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Some days were better than others. Some days Jon would talk to him, answer questions, almost seem lucid. Other days he couldn’t parse a sentence all day long; He would just sit in his worn-out armchair, staring out the window at the rolling hills outside. Some days Jon couldn’t even get out of bed, his scars aching and pulling and leaving him a bundle of pained nerves that lay in bed whimpering. Martin would take those days to sit on the bed beside him and help stretch out his limbs slowly to ease the ache in them.
Most days Jon didn’t remember what happened. He would wonder aloud how he got there, who the other man was, why it hurt to think, and Martin would deal with his questions with unending patience and softness. He would kneel in front of the armchair, hold Jon’s hand and rub the backs with his thumbs softly while he answered whatever questions Jon had. He would gently remind him of the ring on his finger, the vows they had taken to one another and the home they had made out in the countryside.
It wasn’t easy to see Jon this way, to know that there was so little left of him without the influence of the eye, that most days Jon didn’t even recognize him. He remembered so little of their shared past and thanks to the stab wound in his side one of his legs didn’t work anymore so it was hard for the other male to even move. Martin didn’t mind carrying him around, he was skin, and bones and it was his own fault Jon couldn’t get around anyway.
This world was peaceful, or at least it seemed to be, Martin hadn’t exactly gone looking for any fear related entities. He had taken Jon the moment the hospital released him and escaped London and never looked back. He didn’t check if there was another Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood, he didn’t want to know. He just wanted to get his Jon as far from that life as possible.
Jon had been left unattended once while Martin went shopping and when he had returned to his side, he found Jon accepting a live statement from one of the innocent townsfolks. It had been the only day that Jon’s eyes shone with recognition for Martin, with shame for what he had done, with regret for having dragged Martin into this new world because of his guilt. That day they chose rings and signed paperwork. They laid together for hours and talked and Martin’s heart broke when he awoke the next morning to find that Jon gone again.
He had been tempted to let Jon have more statements, to go back to London and take some from the magnus institute after hours, or worse, to give in to the fog that leaked from his eyes on the days when Jon wouldn’t respond to him at all but doing so would ruin the peace they had just barely found. If this was a different reality there might be an Elias Bouchard here as well and if there was the last thing Martin wanted to do was put himself and Jon on his radar. It was hard to see Jon like that, to know that Jon would never fully remember him, that the man he had fallen in love with was gone. But once in while he would see those brief flashes of that man inside of the shell and that gave him enough hope to stay. Martin loved Jon more than anything. Jon may have broken his promise but Martin wouldn’t break his. He would stay by Jon’s side forever, go where he goes. They were in this together.
Some days were better than others and those days made everything worth it.