gesture like that, responded to Jon’s smile with a blank face. This time, he chooses to accept it. This time, his own smile doesn’t feel forced.

“Find everything alright?” he asks, and Jon nods.

“I have to ask though, you- you know, your co-worker…”

“Molly? What about her?”

“Is she… quite alright?”

Martin stifles a snort at the odd phrasing. “I think so, yeah. As alright as Molly can be, at least. Oh god, she didn’t talk your ear off about her first class degree and how it should have landed her a way better job than this one, did she?”

Jon gives a startled laugh. “No, I was…spared that, fortunately. But her whole face turned beet red the moment she saw me, and then she looked down at her desk the entire time while she was scanning my books. Is that… normal behaviour for her?”

Now it’s impossible for Martin to hold in his laughter any longer. “I think she’s got a bit of a crush on you, actually.”

He laughs even harder at the look of utter bewilderment on Jon’s face, and it takes him a while to regain his breath. “Oh, don’t let it get to your head. Pretty sure Molly goes weak for any bloke with a mullet and a posh accent. She did her master’s at Edinburgh, that probably explains it.”

Jon pulls at a strand of his wavy salt-and-pepper hair and scowls. “Okay, it may have gotten a little long in the back, but it’s hardly a mullet…”

Martin squints at him. “It’s… mullet-adjacent.”

Jon’s frown deepens, so Martin steps closer to drop a mollifying kiss on the top of his head. “Come on, I don’t need to remind you how much I adore your hair. But it looks like I’m not the only one. Molly seems very interested every time I mention your name, and very much not interested every time I call you my boyfriend. I mean, she could just be homophobic, but I think I prefer the other explanation.”

“Not sure I do,” Jon mutters darkly. “Anyway, you’re awfully relaxed about this. I’m almost insulted. What happened to wanting me to kill a man just because you’re jealous?”

Martin rolls his eyes. “That was when you were still in your smiting avatars phase, and I sincerely doubt Molly serves any kind of dread power. Also, I might have grown as a person since then.”

“Glad to hear that,” Jon says, with the most shit-eating grin imaginable, and he’s so insufferable and Martin loves him so much. “So just to clarify, you don’t want me to murder Molly?”

Martin pretends to consider it for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nah, it would put too much of a strain on the work environment.”

“Well, we know a thing or two about strained work environments.”

Martin’s cheeks are beginning to ache from smiling. The gloomy thoughts of just a few minutes ago have already dissolved into dust, seem histrionic and absurd when held up in the light. It could be like this forever, he thinks. It should be like this forever.

He places a hand on Jon’s forearm and lets it travel upwards in light petting motions until it reaches his shoulder. He cups Jon’s cheek in his other hand, his thumb following the curve of his cheekbone. There it is again, that feeling he would sacrifice everything for, that deep fondness spreading through his insides, rich and sweet as treacle, warm and filling as a bowl of soup on a cold winter night. Sometimes he thinks that he could live on that feeling alone, that he needs no sustenance other than love.

“Mm, maybe I should be worried,” he teases. “You got a thing for librarians?”

Jon smiles and loops his arms around Martin’s neck, pulling him down into a deep, exploratory kiss that leaves his spine tingling and every nerve in his body screaming for more.

“No,” Jon whispers against his lips. “Just the one.”

Martin gives up on trying to get any more work done for the rest of the day.

~*~

He’s running through a burning building without catching a glimpse of an exit, soot clinging to his lashes, sweat gluing his hair to his forehead, great heaving coughs wracking his body. He’s frozen in terror, huddled on the floor of his Stockwell flat, a half-empty can of peaches clutched in his hands, listening to the staccato beat of Jane Prentiss’s knuckles rapping on the wood of his front door. He is eight years old and doesn’t know where his father is, or why his mother won’t get out of bed or stop crying, and his world has fallen apart, has cracked along the surface to reveal it has always been hollow inside. He is back on that mournful desolate beach, breathing in the salty air; but this time, no one is coming to save him; this time, he is all alone. He is taking a peaceful walk through the picturesque Scottish countryside and admiring the cows, when the sky darkens and the screams begin and dread pools in his insides like ice water. All of these images, these sensations, are interlinked as if they are happening simultaneously, mixing and mingling like mismatched splashes of paint creating a garish tableau. They swirl before his eyes at a nausea-inducing pace, before they abruptly fade and are replaced by a single scene in crisp high definition and full sound, as vivid and lifelike as if he were living it right now.

The Panopticon is crumbling to dust around him, stray pieces of debris hitting his body and making him wince, the deafening roars of explosion after explosion ringing out in his ears. Jon is in his arms, the echo of his last I love you still in the air, the imprint of his final kiss still on Martin’s lips. Jon is in his arms, and a knife is in his hand, and the knife is in Jon’s chest. Martin is the one who put it there. Martin is the one who killed him. Jon’s blood is leaking onto the blade and the hilt and his shirt and Martin’s jumper and Martin’s treacherous hand, more blood than he thought possible for the human body to contain. Static is rising and tape is unspooling, and god, why is there so much blood?

Martin wakes in the dimly lit comfort of their bedroom, sat bolt upright against the headboard, and breathes in huge gulps of air, like he is trying to absorb this room, with all its warmth and security and familiarity, into his lungs and never let it go. The nightmares are a regular occurrence, though he tries his best to keep that fact from Jon, but this level of intensity is new and alarming. In a way, reality feels more imaginary than his dream, the faint lighting and hazy silence of the bedroom paling in comparison to the stark images and strong sensations of his memory. Even now that almost an entire year has passed since that dreadful and miraculous day, even now that they have discarded the past like an unwanted heirloom, a part of him will always be back there. Will always be sliding the knife between Jon’s ribs at the precise point Jon was guiding his hand towards, the precise point to make his heart stop. He’d killed him. No other way to say it. Even though everything had worked out in the end, even though the wound had healed instantly and now a scar serves as the only reminder of it, he’d still killed the man he loves. How can you move on from that?

Jon stirs beside him, mumbling a sleepy “Mar’in?”. His hand fumbles in the dark for a bit until it comes to rest on Martin’s thigh. Martin peels it off as gently as he can, resisting the inexplicable urge to just bat it away like an irksome fly.

“It’s nothing, Jon,” he says wearily. “Go back to sleep.”

He realises a second too late that those were exactly the wrong words if he wants to get Jon to back off; and sure enough, Jon pushes himself up on his elbows until he’s half sat up as well, head tilted to the side as he studies Martin through narrowed eyes like a puzzle that leaves him baffled.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and the deliberate softness in his voice makes Martin want to scream. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“I said it’s nothing.”

Jon reaches out a hand and lets it hover over Martin’s face, but then seems to think better of it and withdraws it again. “You can tell me, you know. You can tell me anything.”

Martin nods, but says nothing. Instead he turns around until he is looming over Jon, eyes locked on his, clamping his hands onto Jon’s shoulders in an iron grip, like a drowning man clinging to his lifeline. He then gently pushes down until Jon’s head is sinking into the pillow, and Martin lowers himself over him until Jon is securely pinned beneath him. Then, he kisses him, hard and desperate, groaning against his lips and licking into his mouth, feeling Jon’s heart hammering against his own ribcage, swallowing the intoxicating little noises he makes. Jon kisses him back with matching fervour, and when they reluctantly pull apart for breath, Jon’s eyes flutter open slowly, a dazed look in them that Martin wants to preserve in his memory for the rest of his life.

He looks down at Jon, like this is the last time he’ll ever see him and he needs to memorise every feature. His eyes have adjusted enough to the dim lighting to give him some degree of clarity, and his memory fills in the details, Jon’s face now more familiar to him than his own. He’s utterly beautiful, of course, always has been and always will be. Not in spite of all the scars etched on his skin like a cruel chronicle of the past, but perhaps because of them, because they are proof that he lived to tell the tale. Still, if Martin could erase them all, not just the ones on his face but those scattered over the rest of his body as well, if he could travel back in time and undo every terrible thing that happened to Jon, he would do so in a heartbeat, no matter the cost. But he can’t do any of that, so for now he has to content himself with staring reverently at Jon like some lovesick fool, at his long lashes, the sculpted arcs of his cheekbones, the soft curve of his lips.

Jon bites his bottom lip as if considering to say something, but instead he tugs Martin down into another kiss, and another, and another. They are both breathless when they part, drawing in panting breaths, until Jon laughs softly against Martin’s lips. “Well, that was...”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. His gaze drops to his chest, where, seemingly of their own accord, Martin’s fingers are tracing the jagged scar over Jon’s heart through the thin cotton of his sleep shirt. Martin jerks his hand away as soon as he realises what he’s doing, like he has accidentally touched a hot stove, and scrambles backwards onto his heels.

“God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have, I d-didn’t even notice I was doing it, god, I’m really sorry, Jon-”

Jon raises a hand to interrupt his frantic surge of apologies. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. No need to apologise. You can touch it, you know. I don’t mind.” His fingers hesitate at the hem of his t-shirt, his brow knit in contemplation. “Actually…” He pulls the shirt over his head in one fluid motion and throws it onto the other side of the bed, then lies down flat on his back and offers Martin a hand. “Come here?”

Martin falters for a second or two, before he gives in. He lets himself be tugged back until he is once again hovering over Jon, his eyes roaming over his bare torso. He’s seen Jon shirtless or more plenty of times before, so the sight is hardly a novelty, but it still manages to take his breath away every single time. Even more so now that Jon has finally gained a decent amount of weight, now that his body no longer looks like it might fall apart at the slightest provocation. Jon gently guides his hand to rest over the scar on his chest. Martin’s hand is large enough to span the entire length of it, to make it disappear from view. Jon removes his hand and Martin brushes a tentative finger over the raised scar tissue, careful not to apply too much pressure.

“Does it… does it hurt?”

Jon shakes his head decisively. “No. Not at all. None of my scars hurt when you touch them.”

There is a slight but noticeable emphasis on the you, and it makes Martin’s heart burn with pride and shame in equal measure, at this unconditional trust that he knows he doesn’t deserve. To his mortification, a single tear rolls down his cheek and drops onto Jon’s chest. “But I- I did hurt you,” he chokes out.

Jon lifts his hand to Martin’s face and strokes a gentle thumb along his cheek, wiping away the tears that race to follow the first. “Oh, Martin.”

Martin attempts to turn his face away, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would stop the tears from flowing. “I-I’m sorry,” he gasps.

But Jon’s hand keeps his head in place, his touch gentle but firm and leaving him no escape route. “No, I’m sorry,” he says. “For… for… for everything. I-I wish there had been another way.”

But there was another way, Martin wants to say, but he swallows the words down. Yet again, they’re both speaking around the elephant in the room, doing anything to avoid addressing the real issue. Whatever progress they may have made regarding communication, they seem to be incapable of talking about the single most important thing: that fateful day the apocalypse ended. How they had both betrayed the other. The choices they’d made, and whether or not they regret them now. It’s not that they haven’t tried talking about it – they have, many times, but every attempt to have a civilised discussion inevitably descended into embittered accusations, like the topic is a minefield that they can’t forge a safe path through. Neither of them is willing to find common ground, that’s the problem. Neither of them is willing to admit that they made the wrong choice. Martin has tried to see it from Jon’s perspective, he really has, but no amount of consideration can convince him that sacrificing the whole world would have been morally right in any way. Yes, Jon has chosen the other option in the end, but that’s of little comfort to Martin. Partially because he can’t help but wish that Jon had come to his senses before killing Jonah and leaving Martin no choice but to plunge a knife into his chest, but mostly because he is terrified beyond belief that Jon will one day come to regret changing his mind just to keep Martin safe, that he will grow to resent Martin for standing in his way.

So they don’t talk about it. Not anymore. They pretend, for the most part, like the days before their arrival in this new universe had never happened, like Martin had never gone with Annabelle Cane, like the Web had never presented them with a cruel choice, like neither of them had broken their promises. Sometimes, the bitter silence is so palpable that he can almost taste it, acrid like bile on his tongue and making him vaguely nauseous, but most days, their fragile truce is easy to bear. Easier than tearing open old wounds, at any rate, even if that may be necessary for them to heal. Maybe an apology isn’t worth much if they won’t say what they’re apologising for, but it’s better than nothing. It’s all they can do for now.

Martin almost says I forgive you, but finds that he isn’t there yet, not quite. When he speaks those words, he wants them to be true. He hopes they will be one day. So instead he kisses Jon again, just a light brush of his lips, nothing like the passionate kisses they’d shared earlier, but no less loving. His hand is still tracing the outline of Jon’s scar, and when they part, he cautiously lowers his head so it is resting on Jon’s chest, his lips just inches from the scar.

“Can I…?” he breathes into Jon’s skin.

Jon cards his fingers through Martin’s curls. “Of course.”

Martin drops gentle kisses all across the length of the scar, charting its perimeter with his lips, leaving a trail of tenderness over the mark of destruction. As if his touch could erase all the violence, make Jon whole and unharmed again. The smooth texture of the scar tissue feels unusual, but not off-putting. Jon makes a soft, breathy sound, and Martin can feel the hummingbird rhythm of his heartbeat against his face.

He has reached the other end of the scar, where it gives way to unblemished skin that no knife has ever touched, and he places a last, lingering kiss there, before moving on to show Jon’s myriad other scars the same attention. He starts with his right hand, kissing the palm and the back of it and then each of his knuckles in turn. Then he lets his lips wander along Jon’s arm, seeking out each and every one of the circular worm scars dotting his skin. He dedicates himself to Jon’s left arm next, pressing soft kisses to the pockmark scars on there as well, and to the thin scar close to his wrist where Michael had stabbed him, wincing at the memory of finding a shaken Jon in his office with fresh blood dripping onto a pile of statements. Finally, he kisses the ragged line on Jon’s shoulder, a souvenir of that time Melanie had attacked him with a scalpel.

He thinks of how many of those scars were caused by one Entity or another, all of them bullet points for Elias to cross off his checklist for the apocalypse. He thinks of how for years, Jon’s body had served as an archive in its own right, as a living repository of pain. Every wound another reminder of its purpose. Martin cannot eradicate Jon’s scars, he will never be able to change the past, but at least he has some part in creating the future. They both have. Maybe he can mark Jon in a different way, with gentle lips in place of sharp blades, maybe he can trace over the chronicle of suffering and leave invisible but ineradicable records of love. Something that will last them all their lives.

He returns to Jon’s chest, to the circular scars dotting his skin like misshapen stars, and kisses constellations between them. Jon releases a slow exhale and strokes Martin’s hair again. Martin can’t resist moving lower to press his lips to the wondrous new softness on Jon’s stomach, a rare region of his body that is free of scars. Jon’s breathing is measured and even, like he is about to fall asleep, and it makes Martin aware of his own exhaustion. How nice it would be to just curl up with his head cushioned on Jon’s abdomen and let sleep claim him, his nightmares a thing of the distant past. But his mission isn’t completed yet.

He crawls back up the length of Jon’s torso, leaving intermittent kisses as he goes, and taking a few indulgent moments to bury his face in the dark whorls of Jon’s chest hair, until he reaches the jagged line cutting across Jon’s throat, courtesy of Daisy. He kisses along it, then plants stray kisses over Jon’s neck and jawline, feeling a little thrill of delight at the hitch in Jon’s previously calm breathing. He adorns the collection of worm scars scattered over Jon’s face with kisses as well, before at last returning to his lips.

This kiss is slow and lingering, deep without being urgent, their lips just slightly parted and their tongues just gently skimming over each other’s bottom lips. It’s an unhurried kiss, a patient kiss, a kiss that knows it has all the time in the world. This is their first kiss, Martin thinks, where the sweetness of it isn’t tainted by the bitter flavour of the underlying fear that it might be their last. Maybe that’s a milestone in itself.

They draw apart when Martin tries and fails to stifle a yawn.

Jon smiles. “Time to go back to sleep?”

“God, yeah, I’m knackered.”

Jon squints at the digital clock on the bedside table. “Well, it is… 3:27.”

Martin flops back heavily onto the mattress, its springs groaning in response. He rolls over onto his side and opens his arms in a silent invitation for Jon to curl up with his back pressed to Martin’s chest like he does every night. But this time, Jon hesitates, gnawing on his bottom lip as he stares down at Martin with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“Hmm?” Martin prompts groggily, and Jon reaches out a hand to rest it on Martin’s shoulder, as if to steady him, or perhaps rather to steady himself.

“I was thinking…” His grip tightens on Martin’s shoulder. “Can I hold you tonight?”

“I… ah…” Martin is well aware that he must look exceedingly stupid with his mouth hanging wide open like a human-sized koi carp, but that’s not his biggest concern right now. He’s the one who’s supposed to be holding Jon. Not the other way around. That’s how it has always been, and that’s how he thought it would always be. He hasn’t even considered the alternative until now, has never asked himself if it’s something he might enjoy. Somehow, it has always seemed far beyond the realm of possibility. He’s the larger of the two, he’s the one who’s a carer by nature (though nurture, or the lack thereof, would perhaps be more accurate), so it only makes sense for him to be the big spoon, doesn’t it?

“O-only if you want to, of course, we really don’t have to,” Jon hastens to add when Martin still hasn’t replied.

Martin can’t help but grin at Jon’s endearing embarrassment, how he acts like he’d just made an indecent proposal. Jon’s face softens when he sees Martin smile, and yes, alright, Martin is just a bit of a ridiculous sap, because the expression carved into Jon’s features, that unwavering devotion that Martin still can’t believe could ever be directed at him, is enough to melt his knee-jerk resistance.

“No, no, it’s okay,” he murmurs, turning onto his other side. “C’mere, then.”

“Thank you,” Jon breathes and scoots over until his chest is flush against Martin’s back. He sneaks an arm under Martin’s neck and lets his hand rest on his chest, then loops his other arm around Martin’s waist and tangles their legs together.

Martin feels an initial jolt of discomfort, at how strangely exposed this position makes him feel, at how it goes against his deep-seated instinct to hold Jon close and shield him from the world. A discomfort so intense it makes him flinch. Jon notices, of course, and moves back slightly.

“I’m sorry, should I-?”

But the first wave of unease has passed and Martin is determined to give this a try, at least. For Jon’s sake – he was the one who asked for this, after all – if not for his own. He grabs Jon’s hand before he can move it away, and presses it firmly on his own chest again, holding it in place beneath his palm.

“No, it’s okay, honestly, I, I’m just not- used to it. Please… please stay.”

Jon gives a brief hum of assent and fits himself around Martin’s body again, his chest against his back, his arms circling Martin’s torso, their legs entwined. He holds him with a strength that takes Martin aback, and with a fiery protectiveness that takes him aback even more. Maybe Martin isn’t the only one of them who feels this desperate need to safeguard his partner, to wrap him in his arms and clutch him so tightly that not a thing in the world could come between them.

Once he has overcome his momentary discomfiture, Martin finds there is actually something deeply comforting about being held in this way, so closely that Jon feels like an extension of his own body. He’s always rather enjoyed the sensation of pressure, preferring to sit with at least one thick blanket over his lap despite generally running hot, and he’s often played with the thought of investing in a weighted blanket, though the steep prices were enough to deter him. It’s probably for the better, he decides, because there’s no way a weighted blanket could offer him even a fraction of the comfort he feels right now. It reminds him of a feeling he associates with the general concept of childhood, but never with his own, a feeling that used to be so alien to him that it might as well have sprung from a science fiction novel, of being swaddled and cosy and safe. Of knowing that you can let yourself fall and land on a soft surface.

“You’re pretty good at this, you know,” he murmurs.

Jon presses a sleepy kiss to the back of his neck. “Mm.”

He’s silent for a while, until Martin is sure he has fallen asleep. He’s close to drifting off himself, the warmth of the bedroom and the protective circle of Jon’s embrace enough to banish the residual traces of his nightmares and leave only a deep, fuzzy contentment in their wake.

But just as Martin is moments away from sinking into slumber, Jon shifts his head until his lips are close to Martin’s ear. “Martin?” he whispers.

Martin blinks one eye open drowsily, then covers Jon’s hand on his chest with one of his own. “Yeah?”

“I just, I wanted you to know…” Jon’s voice drops even lower. “I know I’ve said this before, but- it bears repeating. You… you can let yourself be vulnerable around me. You don’t have to put on a mask, pretend that everything’s fine when it’s clearly not. I know you – in the past, you felt like you had to make yourself small, so you wouldn’t be a burden on anyone. A-and I’m sorry people made you feel that way, and… I’m even more sorry that I contributed to it, back when we started working together. But you don’t have to make yourself small around me. Ever. I love you, Martin, unconditionally, and that means I-I want to be there for you. Whatever happens. And I can’t do that if you won’t let me in, if you’re not being honest about your feelings. So… can you give it a try? For me?”

Martin tries to speak without even knowing what he’s going to say, but his voice is too choked, too thick with tears, to utter anything meaningful anyway. It’s like time has stood still on New Year’s Day, like he is still crying in Jon’s arms on a rooftop overlooking the streets of Stockwell, and nothing at all has changed in the interim. He has been trying, or at least he has tried to try. But his instincts to hide the true depth of his emotions, to deflect any questions that probe a little too far below the surface with a perfunctory smile and a deft change of topic, have become so ingrained in him that they may as well be written in his DNA. It’s one thing knowing, on an intellectual level, that he doesn’t have to hide around Jon, that he won’t leave Martin just because he has bad days sometimes, but it’s quite another to actually internalise it. Every time he slips and shows some genuine vulnerability, the momentary catharsis is soon followed by bitter, acrid shame, and he resolves to be as blithe and cheery as possible in the days afterwards to make up for his perceived wrongdoing. He can tell Jon knows it’s all an act, and he can tell Jon resents it, and that resentment further fuels his shame, even though he knows it’s not really directed at him, and he finds himself unable to drop the charade.

But maybe he can let it go tonight. Maybe he can let the relief of not having to pretend lull him to sleep. Maybe, just maybe, he will wake up in the morning unburdened by the heavy obligation to atone for the terrible crime of having feelings, of being human.

Still not trusting his voice to form any actual words, he raises Jon’s hand to his lips and presses a kiss to his knuckles. Jon smiles into his hair. The silence between them is warm and palpable, the kind of silence that heals rather than crushes, the kind of silence you could build a home in. Just as Martin is close to drifting off again, he hears his own voice mumble, “Okay. I’ll try.”

This time, he means it. Truly.

“Thank you,” Jon whispers, tightening his arms around Martin.

They are both asleep within minutes, and no more nightmares plague their sleep for the rest of the night. Martin wakes the next morning to find Jon still wrapped around him like an octopus, and smiles to himself. Maybe it’s not so bad being the little spoon from time to time.

Chapter Text

The door creaks open, and Jon wakes to bright sunlight illuminating the bedroom, his head filled with the pleasant wooziness that tends to come from sleeping in. Not that he’s very familiar with that feeling, of course. He blindly fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand and puts them on, then squints at the clock which reads, in unforgiving red digits, 11:19. He groans, flinging his glasses aside again and burying his face in his hands. His alarm should have gone off almost four hours ago.

Alright, so he can’t deny how good it feels to finally catch up on his long-standing sleep deficit, to wake up well-rested and not having to battle the urge to fall back asleep. And alright, both his GP and his therapist (and Martin, many times) have told him in no uncertain terms that healthy sleep habits are key to a successful recovery. And that’s what he’s doing, isn’t it? Recovering. Much as it still feels like an alien concept to him, he’s committed to seeing it through now. But there’s just so much research to be done, and if he plans to stick to the workload he’s assigned himself for today, he won’t be finished until late in the evening, which will only unbalance his sleep schedule further, and surely that can’t be healthy either, and – really, what happened to his alarm?

The door shuts with a gentle click and Jon’s gaze swivels toward Martin, who is approaching the foot of the bed. “Why didn’t my alarm go off?” he demands at once.

Martin rolls his eyes, though Jon knows him well enough by now to know there’s no genuine annoyance behind it. “Really? No ‘good morning’? No ‘thank you for making breakfast’? You know how to make a guy feel appreciated.”

Jon only now registers the tray clutched in Martin’s hands, laden with pancakes and strawberries and steaming mugs of tea. It smells lovely, but he’s got more pressing things on his mind right now.

“Good morning and thank you for making breakfast,” he says quickly. “Why didn’t my alarm go off?”

Martin chews on his bottom lip, splotches of red appearing on his cheeks. “I, uh… I might have turned it off?”

Jon jerks up in bed. “What? Why?”

Martin stares down at the breakfast tray, like his eyes are tracing patterns in the pancakes, but his voice is surprisingly steady and almost defiant. “I thought it’d do you some good, that’s why. You’ve been working so many late nights, Jon, you have to get more sleep.”

Jon scoffs, reaching for his glasses again so he can fix Martin with his most withering glare. “I’m not a child, Martin, I can set my own sleep schedule. I don’t need you lecturing me, and I certainly don’t need you sabotaging my alarm clock. Besides, I usually get at least seven – well, at least six – hours of sleep each night, which is perfectly sufficient for an adult. And today is really the worst day you could have picked for your meddling, given the amount of work I have to do-”

“Seriously?” Martin’s abashment has given way to open indignation. “Are you bloody kidding me right now? You’ve got the week off.”

“Well, yes, technically I do, but that’s only because James is visiting family in Inverness and so the heritage centre is closed for the week. But I found this fascinating diary from the late 18^th century that provides some useful background information for these parish records I’ve been investigating…”

Martin rolls his eyes again, and this time the exasperation is real. Jon feels a familiar twinge of guilt. Loath as he is to admit it, Martin does have a point. It turns out that Jon’s workaholic tendencies have accompanied him to this universe as well, and the fact that he’s genuinely passionate about his new job – researching the history of the region for the Kirkrothes Heritage Centre – doesn’t help matters. He’s spent far too many nights lately hunched over his desk poring over the yellowed pages of timeworn documents until Martin finally succeeded in coaxing him into bed, and he knows it’s not fair on Martin (or on himself, he supposes). Aside from nudging him dangerously close back to insomnia, which is not a path he wants to go down again, his inability to sit properly in a chair means that all those late nights have done quite the number on his back, adding yet another mark to the ever-growing tally of physical ailments that pester him on a daily basis. Most of them are manageable with medical care, but he’s been too stubborn to bring up his recent back problems with his GP and has instead made a half-hearted resolution to improve his posture – a resolution he has yet to actually stick to, mind.

He’s also too stubborn to concede that Martin might be right. “Hang on, it’s Friday. Why aren’t you at work?”

“Took the day off,” Martin says casually.

“Any particular… reason?”

“Well, today’s a special day, isn’t it?”

Jon frowns up at him, racking his brain for what occasion he could have missed. Martin’s birthday was back in August, their anniversary was a few weeks ago, and Jon had made sure to plan ahead and celebrate these dates accordingly, thank you very much. So what’s so special about today? It’s just an ordinary Friday in October, as far as he can tell.

“…you do know my birthday is in November, Martin?”

“Course I do!” Martin protests, with an indignant squeal that brings a fond smile to Jon’s face. “This isn’t about your birthday. Guess again.”

He grins at the befuddled expression on Jon’s face. “What day is it today?”

“Um… the 17^th?”

“Nope,” Martin says meaningfully. “The 18^th.”

Martin tilts his head and quirks an eyebrow, waiting for the penny to drop. Then it does, and Jon slaps his fingers against his forehead, knocking his glasses askew. “Of course. I can’t believe I forgot…”

“18^th October. It’s been exactly one year since we arrived here.”

“And one year since the apocalypse started,” Jon mutters.

For reasons he can’t even begin to fathom, they were spat into this new world on 18^th October 2018, the exact date on which he had inadvertently ended their old world. As if the indeterminate stretch of time in between – weeks? months? years, even? – had been erased.

Martin makes a face. “Ugh, don’t remind me of that. Besides, it doesn’t even count. That whole business really messed with time, so it must have been a lot more than a year since then. Anyway, I’m pretty sure my arms are about to fall off, so can I please just put down the tray and get into bed, or do you plan to continue your interrogation?”

The flicker of guilt flares up again, is kindled into a bright flame, as it finally sinks in that Jon has left Martin hovering awkwardly at the foot of the bed for the last five minutes, holding the breakfast he’d very kindly prepared for them, while Jon subjected him to a barrage of questioning and snide remarks and offered him only the most perfunctory of thanks. His face flushes. This day is off to a great start, clearly. Why does he have to be such an idiot sometimes?

“Oh yeah, o-of course. Here, let me.” He hastily scrambles forwards to retrieve the tray from Martin’s hands and places it down gingerly on top of the covers, balanced on his knees.

“I-I’m sorry, darling,” he sighs as Martin crawls under the covers beside him. “I- Thank you, for all of this. I mean it. You… you were right. I really have been throwing myself too much into work lately, and I needed the… intervention, I suppose you could call it? I appreciate it, I really do, I appreciate everything you do for me. A-again, I’m sorry. I know it isn’t always easy.”

Martin shrugs. “It’s not like I didn’t know what I was signing up for. I haven’t forgotten all those times back in the archives when I had to practically bully you into taking an hour off to get lunch with me. That’s actually one of the things I love most about you, you know? All that passion you have, how you get so lost in something that it’s like the rest of the world just disappears. But it, it’s also one of the things that make me worry the most about you. I’m really happy that you found this job, but it’s just… you’ve been doing so well lately, Jon. I’d hate for you to fall back into old patterns.”

Jon finds Martin’s hand under the covers and laces their fingers together. “No, I-I understand what you mean. And you have a right to be worried about me, god knows I’ve given you plenty of reason. But it won’t be as bad as before, I can assure you. Ever again. I’m trying to work on it, even if it doesn’t always look like it. I just… need more time. But I want to be better. I’m going to be better. For you.”

He’s careful not to make any promises anymore, they both are, lest the mere mention of the word tears open old wounds.

Martin leans over to kiss Jon on the forehead. “I know, love. And you’re forgiven, by the way. And I don’t need you to be easy. I don’t care about easy. If I wanted an easy relationship, I would have stayed with that accountant I dated back in my early twenties.”

Jon huffs a laugh. “Oh, that guy? What was his name again? Dave?”

“Matt, actually. His hobbies included watching Countdown and going to the pub with his mates, and his favourite food was beans on toast.”

Jon shudders in mock horror.

Martin grins. “Yeah, he was a real riot. Anyway, point is, if I was looking for easy, I’d probably still be with him. But I’m not. Because a relationship is meant to take work, it’s not meant to be smooth sailing all the time, it’s meant to challenge you enough that you can grow, become better people, together. Otherwise… well, you’re just stagnating, really. All that matters is that you find someone who’s worth the effort.”

He reaches over and, with infinite tenderness, tucks a loose strand of hair behind Jon’s ear. “And I have.”

To his embarrassment, Jon feels his eyes blurring over with tears, a sensation that has become rather familiar in recent times. It’s strange, how he used to go for years on end without shedding a single tear, and now he can’t even last a month without getting choked up about some trivial thing or another. His therapist called it a sign of progress, that he’s giving his emotions a proper outlet rather than burying them beneath layer after layer of faux detachment, and he supposes she has a point. But right now, he’s not in the mood for blubbering into his breakfast.

He blinks back the incipient tears and takes a prolonged sip of tea, made just the way he likes it (with a splash of milk and a dash of honey, Martin has told him, though Jon still struggles to get the ratio right on his own). “Thank you,” he says when he can trust his voice to not come out wobbly. “And… I feel the same.”

Martin loops an arm around his shoulders and Jon relaxes into it, letting his eyes flutter shut for a moment. He still marvels at the fact that they get to have conversations like this now, that they get to lay their feelings bare, without recriminations, without bitterness, without petty jabs that achieve nothing. It’s not like they haven’t tried to communicate before – he knows they’ve both been making a very deliberate effort ever since the beginning of their relationship – but it doesn’t come natural to either of them, who have both grown up in houses where silence meant safety, and their first steps were stumbling. It took hard work and determination, every single day, to disrupt their old patterns and bring them to the stage where they are now, and Jon suspects that therapy has played no small part in it. Martin has finally agreed to see a counsellor himself – not the same one as Jon, but one in Edinburgh that he claimed to be better suited to his needs, and Jon has decided not to question that. They have even attended a few sessions of couples counselling, at the behest of Jon’s therapist, and despite their initial misgivings, ended up finding it quite helpful. There’s something rather freeing about airing your grievances, however couched in vague metaphors they may be, in front of an impartial professional who can offer an outside perspective, who can help to untangle the knots of unresolved arguments that only grew more twisted every time they were brought up between the two of them.

18^th of October, he thinks, and remembers waking up on a beach in Dorset, saltwater-soaked and disoriented, knowing nothing of what the future would hold, except that it wasn’t a future without Martin in it. He still stands by that belief, and he still exists in a near-permanent state of bewilderment (though it’s vastly preferably to his previous state of absolute knowledge), but he’s no longer submerged in the icy water of the English Channel, and the nebulous future he couldn’t even begin to visualise has somehow transformed into a more tangible present. A present which is pretty damn great, all things considered. 18^th of October. A lot can happen in a year.

He positions the tray in the middle between them, resting it on their thighs, then pours a generous amount of golden syrup over the stack of pancakes on his plate. “So, just to clarify,” he says, cautiously lifting a forkful of pancakes to his mouth so as not to make a mess of the bedsheets, “the only reason for making me breakfast in bed is to celebrate this day?”

Martin flushes all the way to the tips of his ears, but he keeps his voice airy. “Yep. Just out of the kindness of my heart.”

Jon narrows his eyes in suspicion. “So it wouldn’t have anything to do with your birthday?”

“Okay, okay, I admit it!” Martin puts down his mug and raises both hands in surrender. “You went way overboard for my birthday, and I couldn’t just take that lying down.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “I didn’t ‘go way overboard’, I went to perfectly appropriate lengths considering that it was your first birthday we got to celebrate together, not to mention your first birthday after the goddamn apocalypse.”

“Actually, there was that time we all went out for ice cream in 2015-”

“Oh god, I’d almost forgotten about that again. Anyway, that very much doesn’t count.”

“Still! You could have, like, made breakfast and gotten me one gift, and then we could have… gotten on with our day. I’ve never made a big deal out of my birthday anyway.”

Jon is well aware of that, and that was part of his reasoning for making a big deal out of it regardless. He wanted Martin to have one day, at least, where he could put himself first without shame. And even if it didn’t quite work out like that in the end, then, well, that won’t stop him from trying again. But despite the considerable progress they’ve both made, he doubts either of them are ready to handle that conversation right now.

“So this is your idea of… payback?” he teases instead.

Martin wrinkles his nose. “Sort of? I mean, it was going to be our anniversary, but then you had to go ahead and upstage me yet again-”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“-by having everything ready on the 25^th, two whole days before our actual anniversary.”

“It was the day I pulled you out of the Lonely!” Jon protests. “The day we left for Scotland! I think that has a lot more symbolic weight than our first kiss. Not that I’m underestimating the importance of that one, of course.”

“Fine, fine, we can have two anniversaries. But next time, don’t just spring something like that on me without warning, okay? It puts you at an unfair advantage.”

Jon can’t help but grin at the sincere indignation in Martin’s voice. “You… you do know this kind of thing isn’t meant to be a competition, right?”

Martin sighs. “Yeah, yeah, I know. And I appreciate everything you do for me, honestly, but I’m just… not used to it, you know? That sort of attention. I’m trying to let myself enjoy it, I really am, but it’s just… hard. Sometimes.”

“I know, darling,” Jon says softly, brushing his free hand over Martin’s arm. “I suppose we’ve both got things to work on, then.”

Martin nods, then flashes him a mischievous grin. “That being said, I’ve already started planning for your birthday.”

Jon groans. “I don’t know if I should be excited or terrified.”

“Bit of both, maybe?” Martin suggests, showing not even the slightest sign of remorse.

Once pancakes have been eaten and tea has been drunk and the empty tray has been moved to the nightstand, neither of them feel ready to leave the drowsy comfort of the bed just yet, so they curl up together instead, Jon’s head resting on Martin’s shoulder and Martin’s arm wrapped around Jon’s waist. Jon peers up at Martin’s face, at his brow furrowed in concentration and his tongue tucked between his front teeth, at his eyes tracing the movement of his pen over the creamy paper of the leather-bound notebook Jon had gotten him for his birthday. He has recently gotten back into writing poetry again, after being on the verge of abandoning the hobby entirely, claiming that everything that had happened had obliterated his creative drive. It turns out that it hasn’t, and while Jon has not yet been allowed to read any of the poems, he is nonetheless happy beyond belief that Martin’s old passion has been reignited. It feels like another tangible sign of progress, further proof that their wounds have… not disappeared, perhaps, but at least scarred over, no longer leaking fresh blood. Jon knows a thing or two about scars. He knows you can live with them.

The book Jon has been meaning to read is lying abandoned on top of the bedspread, along with his glasses. He has found looking at Martin to be a much more satisfying pastime at the moment, though Martin seems oblivious to his attention. When his eyelids begin to droop, he tucks his face into the crook of Martin’s neck, breathing in his familiar scent. Even though he’s already slept far longer than he’s accustomed to this morning, he catches himself thinking how heavenly it would be to drift off again right here and now, in the warmth of Martin’s embrace, in the secure knowledge that he has no pressing responsibilities for the rest of the day. A little voice inside his head, the one that’s always nagging him to do more work, is protesting that idea vehemently, but he’s too sleepy to listen to it. Martin tilts his head to drop a kiss to Jon’s hair, and Jon slings an arm over Martin’s middle and nuzzles closer into his neck, and-

There’s a noise from downstairs. A heavy, resounding clang that echoes through the entire cottage and strikes Jon like a lightning bolt of terror. He leaps out of bed immediately, ignoring the wave of pain shooting through his right leg at the sudden motion, ignoring Martin calling his name, and paces around the bedroom in search of something – anything – that could be repurposed as a weapon. He’s been so naïve, letting himself be lured into an illusion of safety, believing that the Fears could not touch them here, when he should have known that they had been hovering around their peaceful little life all along, like predators circling their prey, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. And here it is. A year to the day after they arrived in this universe that was never meant to be their home. He should have never let his guard down, should have slept with one hand on the hilt of a butcher’s knife every night. But would that have been enough protection? There’s an agent of some dark power in their house, he has no doubt about that, but which Entity do they serve? The Web? The Spiral? The Stranger? Without his Beholding powers, does he even stand the faintest chance against any of them?

“Jon!” Martin has planted himself right in front of him now, holding his shoulders in a vice grip and restricting his movement. “Jon, it’s okay, I promise, there’s- It’s not what you think. We’re not in danger.”

For a fraction of a second, Jon entertains the sickening theory that Martin is in cahoots with the intruder, that he has been playing the long game and planning on betraying Jon all along. But he dismisses that preposterous idea at once, furious with himself for having even considered it. He trusts Martin, absolutely and unconditionally, above everything in the world. If he can’t depend on Martin, he has nothing left. And Martin would never betray him, not like this, he knows that with a far greater certainty than the Eye had ever bestowed upon him. But then- “What?”

Martin flushes a deep red. “Oh god, I-I’m so sorry, Jon, I completely forgot- I didn’t mean to scare you, god, I’m such an idiot, I really am so sorry-”

“Just tell me,” Jon says between gritted teeth, far too tense to even feign politeness.

Martin rakes a hand through his sleep-tousled hair, not meeting Jon’s eye. “I, um, I kind of got a present for you? Downstairs. That I… forgot about.” He relinquishes his grip on Jon’s shoulders and takes a step back, offering him a sheepish smile, then holds out his hand. “Come with me?”

“Fine,” Jon huffs, accepting the outstretched hand and letting himself be led down the stairs. His initial panic has abated, but irritation has followed in its wake, and it takes considerable effort not to make a pointed jab at Martin’s idea of a ‘present’.

In the kitchen, Martin picks up the source of the infernal noise – a heavy-duty pan that had been left to soak on the kitchen table overnight and has somehow found its way onto the floor – and deposits it in the sink. Then he curses at a mysterious plastic box placed on the table, mumbles something about how it really shouldn’t have been able to move, shifts it closer to the centre of the table, and points at it awkwardly.

“Um… there you go? I know it’s not your birthday yet, but it is a special occasion, and besides, I saw this one and couldn’t resist.”

Jon approaches the box with caution, as if there’s still a chance that it might contain some sort of death trap. Given that it is a) constantly shifting around like it is trying to jump off the table, b) emitting an ungodly racket, and c) easily recognisable as a pet carrier, he has a pretty good idea of what’s inside, however. He gingerly opens the latch, and sure enough, he’s greeted by a cat, a tiny thing with jet-black fur and a rather battered appearance. It ceases its wailing at once, whether out of shock or relief he can’t quite tell, and peers up at him through wide green eyes. Jon’s annoyance vanishes in an instant, melting into a heady surge of affection.

“Hello there,” he coos, extending a hand for the cat to sniff.

He doesn’t expect the little beast to leap out of the box like a creature possessed and sink its sharp teeth into his index finger, before jumping onto the floor and disappearing below a cupboard.

“Sorry, sorry!” Martin grimaces at the beads of blood blossoming on Jon’s finger. “Should have warned you. She can be… difficult. I had to wear gardening gloves just to get her into that box. I-I’ll go fetch you a plaster.”

While Martin scurries off to the bathroom in search of adhesive bandages, Jon crouches down on the floor (gingerly, so as not to put too much strain on his leg), and peers into the space beneath the cupboard to find the cat pressed against the wall, fur bristled as if charged with electricity, eyes wide open in terror. He doesn’t risk offering her his hand again, but instead simply looks at her and whispers a string of inconsequential words, to give her a chance to get used to his presence.

But when Martin returns and helps Jon back to his feet, she still hasn’t moved an inch. Martin peels the backing off the plaster and directs Jon towards the sink, rolls his eyes at Jon’s half-hearted protests that it’s hardly even bleeding anymore, holds Jon’s finger under the running water, then securely wraps the plaster around it.

“Thank you, darling,” Jon says, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, then immediately returns his attention to the cat. “Um, did you get any cat food or-?”

“Oh yeah, hold on!” Martin rummages around in one of the food cupboards until he unearths a plastic bag hidden behind several packets of dried lentils. He sets it down on the counter and starts pulling out an assortment of tins.

“Chicken’s her favourite, apparently, but I also bought some tuna just in case- Ooh, that reminds me.” He takes out a small, brightly-coloured pouch and dangles it in the air triumphantly. “According to one of the volunteers at the shelter, these are guaranteed to calm her down. Well, sort of, anyway.”

He opens the pouch and hands a fish-shaped treat to Jon, who carefully drops to his knees in front of the cat’s hiding place again and places the treat on his open palm. The cat sniffs the air, glares at Jon in undisguised suspicion for a moment, then lunges forward to snatch the treat from his hand, thankfully without injuring him this time. Having captured her prize, she skulks off again, not below the cupboard, but jumping onto one of the wicker chairs around the kitchen table, where she curls into a scraggy, disgruntled ball of fur on the seat cushion.

Jon watches her with a sigh, half fond and half exasperated. The Admiral, who had been a true delight from day one, had never given him this much trouble. Then again, he’s not one to back down from a challenge.

“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” he says to Martin.

Martin hums in agreement. “Yeah, this one will keep us on our toes, I imagine. She’s only about a year old, but they told me she’s had a really rough life. Her previous owners were… not great people.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Jon says softly. Now that he can observe the cat in bright daylight, the signs of mistreatment are achingly plain to see on her small body: bald patches dotting her shiny black coat, a collection of scars and scratches numbering at least a dozen, her left ear missing entirely. He feels a primal, protective urge rising within him, nearly dizzying in its force, a boundless fury at whoever put her in this state.

Still, that doesn’t mean that he and Martin, of all people, are best equipped to take care of her. He turns his face towards Martin, raising an eyebrow. “So when you said you ‘couldn’t resist’…”

“Well, look at her!” Martin gesticulates at the cat as if that is explanation enough.

“So what, you went to the shelter and asked for the most traumatised cat they had?”

“No!” Martin protests. “It’s just, I saw her, and… uh… I guess she reminded me of you?”

Jon’s eyebrow arches even higher. He looks at the bedraggled feline staring daggers at him from her improvised throne, then back at Martin, who is blushing to the roots of his ears and looks like he’s praying for the ground to swallow him.

“I-I-I, I didn’t mean, i-it’s not like, I don’t-” Martin splutters. “Okay, that came out really wrong. What I meant was, I, um, she kind of…”

Jon watches with a fond smile as Martin trails off into incoherence, then glances over at the cat again, who is now sitting upright and licking her paw. She pauses her ablutions to look back at him, her green eyes astute and piercing. Her sharp gaze is not as mistrustful as before, but instead merely… curious. Scientific, almost. Strangely enough, being subjected to that gaze fills his chest with warmth. Martin wasn’t wrong, not entirely. It might have sounded like the opposite of a compliment, but Jon is actually quite flattered by the comparison. Here they both are, covered in scars and burdened by the weight of their past, spending a peaceful morning inside an idyllic cottage in Scotland, so far from everything that ever hurt them. Here they both are, still figuring out how to live without constantly looking over their shoulder. He thinks he’d quite like to learn alongside her.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says to cut off Martin’s nervous babbling, placing a gentle hand on his arm. “You didn’t offend me, I… see where you’re coming from. Really.”

Martin gives him a wobbly smile. “Er, yeah, glad… glad you do.”

Jon moves to perch on the edge of the kitchen table, resting his hand lightly on one arm of the chair currently occupied by the cat. He doesn’t dare to touch her, not yet, but he hopes that just being near her will let her acclimatise to his smell, at least. Once she has calmed down a bit and accommodated to her new surroundings, he might try reaching out to her again. Gently, of course, leaving the choice of whether to accept his affection up to her. He knows all too well that touch aversion takes a great amount of familiarity and trust to overcome, and that sort of thing can’t be forced. It will take weeks, perhaps even months, of hard work and dedication to break through her deeply ingrained mistrust and prove that not all humans are as terrible as those she had the misfortune to encounter. It won’t be easy, but he’s willing – no, determined – to put in the effort. He’s looking forward to the outcome. God, he’s looking forward to it. To have her resting on his lap while he’s reading, to hear the soft rumble of her purring as he’s rubbing behind her ears, to be welcomed by her brushing against his legs when he comes home. He’s always had a soft spot for cats – ever since coming across various stray cats while roaming the streets of Bournemouth as a child, and feeling a strange sense of kinship with them – and getting one for himself has long been an idle fantasy of his. As awful as it sounds, when Georgie broke up with him, one of the things that hit him hardest was no longer having unlimited access to her cat. But even if his landlord had allowed pets, Jon knew he was the last person who should be left in sole charge of the health and welfare of another living being. He did a shoddy enough job of that for himself, after all. So he confined the idea to the realm of his imagination, and then the apocalypse well and truly erased all thoughts on the matter from his mind. But now that he’s with Martin, now that he’s finally beginning to heal, it might be time to reassess his judgement. He might be ready for this.

“We’ll need to give her a name,” he muses. “And get her some toys, it’s important that her environment provides her with enough enrichment, so she won’t start getting restless. Of course, we could think about letting her outside, there shouldn’t be too much danger for her around here, but it might still be harmful for the local biodiversity. I doubt we can train her to accept a leash, but we could let her play in the backyard under supervision. I’ll do some research into that, and into what toys might be appropriate. A scratching post of some sort would also be good, we don’t want her tearing up the furniture. And we should invest in a better cat carrier – no offence, but this one looks close to falling apart. By the way, is she registered with a veterinarian? We’ll have to schedule regular visits. And we need a litterbox, of course…”

Martin listens to his profuse rambling with a slightly dazed smile. “So… that means we’re keeping her?”

Jon interrupts his monologue on proper cat care, and laughs. “I think that’s rather obvious by now, yes.”

Martin lets out a sigh of relief. “Good! Good. I mean, yeah, yeah, I know, I should have checked with you before, you’re not supposed to give pets as gifts and all that, but I… I wanted to surprise you. To see the look on your face. And I had a feeling you might like her.”

Jon smiles. “I have that feeling as well.”

“We should really get a cat sitter, though,” Martin says, staring intently at the cat as if he’s afraid she’s about to hold him at knifepoint. “Someone who actually knows what they’re doing, not just some random teenager who needs a part-time job. Shit, I can’t believe I haven’t thought about that before. We can’t really leave her unsupervised for now, while she’s still getting settled in, and I don’t know about you, but I’d quite like to leave the house at least once this weekend.”

“I can call Molly,” Jon says absently, occupied with running through a mental checklist of things they still need to buy. “She loves cats, apparently had five of them growing up.”

“Oh. Right.” There’s an odd tone in Martin’s voice that Jon can’t quite interpret. “I… I didn’t know you had her number.”

“Er… yes?” Jon says, not sure what the issue is here. “We exchanged numbers a while ago. I needed her help locating a collection of 18^th century poetry that was stored in the library’s reference room, and we ended up having a highly interesting discussion about the Scots vernacular revival. She’s not so bad once you get to know her, you know.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure she’s lovely,” Martin says. The sarcasm is palpable.

Jon furrows his brow, trying to keep his voice level despite his rising irritation. “Martin, I really don’t understand what your problem is. I thought you wanted me to make friends.”

“Yes, I wanted you to make friends!” Martin snaps. “Not… not get all cosy with a woman who’s clearly head over heels for you.”

This time, Jon doesn’t bother to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Well, a) I’m not ‘getting all cosy’ with her just because we talk sometimes, b) that silly crush is definitely a thing of the past, and c) I have no interest whatsoever in Molly. I thought that much would be obvious, given that I’m in a relationship with you. Honestly, it’s a little insulting that you think I would go behind your back like that.”

“Well, it’s not that I think you would actually, like, cheat on me or anything like that,” Martin relents, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just… sometimes I’m scared that you might want to? That you look at someone else and think you’d be much better off with them?”

Jon quirks an eyebrow. “What, you seriously believe I harbour some secret passion for Molly of all people? No offence to her, she’s far more interesting than I gave her credit for, but she’s hardly the woman of my dreams.”

“Don’t joke about that, Jon,” Martin hisses. “Just… don’t.”

“I’m joking about it because the whole thing is a joke, Martin. I thought you’d gotten over the jealousy. What was it you said that one time, something about having ‘grown as a person’?”

“Yeah, but that was when you barely even talked to her. It’s different now, okay? Now that you’re… sneaking around with her behind my back.”

Alright, the thin thread that remained of Jon’s patience has finally snapped. “You know, I never minded your jealous streak that much-” Truth be told, he used to rather enjoy it, even, basking in the clear reminder of how much Martin loves him and taking advantage of the opportunity to tease him a little. But he’s not going to own up to that now. “-but this is getting ridiculous. If it’s really so hard for you to believe that I’m happy with you and not constantly on the lookout for someone else, then that’s your problem and not mine. I refuse to argue with you about this any longer. It’s not worth my time.”

He can practically watch Martin deflate at his words, crumpling in on himself like a sodden tissue, the defiance in his face giving way to remorse. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, you-you’re right. I’m sorry, Jon. I-I don’t know what came over me. That’s a lame excuse, I know that, but… that’s how it is.”

That doesn’t entirely soothe Jon’s anger, but the wave of compassion he feels at Martin’s words, at the sincere regret in his eyes, is enough to sand down its sharp edges. “It’s okay,” he says. “But please understand that I won’t leave you, and I’m not secretly dreaming of someone else either. I need you to know that.”

“I do, Jon, I really do!” Martin hastens to assure him. “Honestly, I do. It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything, I know you wouldn’t just a-abandon me, but it’s just… it’s still hard to believe sometimes, you know?” His voice drops so low that Jon has to strain his ears to hear him. “That you would choose to be w-with… someone like me. Sometimes I feel like it’s just a matter of time u-until you realise that you could do so much better a-and then… you’ll leave. Like everyone else.”

The last words were so quiet as to be barely audible, but they hit Jon like a blow to the chest. He throws his arms around Martin and pulls him into a tight hug, pressing his face into his neck. “I wouldn’t,” he says softly. “I won’t leave you, Martin, not ever. I love you, and that’s not going to change.” He pulls back just enough to look Martin in the eyes, and chooses his next words carefully. “You know… I used to think much the same, actually, a-about you. I still do sometimes. That I-I don’t deserve you a-and you’re only staying with me out of pity, when you’d be much happier with someone else.”

Martin begins to protest, but Jon cuts him off. “Point being… maybe instead of convincing ourselves that the other would be better off without us, we could try to accept that we actually want to be with each other?”

Martin gives a watery chuckle. “That’s… not a bad idea, actually.”

Jon thinks this occasion might call for a forehead kiss, but he’s at a lamentable height disadvantage, so he presses a quick kiss to Martin’s cheek instead. “And you should know that I was serious about Molly’s… infatuation with me being over. We have this new volunteer at the heritage centre, a PhD student from Cambridge who’s here to do research on the Jacobite rebellion, and they’ve gone out for coffee with Molly at least three times this week alone. Quite conclusive evidence, I’d say.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it, she kind of talks about them a lot,” Martin says sheepishly. “Jon… I’m really sorry. I-I’m working on the whole jealousy thing, I am, but sometimes it’s… hard. And I know that’s shitty, a-and I know it’s not fair on you, and… I’m sorry. I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but I can promise that I’ll try.”

“I know, Martin,” Jon says, with another kiss to Martin’s cheek. “It’s- I can’t say it’s fine, exactly, but I… I understand.”

“Thank you,” Martin breathes.

For now, that’s all that needs to be said on the matter. They stand there holding each other in the middle of the kitchen until they are ready to leave the comfort of their embrace.

~*~

It’s a rare overcast day in an otherwise lovely October, but Jon and Martin don’t let that deter them from taking a walk along the beach, as has become their custom on their days off. They had settled on calling Molly in the end, who was so excited by the prospect of getting to meet a new cat that she agreed to head over straight after her shift, and Jon was relieved to find that Martin didn’t seem to act any differently around her. Predictably, the shore is mostly deserted, with the exception of a few families all clad in thick winter coats and the inevitable Scotsmen wearing shorts and t-shirts regardless of the weather. Jon zips his coat up to his neck, though it provides only limited protection against the merciless wind, and shoves his hands deep into his pockets. Of course, Martin remains unruffled even in his thin jacket, like he doesn’t even feel the cold. Not for the first time since moving to Scotland, Jon curses his piss-poor thermoregulation. Winter is going to be… interesting.

“Want to turn back?” Martin asks when Jon gives a full-body shiver after being hit by yet another icy gust, but Jon shakes his head.

“No, no, let’s keep walking.”

They are close to reaching their favourite spot on this beach, a secluded bay framed by jagged rocks protruding from the sand, and Jon thinks the destination is worth the discomfort. They can always warm up when they get home, have a cup of tea and maybe some of that fruitcake Catriona made for them, while curling up on the couch and watching trashy daytime television that Jon pretends not to enjoy. Only five years ago, Jon would have been horrified to hear that he would one day find fulfilment in this kind of domestic boredom, but now he values it as the gift it truly is.

They make it to the bay and just stand there in silence for a while, watching the rolling waves and the distant fishing boats, no sounds to be heard but for the intermittent cries of seagulls. Jon closes his eyes and focuses on the impressions granted by his other senses: the crunch of sand under his feet, the salty odour of the sea, the brisk wind smarting his cheeks… All of it as familiar as an old friend. Why does it always come back to beaches, Jon wonders. The Bournemouth of his childhood, infested with parasols and ice cream cones; that forlorn stretch of sand he’d wandered in search of Martin; the shore on which they’d run aground a year ago exactly, uncertain of everything but each other; and now this, this tranquil beach in a town he is almost ready to call home.

That’s the thing about anniversaries, he supposes, even ones as strange and unprecedented as this one. They get you thinking about the past. And at the same time, like two-faced Janus looking in both directions, you can’t help thinking about the future as well. Will they be standing in the same spot on the same beach a year from now, watching the same boats pass in the distance? He hopes so, though the mere thought of it still feels portentous, like he might still jinx their happiness by expecting it to continue. But for all his fatalism, he can’t deny that this feels permanent in a way he has never experienced before, like he is finally living and not just weathering whatever fate has decided to throw at him. Even during those halcyon weeks in the safehouse, part of him had known from the start that their period of respite was merely borrowed time, a tiny pocket of joy painstakingly carved out of an uncaring universe, that it could never last. It doesn’t feel like that now. He’s on a winding but solid path of physical and mental recovery, he’s got a steady job that he actually enjoys, he’s sharing a house and a life with the man he loves more than anything in the world, and oh, on top of that they’ve just adopted a cat together. He’s well aware that aside from parenthood – an emphatic no on that one, thank you very much – he’s ticked most of the boxes for something he had never seen in his future: settling down.

Well… there is one other thing on the list that still remains unchecked. As has become a habit of his in the weeks since he worked up the courage to pay a visit to a jewellery store in Dunfermline, his hand curls around the small box hidden in his coat pocket, mapping the now-familiar shape of it with his fingers. It shouldn’t be such a big deal, he thinks. It’s just a yes-or-no question, after all, just four simple words. He won’t need to deliver a big speech beforehand if he can’t find the words; he won’t need to go down on one knee if his leg isn’t cooperating. It’s Martin; he will understand.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s Martin. Martin who has been deprived of love and affection for much of his life, Martin who has sacrificed everything for Jon, Martin who still, for some unfathomable reason, believes himself unworthy of Jon. He deserves a proper proposal, one that’s romantic without being kitschy, one that’s extraordinary without being over-the-top. Jon should give him that, at least.

If only he had a bloody clue how.

It would be much easier if the nagging fear of rejection didn’t gnaw on his insides and still his hand. He has tried to suss out Martin’s thoughts on the concept of marriage, of course, he’s not going into this fully unprepared, but his investigation has not yielded conclusive results. Martin, ever the incurable romantic, has a weakness for cheesy proposal scenes in movies and has once expressed regret at not once having been to a wedding in his life, so he doesn’t seem to be opposed to the general idea. Jon would even go so far as to form the tentative hypothesis that Martin would like to get married himself, and, well, Jon appears to be the most obvious candidate at hand. But he can’t know for sure unless he asks Martin outright, and Jon doesn’t know how to word that question in a way that won’t be interpreted as a proposal. So all he can do is take the plunge and hope Martin won’t say no.

He’s not naïve; he knows that a piece of paper and a pair of matching rings won’t make much of a tangible difference. But he likes to think that there is a symbolic sense to it, not one dictated by the conventions of heteronormative patriarchy, but a meaning they can create for themselves. This time, it’s going to last, he means to say by it. For the rest of our lives. One way or another, together. And that’s why he needs to ask the question, even if the mere thought of it sends his heartrate into overdrive, and why he needs to make it special. Because if there’s even a sliver of a chance that this is what Martin wants – and Jon thinks there’s far more than a sliver, all things considered – that he has always dreamed of a romantic proposal and a picture-perfect wedding, then Jon has to try. If this is how he can make Martin happy, make him finally believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jon wants to spend his life with him, then he will have to be brave.

He takes his other hand out of his pocket and blindly reaches for Martin’s, breathing a small sigh of contentment when Martin’s hand wraps around his at once, gently pressing warmth back into Jon’s icy fingers. Jon laces their fingers together, the pad of his index finger lingering for a moment on the base of Martin’s ring finger. This would be the perfect opportunity, he thinks. They’re in their favourite corner of the beach, undisturbed by prying eyes, on a highly significant day. The ring box is already clutched in his right hand; all he’d need to do is pull it out and… well, just ask the bloody question.

But his hand stays in his pocket, frozen by more than just the cold. He wants to preserve the peaceful silence of this moment, not break it by asking a question that he doesn’t yet know the answer to. In case he’s read Martin’s signals all wrong, he doesn’t want to taint this special day for him. And besides, he has resolved to pull out all the stops, after all, if – when – he does go through with it. Nothing too extravagant, of course – he knows an excessive amount of schmaltz and fanfare would only embarrass Martin – but something special, something that shows he’s made an effort, that he’s planned ahead. Jon knows he has a tendency to rush headfirst into things, which hasn’t always served him well in the past, but he thinks this might require some careful deliberation beforehand. A candlelit dinner, perhaps, followed by a night walk under the starlit sky, then an affecting speech describing just how much Martin means to him that will hopefully leave both of them teary-eyed. (He’ll have to write that speech in advance, needless to say, and probably discard the first five or so drafts until he comes up with something that isn’t terrible. He’ll have to practise it in front of the mirror when Martin isn’t home, and even then he’ll most likely forget every single word once the moment has arrived. Maybe he should bring a printed copy, just in case.)

Yes. He can do that, he can definitely do that. And if he prepares everything carefully, makes sure every minute little detail is as perfect as it can be, then maybe, maybe, he’ll pull it off without making a complete fool of himself.

Right. No pressure then.

He doesn’t realise Martin has been speaking to him until he hears his name being said in a concerned tone. “I… uh… hm?” he says eloquently, turning his head towards Martin.

“What are you thinking about? You looked like you were miles away.”

Jon feels blood rushing to his cheeks and hopes Martin will attribute it to the bracing cold. He can’t tell him the truth, obviously, but what else is he supposed to say? “I-I was just thinking about… about the future,” he settles on in the end. It’s not a lie, not really.

Martin smiles and lightly squeezes his hand. Something sweet and golden like wild honey spreads through Jon’s chest at the sight of Martin, his windblown curls, his warm brown eyes, that private smile reserved just for Jon. It’s still hard to believe sometimes, that he gets to look at Martin like this every day, for as long as he wants, for the rest of their lives. That they get to grow old together. That he gets to have this, no matter how little he still thinks he deserves it. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

“Mm,” Martin hums. “The future. That sounds nice.”

Jon rests his head against the soft surface of Martin’s upper arm and nuzzles into his side, huddling half for warmth and half for the comfort of having him close. He lets his eyes drift shut when Martin’s arm wraps securely around his waist.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “It sounds very nice.”

Chapter Text

Jon is up to something.

Martin knows him well enough by now to decipher his body language, and there’s definitely something out of the ordinary in his slightly strained smile and the rapid fidgeting of his hands, but Martin can’t put his finger on what exactly it is, and that bothers him more than he cares to admit. Ever since he woke up this morning, Jon has been a bundle of nervous energy, scurrying around the kitchen in a frenzied attempt to make breakfast, while Martin had to prevent him from pouring olive oil into their tea and cracking eggs into the toaster, then barely able to sit still for more than two seconds as they went about their day, telling Martin to keep his evening free while refusing to divulge what he has planned.

It’s highly suspicious, to put it succinctly. Martin has considered the possibility that today might be some kind of anniversary or otherwise special occasion that has escaped his radar – he’d managed to blindside Jon on 18^th October, after all – but if that’s the case, he can’t for the life of him figure out what it is. And besides, if this was going to be a good surprise, then surely Jon would be in a different mood. More excited and less… terrified. He gives off a strong vibe of a student about to sit an exam they haven’t even remotely prepared for. Martin has tried his hardest to weasel an explanation out of him, but his questions only seem to put Jon more on edge, and the only answer he’s gotten is a cryptic reminder to wait for later. Which doesn’t calm Martin’s anxiety in the slightest, needless to say.

Now, Martin has sequestered himself in the bedroom because Jon’s incessant pacing in the living room was driving him up the walls. The sun is already beginning to set, though it is only a few minutes shy of four, and Martin sighs as he reaches for the light switch. After over a decade spent living in London, he wasn’t ready for the gloomy winters you get this far north. He taps his pen against his lips and stares at the blank page open in his lap, trying to assemble the half-formed scraps of ideas floating through his head into passable verse, but it’s a hopeless endeavour. For all he’s tried to push Jon’s strange behaviour out of his mind, to tell himself that there has to be a perfectly innocent explanation for it and he just needs to wait until Jon is ready to share it, his thoughts keep circling around the same subject like vultures around carrion. What if it’s something bad? Something really bad? Try as he might, he can’t come up with a convincing positive reason for Jon to be acting like this. What is he so afraid of? Is there something awful he needs to break to Martin? What if the Fears have returned? What if Jon is seriously ill? What if-

But no, Martin nips that particular hypothesis in the bud before it can even fully form. It’s out of the question. Ridiculous. Utterly absurd. They’ve been through literal hell together and came out even closer, and, granted, they’ve had their fair share of hurdles and disagreements both before and after arriving in this universe, but they overcame them together. They’ve been doing so well lately, both as individuals and as a couple, and… no. There is just no way. Jon wouldn’t just break up with him out of the blue.

…would he?

Martin has made enough progress in therapy by now to be able to separate his worst insecurities from the rest of him, adopting his therapist’s suggestion of picturing his self-deprecating thoughts as a distinct voice that doesn’t reflect reality and that he is under no obligation to listen to. But that doesn’t mean that that voice can’t be very loud and very persuasive sometimes, and right now, it might as well be shouting. What if Jon has realised that Martin reminds him too much of their horrible past and he needs to move on in order to truly heal (and could Martin really blame him for that)? What if he has simply grown tired of Martin, as Martin has secretly always been afraid he would one day? What if it’s Martin’s own fault, what if he’s been too smothering, too withdrawn, too moody, just too goddamn much? What if, what if, what if?

A shrill whine outside the door offers him a temporary reprieve from his anxiety, and he smiles despite himself. He rises from the bed to let the Captain in, who gives him a withering glare for making her wait even a second, then makes a beeline for the bed where she immediately curls up on Jon’s pillow. Martin sits beside her and scratches behind her ears, just the way she likes it.

“You’re also hiding from Jon, huh?”

She makes a disgruntled ‘mmrp’ sound that he chooses to interpret as a yes. In the month or so that she’s been living here now, the Captain has calmed down markedly, thanks to a combination of cat care tips sourced from various internet forums, some actually pretty sound advice from Molly, and an obscene amount of cat treats. While the biting and scratching hasn’t stopped entirely – it’s clear that violence is still Cap’s preferred solution to most problems – the rate of cat-related minor injuries in this household has drastically declined. The haughty demeanour, on the other hand, seems to be a permanent fixture of her personality, but Martin wouldn’t change it for the world. Fondness blooms in his chest when the Captain begins to purr, its low, soothing rumble the perfect balm for his strained nerves. He’d gotten her for Jon’s sake first and foremost, knowing of his love for cats and how much he missed the Admiral (though he didn’t like to admit it out loud), and Martin would have never expected to find himself this besotted with their cat. Not that he’s complaining.

It took them the better part of a week to settle on a name for her, a subject that caused some heated debate. Jon was, for whatever reason, weirdly insistent on naming her after a naval rank, continuing the tradition he’d started with the Admiral (why Georgie had surrendered naming rights to Jon, Martin will never understand), but Martin had resolutely vetoed ‘Commodore’. Martin, for his part, rather liked the idea of naming her after a fictional character, which Jon deemed ‘uninspired’. In the end, after a lot of tedious back-and-forth that neither of them seemed likely to win, they’d opted for ‘Captain’ as a sort of compromise, despite Jon’s grumbling that it’s more a general term of address than a proper flag officer title, and his gripes about Martin’s choice in fictional character.

(“You’re naming our cat after Captain Jack Harkness? Seriously?”

“Not directly after Captain Jack Harkness. There are plenty of other fictional captains, you know. And okay, I may have had an embarrassingly huge crush on him in the past, but really, can you blame me? Imagine being me, seventeen and freshly dropped out of school, still a painful closet case, watching the campy new Doctor Who reboot to distract myself from my fruitless job search, and then that guy comes sauntering onto the screen? Formative experience.”)

There’s a sharp knock on the door, that quick tat-tat-tat that is characteristic of Jon, and Martin’s head swivels around. Oh, right. The Captain, bless her, had successfully distracted him from obsessing over Jon’s erratic behaviour for a little while, but now the worries are back with a vengeance.

“Er… come in?” he says, hating how thin his voice sounds, how unsure of itself.

Jon opens the door just a crack and sticks his head through the gap, evidently unwilling to actually enter the room. The scatty professor vibe is even stronger than usual, his glasses askew, his cheeks darkened by five o’ clock shadow, flyaway strands of hair falling into his face. His face softens a little when his gaze lands on the peaceful man-and-cat tableau inside the bedroom, sporting that fond smile Martin loves so much. He hopes it’s not just directed at the Captain, he really hopes that.

“You, ah… you alright in here?”

Martin nods. “Can’t complain. I’ve got the Captain to keep me company.”

As if on cue, the Captain gives a pointed meow, which Martin is pretty sure translates to ‘stop being so bloody enigmatic, Jon, and just spit out whatever is clearly weighing on your mind’. He thinks the message may have gotten a little lost in translation, though, so he does his best to convey it. “So… are you gonna tell me what’s going on? Your, your plans for tonight?”

Jon flushes a dark red. “I- N-not quite yet, Martin, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer. I’m sorry. But I… Actually, I meant to ask- Do you think you’ll be fine with, um, staying in here for a, a little while? Or, well, o-on this floor, I suppose, you can- you can use the bathroom, of course. But just… can you stay upstairs until, er, seven? Seven thirty? I’ve got some, uh, things I need to prepare. I’ll come get you when… when I’m done.”

Well, that doesn’t answer any of Martin’s questions, or even remotely soothe his anxiety. But he’s learned the hard way that needling Jon is pointless when he gets like this, that he might as well try to drain water from a stone.

So he simply shrugs. “Yeah, alright.”

“Thanks,” Jon says, before the door immediately clicks shut again, like a full stop at the end of an unsatisfying sentence.

Martin thinks it’s testament to his endurance that he somehow manages to while away over three hours slouched on the bed without completely spiralling into panic. Though, credit where credit is due, the Captain, who’s on unusually good behaviour today, helps a great deal. Still, when the bedside clock, at which Martin has glanced at least once every two minutes for the past hour, displays 19:17 and Jon finally raps on the door again, Martin’s nerves are more than a little frayed.

This time, Jon doesn’t even bother to open the door, opting to speak through it instead, like he needs that barrier between them. “Martin? Do you- do you w-want to come downstairs? I, I, I made dinner.”

“Give me a sec!” Martin calls back, untangling himself from the rumpled bedsheets and trying in vain to make his hair and clothes look like he hasn’t spent most of the afternoon lounging in bed. It’s not unusual for Jon to cook dinner – though today was Martin’s turn, technically speaking – but it doesn’t usually take him this long, and it definitely doesn’t require Martin to stay out of sight. Accepting that there’s nothing he can do to make his hair any less tousled, Martin moves towards the door and throws one last glance back at the Captain for moral support, but she seems to have decided that the best way to deal with this is to curl into a fluffy ball and take a nap. Martin wishes he could do the same.

Instead, he has to make his way downstairs, where he is greeted at once with the overpowering odour of… something that smells pretty good, actually. A potpourri of spices Martin can’t quite identify, but that blend together seamlessly, like an olfactory melody. He does a double take when he enters the kitchen. The whole room is gently illuminated by the warm glow of far more candles than Martin remembers them owning, the table is draped in the burgundy tablecloth they rarely use and decked with the fancy cutlery Catriona gave them as a joint birthday present, and two glasses of the red wine they were saving for a special occasion have already been poured. Whatever Martin was expecting, it certainly wasn’t this.

He advances slowly, beset by the irrational notion that all this is some kind of elaborate death trap. “Uh… What’s all this for?”

“Does there need to be a reason? Can’t I just make a nice dinner for my boyfriend?”

Martin rolls his eyes – Jon has always been a terrible liar, but this is a new low even for him – but doesn’t press the point. If he wants to get to the bottom of this tonight, it looks like he’ll have to play along.

“Alright,” he says. “Um… thank you. I’ll make dinner tomorrow, though.”

“Yes, yes.” Jon brushes him off with an impatient flutter of his hand, then motions towards Martin’s usual chair. “Go on then, have a seat.”

Martin looks him up and down, only now fully taking in the fact that under his apron, Jon is wearing ironed trousers and his finest dress shirt paired with an elegant suit jacket, and that he has tied his hair back, and even attempted to use some sort of hair gel on it, with questionable results. Jon has actually made an effort. Martin doesn’t know if he should be touched or concerned. What he does know is, glancing down at his own dishevelled appearance, that he is very much underdressed in comparison, not to mention probably covered in cat hair.

“I could go, uh, I could go upstairs and get changed?” he suggests, making a vague hand gesture intended to encompass his entire being.

Jon looks bewildered by the mere idea. “Oh- no, no, Martin, that’s- you’re fine, honestly, y-you look good. This is just-” He gestures to his hair with a self-conscious chuckle. “It… doesn’t matter. Can you sit down? Please?”

There is something dangerously close to despair in Jon’s voice, and it melts Martin’s stubborn resistance, makes him trudge over to the table and take his seat without complaint. He gulps as he looks down at his empty plate, running a finger along the stem of his wine glass. His unease has grown, pooling low in his guts and rising in his throat, making him vaguely nauseous, so that even the delicious smell wafting from the stove does little for his appetite. Whatever Jon has to tell him, it’s nothing positive, he can gather that much. He must have prepared this whole spectacle as a way to break the news gently, in the hope of softening the blow. Martin would much rather he just came out and said it, no hemming, no hawing, no tedious dancing around the plain truth. He would prefer a pain not cushioned in treacherous kindness.

But right now, all he can do is sit and watch Jon lift the lid off a steaming pot and dip a wooden spoon inside, giving the contents a final stir before subjecting them to a taste test, his brow wrinkled in concentration. Seemingly satisfied, he brings the pot over to the table and dishes out food onto both their plates, then piles a mound of rice on each. Martin raises his fork and pokes it in the rice, coats it in the fragrant sauce, but he can’t bring himself to lift it to his mouth, his stomach knotted tight with anxiety. He waits in tense silence as Jon takes off his apron and slides into the chair opposite Martin, unable to meet his eyes. They clink their glasses together and Martin takes a large swig of wine, hoping it will fortify him against the inevitable revelation. But annoyingly enough, Jon refuses to just spit it out already, instead babbling on about all sorts of irrelevant things, jumping from trivial topic to trivial topic at a dizzying pace, like he is trying to dodge a whole volley of bullets. Martin soon finds it impossible to keep up with him, and just gives a perfunctory nod or a haphazard half-sentence at appropriate intervals. The usual flow of their conversations, unguarded and easy, by now as familiar and safe as the bed they sleep in tangled up together every night, has evaporated entirely, and this feels more like a tiresome performance. Jon is delivering his lines in the stilted fashion of a mediocre actor reading from a poorly written script, and Martin has never been given a script in the first place. Just say it, Jon, he begs him silently. Whatever it is, just put an end to this.

Despite his utter lack of appetite, he forces himself to methodically shovel forkful after forkful of the lamb curry on his plate into his mouth, though it tastes like ash on his tongue. Some part of him dimly registers that the food is delicious - while Martin’s cooking skills have notably improved over the course of the past year, Jon still has far more expertise, and he’s truly outdone himself with this one – and that he’s actually pretty hungry after having barely eaten at lunch, and that the wine is exquisite, and that the candlelit ambience has a certain charm. But a far bigger part of him is reciting the feverish litany that has been playing in his mind on loop for a good few hours now, that incessant chant of horrible hypotheticals ringing out like a mournful chorus. He tries to imagine what his therapist would say, maybe that this is just his brain creating alarmist scenarios with little to no connection to reality, that he needs to take a deep breath and think this through rationally. And he tries, he really does, but every breath is a small taste of suffocation, and his mind still spouts the same cruel phrases on repeat, like a needle stuck on a record.

Jon seems to have noticed Martin’s low mood, because he abandons his halting attempts at conversations halfway through the meal, and they finish eating in an uncomfortable silence so palpable that it might as well be sitting at the kitchen table with them. Martin longs to break it, to return things to how they were before… well, today, really. But he doesn’t think he could stomach casual banter or pleasant chatter now, not when Jon still hasn’t addressed the massive elephant in the room. (An elephant that is invisible to Martin, of course, though he can sense its presence… oh well, perhaps not the best idiom for this situation.)

When both their plates have been cleaned, Martin really doesn’t see the point in sticking it out much further and prolonging this dreadful silence, so he quickly downs what’s left in his wine glass and pushes his chair back. “I’ll do the dishes.”

“You really don’t have to,” Jon protests at once, stubbornly holding onto his plate when Martin tries to grab it.

Martin sighs. “You made dinner, it’s only fair. Come on, just give me your plate.”

Jon is gripping the plate with both hands now, like an invaluable treasure he is guarding against pillagers. It’s utterly ridiculous. “I-I-I… Could we… I mean, can’t it wait until later? We, we could do them together i-if you like. But I thought we might… go out. O-on a walk. Now.”

For a moment, Martin wonders if he heard him right. “You want to go on a walk? Right now?”

“Um… yes?”

“Jon, it’s bloody freezing outside.”

“I-it wouldn’t have to be for long!” Jon hastens to explain. “Just, er, over the meadow behind the cottage and up that little hill, maybe? There is… something I need to tell you.”

Right, there it is. Whatever grand revelation Jon has planned, it apparently can’t be delivered inside. At least he’s acknowledged it now. At least Martin has an estimate of when this torturous wait will be over.

“Alright, fine,” he says with as much indifference as he can muster. “But wear your coat and your scarf, okay? Don’t want you getting hypothermia.”

They walk in silence side by side, hands shoved into their coat pockets, Martin deliberately slowing his pace when he notices Jon’s slightly wobbly gait. He considers admonishing him for insisting on not needing his cane tonight, but then thinks better of it. Even on a good day, Jon can only tolerate a certain amount of Martin’s nagging before he grows irritable, and Martin really doesn’t want to cross the line on this day that is already fraught with tension.

Despite the glacial temperature, it turns out to be a nice night for a walk. It’s dry, at least, the cold air is crisp and invigorating, it’s relatively windless by Scottish standards, and the clear night sky is speckled with tiny pinpricks of stars. Any other time, Martin thinks, this would have been quite romantic. They could have found the perfect spot for stargazing, huddled close together to share body warmth, while Jon makes use of his impressively comprehensive astronomy knowledge (courtesy of a brief but intense obsession during his teenage years, he has once admitted) to point out all the visible constellations on the firmament, his breath ghosting over Martin’s neck as he speaks.

But tonight, both romance and stargazing are far removed from Martin’s mind, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the ground as he walks, while a dread that chills him more than the icy air ever could settles in his bones. His brain, traitorous little bastard that it is, is once again offering up an extensive list of what Jon might be about to tell him, each possibility more terrifying than the last. They have been detected by some sinister secret agency that hunts down people from other worlds. Jon can feel the influence of the Eye again. Jon- No. Inside his pockets, Martin balls his hands into tight fists, digging his nails into his palms until the pain distracts him from his overactive imagination. It’s ridiculous. He’s just catastrophising, getting worked up over imaginary scenarios that would dissolve like the illusions they are if he just bothered to communicate about it. That’s what his therapist would say, and he knows he’s right, at least on an intellectual level. The emotional part of him, however, that deep-seated, overgrown tangle of weeds and flowers and cherry trees and poison ivy that he has only recently started to assemble into a garden, is much harder to persuade. He knows talking about your feelings is important; hell, he’s been extolling the virtues of open communication to just about anyone who will listen, and most of all to Jon. And if he’s learned one thing in the last months, it’s that that makes him a bit of a hypocrite, because the mere thought of sharing his own feelings still makes him want to retch. It makes him feel naked in a way that taking his clothes off never could, all his weaknesses and vulnerabilities out there in the open for others to exploit. He knows Jon would never take advantage of that vulnerability, but still he dreads the idea of feeling exposed, of letting Jon see what a failure he truly is. He has been working on it, though, in achingly tiny steps, like a hermit crab whose shell needs to be carefully pried open. He no longer responds with an automatic ‘fine’ when Jon asks how he’s feeling, but takes a moment to take stock of his emotional state and tries to give an honest answer. He’s been improving at the small stuff, the one-word answers that don’t reveal that much at all. But the bigger things, like those dark storm clouds gathering in his mind sometimes that have the potential to unleash torrents of tears, are still taboo. He’s been tentatively talking about those topics with his therapist, at least, approaching them from a safe distance as if that would alleviate the danger, but he can’t find the words to bring them up with Jon. Or rather, he can find the words, but he can’t get them out of his mouth, can only swallow them down again before their acrid taste poisons his tongue.

He still remembers how Jon had held him on those select few occasions when the storm clouds had erupted and some of those unspeakable feelings had burst out in a relentless flood, how comforted he had felt ensconced in those slender arms that held him with surprising strength, how perfectly protected. He thinks about it far more than he likes to admit, even to himself. He knows he could have that comfort again if only he found the courage to ask for it, that Jon would offer it to him in a heartbeat without even asking for a single thing in return. And it’s precisely that knowledge that twists like a knife in his guts every time he allows himself to consider the possibility. After everything Jon has suffered through, given everything he is still dealing with, he deserves so much better. He deserves to be treated with care, to be touched gently, to be held. He deserves a shoulder strong enough to lean on, a safe haven, an anchor; not yet another burden he is forced to bear. Martin wants to be that for him. He has to be that for him. And that means he can’t afford weakness.

His cheeks are smarting from the cold, and when he brings up a hand to rub at them, it comes away damp with moisture. It takes him a moment to realise that it isn’t raining. He glances over at Jon, but fortunately, he’s lost in his own inscrutable thoughts and pays Martin no mind. He furtively wipes his eyes dry, feeling an old familiar shame swelling in his stomach like he’s eaten something rotten. A shame that is redolent of childhood for him like birthday parties and Christmas crackers are for others. Even after all those years, even in a different universe, it still feels sometimes like he’s never left that shabby council flat on the outskirts of Manchester, the air thick enough to be suffocating with his father’s absence and his mother’s disappointment. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his mother is still glaring at him in silent fury, her lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes dull with exhaustion, because he has once again broken a cup or stepped on the creaky floorboard or just existed a little too loudly. And he can’t even blame her, it wouldn’t be fair, because she’s sick and she’s got enough on her plate without having to deal with his mistakes as well, and if he could just be stronger, more independent, a better son, a better person, all of this would be so much easier.

He knows he shouldn’t think of his mother now, not tonight, not when he is already trying so hard to keep the tears from falling. But he can’t help but wonder – has been wondering from the very start of their relationship, actually – if Jon ever looks at him and sees what his mother used to see, what Elias has once shown him in perfect, merciless detail. Not the resemblance to his father, of course, but the… the other things. Are there times when Jon looks at him and can only see a disappointment, a failure, a useless waste of space? He knows he shouldn’t worry about this; he knows Jon is nothing like his mother; he knows Jon loves him, or at least tells him so plenty of times. But love isn’t always an antidote to unhappiness, is it?

“Martin?” Jon asks, the first word he’s spoken since leaving the house.

Martin comes to an abrupt halt, and only now realises they have crested the small hill on the other side of the meadow behind the cottage. It’s a gentle slope that doesn’t put too much strain on Jon’s leg, but it still offers a nice view over the town, the rows of terraced houses on one side, the sprawling shoreline on the other. It’s all shrouded in darkness now, of course, but the distant glimmer of a campfire someone lit on the beach and the warm glow of streetlamps illuminate the night, little glimpses of light to rival the stars above. On any different night, Martin thinks with a dark sense of regret, this would have been breathtakingly lovely.

But there’s nothing lovely about it tonight, not when Jon has lured him here for the sole purpose of telling him… something. Whatever terrible thing has been weighing on his mind and that Martin is in no way prepared to hear. Not when Jon has brought him here to- to break up with him.

Martin swallows. For the hundredth time today, he reminds himself that this is not what is happening here. Jon wouldn’t just leave him, not out of the blue, not after everything they’ve been through, not now, not like this. They had made a deal, after all, hadn’t they? Where you go, I go. One way or another, together.

Then again, it wouldn’t be the first promise either of them had broken.

He is so preoccupied with agonising over what Jon might be going to say that he doesn’t even notice Jon has started speaking until he breaks off mid-sentence and glances up at Martin with a questioning look. “Martin? Did you… did you hear what I said?”

“God, sorry, I was miles away,” Martin says with a weak chuckle. “Could you, uh, repeat that, maybe? I’m all ears now. Promise.”

“Right. O-of course.”

Jon frees his left hand from the cocoon of his coat pocket and lets it dangle in the air, an unspoken invitation. Martin takes it without hesitation, acting on muscle memory alone, even though Jon’s fingers are cold as icicles and instantly leach what meagre warmth had been left in Martin’s hand. He’ll never pass up a chance to hold Jon’s hand.

“What I said was, we-we’ve been together f-for a while now, maybe… maybe not that long by other couples’ standards, but I imagine most of them haven’t been through the literal apocalypse together, heh, a-and you don’t need me to tell you that there have been many… difficulties along the way, and god knows things haven’t… haven’t always been easy for either of us, and I-I want to sincerely apologise for my part in that…”

Jon trails off, fixing his gaze on the ground as if he’s hoping to see the right words spelled out in the grass. Once again, Martin has the odd sense of watching a badly rehearsed performance. Jon’s little speech is stilted and formal enough to be pre-written, and he’s reciting the words like an inexpert actor in the throes of stage fright. His right hand, the one that is not linked with Martin’s, is fidgeting with something in his coat pocket. That’s one of his tell-tale nervous habits, and his pockets are always well-equipped for it. Martin likes to joke that Jon is like a crow sometimes, collecting stray trinkets and hoarding them like costly treasure, but tonight he finds it irritating rather than endearing. For god’s sake, why can’t Jon get to the fucking point for once in his life? Even during the apocalypse, when Jon had the answer to almost every question you could think of at his disposal, Martin still had to painstakingly wring every tiny piece of information from him, and even then Jon had left him in the dark about plenty of things he really should have known about. And now he still eschews straight answers in favour of cryptic bullshit.

Martin aims for a weary grumble, but it’s hard to speak past the massive lump obstructing his throat, and his voice comes out small and choked and honestly quite pathetic. “Just spit it out already, will you?”

Jon whips his head around to throw Martin a baffled look. “Wh-what are you talking about? Spit what out?”

“You know what I mean,” Martin says, stubbornly blinking away the incipient tears. “The thing you’re going to say. We both know what it is. Just spit it out and be done with it. No need to drag it out.”

Jon uncurls his fingers from Martin’s and returns his hand to his pocket. Martin immediately mourns the loss of that small connection, misses even the uncomfortable coldness of Jon’s skin.

“In that case, I think I- I think I sh-should just leave it,” Jon says. There’s an odd note to his voice, something almost… teary.

“Just. Tell. Me.,” Martin grits out, his anxiety and premature grief slowly replaced by cold hard fury. It feels good, in a way. Almost satisfying. Anger is something he can hold onto, something he can wield like a blade. Anger gives him focus.

Jon breathes a thin laugh. “No, no, I think you’ve made it quite clear that you’re not interested in… in hearing that from me, a-and I don’t hold that against you in any way, but I should… probably stop now and save myself at least a tiny scrap of dignity. So… yeah. I-if we could just both forget this ever happened, then that would be… that would be great.”

Now it’s Martin’s turn to look baffled. What on Earth does Jon mean? Martin – or rather, his galloping anxiety – was so sure he’d figured it out, was already bracing himself for the inevitable brutal impact. But this? This doesn’t square at all with what he’s been expecting.

“What… what the hell are you talking about?”

Jon’s brow furrows in a confused frown that, under any other circumstances, Martin would have found quite adorable. “What are you talking about?”

Alright, then. Cards on the table. No point in dancing around it any longer.

“I-I don’t know, okay?” His voice is high-pitched and close to hysterical, and oh god, he’s definitely full-on crying now, but that’s the least of his concerns at the moment. “I-it’s just, y-you’ve been really on edge all day, so I thought, well obviously it has to be something… something bad. Like, I don’t know. A serious illness. The Fears being back. Or… you breaking up with me.”

The last part is barely above a whisper, but judging by the way Jon’s face crumples, he’s heard every word. Without a moment’s hesitation, he throws his arms around Martin, enveloping him in an embrace tight enough to be bordering on uncomfortable, but Martin wouldn’t have it any other way right now. He presses his face into Jon’s hair and lets his tears soak into the salt-and-pepper locks.

“Oh Martin,” Jon whispers, stroking a soothing hand over Martin’s back. “I-I shouldn’t have… God, I’m so sorry. I’m not breaking up with you. I’ll be here for as long as you’ll have me. I need you to know that. A-and it’s not one of the other things, either. It’s… nothing bad, per se.”

He holds Martin like this, patient and gentle, occasionally mumbling soft reassurances without expecting anything in return, until the worst of Martin’s sobs have subsided and he feels like something resembling a human being again. He takes a shuddering inhale to brace himself and draws back just enough to look Jon in the eyes.

“Wh-what was it then? What y-you were going to say.”

Jon rubs the back of his neck, embarrassment painting his cheeks a dark crimson. “Oh, that… Honestly, it seems kind of silly now. You’ll laugh at me.”

“I won’t laugh,” Martin says with the solemnity of a vow, taking both of Jon’s hands in his and rubbing his thumbs over the knuckles. “Can you just tell me, please? I want to hear it.”

Jon sighs. “Alright. Since you asked. I had a little speech prepared, but that… that doesn’t seem appropriate now, so, um… well. Here goes. I was… I was going to ask you to marry me, actually.”

That last sentence is delivered with a sheepish chuckle, as if the mere idea of it is preposterous. It takes Martin’s poor tortured brain, already put through the wringer far too much today, several seconds to catch up. When the meaning finally sinks in, when the intention behind Jon’s words hits him with all the force of a tidal wave, it’s a small miracle that he doesn’t collapse right on the spot. A deluge of emotions pours through him, impossible to name or hold onto, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, he settles on an odd mixture of both, even though he guiltily remembers that he promised Jon not to laugh at him. He simply needs an outlet for this merciless onslaught of feeling, far too vast for his body to contain.

Jon stares at him in confused concern for a moment, before his face morphs into a scowl, a sour twist to his lips. “Yes, yes, alright, I got the message. No need to rub it in.”

Martin feels a stab of guilt at Jon’s palpable dejection and an apology is already on the tip of his tongue, but before he can get it out, his mouth acts of its own accord and decides that a more productive use of its time is pressing itself to Jon’s. Jon’s lips are chapped and dry from the cold, and still bear the aftertaste of wine and an amalgamation of spices, but they are still perfect; Martin doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of feeling them move against his. He parts his lips to deepen the kiss, swallowing Jon’s resulting gasp, then lets his tongue skim over Jon’s lips and licks into his mouth, exploring every part of it with the thoroughness it deserves, like he is trying to catalogue it, claim it for his own. He abandons his hold on Jon’s hands to wrap his arms around him instead, resting one hand on the small of his back and sliding the other into his hair. Jon flings his arms around Martin’s neck in turn, pulling him down even closer until their bodies slot together like two pieces of a whole. They kiss hungrily, desperately, like they are drowning men gasping for air, like they are starving men offered a feast, like they are on the verge of death and their only hope of salvation lies in each other. For an indeterminate stretch of time, the entire world narrows to the two of them, to the slick sensation of lips moving against each other, to the soft noises breathed into each other’s mouths, to the grounding feeling of bodies pressed so tightly together that their heartbeats blend into one harmonic rhythm, to a love that, for the moment, feels like the cure to just about any ailment.

They have to draw apart eventually, because no spell can last forever, heavy breaths intermingling in the freezing air between them.

“So, um,” Jon murmurs, his voice hoarse, “does that mean…?”

Martin kisses him again, just a brief peck, just because he has to. “Bloody hell, Jon. Of course it means yes. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Jon looks so incredulous at this that Martin can’t help but laugh again. “What, did you seriously think I was gonna turn you down?”

“It was a perfectly logical outcome,” Jon says indignantly. “I did try to, um, ascertain your feelings on the subject, a-and while you seemed to be open to the general concept of marriage, when it came to the question of whether you’d actually want to, well, marry me, I couldn’t really… pick up on your signals? I wanted to ask anyway, however, in case you’d be… amenable to the suggestion.”

Any other time, Martin wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation of teasing Jon about treating this with the formality of a business meeting – his stiff upper lip tendencies come out in the oddest situations – but tonight he’s too happy to hide his boundless, dizzying affection under a veneer of sarcasm.

“Oh, I think I’m more than amenable to that. And… Okay, to be honest, you weren’t picking up on my signals because I, I wasn’t sending any. I mean, I’ve always had a soft spot for weddings, ever since I was a kid – god knows why, really, it’s not like there was anything to romanticise about my parents’ marriage, and gay marriage wasn’t even an option back then, but… anyway. I like the idea of it. But I didn’t say anything because you, um, didn’t strike me as the marrying type? I guess I thought you’d find it all terribly cheesy, or like… a pointless ceremony upholding antiquated values or whatever. And I just, I didn’t want you to feel obligated to do something you don’t really want.”

Jon leans in for another kiss that Martin gladly receives. “Thank you,” he whispers against Martin’s lips. “That was very sweet of you. Even if entirely unnecessary.”

Martin laughs softly. “We really got our wires crossed, huh?”

Jon hums in agreement. “I think our therapists might have something to say about that.”

“We’ve got lots of time to work on it,” Martin says, and only now does the full meaning of that phrase strike him. Lots of time. So much time. All the time they’d never thought they’d be lucky enough to get. Years upon years upon years, until the end of their lives, and all of them spent together. That’s what marriage means, he thinks, or at least what it should mean: not a piece of paper or an outdated convention, but an oath, a promise, a covenant, to love each other no matter what happens, no matter where life may take you and what kind of people it may turn you into. It’s not about the exchange of rings or vows, but of time. Time to spend together, time to grow together, time to change in a thousand little ways as the years go by and fall in love all over again with each new facet. Martin can’t wait for the rest of their lives.

He draws Jon into a tight hug, burying his face in his hair and breathing in the scent of his sandalwood shampoo. They just stand there for a while, sheltered from the wind and the cold in their cocoon of winter coats and body warmth, and oblivious to anything beyond the two of them. Then Jon wriggles one arm free, ignoring Martin’s involuntary noise of protest, and fumbles around in his pocket.

He pulls back from the hug just enough to give Martin a clear view of his face, the flush on his cheeks that’s visible even in the dark, the glint in his brown eyes, his slightly nervous smile. Martin will get to look at that face every day for the rest of his life. Jon’s worry lines will turn into permanent wrinkles, his skin will start to sag, and the black in his hair will be entirely replaced by silver, and Martin will be there to watch it all happen, little by little. He’ll get to see Jon grow old. He’ll get to grow old alongside him. For some reason, this is the first time since they’d landed in this universe that this fact fully sinks in, and the simple, beautiful truth of it spreads liquid warmth all through his insides, a heat source even the Scottish weather doesn’t stand a chance against.

He follows Jon’s gaze down to the small square box cradled in Jon’s palm, and feels so light-headed for a moment that he has to place a hand on Jon’s shoulder just to steady himself. Right. This is happening. This is real. This isn’t some particularly cruel fear domain constructed to lure him into happiness before snatching it away; this is real and it’s his and it’s here to stay. This is where they begin the next chapter of their still unwritten future.

“I, uh, I suppose I should give you the ring, actually,” Jon says awkwardly.

Martin laughs through the tears that are once again running down his face. “I’d say that’s a pretty important part of it, yeah.”

Jon raises a hand to Martin’s face and brushes a gentle thumb over the tear tracks on one side, then on the other. Martin shivers, letting his eyes flutter shut. He’d really thought the well would have run dry by now, after he’d spent a good chunk of the last hour either close to tears or full-on crying, but evidently his tear ducts are working overtime today. Then again, aren’t proposals supposed to turn you into a blubbering mess?

“This isn’t going at all like I had planned,” Jon huffs, though the obvious fondness in his voice belies his faux irritation. “I had a whole speech prepared, I’ll have you know. It was going to be perfect. You were going to cry. Well, you’re doing that anyway, I suppose.”

Martin opens his eyes again and tilts his face to press a kiss to Jon’s palm. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “You could still do the speech, if you want? I’d love to hear it.”

Jon sighs. “No, I think the moment for that has passed. I have- I’ve still got it written down, though. At home. I-if you’d like to read it at some point. When I’m not in the room, preferably.”

Jon drops his gaze to the ground, refusing to meet Martin’s eyes. Martin reaches for the hand that is still cupping his cheek and tangles their fingers together, squeezing briefly. “That’d be wonderful, love.”

Then he nods at the box still sitting in Jon’s open palm and raises his eyebrows. “I think you said something about a ring…”

“Right! Riiight. O-of course.” Jon gently slips his fingers from Martin’s grasp and starts to open the box, but pauses halfway through. “Er… should I get down on one knee?”

Martin isn’t even sure what it is about that question that he finds so hilarious, but it takes him a while to stifle his ensuing giggle fit and reassure a rather crestfallen Jon. “It’s- I- god, I’m sorry, I swear I’m not laughing at you, honestly, it’s just… this is very sweet of you, but please don’t ruin your leg on my account, okay? You’re fine just as you are. You… you’re perfect.”

“Not like there’s much left to ruin,” Jon grumbles, but he doesn’t bother to hide his smile.

He clears his throat and takes a step back. “Right, here goes. Martin Blackwood-” With that, he pulls the lid off the box to reveal a silver band, simple but elegant, cushioned atop smooth blue velvet. “I love you, I will always love you, a-and there is nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you. So… will you marry me?”

Martin can only see Jon as a blurry shape through the veil of his tears (because of course he’s sobbing again, his last morsel of self-control has been well and truly decimated), but he nods with so much force that it feels like his head is about to fall off, and chokes out “Y-yes, yes, of course”, even though he’s already given Jon his answer. He wipes the back of his hand over his eyes to clear his vision, and when he looks back at Jon, there is a glimmer in his eyes that Martin is pretty sure is not just a reflection of the moonlight. He obligingly raises his left hand so that Jon can slide the ring onto his ring finger, shivering at the gentle brush of his slender fingers and the undisguised reverence of the gesture. Martin gives a tentative waggle of his hand, still joined with Jon’s, admiring the way the ring looks on his finger and how it feels against his skin, the cool metal already starting to adjust to his body temperature.

“It’s a perfect fit,” he marvels aloud. “Did you measure my ring size while I was asleep or something?”

Jon bites his bottom lip and averts his eyes. “Um, no, n-not really.”

“Then how-?”

“I, uh, I might have Known it. Back when I was still connected to the Eye. A-and I… well, I remembered.”

He seems to completely misinterpret Martin’s slack-jawed expression, because he rushes to add, “That was early days, relatively speaking, before y-you told me not to look into your head. A-and besides, it’s not really like I was reading your mind, you weren’t going around thinking about your ring size, after all, but I just… asked the Eye for that information. I’m sorry i-if that makes you uncomfortable, though, I should have-”

Martin cuts him off as soon as he is able to form a coherent sentence again. “You wanted to marry me all the way back then?”

Jon flushes even darker. “Well, I wasn’t… actively planning it or anything like that, but it was… in the back of my mind. I knew it was much too early in a relationship to even think about marriage, but I couldn’t help imagining what I would do with my life if, by some miracle, we made it out alive… and the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to be with you.”

Jon is definitely close to crying now, and Martin knows that if he matches Jon’s earnest tone, they will both dissolve into tears, so he chooses to lighten the mood instead. “Well, it’s a good thing you waited. I think this beats an apocalypse wedding.”

“I don’t know, an apocalypse wedding could have had its charms. It might have been difficult to find a registry office, though.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure there were some about. There must have been people whose biggest fear was getting married. Hardcore commitment phobes, you know?”

Jon gives one of those unguarded little laughs that Martin loves so much, the ones that light up his entire face and seem to come as a surprise even to himself. “I’m rather glad we avoided that particular domain.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Martin links their fingers together again and strokes his thumb over the base of Jon’s ring finger, which feels oddly naked compared to his own. “You know what? I’m going to get you a ring too,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.

Jon being Jon, he tries to start one anyway. “I don’t think that’s what tradition dictates.”

“So what? Screw tradition! When have we ever done anything the traditional way? You got me a ring, so it’s only fair that I get you one as well.”

“Martin.”

“No, no, you’re not getting out of this, so don’t even try. You’re going to get an engagement ring, and you’re going to get a proposal, and that’s the end of it. So, y’know… deal with it.”

There is it again, that little laugh. Martin will get to hear that laugh for the rest of his life, he thinks, and he realises again how unbelievably, immeasurably, unfathomably lucky he is.

“Alright, then,” Jon says softly. “Do your worst.”

Martin laughs, and hugs Jon tight. Part of him wants this moment to never end, wants to untether this uncomplicated bliss from the linear progression of time and live in it forever. But that part of him can’t compete with the part of him that knows that it’s not grand gestures and perfect moments that make a life, but the small things, the everyday and unremarkable, the little rituals, the well-worn grooves of familiar habits, freshly washed bedsheets and spirited debates over a game of Scrabble and chopping vegetables for dinner. All those mundane minutiae that become elevated to something special when they are shared with someone you love, when they once seemed so outlandish that you didn’t even dare to dream of them. That’s what Martin wants to live in. And he does, and he will, every day for the rest of his life.

They can’t stay on this hill forever, standing beneath the star-speckled canvas of the night sky, but that’s alright. They have frozen limbs in need of warming up, a stroppy cat in need of feeding, and, well… a wedding in need of planning.

Chapter Text

“Seriously? 225 quid for a cake?”

Jon blinks one eye open to glimpse Martin staring daggers at his laptop, and makes no effort to conceal his fond smile. There is something rather endearing about Martin’s sincere indignation at the most trivial of things, though Jon doesn’t have the faintest clue what provoked it in this instance. It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and they’re curled up together on the couch while the rain is pattering gently on the windowpane, and that comforting sound in combination with the purring cat resting in his lap and the warm body of his fiancé (fiancé!) to snuggle up against has been enough to make Jon abandon his book and let himself drift off instead.

He slowly opens his other eye as well and rubs sleep crust from the corners of his eyes, then makes a questioning hum.

“Just looking up stuff for the wedding,” Martin says, angling his laptop so Jon can look at the screen. “Apparently you need to be a millionaire to get married. Like, yeah, I was expecting clothes and decorations and stuff like that to be expensive, but this just takes the cake. Pun not intended. I mean, look at it! It’s just three plain tiers that they tacked some flowers on. It’s probably more fondant than actual cake.”

Wedding cakes are a topic Jon has never had the slightest interest in, much less opinion on, but he knows he needs to humour Martin on this, so he fumbles for his glasses and squints at the offending object displayed on the screen. It looks… like a cake. Very white. Very wedding-y.

“Um, yeah, that seems like a bit… much.”

“Bloody extortionate, more like,” Martin grumbles. “And- oh, look, it’s plain vanilla flavour. Fuck off.”

Jon drops his head onto Martin’s shoulder and huddles closer, thinking that resuming his nap sounds like a wonderful idea, actually. “You could just bake your own, you know,” he mumbles.

Martin jerks his head around with enough force to dislodge Jon’s head from his shoulder, and to rouse the Captain, who had until then been half-dozing peacefully in Jon’s lap, into raising her head and giving an affronted meow. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jon, I can’t make a wedding cake.”

“Why not?” Jon asks, running a mollifying hand over the Captain’s soft fur, in the hope that it will persuade her to retract her rather sharp and rather painful claws from his thighs. So far, he’s unsuccessful. “You’re great at baking. You made that shortbread yesterday.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but anyone with an oven can make shortbread. You basically just throw flour, sugar, and butter together. But making a proper wedding cake, with multiple tiers and frosting a-and decorations, that’s a whole new level. I could never do that.”

“It doesn’t- Ow. Yes, alright, cat, you’ve made your point. Now will you please get off my lap before you turn my legs into a pincushion? I’ve got quite enough scars already, I think.”

The Captain just digs her claws in deeper, not, he suspects, because she doesn’t understand human language, but because she understands him perfectly well and is acting out of pure spite. This is a battle of will he is determined not to lose. With a long-suffering sigh, he grips her firmly around the middle and sets her down on the floor, where she throws him one of her trademark withering glares and skulks off in the direction of the kitchen.

“Right, where was I? Ah, yes. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The cake, I mean. I never really understood the whole fuss about wedding cakes anyway. You could just make a… a red velvet or something like that. Something that isn’t plain vanilla and that isn’t smothered in fondant. And also won’t cost a fortune.”

“But the whole point of a wedding cake is that it’s not just some ordinary cake!” Martin protests, sounding as scandalised as if Jon had just suggested serving a plate of store-bought biscuits instead. “That’s not how it works. It’s not traditional. And it’s not traditional to bake your own wedding cake either.”

Jon snorts. “I hate to break it to you, but two men getting married isn’t exactly traditional either.”

“God, why do you always need to have the last word? You can be so exhausting sometimes, you know that?”

Jon is about to concur that that is actually quite a fair assessment, all things considered, but Martin reaches for his hand before he can even open his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says quietly. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t think you’re exhausting, I promise.”

“It’s okay.” He squeezes Martin’s hand. “You have every right to be annoyed with me once in a while, you know.”

“Yeah, but… I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. It wasn’t fair on you. I’m really sorry.” Martin lets out a drawn-out sigh, like he’s trying to get a lifetime supply of worry off his chest. “I’m just getting a bit stressed about all the wedding preparation, I guess.”

Jon sneaks a glance at the browser window that’s still open on Martin’s laptop, displaying a frankly frightening amount of tabs, all of which seem to be related to wedding planning in one way or another. He reaches over, ignoring Martin’s squeak of protest, and clicks the red X at the upper right hand corner of the screen. After confirming that he does indeed want to close 37 tabs, he slams the laptop shut and places it atop a stack of old newspapers on the cluttered coffee table, safely out of Martin’s reach.

“It’s going to break if you keep treating it like that!” Martin protests. “And you made me lose all my tabs.”

“The wedding is in two months, Martin,” Jon says, trying to keep his voice gentle and not let his frustration bleed through. “We don’t need to have every tiny detail figured out now. You just admitted yourself that it’s stressing you out.”

“It’s in one month and three weeks, actually.”

“Same difference.”

“I know, I know,” Martin says after a few moments of tense silence, and he sounds so dejected that Jon almost regrets having brought it up in the first place. “But I want this to be perfect, okay? I need this to be perfect.”

“It will be,” Jon whispers. He raises their still-linked hands to his lips to brush a kiss across Martin’s knuckles, gentle as a prayer, lingering as a promise. “It’ll be perfect because it’s you and me. I don’t need anything else.”

Martin gives a weak chuckle. “You know, I still can’t believe what a sap you really are.”

“Is that… a bad thing?”

“Oh no, it’s definitely a good thing. A very good thing.”

“I’m glad,” Jon says, his stupid besotted smile probably audible in his voice. He couldn’t care less. “And I meant it, you know. The only thing I care about is getting married to you. Not the, the cake or the flowers or the venue or the whole damn ceremony, just… you. If it were up to me, we could just leave right now, drive some place where nobody knows us, persuade two random pedestrians to be our witnesses, and get… hitched. As they say.”

Martin snorts. “What, in Gretna Green?”

“Why not, actually? It’s not that far from here.”

Martin simply stares at him with one eyebrow raised, like this is a joke he doesn’t quite get. Then understanding dawns and his eyebrow arches even higher. “Oh my god, you’re actually serious.”

Jon twists his hands in his lap, beginning to feel rather ridiculous. “Well, i-it was more of an… idea, really. A, a suggestion. Just, um, wanted to throw that out there. It’s- I know it’s kind of silly. You can… you can forget I said anything.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Martin says gently to cut short Jon’s nervous rambling, taking one of his hands in his own again and brushing a soothing thumb over the back of it. “It’s not silly. I-I like the idea, actually. Honestly. I think it’s… romantic. Okay, in a kind of weird, it’s clear that you didn’t think this through properly way, but- still romantic. But as much as I’d like to abandon all our plans and elope with you right this instant, I’m not actually keen on Catriona murdering me when she finds out that she wasn’t invited to the wedding.”

Jon chuckles softly. “That’s fair. And I suppose we’ve already had an elopement, anyway.”

Martin hums in agreement, then scrunches up his nose. “Wait, do you mean the one to the safehouse or the one to… this universe?”

“The safehouse, obviously. I think our, um, journey to this world was a little too grim to count as an elopement.”

“Yeah, because hiding from the law in a dingy murder cabin isn’t grim at all.”

“Alright, you’ve got a point there,” Jon concedes. “But I maintain that if you skip over some of the more… unsavoury bits, our time in the safehouse would make much better material for a romance novel.”

“Oh yeah? And what do you know about romance novels?”

“Not a lot, granted. But I can’t imagine many of them feature the apocalypse, a collapsing watchtower, or stabbing your lover in the chest to sever his connection to an Eldritch fear god.”

He only realises he’s said the wrong thing when Martin lets out a small, wounded noise and his hand tightens convulsively around Jon’s, squeezing so hard it hurts for a moment before letting go entirely. Oh, Jon could kick himself. What on Earth had possessed him to think this was in any way an acceptable topic to joke about now? He’s been aware for a good while now, since before the start of their relationship, that he and Martin don’t always share the same sense of humour, but rather than being discouraged by this, he’s made it his mission (even and perhaps especially during the apocalypse) to learn Martin’s language in this as in all other respects, and every bright, unguarded laugh he can draw from Martin is a secret victory for him, a small treasure to be cherished. He’s been getting better at it over time, by now practically an expert in making Martin laugh, and recently Martin has started to emulate Jon’s sense of humour as well, testing out a more deadpan delivery. It gives Jon a little private thrill of delight to think that their habits and preferences are slowly merging, like jagged rocks whose sharp edges are gradually eroded by the gentle persistence of the ocean waves, that they are growing closer together every day they spend in each other’s company.

But of course he had to give his stupid mouth priority over his better judgement, of course he had to throw salt in wounds that will probably always bleed a little, of course he had to go and destroy months of carefully constructed trust by being such a bloody idiot.

“I’m so sorry, darling,” he says, lifting a hand to Martin’s face and letting it hover just above the curve of his cheek, unsure whether he’s allowed to touch him. “I- I don’t know what came over me. I should never have said that. God, I’m so sorry.”

Martin reaches for Jon’s hand and clamps it to his own face, pressing a soft kiss to his palm. “Hey, it’s alright, love. No need to apologise. I mean, I really should be over it by now,” he says with a weak laugh. “It’s been what, one-and-a-half years?”

Jon winces at the forced cheer in his voice. He still wakes in the middle of the night sometimes to find Martin’s head pillowed on his chest, resting just over his heartbeat, or his fingers curled around Jon’s wrist, thumb pressed to his pulse point. God, he’s such an idiot. “Still, I should perhaps, uh, avoid treating the subject so lightly. At least for the time being.”

Martin lowers their linked hands to his lap, squeezing once. “Yeah. Maybe.”

The ensuing silence feels heavy rather than companionable, and the nagging voice at the back of Jon’s head demands to be heard. “Martin… you do know that there’s no, no timeline for this, right? It’s okay if you’re not over it yet. You can take all the time you need to… to process. Grieve. Whatever you need.”

“Yeah, yeah, trust me, I know,” Martin snaps, though there’s no real bite to it. “You’re not the only one in therapy.” He sighs, dropping his gaze to rest on their joined hands. “It’s just… there’s a pretty big difference between knowing something on an intellectual level and actually internalising it, you know?”

Jon smiles. That he is all too familiar with.

He’s really pushing his luck by pressing on further – he’s learned by now that talking to Martin about his true feelings needs to be handled with the same amount of caution as approaching a frightened animal – but there’s something else that has been weighing on his mind lately.

“I-I think you should know – and I feel silly just saying it, because it couldn’t be further from the truth, but I know that’s how you think of it, and I need to tell you… I don’t blame you, or think lesser of you in any way, for it- f-for doing what I told you to do, i-in the Panopticon. It’s the only one of my scars that I hold dear, because it’s- it’s a reminder that we made it out. That we survived. That we get to build a life together. All thanks to you, because you were brave enough to go through with it. Believe me, it only made me trust and love you more. Unconditionally and irreversibly.”

It’s true, every single word of it. When he thinks of that fateful day, he doesn’t think of the explosions shaking the Panopticon or the knife sliding between his ribs, but of the warmth of Martin’s arms around him and the sweetness of his kiss. He thinks of Martin staying with him until the very end, whatever may come, because nothing else mattered as long as they were together.

(He tries not to think of the Web. Tries not to think of how close he’d come to foiling its grand scheme once and for all, and how he had faltered at the very last step. Tries not to think of the countless worlds he has doomed in his selfish pursuit of happiness.)

To his credit, Martin doesn’t deflect the conversation, or retreat to some quiet place deep inside him where it is impossible for Jon to reach him, as he might have done not so long ago. Instead, he seems to genuinely ponder Jon’s words, teeth worrying at his bottom lip, before giving a brief nod. “Okay. Noted. Thanks for telling me.”

His answer is too measured and polite to be entirely sincere, and Jon knows it will need far more effort on both their parts until Martin can fully take the message to heart. But that’s alright. He’s more than willing to put in that effort, and he hopes Martin is too.

“I’m sorry for asking that of you,” he says before he can stop himself. He’s already caught Martin in a rather receptive mood, so he might as well make the most of it. “I know I’ve told you before, but… I really am very sorry. I… I wish there had been another way.”

“Jon, that’s… that’s okay,” Martin says wearily. “Believe me, I don’t need another apology from you.”

Then what do you need from me? Jon almost asks, but he bites his tongue before the question can escape his mouth, because he already knows the answer, and it’s the one thing he can never give Martin. It would be so easy to say. Three simple words: You were right. He could tell Martin exactly what he wants to hear, that he should have gone along with the Web’s plan right from the start like they’d agreed, that it was the morally correct choice, that he was just indulging his martyr complex instead of doing the right thing. It would be so easy to say, but the words turn to poison on his lips every time he tries to form their shape. Because they would be a lie.

But there’s no point in arguing, and even less of a point in stewing in simmering resentment over unresolved conflicts, so in lieu of an alternative conversation topic to elegantly transition to, Jon opts for the tried-and-tested distraction method of clambering onto Martin’s lap. It has the desired effect: Martin’s arms wrap around his waist, and he greets Jon with the small fond smile reserved just for him, the one that lights a spark in his warm brown eyes and that Jon will never grow tired of seeing.

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Hi,” Jon whispers back, leaning in close enough for their lips to brush.

Martin closes the miniscule distance between them, because he’s lovely like that, and for several blissful minutes, there is nothing but their mouths moving against each other, trading gentle, languid kisses with just a light touch of tongues, their breath mingling, Jon’s fingers tangling in Martin’s hair and lightly tugging on the curls, while Martin’s hands travel over Jon’s back. When they draw apart, both thoroughly flushed and out of breath, Jon rests their foreheads together and lets his eyes fall shut again. Distraction accomplished, now might be a good time to steer the conversation back into calmer waters.

“So… does that mean a spontaneous elopement to Gretna Green is off the table?”

Martin laughs. “Afraid so. You’re not getting off that easy. But, you know, I actually kind of like planning all this stuff. It’s a major pain in the arse, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also… nice. Like preparing for Christmas Day, but way more special.” His voice drops lower, takes on a wistful note. “When I was a kid, I-I daydreamed about this a lot. Getting married to someone I love, having this big ceremony with all my friends. I would imagine it in every tiny detail, it was honestly pretty embarrassing. Then I got older and just… stopped. Told myself that it was just some stupid fantasy that would never come true anyway. I thought… for a long time, I thought that I was destined to end up alone. That maybe it would be for the best.”

His flat, almost matter-of-fact tone pains Jon even more than his words. “Oh, Martin,” he says softly, pressing a lingering kiss to his forehead and hoping it conveys everything he can’t quite put into words.

“Yeah, well,” Martin says with the feigned positivity Jon has long since learned to see through, “that was- that’s all in the past. It’s different now.”

Jon presses his lips to the top of his head this time, inhaling the familiar scent of his shampoo. The familiar scent of him.

“You’re not alone,” he whispers, with the conviction of a covenant. These words have become something of a mantra for them; Jon has taken to repeating them over and over again, breathing them against Martin’s skin like he can etch them into his soul, during those dark days and nights when Martin seems to slip away from him, when his body is still solid but his mind recedes far beyond Jon’s reach. When Jon needs to be his tether to the material world. He’s come to understand that the Lonely will always be a part of Martin, perhaps no longer as a supernatural entity sucking out his lifeforce, but as one of those mundane horrors that come with being human. He’s come to understand, too, that no matter how hard he tries, there’s nothing he can do to remove that sliver of loneliness entirely. He just has to accept it as another part of Martin, and love it like he loves everything about him, the good and the bad and every beautiful thing in between. So at those times when Martin withdraws into himself like a hermit crab retreating into its shell, and every word he speaks seems to take a great effort, Jon knows he can’t erase his pain, but he also knows that he can at least do his best to soothe it, at least keep him company until the worst of it has passed. He can wrap his arms around Martin and whisper those three words, You’re not alone, into his ear, alternated with I love you. Over and over, however long it may take, until Martin is finally ready to believe him.

This time, though, Jon doesn’t have to go quite as far.

“I’m not alone,” Martin repeats after him, and now his smile is genuine. “Not… not anymore. Oh, and you know what? You’re much more handsome than the imaginary husband of my childhood.”

Jon splutters in disbelief. Alright, so he has gotten better at accepting compliments without instinctively dismissing them, and it’s a skill he tries to remember to practise, but this? This is just ridiculous. It’s precisely the kind of kitschy nonsense Jon used to roll his eyes at, but now it just makes his whole face heat up and his features soften into what must look like an insufferably smitten expression, because okay, Martin was right, he has turned into a giant sap.

There’s no way he’s going to admit out loud just how flustered he is, though. “Much more scarred too, I expect,” he mutters instead.

“Look, I had limited imagination as a child. My Prince Charming looked as bland as a Ken doll and had the personality to match. I’ve since then discovered that I’m attracted to men with more… character.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jon says wryly.

“Anyway,” Martin says with a sigh, “I guess that’s why I’ve been stressing out so much about the whole wedding preparation? It, it means a lot to me, and I just want this day to be perfect, I really do. After everything we’ve been through, I think we deserve a perfect wedding day.”

Jon sits back slightly so he can look Martin in the eyes properly. Perching on Martin’s thighs like a gangly teddy bear isn’t exactly the optimal position for a serious conversation, but he’s reluctant to leave the comfort of Martin’s lap just yet.

“Martin, you… you do understand that it’s just… well, a day, isn’t it? Yes, yes, I know it’s an important one, I’m not trying to downplay that in any way. But what matters to me is not which flavour of cake we end up picking, o-or the colour of the napkins, but… the significance behind it. Getting to build a life with you, to wake up beside you every morning and take walks by the seaside and argue about poetry, and… not living in fear that it could all be snatched away in an instant. And no matter how our wedding day will be, it won’t change anything about that. It won’t change anything about our life together.”

Martin’s lips curve into the hesitant beginning of a smile, and he reaches for Jon’s hand again, stroking his thumb over the thin silver ring on Jon’s fourth finger. Two months before, he’d made good on his promise to get a ring for Jon as well, and predictably, his proposal had gone far more smoothly than Jon’s, with no unnecessary anxiety on either of their parts. He had simply popped the question one idle evening when they were curled up on the couch and had just finished watching a nature documentary, without fanfare or suspense. Jon had pretended to be amused at the redundancy of a second proposal when he had already asked Martin to marry him, but he couldn’t hide how touched he really was, not just at the ring on his finger, but at the simplicity of the proposal, the private intimacy of it that was exactly how he would have wanted it to be. At how well Martin knows him.

“When did you get so wise?” Martin asks softly.

Jon pretends to consider the question for a moment. “Oh, after retiring from a promising career as an Eldritch fear avatar and lynchpin of the apocalypse, there was nothing left for me to do except mature as a person. Just goes to show that it’s never too late, I suppose.”

He earns a real, genuine laugh from Martin for this, and the sound of it makes his heart swell. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the privilege of hearing Martin laugh every day, the luxury of being the cause of it.

“Well, you’ve got a point,” Martin says, punctuating the statement with a kiss to Jon’s forehead. “I guess I could try my hand at baking our wedding cake? And even if it ends up being rubbish, there’s this bakery on the high street that sells these amazing cakes that don’t cost the world. And, um, I might not restore all of these browser tabs after all. Just, you know, the most important ones.”

“And you could lay off the wedding planning for the rest of the weekend,” Jon prods, well aware that he’s pushing his luck, but he figures it’s worth a try.

“For the whole weekend?” Martin gasps in mock affront, splaying his fingers over his heart. “Whatever am I supposed to do with my time?”

Jon sidles up closer to him, leaning in so he can whisper against Martin’s lips. “Mm, I’ve got a few ideas.”

~*~

“You’re sure my tie isn’t crooked?”

“Yes, Jon, for the thousandth time, your tie looks absolutely fine.”

Jon squints critically at his reflection, still not entirely convinced. “Well, if you say so. Just wanted to be certain.”

He’s never thought of himself as the kind of person who spends ages in front of the mirror, and he really isn’t, normally. He doesn’t tend to regard his appearance as worthy of more than the most basic upkeep. He’ll rake a comb through his unruly hair that is by now more grey than brown and only half succeed in taming it, he’ll sometimes wonder if a dab of moisturiser would do some good for his perpetually dry skin and then remember the alien touch of Nikola Orsinov’s plastic hands, and- well, that’s about it, usually.

Today, however, is far from a usual day. He’s allowed to fuss over his looks a little on his wedding day, isn’t he? The problem is, in his view, that no amount of fussing seems to bring about any notable change. The man staring back at him is just as haggard, just as scrawny, just as scarred as ever, even in a tailored suit and with his hair pulled into an elegant updo. True, he bears much less resemblance to a walking corpse than he did not so long ago, but that’s only an improvement by comparison. Even now that he has broken free of the Eye, he still bears the marks of the Archivist, unsightly and irreversible, years of terror and trauma written plain on his body. And, truth be told, it’s not like he was much to look at even before that whole ordeal. He’s never cared about that before today, had scoffed at the arbitrary conventions of beauty and considered vanity to be an idiotic indulgence, but now… In just a few hours, he’s going to walk down the (figurative) aisle with everyone’s eyes on him, and just this once, he doesn’t want to see pity in them. He doesn’t want them to think what an incongruous couple they make, lovely, perfect, unblemished Martin such a jarring contrast to the wreck of a man at his side. Most of all, he doesn’t want Martin to think that, even though he knows he never would, not even for a second, and he feels guilty for even considering it. He knows Martin loves him for reasons that go far deeper than outside appearance, and though Jon still struggles to fathom what those reasons might be, he has chosen not to question him. Martin loves him, and that’s all he needs to know.

But is it really so wrong to want to look good for Martin, just this once, just for this one day? To want to take his breath away and make his eyes light up like he can’t believe what he’s seeing?

Well. Stick to achievable goals, his therapist would probably say. And that means all he can do for now is make sure his tie is straight.

Martin wraps his arms around Jon’s waist from behind and bends down to rest his head on his shoulder, peering at them both in the mirror. “Am I allowed to tell you how stunning you look,” he whispers close to Jon’s ear, his voice low and sweet as treacle, “or are you just going to contradict me?”

Jon breathes a nervous laugh, unsure as always what to make of those comments. Martin is fond of delivering compliments when Jon least expects them, usually something that would be an atrocious hyperbole even if Jon could be considered attractive by anyone’s standards. He knows they can’t be genuine, but he doesn’t hold it against Martin – all that flattery is probably meant to boost Jon’s self-esteem, a gesture he appreciates but doesn’t need.

As usual in these situations, he settles for humour. “It’s a definite possibility, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.”

Martin drops a kiss to his temple. “Alright, then. I’ll let you off the hook for now. But you know it won’t stop me from trying again.”

“Yes, yes,” Jon grumbles, “you’re a menace.”

“A menace you have decided to marry, need I remind you. Though I suppose it’s not too late for second thoughts…”

“Oh no, you misunderstand me. I want to marry you because you’re a menace. Keeps me on my toes.”

Martin chuckles, delivering a final kiss to the side of Jon’s neck before straightening up. “Right, as fun as it is to ogle you in the mirror and try my hardest not to compliment you, we should better get going. Don’t want to keep the others waiting, you know.”

‘The others’, in this case, is thankfully a rather manageable crowd, comprised entirely of the modest circle of friends and acquaintances they have managed to accumulate in the year or so since they moved here. Well, truth be told, it was mostly Martin who had established first contact and then dragged a reluctant Jon along with him to pub nights and potlucks, but Jon found himself warming up to their new friends as he got to know them better, and now, to his surprise, their little network are the only people in the world he genuinely wants to be there to witness their wedding.

Well… the only people in this world, at least.

“Sometimes I wish they could be here to see this,” he says quietly, gaze fixed on a miniscule stain on the otherwise gleaming surface of the mirror, so he doesn’t have to make eye contact with Martin. “Georgie, I mean, and Basira, and… hell, even Melanie. If she could be persuaded to come, that is.”

“Oh, I’m sure Georgie would leave her no choice,” Martin says, grinning. “But I think she’d want to be there, actually. She liked you, just… in her own way.”

Jon mutters something to the effect of ‘she had an interesting way of showing it’, but Martin turns him around in his arms before he can finish.

“I know you miss them, love,” he says softly, his hand stroking along Jon’s spine. “I miss them too, sometimes, and I didn’t even really know them. Not like you did. It’s okay to be sad about it.”

Jon feels a wave of gratitude wash over him, for the simple comfort of Martin’s strong arms and kind words, but also for the fact that he doesn’t use this as an opportunity to rehash the unresolved argument looming over their heads. That he doesn’t say ‘you know, we could have had all that, we could have all been happy and safe and together, if you had just gone along with the plan from the start instead of betraying all of us’. He might be thinking all those things and more, and on some level Jon can’t really blame him, but he doesn’t voice them, and so Jon doesn’t bring it up either. No use scratching open old wounds. Over the last few months, they have settled into a silence on the matter that is almost comfortable, that almost feels like they can spend the rest of their lives peacefully ignoring the elephant in the room. Deep down, Jon knows that denial won’t protect them in the long run, but he also knows that now would be the worst possible moment to shatter that fragile silence, to leave them both to pick up its jagged shards and slice open their skin on the sharp edges. He just needs to wait for the perfect moment to talk about it, though he fears that perfect moment will never come.

“Tim and Sasha, too,” Martin whispers into Jon’s hair. It seems he’s followed a different train of thought than Jon, though one that’s by no means less painful. “Do you also wish they could be here today? The way they were before… before everything, I mean. Back when we were all still friends, at least sort of. I think… I think they’d be happy for us.”

Jon tucks a smile into the crisp fabric of Martin’s shirt. Nostalgia, he is beginning to understand, is a fickle thing. A calm sea of memories can become a ferocious storm surge with only the slightest turn of the tide. He needs to approach it with caution, dip his toes in first and keep his head above the water at all times, making sure he doesn’t drown in the past. But that’s easier said than done, for the curse of the good memories, the ones worthy of nostalgia, is that they are so few and far between. Amid the heaping helpings of horror, there is only a sparse sprinkling of true happiness, and even that is tinged with tragedy now. Still, he can’t resist testing the waters a little, to see if the pain will be worth it.

“Remember that one Halloween when Tim made us all wear cat ears and do dramatic readings of the obviously fake statements people had sent in?”

Martin laughs. “How could I forget? Still can’t believe you actually went along with it. I’ll have you know that you looked very cute in cat ears, though. Especially when you were tearing to shreds that ridiculous statement of the guy who claimed to have seen the ghost of Jack the Ripper.”

“And I’ll have you know that was my first and last time wearing those blasted things, so don’t get your hopes up,” Jon mutters, his faux-severe glower strongly undermined by the fact that his face is still squashed into Martin’s chest.

“Mm, pity. Maybe I’ll wear you down eventually. Oh! Do you remember your surprise birthday party?”

Of course Jon remembers it. The whole thing had been recorded, after all, preserved on tape for all eternity, the ghostly echoes of Tim and Sasha’s voices haunting him long after their deaths. It’s never quite struck him before how every tape is also a grave, how an archive is also a mausoleum. Packed to the brim with ghosts. Haunted in more than one sense. How many of the statements stashed inside those overflowing filing cabinets came from people who were already corpses by the time he read their tale, whose stories were long over but still refused to be forgotten? Then there was the clipped voice of his predecessor filtered through an antiquated tape recorder, documenting efforts that were doomed to be in vain, ignorant of her inevitable end. And the cruel nature of the place was that it turned Tim and Sasha, once living beings made of flesh and blood and hope, once people who had laughed in the corridors and exchanged conspiratorial smiles over a cup of tea in the breakroom, into phantoms as well. Into spectral remnants ghosting through magnetic tape. He’d listened to that birthday party recording on repeat during the early days (if they could even be called days) of the apocalypse, when he was sequestered in a cabin that was at once a shelter and a prison, filled with an enormous, wretched guilt that he knew he would never be able to assuage. Tormenting himself with the twisted irony of it. Something to look back on when we’re all old and sick of each other, Tim had said. There was something so tragic about the way the Tim on the tape spoke those words, blithe and carefree, not knowing that he was already dead, that his fate had been sealed the moment he accepted a job at the Magnus Institute. How sincerely he’d believed that they would all be granted safe passage through the future, that his co-workers would remain in his life for decades to come, not knowing that none of it was ever going to happen. Not knowing that he was only a memory trapped in a tape recorder, a tragedy forced to repeat itself every time someone pressed play.

Ah. This seems to be one of the storm waves.

He doesn’t realise he has started crying until he feels Martin’s arms tighten around him, until he hears him whisper soothing words, his gentle voice like a life raft that will carry Jon back onto dry land. He has begrudgingly accepted the very real possibility that he might cry today, given that this strangely sentimental person he has turned into is far more prone to tears than his old self, but he’d thought he was safe at least until the actual ceremony started. At this rate, he’s never going to make it through the day without making a complete fool of himself. He takes a few shuddering breaths to compose himself, then pulls back to dab at the wet patch on Martin’s dress shirt, trying in vain to dry it.

“Hey, hey, don’t worry about that,” Martin says gently, peeling Jon’s hand off his front and trapping it securely in his own, sweeping his thumb over Jon’s knuckles.

They are silent for a little while as Jon wipes the remaining traces of vulnerability from his eyes, and when a furtive glance in the mirror confirms that he doesn’t look like an utter mess (at least no more than usual), he withdraws from their embrace and lightly tugs on Martin’s hand to direct him downstairs. But Martin stays frozen in place, gaze still fixed on the mirror like it holds all the answers in the world, and when he speaks, his voice is so quiet that Jon almost doesn’t hear him.

“You know… this sounds really silly, I know, but… I kind of wish my mum could be here today.”

Something in Jon’s chest, something precious and delicate, shatters into a thousand tiny pieces at Martin’s tone, so small and forlorn. So obviously hurt and yet still so ashamed of hurting. Jon doesn’t hesitate even for a moment before enveloping Martin in his arms, smothering him in the comfort he so clearly needs. He’s aware that even after having gained a fair amount of weight, he’s still too bony to give particularly good hugs, but what he lacks in body he aims to make up for in determination, and he hopes that the ferocious dedication with which he clings to Martin conveys even a fraction of the peace and safety that Martin’s embrace always gives him. Martin remains rigid as a board in Jon’s arms for a few tense seconds, before melting into him and simply letting himself be held. Jon’s heart gives a little leap of relief at this, at Martin allowing himself to be comforted. He still treasures every single one of these small victories like an invaluable prize. Perhaps he always will.

“Oh, darling,” he whispers, his voice muffled against Martin’s neck. “That’s not silly at all.”

“It kind of is, though,” Martin says in the shaky tone he always has when he’s trying very hard not to cry. “I mean, think about it. She wouldn’t have even come. Or if she did, she’d just sit in the corner sulking all the time. It’s not like she’d be happy for me, o-or even pretend to be happy for me. She’d just be going on about how gay marriage i-is an… insult to God, or something.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say to that, so he kisses the side of Martin’s neck instead, soft and lingering. Martin still prefers not to talk about his mother (though he apparently discusses the subject in therapy), but the occasional glimpses he gives into his childhood have sufficed to paint a fairly clear picture, and it’s not a pretty one. In times like these, and many others as well, Jon desperately wishes he were better at… all of this. He wishes he knew just what to do, how to find the magic words that will make Martin feel better. But maybe that isn’t within his power. Maybe all he can do is be there, and make sure Martin knows he will always be there, come what may, and hope that will be enough.

God, he hopes it will be enough.

“Is it stupid that I miss her?” Martin says, now audibly crying. “Even after all this time. Even in a different universe. E-even when I know she never cared about me.”

Jon lifts his head from Martin’s neck and pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes, cupping his face in both hands and gently tracing along the tear tracks. “Shhh, darling. It’s not stupid. It’s… it’s okay to let yourself grieve, you know. It’s healthy, even. Even if your feelings are… complicated.”

“Okay,” Martin says, his voice still wavering, unsure of itself. But at least he doesn’t reject Jon’s advice outright.

Jon is rather violently thrown back to that time he was holed up in his office shortly after waking from his coma, making his way through the backlog of tapes that had accumulated in his absence. Forced to listen to Martin sobbing as Elias tortured him with the awful truth of how his mother felt about him, knowing there was nothing he could do to make it better, knowing that any attempt to seek Martin out would only result in rejection. The words my feelings for Jon playing on loop inside his mind, taunting him with the reminder of how different things could have been if only he had been a little less oblivious. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes in a valiant effort not to cry, and eventually losing the battle.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you,” he whispers. “Back when… you know.”

“You were literally in a coma, Jon,” Martin says with a mirthless laugh.

“Still. I wish I’d been there. Not just then, but… before. So much earlier. We could have had so much time together. I wish I hadn’t taken so long.”

There’s a small smile on Martin’s face, a little wobbly and hesitant, but still genuine, still perfect. “Well, you’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

His smile turns out to be infectious. “Yeah,” Jon echoes. “That’s all that matters.”

Martin wipes at his face. “God, look at us both. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through this day with dry eyes, but I thought I’d at least have the self-control to last until the actual ceremony.”

“Same here.” Jon looks up at Martin, at his gentle brown eyes and bashful smile, at his face that somehow manages to be breath-taking even when blotchy from crying, and is again struck by the dizzying realisation just how immeasurably lucky he is to get to spend the rest of his life with this man.

“You’re so beautiful, you know that?” he murmurs.

Martin flushes a delightful dark crimson at the compliment, before covering it up with a frown of mock indignation. “Oh, so you get to call me beautiful, but I’m not allowed to do the same for you?”

Jon realises his blunder too late. “…shit.”

“Now I just have to tell you that you look drop-dead gorgeous and I won’t be able to keep my eyes off you all day!” Martin says with that peculiar mixture of affection and pettiness that Jon adores about him, though he would never admit it out loud. “You see, it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

Jon groans. “Right, yes, fine, point taken. I’ve only got myself to blame. Now will you please have mercy on me and stop subjecting me to compliments?”

“Oh, come on. You secretly love it, I know you do.”

“…no comment.”

Martin laughs, then offers Jon his arm like a gentleman from a period drama. “Anyway, we should really get going now.”

Jon takes a moment to get his bearings. His head is still spinning from the sheer emotional whiplash of the last fifteen minutes or so, how they’d zigzagged between their usual banter and tearful reminiscences at breakneck speed, and oh, now they’re on their way to the registry office. He already feels mildly drunk, despite not even having had a drop of alcohol yet. He’s getting married to the man he loves more than he ever believed himself capable of, and he’s never been more ready in his life.

He hooks his arm through Martin’s and smiles up at him. “Ready when you are.”

~*~

It’s only late March, and the night air is still laced with frost this far up north, the kind of cold that burrows deep into your bones and doesn’t let go, but Jon barely registers it. He’s warmed all the way through by alcohol and excitement and most of all love, seeping through his insides like molten gold. His right hand is linked with Martin’s left, and he traces his fingers over the silver wedding band adorning Martin’s ring finger, then over the matching one on his own left hand. He still can’t quite believe that this is real, that it wasn’t all a dream or some elaborate illusion created by one of the Fears to lure him into false comfort. The man walking beside him is his husband. Of course he knows that it doesn’t actually change anything, not in any substantial way, they’re still the same people they were this morning, but he likes the sentiment of it. Likes having tangible proof of their bond, in the form of a ring that still feels novel on his finger, but will one day become as natural – and as essential – as a body part. Likes getting to solemnly swear in front of all their friends that he will love Martin until his dying day. He finds he likes the word husband too, even more so than the already excellent boyfriend, and he is determined to make use of it as often as possible. Above all, he likes how the idle fantasies he’d secretly entertained ever since those halcyon days in the safehouse, that he would one day marry Martin and live a peaceful life with him far away from the Fears or the phantoms of their past, the ones he’d been embarrassed to admit even to himself, given their sheer impossibility, have somehow come to fruition. If that’s not a miracle, then what is?

It’s only when he hears the gentle lapping of waves upon the shore that Jon realises they have walked all the way over to the coast, though he’s not quite sure how they ended up here, since it’s not even remotely part of their route home. It seems like their feet have carried them here of their own accord. Like this is where they are meant to be. By some kind of silent agreement, they both stop to lean on the banister that separates the promenade from the beach, looking out over the dark waters dimly illuminated by the faint glow of fishing boats in the distance.

“I don’t think I’ve ever smiled this much in my life,” Martin says. “Or cried, for that matter.”

“Me neither.”

Even though his cheeks are already beginning to ache, Jon can’t keep himself from smiling again as he lets the events of the day rewind in his head, like a film he knows he will never get bored of watching. It was a simple affair, all in all, a quick trip to the registry office to make it official and stammer their way through their vows, followed by a celebration in their favourite pub, with only their small circle of friends and acquaintances in attendance, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s glad they opted for less fanfare in the end, though still enough ceremony to make the day unmistakably special. He thinks this may have just been the first party he’s attended in his entire life that didn’t leave him overstimulated by noise or exasperated by pointless small talk.

“Did you mean it?” Martin asks, out of the blue.

Jon looks up at him, his brow knit in confusion. “Mean what?”

“You know, all the… wedding stuff. Till death do us part, and all that. I-in your vows you promised… you promised you would never leave me. Did you mean that?”

Jon’s confusion turns into outright alarm. “What are you talking about? I- Of course I meant it, Martin. I will always mean it.”

Martin huffs a bitter laugh. “Oh yeah, that all sounds lovely, but… you’ve made me promises before. You said you were going to stay with me no matter what, and then… y-you left me anyway.”

Oh. So this of all nights – maybe the worst possible occasion for it – is going to be the moment when the comfortable, treacherous silence around that forbidden topic is finally broken. Jon’s whole body tenses, like he’s bracing himself for the impact, like it’s going to hurt no matter what he does.

“That was different,” he insists. “That was- it was different, okay?”

Martin doesn’t even deign to grace that with a response.

“And besides,” Jon continues just to fill the dreadful silence, though he knows full well he’s only digging himself deeper, “I, I didn’t… leave you, n-not really. If everything had gone according to plan-”

“Your plan, you mean.”

“If everything had gone according to plan, then we would have had… time. Even if I had managed to speed everything up, shuffle people closer to the End, it still would have taken… well, it’s hard to calculate, but certainly a long time. Decades, maybe. Perhaps even centuries. I would have kept you safe until the very end. We could have spent all those years together. There in the Panopticon, until everything was over.”

“Oh, a-and what, that’s supposed to be a consolation?” Martin’s shrill voice cuts like a sharpened knife through the stillness of the night. “That’s supposed to make it better? That I would have gotten to hold your hand while you kill the whole fucking world? Jesus Christ, Jon. Sometimes you just don’t get it at all.”

Jon crosses his arms over the banister, ignoring how the cold metal stings his skin through the thin layers of fabric, and rests his head on top of them. “Can we not argue about this right now?”

Martin tips his fingers under Jon’s chin and nudges his head towards him until their eyes meet, a gesture that would be gentle were it not for the fury blazing in his gaze. “No. No, I think we need to talk about it. I think we’ve needed to talk about it for a while. I’m sick of dancing around it, Jon, I’m sick of pretending like we’ve lived here all our lives and everything that happened before was just a bad dream. If- if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, then we have to be honest with each other, a-and with ourselves. We have to be on the same page.”

“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you married me.” The words sound as ugly out in the air as they did inside his head, every syllable soaked in noxious poison, but he can’t bring himself to take them back. Can’t bring himself to apologise.

Martin sucks in a sharp breath, clearly disturbed by the mere idea of breaking up. “Jon, I- God, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I-I do think we should have talked about this before the wedding, but it… it wouldn’t have changed anything. No matter what. I would still have wanted to marry you, regardless of the outcome of that… that conversation. I promised you I’d go wherever you go, and I intend to keep that promise, whatever happens. That’s- I want you to have no doubt about that. But I just… I think it would be helpful, for both of us, for the, the healing process. If we could come to an… agreement.”

“Oh, you want an agreement, do you?” Jon retorts, his voice drenched in bitterness. It feels strangely cathartic to finally let it out, all the lingering frustration of the last one-and-a-half years, all the recriminations he swallowed down like acrid bile, all the sharp blades he turned inwards for fear of hurting Martin. Soon enough, he knows, he will regret this, he will hate himself for not biting his tongue. But not just yet. “You want an apology, you mean. You want me to grovel before you and beg for your forgiveness and admit that you were right all along. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Well, I can’t give you that. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“That’s not-” Martin cuts himself off, takes several measured breaths before he starts again. “That’s not what I want from you. Or at least, I-I don’t think it is. I don’t know what I want, okay? I don’t know. I guess I, I… I want to understand. I don’t need you to apologise, but I do need to understand why you did what you did, why you went behind my back – behind all our backs – to sacrifice yourself and everyone on the planet along with it, just so you could, what? Satisfy your martyr complex? And you still refuse to see anything wrong with that. I’m trying to understand, Jon, I really am. I want to understand, but I… I can’t. I just can’t.”

It’s like Jon has received a heavy blow to the chest, like all the air has been knocked out of his lungs, and he can’t even utter a single sound in response. Martin’s words hurt him more than burrowing worms, more than a burning handshake, more than a knife. After all this time, after all those months in which they learned to heal together, after everything they have salvaged from the rubble and built anew, Martin still sees him as something to be fixed, as some broken creature to be saved from itself. Is it too much to ask for your husband, the man you love beyond anything in the world and the one person you trust to always be by your side, to make an effort to truly know you? Is it too much to ask for him to understand you just a little?

“It wasn’t like that,” he says when he can speak again. His voice is cool, cruel, almost indifferent. Back when they were still arguing about this on a semi-regular basis, back before they had decided that silence was the most painless solution, he’d snarled, hissed, shouted these words and variations thereof so often that they seemed to lose all meaning, in the desperate hope that he could get through to Martin that way. He’s tired of them now, tired of screaming into the void, tired of never being heard. “I know I’ve told you many times before, and I know nothing I say will make you let go of this… this preconceived notion you have of me, but… it wasn’t like that. You say you can’t understand? Well, maybe that’s because you won’t listen. So, for the hundredth goddamn time: I wasn’t looking for an excuse to martyr myself. I was trying to save thousands of other universes from being doomed to suffer the same fate as our world. I was trying to destroy all the Entities once and for all, and thwart the Web’s scheme. That’s the truth, Martin. You may not like it, but it is.”

He’s expecting Martin to disagree vehemently, and he’s already preparing himself to fire back with just as much venom, healthy communication be damned, but Martin’s reply takes the wind out of his sails.

“I know, Jon, okay? I-I know.” Martin stares out over the sea. “That’s… that’s what makes it so hard.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Martin is silent for long enough that Jon is beginning to think he will never get an answer, but eventually he starts to speak, slow and faltering. “You- you’re n-not the only one who feels guilty about… about what we did. I-I think about them too, those other universes that… w-we released the Fears into, every day, all the time. I guess i-it’s easier to pretend that it was the only moral choice, a-and I tried to convince myself of that, but I… I can’t do it anymore. I still feel this terrible, crushing guilt, every day, a-and it’s awful and I want it to stop. And I suppose that’s why I… why I a-act like you were only going against our plan for selfish reasons, because otherwise I’d have to acknowledge that you have a point, and… I can’t deal with that.”

“Martin,” Jon whispers, because he doesn’t know what else to say, because there is nothing else to say.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says in a small voice. “I don’t think that’s what you need from me either, but still, for what it’s worth... I’m sorry. For not listening to you, not properly. For projecting my own issues onto you. I said I was trying to understand, but… I don’t think I was, really. I knew you were hurting, I know you’re still hurting, but I didn’t want to admit that, and I didn’t want to admit that I was hurting as well, so I… ignored it. Pushed away your pain and hoped that would make it go away. I thought I could just… make you better, get rid of everything I didn’t know how to handle, and then everything would be fine. All the guilt would just… disappear. But it’s not that simple, is it?”

Jon reaches for Martin’s hand and tangles their fingers together. Martin’s skin is warm against his own, which has been frozen almost to the point of numbness by the biting night air. As always, Martin remains entirely unaffected by the cold, his body radiating heat like a furnace regardless of the outside temperature. He’s always Jon’s source of warmth, in more ways than one. The words it’s okay are already sitting on the tip of his tongue, but he refuses to let them out, knowing full well how utterly inadequate they would be in this situation, like a tiny plaster placed over a gaping wound.

“I- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” Martin groans in frustration and rubs his free hand over his face. “God, Jon, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have said anything. Especially not tonight. I, I don’t know what I was thinking. Should have gone easy on the champagne at the reception, heh, you know alcohol always makes me maudlin. Just… forget I said anything, okay? Let’s just go home, and I’ll… I’ll carry you over the threshold, a-and we can watch a movie or something, or just go straight to sleep, whatever you prefer, and we’ll… we’ll forget about this. I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Jon is sorely tempted to accept Martin’s offer, to pretend like nothing has happened and seek shelter in the saccharine comfort of just a few hours ago. But he has to admit that Martin was right, even if he picked the worst possible time to bring it up: they need to talk about this. They can’t have it hanging over them like a dark and heavy cloud for the rest of their days, perpetually afraid of the moment the storm breaks.

He squeezes Martin’s hand, its familiar shape grounding him to reality and giving him the courage he needs to continue. “No, no, Martin, it’s… it’s good that you brought it up. W-we need to talk about it.”

He searches for the right words, in the stars sprinkled across the dark expanse of the night sky, in the mingled doubt and hope written on Martin’s face, in the twisted depths of his own mind. He doesn’t find them, will probably never be able to find them, so he has to make do with what he has.

“Martin, I- I need you to understand that… I don’t regret the choice I made. I regret having to go behind your back, I regret causing you pain, but if I were given another chance… I would do the same again. I still believe it was the right choice, and that’s… that’s not going to change. You need to accept that.

“But,” he hurries to add, seeing the unhappy twist to Martin’s lips, “I understand that you feel differently. And I- I can accept that too. I know that’s not what you want to hear, I know you want us to be in agreement, but… this is the best I can offer you, I’m afraid. I’m sorry I… I’m sorry I can’t give you more.”

Martin’s expression is as inscrutable as the dark surface of the sea, and yet Jon can’t bring himself to look away, both awaiting and dreading his answer. What if he said the wrong thing? What if Martin comes to the conclusion that their differences are insurmountable? What if this is what finally convinces him that he’d be better off without Jon?

But instead, he runs his thumb over the back of Jon’s hand, a gesture gentle enough to dispel most of Jon’s anxieties, and he lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

“I get it, Jon, I do,” Martin says, his voice sounding small and defeated, and Jon longs to make it better, but he doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know if there even is a way to make it better. “I know that both options were bad, really bad, a-and… we still had to choose. And your choice was different from mine, and I- I respect that. Or I’m trying to, at least. But I just…”

Martin turns his head to the side, gazing out over the sea as if he’s waiting for a solution to appear on the horizon, and when he continues, his voice is even quieter than before. “This is going to sound so stupid, but… you know what kept me going during the apocalypse? That all along, no matter how awful things were or how hopeless the future seemed… I still believed in a happy ending. A proper, corny, fairytale one. I thought we’d save the world, somehow or other, a-and everything would go back to normal, and we wouldn’t have to lose anyone else, and we could live together and be happy, and the past would just be… I don’t know, a-a horrible story or something. A nightmare. Something that was never real. And e-even if we weren’t so lucky, even if we had to die, I- I thought it would at least be for a good cause. I thought it’d be something worth dying for. I mean, I guess on some level I knew even back then just how naïve that was, but I had to believe in it anyway. If I hadn’t, I would have just… fallen apart.”

He wipes a few stray tears from the corners of his eyes, not quite stealthily enough for Jon not to notice. “That’s all I wanted, really. An unambiguous happy ending. Knowing that whatever we did, we made the right choice. A life with you, free from guilt or blame or… or constantly being reminded of the past. And it… it hurts to know that we’ll never have that.”

“Martin,” Jon says again, because he can’t think of anything else, like he’s a broken record and the only sound he can produce is Martin’s name.

Martin still won’t meet his eyes, so Jon looks up instead, at the stars scattered across the firmament, those faint echoes of distant suns. There aren’t as many of them visible here as there were in the Highlands, but still far more than in light-polluted London where the sky never gets properly dark, allowing him to search for constellations. He thinks he can spot the sharp angle of Canis Minor, the branching line of Cancer. The night sky here is almost identical to what he remembers from their old universe, but he could swear that there are some subtle differences somewhere, though he can’t quite put his finger on what they are. Maybe one day he will find out. Maybe he will buy a telescope and chart the entire firmament, star by star, and catalogue all the tiny discrepancies. He doesn’t think he will ever run out of new things to discover about this world, and maybe that’s a good thing. It still makes him dizzy, crashes into him with the force of a hurricane sometimes, just how astronomical the odds were of them ending up here. How improbable, how nigh-impossible, it is that they are even still alive. He’d thrown over all his principles and risked everything on a pipe dream, on the fantastical notion of somewhere else, and somehow it had worked out. Somehow, it had worked out, and maybe that’s a gift in and of itself.

“Do you regret it?” Martin asks without preamble, breaking the almost-peaceful silence. “I, I know I asked you before, but… you never gave me an answer, at least not really. Do you regret going along with the Web’s plan in the end, even though it wasn’t what you wanted, even though you still believe it was the wrong choice? Do you regret changing your mind… b-because of me?”

Jon hears the unspoken question hovering in the air loud and clear: Do you resent me for forcing you to make that choice? For standing in your way?

This time, at least, he has a clear answer. “No. No, Martin, I really don’t. I-I never will. I wish there had been another way, that much is true, but… I will never regret keeping you safe. You’re the most important thing to me, more important than anything or anyone in any universe. Faced with the prospect of losing you… nothing else mattered anymore. Maybe it was selfish to abandon everything I believed in for the hope of a life with you, but… that’s how it is.”

Martin swallows heavily, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and finally, finally turns to look at Jon. “Alright. Alright. Th-thank you for this. I mean it.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Jon says softly, and moves just a fraction closer to Martin, not wanting to break this fragile peace with an unwanted touch.

Martin responds by leaning into him, resting his head on top of Jon’s, and for a while they just stand there with their sides pressed together like a poor man’s embrace, Jon’s frozen limbs greedily sapping Martin’s warmth.

“You know,” Martin says eventually, “there are still times when I stay awake all night because I’m scared that if I fall asleep, I’ll wake to find you gone in the morning.”

“Oh, Martin,” Jon whispers, the words escaping him on a strangled breath. He throws all caution to the wind and wraps his arms around Martin as tightly as he can, like he can shield him from anything that might cause him pain, like he can merge them into one being and never be apart from him again. Martin relaxes into the embrace, practically melts into it, burying his face in Jon’s hair and clinging onto him with a desperate strength, like a drowning man clutching his lifeline.

“I’m never going to leave you,” Jon tells him fiercely, speaking the words into the crook of Martin’s neck like he can imprint them on his skin. “Not… not of my own accord. Never again, whatever happens. I promise you that. A-and I promise you that from now on, I’m going to keep all my promises. As… nonsensical as that may sound.”

Martin releases a shaky breath. “Yeah, I- I think I know that, a-at least on… some level. It’s just a lot harder to make myself believe it, you know?”

“Then I promise to make you believe it,” Jon says earnestly. “I promise to show you every day that I love you unconditionally and that I will be by your side whatever may come, until one day… one day you’ll find it easy to believe. How does that sound?”

He can feel Martin smile into his hair. “Sounds like a deal.”

“That’s the deal,” Jon says, echoing the promise he had kept in the end. He had woven these words into his vows, and no one at the wedding had understood why it was those lines in particular that made Martin cry the hardest. No one but Jon.

“Well, in that case I should- I should promise you something too,” Martin murmurs. “I promise… I promise you I will try. Try to understand you. I’ll try to listen to you properly, and not just assume that I already know what you really think. I-I can’t promise you that I’ll get it right all the time, but I promise that I will try my best, every single day.”

Jon presses his smile against the side of Martin’s neck and lets it morph into a gentle kiss. “Thank you, Martin.”

They fall silent again, but this time there’s nothing uncomfortable about it; they’re simply basking in the comfort of each other’s presence, in the secure knowledge that it won’t all be snatched from them any second now. A silence that’s less like a storm cloud and more like a sunrise.

Jon strokes his hands idly over Martin’s back, once again struck by just how miraculous it truly is that they are here, alive and safe and married. That they found their peaceful cottage in a little seaside town, their motley circle of friends, their wonderful menace of a cat, when Jon had believed for so long that the best outcome he could hope for was a swift death for a worthy cause. And yes, their lives may be far from perfect, but they have each other, and everything else pales in comparison, everything else is a small price to pay for a life together. They are making progress, in slow, faltering steps; they are working hard to resist their preferred brands of self-destruction and not summon the mournful spectres of their past; but there are still days when their entire bodies feel like raw wounds, when they can barely even talk to each other for fear of their words turning into arrows, when all they can do is wait for the storm to pass. They still have nightmares on a regular basis, still wake in the middle of the night at least once a week, shaking and gasping and disoriented until they manage to return to the safety of their bedroom in mind as well as in body, but they cling to each other afterwards, hold each other tight and whisper soothing words until they fall back asleep. They each know the pain the other carries, and they know they have added to that pain, even if indirectly or inadvertently, and that knowledge is yet another load they have to bear, another thing they have to learn to live with. It’s a strange, ramshackle existence they have built for themselves, and Jon wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Maybe Martin was right. Maybe they will never get a happy ending, at least not in the traditional sense. Maybe their shared life will always be a little broken, a little bright, a never-ending tightrope between joy and sorrow, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a life. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth living.

He wants to communicate all that to Martin, leave no ambiguity as to how he feels, but he doesn’t know how, can’t quite find the right words. But that’s alright. He’ll have time to look for them. They have so much time now, a vast ocean of it stretching out before them and just waiting to be explored. He won’t waste a single second of it.

“I’m so glad I’m here with you,” he whispers instead. “I’m so glad I married you.”

Martin smiles. “Me too, love.”

He pulls back from their embrace just enough so he can tip Jon’s chin up and kiss him on the lips, soft and chaste, but with the solemnity of a sacred oath. He runs his hands along Jon’s sides and breaks the kiss to frown at him.

“God, Jon, you’re absolutely freezing. We should really go home now.”

“Agreed,” Jon says with a soft laugh. “I suppose we got a bit… side-tracked. You, ah, you mentioned something about carrying me over the threshold?”

Martin grins. “Yep. What can I say, antiquated patriarchal wedding traditions have their charms sometimes.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not disagreeing with you. Um, if we have enough eggs left, I could make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow?”

Martin kisses the top of his head. “Sounds lovely.”

“Right.” The lingering effects of alcohol and emotional agitation are starting to wear off, and Jon can feel the icy night air slicing into him sharp as knives, but he keeps his arms around Martin a little longer, unwilling to relinquish the comfort of his embrace quite yet.

“I love you,” he whispers. In a world riddled with uncertainties, these three words are the only truth he will ever be sure of beyond a shadow of a doubt. In the version of their story where they had died that day, where their bodies had been buried among the ruins of the Panopticon, he thinks they would have made the perfect last words. But even more than that, he likes having the chance to say them over and over again, in a million different contexts, until they become as natural as breathing but never lose any of their meaning.

“I love you too,” Martin says without a moment’s hesitation. “Shall we go now?”

“Yes,” Jon says. “Let’s go home.”