Chapter Text
Martin isn’t sure when he starts paying attention. At least, in a way that makes everything seem solid again.
By the time he noticed he could keep track of what was happening and when, it had actually been going on for a little while…
Now he knows, he’s here. In a cabin, a safe place. He’s with Jon. So much doesn’t feel right, doesn’t sound right, doesn’t look right… but this is real. He’s here with Jon, and he knows that is right.
It just doesn’t always feel GOOD. That’s the problem with paying attention; you have to face everything that’s wrong and right, good and bad. Well, he really is paying attention now, and it’s almost impossible to stop. He could perhaps “ignore” certain thoughts and feelings, but that isn’t the same as not having them… or at least, not being aware of them.
He knows, he’s aware. Martin is so VERY aware.
The world had been like a messy watercolor, everything running together in a murky mess. Now there are sharp lines, painful edges, rough textures. It's everywhere, and inside him.
One day, Martin realizes that Jon is incredibly jittery and fussy, almost like he’s had too much coffee. Or, too much coffee for several weeks, and a few of those weird energy-boost drinks on top of that (the kind that makes you WIRED). When had that started? How long has it been happening?
Martin tries to remember, through the fuzz in his head, and it’s hard…
He used to be good with words. At least, in his own thoughts and imagination. Finding the right description for emotions and ideas, language that could be elegant or simple, but always with depth. The words that came out of his mouth would often be nervous and over-enthusiastic, stumbling over himself verbally, but still. He would think, and he would talk. It’s been hard to think for a while, but maybe he needs to try and talk…
“Jon, you don’t have to do that, let me-” Martin tries to take the broom from Jon’s hands, but Jon flinches away. He’s still smiling, even as it happens, which is a very odd look for Jon; manic and cringing at the same time.
“No, it’s alright, REALLY Martin, please! Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, I’m fine. It’s fine. You can, uh, you can find a dustpan for me, that’s all, I didn’t see one with the broom…” and Jon looks like he’s suppressing the urge to laugh or cry, Martin’s not sure which.
This should be ALARMING. It is, of course it is, Martin just doesn’t feel himself reacting to it fully.
“OK…” Martin finds a dustpan, hidden behind a door in the kitchen, something like a closet that works as a pantry. Jon thanks him, and continues sweeping up, dumping the dust and debris from the floor outside. The front and back doors are open right now. So are the windows. They’ve been kept shut since Jon and Martin first arrived (when was that? How long ago?), for fear of SOMEBODY somehow SEEING them… but now some time has passed (a few days? A couple weeks?), and Jon thought it would be good to air-out the place, properly clean it.
Martin would want to do the same thing, if it were up to him. He wishes Jon would let him help. He wishes he could INSIST that Jon let him help.
Martin doesn’t insist, and Jon keeps on doing everything, acting like he’ll catch on fire if he sits still for too long. Why is Jon acting like that? Why is Martin acting like this? He thinks about it, and… yeah, alright. He knows.
Even through the fuzz in his head, Martin remembers; it’s a little jumbled when it comes to the order of certain events, but he knows Jon got him out of the Lonely, and then they had found Basira, or Jon had called her, but either way she told Jon about this place, a cabin that was actually Daisy’s, and Jon brought him here, and they hid quietly at first, almost too scared to breath or move…
Martin remembers seeing Jon’s face, hearing Jon’s voice, BEGGING Martin to look at him, and Martin did. He saw Jon, he heard Jon, and for the first time since before the coma, he really FELT Jon. Not just physically, but his own emotions, his feelings he had inside that were connected to Jon. Martin had been trying to avoid those feelings, letting go of them to focus on what he thought was “important”. Eventually, it had been so easy to pretend he wasn’t having those feelings at all, and actually wish they were simply gone.
That moment in the Lonely, when they all came back, Martin was able to see, feel, and think clearly. When they started to leave, his focus slipped again… and moving beyond the Lonely had been… a good thing that felt wrong. It was good, but it HURT, it felt so painfully wrong even though it was supposed to be right, and Martin didn’t like it at all, but he wouldn’t go back. Going back to the Lonely would be a bad thing, even if it felt like the only option that would stop everything from hurting. So he stayed, he followed Jon. Things were just so fuzzy for a while, he wishes it would make SENSE. It would help, maybe, if he and Jon were talking about it.
They aren’t talking enough.
That’s clear to Martin as well. He knows he could bring this up, but he also knows that Jon could do the same. He’s not sure why Jon isn’t… he thinks he knows why he isn’t; talking is another good thing that feels wrong. He’s so TIRED of bad things feeling right, and good things feeling wrong, his whole life has been like that, one way or another. Sometimes the right things feel good, yes, they really did. It was just so rare, and they didn’t last long enough.
Later that day, when Jon gets some food together for lunch (some kind of canned soup with barely any flavor), Martin also notices the way Jon will slow down just enough to look… fragile. Like back when he was working so hard, he barely got 4 hours of sleep, except with this new frightened edge to him, the laughter or the crying threatening to break through.
Jon looks at Martin hopefully, almost expectantly, but when Martin isn’t very hungry, Jon doesn’t get upset. It’s… it’s hard to explain… Jon is trying to… make sure everything Martin could want or need is available, but he isn’t… Jon doesn’t seem to want any actual attention from Martin, and doesn’t try to push Martin to do anything.
Is this good? Is this right? Martin isn’t sure. He wonders how he looks to Jon; is he also fragile, somehow?
Night comes, and Jon has gotten the bed ready. He’s changed the sheets and blankets, put on new pillowcases. Everything here needs to go through a wash, but what was on the beds before had been dusty and grungy. This bedding had all been folded up in the closet, not exactly fresh, but better.
At first, both of them had slept in the living room, on a camping mat on the floor with a pile of blankets. Sharing the same sleeping space like that made sense. Sharing a bed was a little different… it’s fine, though. Jon asks again and again, if this will be alright, or if Martin wants the bed for himself, and Jon will just take the couch, but Martin tells him it’s fine, because it is.
Martin falls asleep, and wakes up in the night, everything still dark. He falls asleep, wakes up again, sleeps again, and finally wakes up in the late morning, Jon already up and about. He thinks he went outside in the night, there are little bits of leaves and grass stuck to the bottom of his feet… but then, maybe some part of the floor hadn’t been swept properly, because Jon has leaves and grass on his feet, too. Are they both sleepwalkers? Is that just a thing that happens when a creepy fear-god tries to eat part of you, and uses you to eat other people?
Now that Martin is more present in the actual present, he sees a pattern forming with each day; he wakes up, sleeping in but not feeling rested. Jon cleans or attempts to fix something in the cabin. Martin tries to offer help, and Jon cringes away, but keeps smiling (in a way that is not convincing). Jon makes them some food, and it’s always a small and meager meal, which neither of them eat much of.
Martin looks around the cabin, or just sits and lets his mind wander. They have another meal, and Jon does all the dishes for the day after. Eventually they go to bed. Sleep comes easily, but never lasts. Martin wakes up several times feeling like something is missing. His palms are clammy, and he’s usually drenched in a cold sweat.
Another days starts.
“I got the water working in the bathroom,” Jon happily informs him, after struggling in there for hours. He HATES that he can’t look up how to fix things on the internet (he also hates that the temptation of finding the information another way is always there, like a cigarette he knows is in his jacket, even though he’s trying to quit). “We only have a few bars of soap, no shampoo or anything… but we can take showers now! That’ll be good,”
It was definitely good. The hot water didn’t last long if it was turned up high, but keeping it a warm temperature was easy enough.
While Martin showered, Jon did the laundry; they have to go all old-school with it, using a whole tub and washboard (at least he had been able to fill it up with the faucets). He uses a box of powdered laundry soap he found on a shelf, and hangs everything out to dry on a line… it’s overcast outside, but breezy, so at least the clothes will drip most of the water away. If he needs to, Jon will bring them in and hang them up by the fireplace, get a small fire going, so they’ll be dried all the way through.
Martin comes out wrapped up in a bathrobe that actually fits (at least Daisy was about as tall as him), and sees Jon sitting on the couch. He’s looking outside, through the windows… but he’s not really looking AT anything. He’s also crying. Silent tears are streaming down his face. It has all run down his neck and into his shirt, the fabric dark from being wet.
The ways he’s sitting, so still and rigid, all the little sharp edges in his body especially noticeable (his shoulders, his elbows, his knees), makes Jon look somehow smaller than he really is. Like… he’s younger. That’s so weird, to think of Jon as looking “young”, he’s had gray streaks in his hair for as long as Martin has known him, and reading all those statements definitely makes you feel like you aged a few extra years… but Jon looks younger right now, like a child who’s afraid to move…
“Jon? Are y-” Martin tries to ask. He really does try.
“Oh! No, I’m- I’m OK, sorry I must have looked- probably like a mess! Don’t worry about me, I just sort of got lost in thought there, I forgot what I was doing, I didn’t even- I didn’t notice I was still, um, crying like that. I’m sure it looked bad, but I wasn’t even paying attention. I’m- I’m OK. Sorry, Martin…” and Jon gets up, doesn’t even wipe away the tears on his face. He just starts moving things around, finding something to do, occasionally smiling at Martin but not doing anything else to engage with him.
Something rises up in Martin right then. A hot feeling boiling up in his chest. He almost says something like; no you AREN’T OK, tell me what it is, just stop for a minute, hold still and talk to me!
Martin goes and sits on the bed, without saying anything.
Jon brings in the laundry, and except for some of the pockets of their pants, everything got dry enough out there. Martin changes into some clean clothes alone. He wonders if this is how it’s always going to be… he knows WHY it’s like this, sort of. They’re on the run, from the authorities and also potentially dangerous individuals that might want to metaphorically (maybe literally?) eat their brains, or souls, or whatever.
That’s why they came here, to hide… but he doesn’t know why Jon is acting like this around him, and he doesn’t know why Jon even WANTS him here, because Jon clearly doesn’t want anything FROM him.
Martin thought he knew, it seemed so simple and clear before, in that moment Jon had said “Look at me”, and it was like the reverse of being compelled, forced to answer and tell the truth about things normally kept secret. It was like Jon was telling Martin everything about himself… and Martin remembers how he felt, but then it gets fuzzy, and he can’t remember how they got here. He doesn’t know why they’re still here, together.
“Martin? I found some cans of applesauce that aren’t spoiled. We could have some with dinner. If you like,” Jon says from the doorway.
Martin has that hot feeling in his chest again, and it really might be anger… he doesn’t want to be angry with Jon, he’s had enough of that for a long time, thank you. He also sort of resents that this anger feels so detached from himself, it isn’t fair that he feels so numb and yet is also angry somewhere deep inside. It should be one or the other. Jon should get angry, too. Why isn’t Jon angry? Why isn’t Jon the one trying to talk about things? Why does it always have to be HIM?
“Sure,” Martin says. He doesn’t know if he’s being difficult and contrary on purpose.
They eat, they go to bed. The night passes unpleasantly for both of them.
Jon finds a small collection of books in the cabin the next day. He thumbs through them, then sets some aside on a table. The others go on an empty corner shelf. Martin expects maybe Jon wants to read the ones on the table, but he doesn’t go back to them. Considering these were actually Daisy’s books, Martin isn’t sure what they could even be about… crime novels? Survival stories? Maybe something else entirely, like her secret favorite books of young-adult romantic comedy books. Martin doesn’t want to disrupt Jon’s stack, so he doesn’t look to see what is what. His curiosity fades away, like everything else he feels.
Jon finds a mostly unused sewing kit; that is, a round metal tin that once held unappetizing cookies, and was currently filled with spools of thread, yarn, sections of folded fabric, a pin cushion with various needs, random buttons, and colorful beads. Daisy wasn’t much of a thrifty clothes-maker… perhaps the tin and its contents had belonged to a family member, and she brought it here for all those “you never know” and “just in case” reasons.
Jon also puts this on the same table as the books, and Martin starts thinking this must be Jon’s “junk table”, where he’ll collect things he wants to toss. That seems like a lot of trouble for nothing, considering Jon could just leave it all where he found it, not as if they need to de-clutter the place. It also seems rude, since it is, again, DAISY’S things. Oh, well. Martin isn’t going to stop him.
Jon finds a small lamp. It’s vintage, like something from the 60’s or 70’s. It’s made to look like stained glass, the shapes and colors, shades of pink/orange/green, arranged in a pattern of flowers. The lampshade even has fabric flowers on it, more opaque than the rest of it, so it would create shadowed flowers on the wall when turned on. Jon can’t find the right sort of lightbulb for it, though. It needs one of those tiny little ones.
That must be why Jon puts it on the junk table, since they can’t even use it… which is odd, because he cleans it up first. Martin looks at the lamp for a while. It’s a shame it can’t be turned on; the shade is a soft, sort of pinkish-brown color. It reminds him of a set of pastels he got in an art kit for one birthday, years and years ago.
When he’s done treasure hunting for junk, Jon goes back to his usual tasks; little chores around the cabin, making food, looking like he’s on the verge of a break-down, but refusing to inconvenience Martin in any shape or form. They go to bed again.
Martin knows for sure he’s sleepwalking now, and each time he wakes up is the moment he gets back into bed. He also knows that whenever he leaves, Jon follows. Not sleepwalking himself, but feeling Martin’s absence in the bed. Jon wakes up, and tries to make sure Martin doesn’t fall down or get hurt. Martin only figures this out during the times he doesn’t get back to bed, instead winding up in the hallway or the living room. Jon puts a blanket over him, but otherwise leaves him be.
Martin goes outside sometimes, and Jon comes along. He just stands in the grass off the porch for a few minutes, they both do, never going anywhere. As far as odd side-effects of supernatural entities getting their hooks into you goes, this isn’t so bad. Martin asks Jon about it eventually, and Jon tells him, no hesitation. Jon was worried at first, but as long as Martin isn’t getting hurt, it’s OK. Maybe Martin is having left-over Lonely feelings, maybe he can’t settle in a new place. Probably both.
Martin wishes Jon would worry. No, Jon IS worried, he definitely is, or he wouldn’t follow Martin around, he’s just… not acting worried. Martin wants to see him do something, laugh or cry, SOMETHING. Anything, besides jump around from one meaningless activity to another. Anything, besides acting like he needs to apologize for making Martin look at him. Martin wishes… Martin wants…
He’s not sure. What did he want before? What did he want, in the beginning? It doesn’t seem possible anymore.
Later in the afternoon, Jon gathers up all the loose papers, notebooks, and various writing tools together in the living room. It’s not a lot, but now they can make lists of things they need, or just scribble around on the paper for heck of it. Eventually, when she feels it is safe enough, Basira is going to send them a care package. Then they can write her back, but not more than once a month. Careful, careful.
Jon puts two notebooks on the junk table. They look rather nice; one is a blank journal with lined pages, and metal rings looping through them as the spine, but the thick, deep-red covers have a little clasp on them, almost making it look like a leather-bound novel. The other is actually a sketchbook, slightly taller than the journal, and no clasp, but equally thick covers, charcoal-gray in color, and the metal spirals running across the top. It seems that they have never been used. Perhaps gifts somebody gave Daisy, and she never cared for them, but also didn’t want to put them in the trash.
In the trash? These don’t belong in the trash. They are very fine notebooks. Meant for being used, perhaps being fills with mostly meaningless words and nonsensical drawings, but with the possibility of holding at least a few ideas that could be cherished. Ideas turned into lines and shapes. Hopes and dreams. Things wanted, and given form.
“I… I want…” Martin’s voice is quiet. Is he whispering? He’s looking at the junk table, trying to figure out what he’s going to say. Then he realizes, he needs to say these words to somebody, not the objects he’s looking at, or the open air. He turns to Jon, who is sitting on the couch, looking at Martin in cautious awe. “I don’t want you to throw those away. I want to keep them,”
“Well- I mean, yes, Martin. Of course. That’s why I put them on that table,” Jon nods his head at the other items. “Every time I found something I thought you might like, I made sure to set it aside for you. Wait… oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you that, did I? You thought that was a rubbish collection. My fault. Really, all that- it’s for you! If you want. You don’t need to do anything if it doesn’t seem interesting,”
Martin feels the meaning of these words sink in; for him. It was all for HIM. A collection gathered up, for Martin. He blinks a few times, and realizes he must look shocked… he IS shocked. Abruptly, he turns and picks the two notebooks up, holding them to his chest. As though they might vanish. These are his now. Jon found them, and wanted Martin to have them.
The other things- the books, the sewing kit, the lamp. Martin doesn’t know what to do with them, he’s not sure what books are even ABOUT, oh wait, he can just look at the titles and see, he can read them if he feels like it, and he doesn’t know if he especially needs to sew or stich something together, but now a memory pops into his head, the time he saw decorative throw-pillows at a craft fair, covered in little designs of buttons and beads, and that lamp doesn’t work but it’s still pretty, he’s always enjoyed the retro aesthetic, and once they get some money Martin could buy the right kind of bulb for it, and-and-and…
The spark of something that might be joy or excitement flickers in Martin’s chest. It’s gone as quickly as it came, and more than anything, Martin feels the loss of it leaving. Why can’t he hold on to those emotions, the way he’s holding on to these notebooks?
“I don’t have anywhere to… put all this,” Martin finally talks again. That isn’t all he wants to say, but now his throat feels tight. As if he’s been screaming, instead of not talking at all for hours.
“Don’t worry. It can just stay there. Yours to take whenever you want. Or just leave it. Either way,” Jon sounds as if he’s trying to make it easier for Martin, giving him an excuse to do nothing at all, not even react.
It shouldn’t be so easy for Martin to walk away from this. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe he just can’t stop.
Martin goes into the bedroom, and puts the notebooks on the nightstand next to the side of the bed where he sleeps. He wants them right there. He doesn’t know if he’s going to do anything with them yet… but he wants them. Jon gave them to him. Now he has them.
It occurs to him much too late that he should have said “thank you”. Wow. Does being marked by the Lonely destroy your manners? Maybe later… maybe if Martin starts writing or sketching something, he can tell Jon about it (or show him, though Martin always gets flustered at the idea of letting people see the things he works on), and thank Jon then. Jon will know Martin likes these things, and is happy to have them.
It's so easy to just think about doing it later. It shouldn’t be so easy.
The rest of the day passes, the night comes. They both wake up again.