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Martin’s slumped against the tunnel walls, a book propped open against his knee and a blank expression on his face. Jon vaguely recognizes it from the safehouse, knows without Knowing that Martin’s long stopped focusing on its contents.
Martin looks up at them when they come in, smile breaking open on his face like morning light, sets the book aside. “Come here, you.”
Jon feels his lips twitch up in response, unbidden, and he limps his way across the room. He sets his cane against the wall and sinks to the floor beside Martin.
A stillness settles over them like dust. Perhaps were it earlier in their journey, perhaps if Jon were not so achingly exhausted, his thoughts all jumbled and fragile and cobweb-thin, he might have said something, but as it is, Jon just closes their eyes against their own thoughts and the rattling of their skull. He smiles again, candlelight-soft, when he feels Martin’s arm brush against his.
“You’re staring,” he says, without opening his eyes.
Martin chuckles. “I’m not staring . Just looking .”
“Thought that was my job.”
A snort. “Just because you’re the Watcher’s favorite curio doesn’t mean you get a monopoly on sight .”
At this, Jon opens his eyes, glances sidelong at Martin. “No, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what that means.”
Martin laughs again, shifting imperceptibly closer, and Jon thinks he would bottle up the sound of that laughter if he could, bottle it up and tuck it safe against his chest with every other miraculous memory of Martin’s joy in the face of this miserable place but as it is, they just drop their head onto Martin’s shoulder, feel his soft laugh shaking them both gently against the rough stone walls.
“You’re nice to look at, is all,” Martin says, resting his head against Jon’s. They hum softly in response. “I mean, between you and the—” he raises his hand noncommittally, “the tunnel walls, and the tunnel ceiling, and the, uh, stunning tunnel floors. I’d rather be looking at you.”
“Bringing out all the best compliments today, I see.”
Jon feels Martin press his face into his temple, feels him smile against his hair. “Only for you.”
Sometime in the ensuing silence, Jon finds Martin’s hand with theirs and traces an absent pattern into his palm. They will their mind to still. Try to focus instead on Martin’s warmth, his breath ruffling their cropped hair, his soft, strong hand in theirs. It works, a little, or so he decides to believe. Jon shifts, curling against Martin’s side and sliding an arm across his broad chest.
I love you , he wants to say. I love you, and I’m sorry. Sorry we couldn’t have more time. If I could spend the rest of my life like this I would. With you. Next to you. Hearing you bicker and then compliment me in the same breath and reading your dreadful poetry collection and making you laugh. I adore you. Please be okay.
“You were wrong, you know,” is what comes out instead.
Martin tilts his head, looking down at Jon with a light smile. “How’s that?”
Jon curls into him further, pressing his face into Martin’s soft chest. “I think—” his voice comes out muffled against the fabric of Martin’s shirt, and he lifts his head and tries again. “I think we could’ve — had this. In another time. A better one. Without all this.”
“Mm.”
“I don’t — It wasn’t you . It wasn’t about you.”
“Thanks, Jon. That makes me feel much better.” There’s no malice to Martin’s voice, only a tired attempt at levity.
Jon shakes his head vigorously into Martin’s chest. “That’s not what I meant. You — you’ve always been... brilliant , and — and wonderful.” Jon feels more than sees Martin’s lips twitch up in a smile. They hide their face in his sweater again. “You were always a lovely person. S’not your fault I was too stubborn and self-hating to see it,” they mumble, words jumbling together.
Martin laughs, a softer, more fragile thing this time. “ Right , sure, but you still hated me.”
“I didn’t—”
“ Jon .”
“I didn’t hate you. You were just — a convenient thing to be angry at. Not that — not that that excuses any of it. But I didn’t hate you. I just — needed something to knock sense into me.” He shrugs. “That ‘something’ didn’t have to be an eldritch worm woman.” Martin chuckles, another small victory. “It could’ve been — something else.” Then, quieter. “At least, I — I’d like to believe so.”
Martin is quiet. He runs a hand up Jon’s back, curls his fingers into their hair.
“But if — Maybe if we’d met sooner. Or. Or elsewhere. Without — without me having to be your — your boss and that weirdness and without the Archivist and the Watcher and — and all of that. I—” Jon’s voice is small, and Martin pulls him closer, so that he’s almost sitting in his lap; he wraps his arms around them and strokes a hand idly through their curls. “I want to believe I could have — I would have chosen you elsewhere. And that you — you would’ve chosen me.”
Martin smiles at that, flickery and small, but honest. “Maybe in some universes we did.” Jon nods against his chest, and Martin pulls him fully onto his lap, almost cradling him with his arms. “And maybe in some we didn’t.” Jon hums, presses a sloppy kiss to Martin’s shoulder through the fabric. “I’m glad—” and Martin reaches down to cup Jon’s face and tilt it up to meet his. “I’m glad in this one we did.”
Jon’s eyes waver. They swallow thickly, lean forward so their forehead butts against Martin’s. “Me too.”
There’s a short, delicate pause, followed by a one-note chuckle from Martin. “You know, it’s kind of a miracle we got to at all.” Jon lifts their eyes to his, brows quirked in questioning. “That in all this we got to choose this. I got to choose you. Over and over again. And — and have you.” He takes a breath, shaky but deep. “That has to mean something. Whatever happens next.”
And there it is. An acknowledgment, a small one, of the fragility of their situation. Whatever happens next . The unspoken tension in the air fractures, just a bit, brittle and crystalline, and Jon takes in a raspy, wet breath, fingers tightening their grip on Martin’s shirt. They can feel themself beginning to cry again and they don’t want to, not now. Not with so little time left, before— before.
“Hey. Hey, hey, it’s alright.” Martin’s arms are around him again, soothing and warm.
“I’m sorry. For all of this.”
“I know. It’s alright.” He squeezes them tighter. “I know you don’t believe it right now, and that’s — that’s fine, but it’s alright. It isn’t all your fault. You don’t — I don’t need you to be sorry any more than you already have been.”
“I love you.”
That smile again. All dappled morning sunshine and delicate candlelight and sunbeams through a jar of honey and Jon cannot help but smile back in spite of it all, cannot help but lean up to press a soft, chaste kiss to Martin’s daybreak smile and then bury himself into the soft space between his neck and shoulder.
“I love you, too, Jon.” He drops a kiss into Jon’s hair. “Always will.”