#arguing cw

"And I told you it's too dangerous, goddammit!" Arthur shouts and his fist hits the doorframe just next to your head, making you flinch.

Seconds tick by while you stare at Arthur and he stares at the broken wood under his fingers. When he looks at you, you take a step back without even thinking.

It's a normal reflex to protect oneself, but Arthur deflates, a horrified expression on his face. "Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry."

He seems to shrink in size, the fight leaving him, and he takes a step back as well. You move closer to the door, though.

"It's okay."

"No, it's not," Arthur says, watching his hand. "It's bad enough when I lose my temper out there, but here… with you…"

Arthur trails off, and you take another step forward. "You're not a bad person, Arthur."

"You flinched. I scared you." You can hear the guilt in Arthur's voice. "Over something so stupid."

"So, you admit it's stupid?" you ask with a deliberate smile, taking a step closer to him.

Arthur rolls his eyes. "I'm serious."

"So am I," you say, leaving the cabin and walking up to Arthur. He takes a step back, but you follow and grab him by his shirt, making him stay. "I'm not afraid of you, just because you lost your head for a second."

"But I shouldn't," he says, barely looking at you.

"You wouldn't, if we didn't get into these stupid fights."

Arthur takes a deep breath, his eyes still not meeting yours. "I know. Of course you know what to do. It's none of my business."

You know Arthur means well, but he sounds weird, sad almost. Although he likes to take care of everybody in the gang, you've never seen him this upset.

"Why do you only give me such a hard time?" you ask.

Arthur takes your hands away from his shirt and shakes his head as if to deny it, but when he moves, you grab him by the wrist and for the first time, he actually looks at you.

"I don't-"

"Arthur!"

"I don't know," he growls, but you hold on to him and Arthur glares at you. "I can't risk losing you."

You huff. "I'm not even really good at anything. The gang doesn't need me."

Arthur snaps his arm away from you, his whole body turning back to anger. "I need you. You ever care to think about that? It's stupid, and selfish, and I'm an idiot for it, but-"

You don't even care to hear more. Instead, you grab Arthur again and plant a hard kiss on his lips.

Everything goes quiet then. All you hear is your own heartbeat and a long breath coming out of Arthur as if he's been holding it for years.

"Better?" you say, and when Arthur nods, you make him look at you. "I can do that whenever you need it, alright?"

Arthur takes another shaky breath and nods again. "I feel like I'm getting angry again."

"Don't overdo it," you laugh, hitting him in the chest.

"No, really. I'm mad," Arthur says, despite the smile that's dancing around his lips.

You kiss Arthur again, much more careful now and he melts against you. Running your fingers through his hair, you rest your head on his shoulder, and your eyes fall on the spot where Arthur's fist landed. 

"I'll be careful, I promise," you say and Arthur squeezes you as if he never wants to let go.

When Martin thinks back on it, what feels like weeks later but according to the analog clock on the wall is only five and a half hours, he can’t quite grasp the switch from there to here. It slips away from his mind like water on wax, and in moments where he tries too hard to catch a glimpse of anything—a feeling, an image, a color or a sound—his head begins to throb and he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, hard,to relieve the pressure.

Maybe that’s for the best. Because when he’d been there,Jon had been slumped against him, his rasping breaths echoing in Martin’s ears and the movements of his chest shallow against Martin’s. Martin’s hands had been stained red—so, so red, the color of cherries and fall leaves and red crosses plastered on hospital doors—and they had shaken badly enough that the knife had slipped from his hand, hitting the ground with a clatter that rang in his ears louder than the sound of the world around them folding inward.

And when he’d finally come back to himself here, Jon had been still in his arms. So, so still.

He thinks, now, that if he remembered the exact moment when Jon’s breathing cut off completely, the exact moment when he could no longer feel the motion of Jon’s chest against his, he might be sick. Small mercies, he supposes.

He does remember, though, the moment Jon had awoken with a shuddering, ragged gasp, his hands gripping the sleeves of Martin’s jumper with surprising force. Martin’s grief, acute and all-consuming, was ripped apart by a shock so intense he couldn’t help his full-body flinch, his yelp that echoed through the corridors around them.

The corridors. Lit by dim fluorescents, cool concrete beneath them, familiar in a way that nagged at the back of Martin’s mind, beneath the all-consuming thoughts of no no no please Jon wake up don’t do this to me oh my god oh my god Jon Jon Jon.

Jon coughed again, and blood stained his lips and blood stained Martin’s hands where they pressed against Jon’s back and blood stained the floor beneath them and help, they needed help.

Martin doesn’t remember shouting. He barely remembers the faces that had surrounded them, wide-eyed and terrified, all utterly unfamiliar.

He remembers the ambulance. And he remembers the familiar glass doors they’d carried Jon out through, the familiar marble columns that decorated the front of the building. The golden plaque by the doors, etched with words Martin has come to hate with every fiber of his being.

He thinks that might have been the moment when his mind shifted from there to here. When he realized they were somewhere else. Because the stones had crumbled around them and the windows had shattered inward and the flames had consumed what lay beneath, and yet they were here, in a building left unscathed.

A building utterly devoid of the intense pressure of being watched.

Time’s funny after that. There are stark white walls and the sharp bite of antiseptic and anxiety crawling up the back of his throat as he waits in a reception area that feels much too small, suffocating him as he sits in hard-backed chairs and tries to remember how to breathe. There are questions he can’t answer and paperwork he can’t fill out and conversations he doesn’t follow, the haze in his mind blocking out anything that isn’t Jon. There are tubes connected to machines and monitors that beep a steady rhythm and a scarred hand in his and he can finally breathe again because Jon’s alive.

Jon’s alive, and he’s breathing, and his heart is beating, and it’s the only thing keeping at bay the panic at being in another hospital room, sitting next to Jon’s beside and waiting for him to finally open his eyes.

Five hours, thirty-one minutes, and 12 seconds after Jon’s heart restarted, he does. And Martin lets out desperate, hiccupping cries of relief as he squeezes Jon’s hand tightly and presses kisses to the back of it and says Jon, Jon, Jon.

.

.

.

Later is the word of choice, in the days that follow.

Minutes after Jon wakes, Martin begins to stutter out apologies, hands fluttering uselessly in the air, not daring to touch Jon’s back, and Jon silences him with a soft we’ll talk about it later.

Jon tells Martin what to write on the paperwork, what to tell the nurses, what to write down for a permanent address and National Insurance Numbers. I’ll explain later, he says, cutting off Martin’s half-asked question.

When Jon’s released 72 hours later—too soon, Martin thinks, but Jon’s recovering well according to the doctor so he mutely collects the discharge papers and the wheelchair that Jon hates but can’t do without—Jon gives the taxi driver directions to a small house on the outskirts of London and tells Martin where to find the spare key. The inside is dark and dusty, but the lights flicker on weakly when Martin flips the switch. Later, Martin, Jon says when Martin looks at him, a million confused questions hovering on the tip of his tongue. Just… just later.

Martin doesn’t know exactly why this is the one that breaks him. It’s mild by comparison—an absentminded we can try to buy some more tea later, if you’d like—but it sparks something hot and angry within him.

He sets the mug he’s holding on the counter hard enough that the liquid within it sloshes over the lip and kisses his skin with a scalding heat. “When is later, Jon?” he says, and he hates how clipped the words are, but he can feel a week’s worth of emotions welling up within him—frustration and panic and grief and terror and guilt so thick he chokes on it—that threaten to suffocate him. “Because I’m getting really tired of you brushing off every single attempt to talk about this.”

Jon’s frown is deep, but there’s a hesitance behind it, a discomfort that gives away the recognition of Martin’s meaning even as he says, “About the tea? We can go tonight.” A short, bitter laugh escapes him. “It’s not like we’re incredibly busy at the moment.”

“Don’t do that.” Martin hates how angry he is. He hates it hates it hates it. But at some point, the guilt had eaten through him completely and had left behind nothing but an empty, aching hole in his chest. He wishes he could say that filling it with frustration and bitterness wasn’t easy, but. Well. It was that or a sadness so crushing it would have consumed him utterly, and he thinks he’s had enough of that to last a lifetime. “You know what I mean.”

Jon sighs, and he barely covers a wince as the motion strains his back, still plastered with bandages that wrap around and around him like a gauze embrace. Martin feels something sour rise in the back of his throat, and he swallows it down quickly because it’s not the time for him to have a breakdown about this. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Martin.”

Martin can’t quite hold back his noise of frustration. “Anything!” He takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is more level. “I’m the one who has things to say. And I wish you would let me say them.”

He hasn’t gotten to apologize. He hasn’t gotten to processany of this—not with Jon, not without the cloying smell of blood and antiseptic filling his nose and mouth. And the thought eats and eats and eats at the anger simmering within him, replacing it with an acute guilt that makes him ill, even as he continues, “All we’ve done is sit in this house—which I stilldon’t know how we ended up in, by the way—and we haven’t talked about how- how we even ended up here, whether the- the fears are here yet or- or still just lingering at the edges, what happened when I—”

Martin cuts off with a wet, choked sound, and he realizes all at once that he’s crying. His cheeks are painted sticky with tears and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe—

“Hey, hey, hey, Martin,” Jon says, and then Jon’s hand is gripping his and his thumb is rubbing soothing circles across the back of Martin’s hand and Martin hates it, because Jon shouldn’t be comforting him. Jon is the one who’s taking painkillers three times a day and relying on a wheelchair because of the nerve damage in his back and sleeping fitfully enough that it can barely be called sleep at all, and it’s all Martin’s fault.

Jon had died. He’d died, and then he hadn’t, and god,Martin can feel it shattering him from the inside out.

“Stop,” Martin says, his voice thick and choked, but he doesn’t pull his hand away, and when Jon makes to let go of Martin’s hand, he follows the motion of Jon’s hand until he can capture it again, holding it safe within his own. “Don’t- it’s not- you, you shouldn’t be- Christ, Jon, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, and- and I don’t know what to do to- to make it better—”

Martin cuts off with a low, keening noise of distress, and closes his eyes. He can’t look at Jon, at the soft, forgiving look that had been on his face just moments before. Some very, very small part of Martin reminds him that Jon had pressed the knife into his hands, still sticky with Jonah Magnus’ blood, and that he had asked. Had wanted Martin to do it. Had trustedhim.

The rest of him remembers how Jon’s hands had hugged his sides as he’d driven the knife into his back, just to the left of his spine, and that he’d had his lips pressed to Martin’s when he’d gasped, a low, pained sound dragged from his throat in tandem with the sob that ripped its way free from Martin’s. The rest of him remembers how afraid Jon had looked, even as he’d asked Martin to cut the tether, and the pain in his eyes even as he tried to smile when the knife pierced his skin.

“Martin,” Jon says, and beneath the placating softness of the word is something rawer, rough like sandpaper. When Martin looks at Jon, finally, he sees the faint shine in Jon’s eyes, the redness clustering around the corners. Before Martin can speak again, a thousand apologies on the tip of his tongue, Jon continues, firmly, “You don’t need to apologize. You… you only did what I asked you to do.” There’s a heavy pause before Jon says, quietly, “What I made you do.”

There’s a guilt in Jon’s voice that mirrors Martin’s own, and Martin doesn’t know what to do with it. He wants to tell Jon that he doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for, that it’s not his fault, that the decision hadn’t been his alone and he doesn’t have to shoulder the blame for it. But the words stick in his throat, and he can’t force them out around the knot of anger that still lingers there, a hot, simmering coal that won’t quite extinguish.

I didn’t think you’d go through with it! Not without me! I can’t believe you’d do this! That you’d leave me like this! You swore to me! You swore to me, you bastard!

He swallows the anger down and down and down, where he knows it’ll sit and grow until it finally, inevitably explodes. If he lets it out now, he- he doesn’t know what he’ll do. So instead, he says, “That doesn’t make it any better.” He’s surprised how calm he sounds, despite the choked, ragged quality to his voice, when he continues, “I still had to kill you, Jon. Regardless of the reason, I did it. It was my choice, in the end. I- I told myself I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t, but—”

He cuts off with a short, sharp laugh, like nails on a chalkboard. “But clearly, I could. How can you even stand to—?”

He can’t finish the sentence; his voice cuts off with a gasp, like he’s been drowning, and he realizes belatedly that Jon’s other hand has come up to grip his, holding onto both of Martin’s hands and connecting them together through two points of warmth. He used to cup Martin’s face, Martin remembers; after the Lonely, in the safehouse, when Martin felt bits of himself begin to fade, Jon would rub his thumbs softly against Martin’s cheekbones and whisper I love you I love you I love you. He’d press gentle kisses to Martin’s cheeks and nose and the corners of his mouth, and Martin would cry, and Jon would kiss his tears away too. But Martin’s always been too tall for his own good, and now, Jon can hardly reach past Martin’s shoulders without straining his back, the motion threatening to pull out the stitches that sew the jagged wound just to the left of his spinal cord shut. Somehow, that’s the thought that breaks the dam within Martin fully, and he begins to sob, full-body and all-consuming.

I’m sorry, he chokes out between gasping breaths. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Jon holds his hands tightly and repeats back, quietly, It’s all right, Martin, it’s all right. It’s all right.

It’s not. Martin doesn’t know if it ever will be again. But when his tears finally run out what feels like hours later and he slumps forward, resting his forehead against Jon’s and ghosting his lips against the bridge of Jon’s nose, he lets Jon’s I love you, Martin plaster over the aching hole in his chest.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, pressing a gentle, closed-mouth kiss to Jon’s lips. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

When Jon tells Martin that he’s still tied to the Eye, Martin shouldn’t be surprised. He’d seen Jon sputter back to life in his arms; he’d known that, somehow, Jon had Known what identities to fake and what credit card numbers to use and what house to stay in as they attempt to slot themselves into a reality that doesn’t have space for them.

 He decides, after a moment, that the quickening of his pulse and the sudden tightness in his chest isn’t surprise. It’s anxiety.

 Martin has a million things he wants to say. He wants to ask what that means for Jon, now that they’re in a world where Fear once again lingers around the periphery, re-learning how to test the edges of its constraints. (Nothing good, probably. But Jon’s alive, and that’s more than Martin could have ever asked for.) He wants to ask if it was worth it, to go through everything, if nothing really changed at all. (He knows, deep down, that it was. That, somehow, against all the odds, they’ve saved their world and survived in this one.) He wants to tell Jon that he’s sorry, that he wishes Jon didn’t have to go through this again when they’ve been given a second chance in every other way. (It would be a half-truth. Relief pushes its way into his mind—relief that the Eye brought Jon back to him, that they have some semblance of control, a foothold in the Fears still—and he’s dizzy with it in a way that turns his stomach when he thinks too hard about it.)

 Instead, he says, quietly, “Are you okay? With- with still being… are you still the Archivist?”

 Surprise flickers across Jon’s face for a moment before his mouth flattens into something pinched and unhappy. “Yes, but it’s… it’s not quite in the same way?” He opens his mouth again, closes it, makes a frustrated gesture with his hands.

 Martin doesn’t say anything as Jon searches for the words. He thinks he might have, a few weeks ago, but in the short time they’ve spent in uneasy peace here, he’s… noticed things. Things he hadn’t when they’d been living in the safehouse, tucked away from it all in a state of near-domestic bliss. Things he hadn’t had time to think about when they’d been surrounded by fear and suffering and the heavy gaze of an unblinking Eye.

 Things he wishes he’d noticed sooner.

 Jon taps his fingers together when he’s upset—a rhythmic pattern, thumb to index middle ring pinky and then back again, over and over again. Martin thinks of all the times he’s captured Jon’s hands in his own to comfort him, squeezing tight and offering reassurances. It was a natural thing, and Jon never said anything to indicate he would rather Martin not, but Martin can’t stop staring at Jon’s hands when he wakes from another particularly vivid nightmare, gasping and trembling and tap tap tap.

 Jon masks hurt with curtness, with bitter words and snappish comments. It’s a little thing that sets it off, near the end of their first week: Martin fetching Jon things from shelves he can’t quite reach. Martin had made a light comment about Jon being ‘even shorter than usual’—stupid, insensitive, he hadn’t been thinking, he never thinks—and Jon had snapped that he would get his own dishes if he could, but he didn’t have a choice now, did he?

 Martin isn’t proud of how that argument went. Later, he’d caught Jon trying and failing to lift himself out of the wheelchair to get something out of the medicine cabinet, wincing at every motion but his mouth set into an unwavering, determined line. The guilt had been nauseating.

 And he’d realized, a few days ago, that Jon hates being interrupted. That Jon’s processing time between his brain and his mouth is long, long enough that Martin’s often filling the silence before Jon has collected his words into a form that someone other than him can understand. That Jon will either end up skipping words, condensing his sentence into a few clipped-off, frustrated sounds, or dropping the thought altogether with a curt never mind or it’s not important or I don’t know, Martin.

 Martin thinks back on their journey to London, skimming his memories for times his stress-induced need for answers had prompted him to cut in too early, press Jon for answers too soon, not give Jon time to explain. He’s not happy with what he finds.

 So, Martin fights against the urge to speak and waits, worrying the inside of his cheek between his teeth, for several seconds more before Jon finally says, “I still need stories—statements—and I- I can still compel people and- and Know things, but it’s not… rooted in fear? At- at least not in the same way.”

 “What does that mean?” Martin says, a bit more insistently than he intends.

 Jon makes a frustrated noise. “This world, it- it had fear, but it wasn’t… it didn’t take a physical form like it did in our world. The Fears are here now, but they’re scattered near the edges again. They- they don’t really have a foothold in this world yet. The fear here, it’s… well, for now, it’s normal. It’s still feeding the Fears indirectly, and- and any statements I take will feed the Eye, but they have to… relearn how to manifest themselves within this new reality.” Jon frowns slightly, and his gaze goes distant for a long moment before refocusing again. “It’s like looking through fogged glass, but I can Know things if- if I concentrate on them. It’s not like it was after the Change, where the Eye could see everything and Know everything and I could draw on that, but it’s not like it was before either? I- I have more control over what I Know, just… not how much.”

 “… Right,” Martin says slowly. “And are you still…?”

 He searches for a delicate way to approach the subject, and finding none, he sighs and says bluntly, “Is there any chance you could be used in a ritual again?”

 Jon winces, his expression twisting into something pained, and Martin feels that pain reflected in him tenfold. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, though he’s unclear if he’s apologizing for the question itself or for the memories it’s likely summoned. “I just… I just want to make sure it isn’t a possibility.”

 Jon looks vaguely ill. His fingers are moving, tap tap tapping together, and so when Martin reaches out for him, he instead settles his hand on the side of Jon’s face, exerting a gentle pressure that he’s grown practiced in over the time they’ve spent together. Jon leans into his touch, letting out a slow, ragged breath before saying, “I… I’m still marked. The, uh. The fear hasn’t gone away or- or burned up—I can still remember it all, very clearly, but…”

 Slowly, Jon shakes his head, a minuscule motion that Martin can feel against his palm. “It won’t happen again. The Fears aren’t established enough yet, and even if they were, I… I wouldn’t let it happen again.” Jon turns his head slightly, something fiercely determined yet profoundly sad in his eyes when he looks at Martin. “Whatever it would take. Whatever price I’d have to pay, I- I would pay it.”

 Something in Martin’s chest twists at that, and after a moment, he’s surprised to find that it’s anger. Which doesn’t make any sense, because he would do the same thing. He’d thought about that moment so many times as they’d traveled—if he’d come back early, if he hadn’t left at all, if he hadn’t grown complacent and begun to trust that they were safe, they were happy. Given the chance, he would have done almost anything to stop those words from coming out of Jon’s mouth. He still remembers the way Jon had shaken apart in his arms, hysterical laughter bubbling out of him for hours and hours until it had transitioned into tears. He’d clung to Martin, sobbing into the crook of his neck and muttering over and over and over again, I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop it, the whole world hurts, I’m sorry, I tried so hard to stop, I’ve killed the world, it’s all my fault, my fault, my fault.

 Oh.

 Martin’s anger resolves into a crystal-clear, needle-sharp point, and he says, with no room for argument, “I refuse to let you sacrifice yourself again because you think you deserve it.”

 Surprise flickers across Jon’s face for a moment before his eyes narrow and he says, flatly, “Then what would you have me do, Martin? I won’t condemn another reality to eternal torment, you know I won’t.”

 “No, that’s not- ugh, that’s not what I meant, Jon.” Martin retracts his hand, runs it over his face with a low groan. “Of course we wouldn’t let it happen again—I’m not saying we should.”

 “Then what are you saying?” Jon says, that bite that Martin recognizes as hurt bleeding into his voice. “Because sacrificing myself, that- that’s not what’s happening here.”

 “But it was before,” Martin says sharply. And once he starts, the words tumble out like an avalanche, burying everything beneath them in ivory white snow, heavy and cold and suffocating. “You left, Jon. We had a plan and you- you just went off on your own, because you always think that your way is the right way. You don’t trust me—you lied to me, after everything, you lied to me and decided that you were better off without me than with me, and it was supposed to be together, Jon!”

 “Martin—” Jon begins, voice hard and icy, but Martin doesn’t stop—barely registers his name.

 “You promised, Jon!” There are tears slipping down Martin’s cheeks, dripping off his chin and staining the front of his shirt, but he barely feels them. His face is flushed hot with anger and frustration and heartbreak, because Jon is here and they’re alive but they could have just as easily not been, and Jon would have chosen that. “You said you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself, you said you wouldn’t if there was another option, and there was! But you did it anyway! Because you decided it was the right decision, and so of course you just had to do it because that’s what you do, Jon. You think your life doesn’t matter so you- you just throw it away! You’re impulsive and- and stubborn and self-absorbed—”

 “I’m self-absorbed? I’m not the one who wanted to doom millions to the same fucking thing we were trying to stop—”

 “Because you only trust yourself, Jon, and let’s face it—you don’t make good choices! You never have!”

 “Oh, you want to talk about choices? Sacrificing yourself to the Lonely seems like one hell of a bad decision.”

 “Don’t use that against me. You have no right—you have no right!”

 “Why not? You seem intent on branding everything I’ve ever done as one big fucking mistake, I don’t see why I can’t—”

 “Because this is different, Jon! This was you, martyring yourself, refusing to even believe that none of this has been your fault and that you don’t have to do this alone, making me murder you, Jon!”

 “I asked you to—”

 “That doesn’t make it better!”

 Jon throws his hands up in the air, tangling one of them in his hair on the way down. Martin doesn’t miss the way it makes him wince in pain. “What do you want me to say, Martin? That I regret it? That I wouldn’t make the same choice again? Because I would. I would again and again and again because nobody- nobody should have to go through what I had to. The only regret I have is that you were there.”

 “Ouch,” Martin says flatly.

 “This isn’t about you, Martin! This is- it’s bigger than us, it’s thousands of worlds—”

 “Isn’t it?” Martin snaps. He gestures to Jon—to the wheelchair, to the bandages that’ll need to be changed soon—and says, “You put me in a position where I had to kill you. You lied to me, you didn’t trust me, even after everything, and- and I don’t know how to get past this, Jon!”

 He sucks in a long, shaky breath; it sticks in his throat, and suddenly, he feels like he’s suffocating, like he can’t breathe, like the walls are too close around him and he’s being crushed and drowning and falling and choking choking choking. “I need some air,” he manages to say, taking a short, stumbling step back from Jon.

 “Martin—”

 “Just- I just need some time to think. Some time to myself.”

 Martin turns to go.

 “Martin!”

 Jon’s voice breaks around the word, revealing something desperate and pained underneath, and a thin, scarred hand closes around Martin’s wrist with surprising force. “Don’t- don’t go. I- I can’t, not- not like this, not after- after- after—”

 Jon cuts off abruptly, and Martin turns as much as he’s able to with Jon still gripping his arm to see Jon staring at him with wide, frantic eyes, like a deer staring down the barrel of a gun. He’s shaking.

 Martin’s anger doesn’t slip away so much as it’s glazed over by a paper-thin layer of concern, and he maneuvers himself so that he’s facing Jon fully and says, voice pitched higher than normal, “Jon? Jon, okay, just- just breathe with me, okay? Deep breaths, in and out, just like we’ve practiced—focus on your breathing, just- just focus on keeping count. In and out. I’m here, I’ve got you. In and out.”

 It’s something that had come up often at the safehouse—less often after the Change, but not never. Jon would wake up scrabbling at his throat, gasping for air, or would begin to cry silently as they sat on the couch, or would grip the sleeve of Martin’s jumper tightly as they walked and lean into his side like it could stave away the things that haunted him. It’s almost second nature by now to help Jon through the worst of it, and Martin lets himself lean into the routine so he doesn’t have to think about the frustration and hurt still simmering under the surface, colored with the aching desire to be alone.

 He's always processed his emotions better on his own. Though that hasn’t been much of an option lately.

 It’s several minutes before Jon’s calmed down enough to say, voice rubbed raw and hoarse and broken around the edges, “I just… I- I don’t know what I would do if you left and- and something happened and I… I lost you.” A pause. “Again. I… I just can’t go through that again. Not knowing if you’re safe. Not knowing if I- I’ll ever see you again.”

 Martin softens, ever so slightly, even as the words cut into him because he knows what Jon’s thinking about, what happened the last time they argued like this. He ignores any feelings he might have about that and stuffs the residual anger down as best he can (which is to say, not at all, but he tries) before reaching down and laying his hands, palms-up, on Jon’s knees. It’s an odd angle, but Martin doesn’t mind, and when Jon gives him a confused look, Martin says, “You like to fiddle with your hands when you’re upset. I didn’t want to take that option away from you. But if want, I… I’m here.”

 He’s angry and scared and bitter and tired, but he’s here. He knows, without a doubt, that he’ll always be here—for better or for worse—because he doesn’t think he could ever stop loving Jonathan Sims. Even if right now, bitter words still sit heavily on his tongue and he just wants space.

 Jon looks at Martin, as if assessing something, before slowly shaking his head. “I know,” he says, and Martin can hear that same bitterness reflected in Jon’s voice. “But I… you’re right, I- I could use some time to think as well. Just- just not… not apart.”

 “Not apart,” Martin agrees, retracting his hands and trying to pretend like it doesn’t sting, just a bit. “I’ll… I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me. You can take the bedroom.”

 “Martin—”

 “You can take the bedroom,” Martin repeats, more firmly. “I- I have some washing up to do anyway. Should probably do some cooking as well.”

 Jon hesitates a moment more before giving Martin a single, shallow nod. “Okay,” he says quietly.

 The bedroom door shuts behind him with a click, and Martin sags against the counter, rubbing his hands over his face and through his hair over and over and over again, as if it can stave off the messy cocktail of frustration and guilt that’s begun to take hold in his chest. “Fuck,” he mutters. The word meets only empty air.