Chapter Text
It took Martin several minutes to work up the courage, then smother it in a mask of foggy apathy before he could knock on the door to the captain’s cabin. There was always the chance Peter wouldn’t answer, of course, but he normally would for Martin. And Martin did not want to be taken by surprise. He had quite the performance to put on.
So he knocked. Three timid raps, infusing it with as much indifference as he could manage. “Peter, it’s—it’s Martin. Look, I really need to talk to you.”
There was a pause, just long enough that Martin brought his fist up to knock again, before Peter’s distant voice called out to him. “Hm. Come in.”
Fog rolled out of the door as Martin cracked it, almost cartoonish in its quantity. The cabin was sparsely decorated, monochrome and desaturated just by virtue of having Peter in it. He was stood behind a small desk, swathed in his greatcoat, arms clasped behind his back, looking out the window like he was posing for an oil painting. Ridiculous and unnecessarily dramatic. Martin knew better than to roll his eyes, but he desperately wanted to.
Peter swiveled slowly around to face him, staring somewhere over Martin’s left shoulder. His voice was distant, but lacked the echoey quality it got when he leaned heavily into his patron. Which was lucky; even Martin couldn’t reach him when he got like that. “Yes, Martin? Did you need something?”
Martin waited until Peter waved him lazily in before he took a step further into the office. The chill of Peter’s presence washed over him, sinking deep into his skin, numbing his nose and fingers. “I, er, I wanted to talk to you about the… the siren.”
“What about it?” Peter asked, gesturing Martin to a chair in front of the cluttered desk. Martin sat. Peter remained standing, which put Martin immediately on edge.
“We’re… well, we’re getting closer to London every day, and I was wondering… what—what do you do with a siren once you’re into port?” Martin asked, trying to keep his hands from fidgeting in his lap.
Peter’s mouth smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes, which glittered dangerously. “Oh, I have a buyer, lad. No need to worry about that, I’ll take care of everything.”
“A… a buyer?” Martin asked, heart sinking. On some level, he’d known that Peter must have meant Jon harm, he’d known it since the beginning. But now it was confirmed. So now he had to do something.
Peter nodded cheerfully, leaning over the desk and making a note on one of the disorganized papers.
“He’s—” Martin began. Peter looked sharply up. “I-it’s a living thing, Captain. I don’t think it’s right to—”
“Come now, my boy, don’t tell me you’ve started to care for it,” Peter chuckled, laying down his pen and picking up a pipe. “That’s rather the opposite of what we were trying to accomplish here.”
Martin swallowed against a throat gone dry in the frigid air. Peter didn’t seem alarmed, finally meeting Martin’s eyes.
Even when Peter was looking straight at Martin, it was more like he was looking through him, like he didn’t quite see him… or like Martin wasn’t quite there. It was one of the worst things about Peter, and there were many to choose from.
He didn’t seem alarmed, though. Martin buried his wavering devotion behind a wall of fog and blankness. Perhaps Peter couldn’t sense it.
“What did he tell you, hm?” Peter sighed, filling his pipe with tobacco and tamping it down with his thumb. “That he doesn’t mean to try to drag my ship—with all of us on it—to the bottom of the sea? He has a master to feed too, you know. Or… was it more personal? They’re good at that, finding the right bruises to dig into, old wounds to open up. Did he tell you he cares about you?”
Peter clicked his tongue, circling slowly around the desk to the door. Martin swiveled to keep Peter in sight, making the movement look as casual as he could. “Sirens can convince you that anything is true, just by speaking. And you think I hadn’t noticed how much time you’ve been spending with it?” Peter’s cold gray-blue eyes gave Martin a full once-over, running icily along his body. Martin shivered. “It’s got its hooks in you, lad. I can feel them.”
There was a soft, dry click as Peter locked the cabin door. Martin froze, dread sinking into his chest, the cold starting to dig into his bones. Peter sighed in disappointment.
“You were progressing so well before all this. But I suppose it was too much to hope that your allegiance would be strong enough to resist it. These creatures are extremely powerful. And if you don’t quite know what you’re doing, it’s easy to let them get to you.”
His voice brightened. “Not to worry, though. I have something that I think will help you.”
Martin had one second to feel terror, sharp and vicious and arcing through him like lightning, before Peter clapped hands as cold as the deepest ocean onto his shoulders. Numbness radiated from the spots, stealing over Martin’s body like a crawling frost, making his muscles ache deep even as his mind grew quiet. Regret and grief and pain and hope all muted, as distant and unreachable to Martin as the moon.
He sucked in a ragged breath, cold fog filling his lungs and blurring his vision. Peter’s breath was cool against his skin where he murmured into Martin’s ear.
“I know how hard it is to cut yourself off, believe me, I do,” Peter said, oblivious to Martin shaking to pieces beneath his hands. “It really is easier not to care, even if burning away those nerves does… hurt. Right at first.” The worst part was, he sounded so sincere. Like he hadn’t been born into loneliness, like he hadn’t taken to it like a natural, like he’d ever had to do something like what he was forcing Martin to go through. Martin felt a flare of anger that froze solid in the inexorable grip of Peter’s patron.
Sensation was fleeing him. He trembled with cold, slumping in his seat, everything hazy and muted and distant.
“There, that should do the trick,” Peter hummed, self-satisfied, giving Martin’s shoulders an extra squeeze. “Don’t you worry, Martin. We’ll be rid of it soon enough. Like I said, I’ll take care of everything. So you don’t have to anymore.”
He removed his hands from Martin’s shoulders, sounding like he had to crack through a layer of hoarfrost on Martin’s clothes and skin to do it. In the absence of even that small, horrible physical contact, Martin felt unmoored, drifting, even more lonesome than before. His head lolled. He hardly had the will to keep it upright.
“You understand what has to be done, don’t you, Martin?”
“Yes,” Martin said. He couldn’t make his voice express any emotion at all.
“Good lad.” And with that, Peter returned to looking out the window, not sparing Martin another glance. Until Martin gathered the will to stand up and escape Peter’s icy presence, which was somehow worse than being entirely and truly alone.
_
Martin didn’t remember walking to his bunkroom. He didn’t remember pulling on his two thickest jumpers, which still weren’t enough to shake off the chill. It took him a few hours of determined thought to work up the will to go down to the hold and see… to see… Jon. And he mostly went because he knew it was expected of him, even if he could no longer remember why.
Jon’s achingly familiar green eyes roved over him, so different from Peter’s and hot as a brand. Jon swam to the edge of the tank closest to the door, his frame taut with anxiety. Watching Martin, his face crumpled from tension into distress.
“My God,” Jon breathed. “What has he done to you?”
“S-s-said it would help,” Martin shivered, dully, unable to meet Jon’s eyes. Jon pressed himself closer, stretching out his arms desperately in Martin’s direction.
“God, I can… I can see it all through you… it’s, it’s… P-please, Martin, come… come over here?”
The foggy loneliness inside Martin recoiled, but he knew… he knew Jon, he-he liked Jon. Or at least, he thought he did… and he hadn’t much will left with which to fight, so he saw no reason not to. Jon stretched out and took his hand.
The siren’s skin felt warm against his. Connection jumped unpleasantly up Martin’s arm like he’d touched a live wire, and he flinched back from Jon at the same time as Jon flinched back from him.
“Jesus, Martin! You’re freezing!” Jon cried, immediately reaching out to him again. Martin didn’t back away, though something in Jon’s voice made him hurt, muted as it was behind that wall of fog.
Jon’s hands cupped his cheeks; his eyes roved over Martin’s face. Martin closed his eyes, because it was easier than watching Jon watch him, and nuzzled closer into one of the siren’s palms, basking in the warm scrutiny easing the chill in his bones. It was a little painful, stinging like a limb that had just woken up, but Martin chased the sensation, because it was sensation.
Jon’s voice hardened. “I am going to kill him for this.”
“’m sorry.” Martin didn’t know why Jon’s voice was so angry, but he’d had a lifetime of being around people who seemed to be constantly angry, and it was always safer to apologise.
Jon laughed humorlessly. “N-no, Martin. Don’t. You… you promised me you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. That’s… you may not believe me, but that is far more than I deserve. So I’ll be damned if I let this happen to you.”
Martin felt his mouth pull down. That… that wasn’t right, that was the wrong way around. He was supposed to be one giving and giving and never getting anything back. That was okay, that was normal, that was the way things were supposed to be. He knew what to do with that. And now, it was okay for him not to care, Peter had given him permission to stop caring, and that—that was such a gift.
“It’s… it’s okay, Jon,” Martin reassured him. His voice sounded lifeless even to his own ears. “I’m not.” Then he had to pause to take a deep breath and gather his thoughts. “I’m not worth it? I don’t… you shouldn’t worry. About me.”
“Far too late for that, I’m afraid,” Jon said, and there was such fondness in his voice, fondness Martin knew he didn’t deserve. “This happened to you because of me. It can’t have you. I won’t let it.”
“It… it already does, Jon,” Martin sighed.
“The hell it does,” Jon snarled. Some distant recognition, hastily smothered, stirred in Martin. He thought he recognized those words, that tone. He… he had said something like that once, hadn’t he? Must’ve been nice, if he’d ever been that passionate about anything…
Martin’s meandering train of thought cut off as Jon reestablished his hold on Martin’s face, looking directly into his eyes.
“I’m…” Jon huffed, his mouth pulled into a little frustrated frown. “I’m going to do something, now. Maybe you’ll forgive me for it later, if you’re able.” Jon laughed humorlessly, almost speaking to himself. “Yeah, that would actually be a very good sign.”
And Jon took a deep breath and began to sing.
Wordless, ethereal, enormously beautiful, his deep, rich voice lifted Martin, wrapped him in warm familiarity. Like a blanket, like a hug, like every bad simile poet-Martin would have discarded for being too cliché. A pressure and rumble almost like static filled his ears. Jon’s luminous green gaze blazed like the sun burning away a fog, clearing Martin’s eyes.
It felt… the song felt undeniably like… Martin. Like everything Martin wanted to be, warmth and home and safety and love, somehow like the taste of tea and honey and cold deli meat, like laughter and pen ink and pavement after the rain. And threaded all throughout it, in every stave and stanza, love, love, love. And he knew it meant him, and the song was his and for him alone.
Gooseflesh raised, rippling up Martin’s arms and down his back. His breath shuddered out of him in wonder. Sensation flooded back into him in a rush that almost took his knees out from under him. He all but collapsed into Jon’s arms, gripping tightly, pressing his face into the space between Jon’s neck and shoulder. The siren held him up with fierce wiry strength, tucking a hand tenderly up into Martin’s hair.
When he had the strength, Martin pulled back. Not very far back, because Jon was either unable or unwilling to let him go, and Martin wasn’t inclined to disagree with him. They clung to each other, Martin trembling. He was not at all surprised to find his cheeks wet, his vision half-blurred.
“Wow,” he breathed. “What was that?”
“It’s a… a remembering song, a knowing song, a—a seeing song. Among my people it’s used mostly… well, sometimes in mourning ceremonies.” Martin snorted a bleak laugh, which startled both himself and Jon.
“B-but most of the time,” Jon continued, shooting a look at Martin that was half irritation at being interrupted and half joy for hearing him laugh, “We use it to help lost sirens find their way. It gets… dark in the deep ocean, and if we are traveling together and one of our number gets lost, the rest will gather and sing the song of them, to help guide them. Help them find their way back to us.”
Martin mouthed the song of them. “It did… it felt like me.”
“Well, yes, that’s because it’s your song, Martin, it’s—it’s you. The knowing song is nothing less than the essence of the one we’re singing about.” Jon blushed, blue-green skin darkening across his cheekbones and spilling down his neck and chest. “I’ve… it’s a… very personal thing, what I just did. I… I sing what I see. So… now you know what you are to me.”
Beloved.
Fresh tears welled up and dripped down Martin’s face, and the depth of feeling that Peter had taken from him and Jon had given back, that feeling of… of love was tied into a surge of protectiveness so strong it took Martin’s breath away. He knew what he had to do.
Martin took Jon’s face in his hands, catching his jawline fins between his index and middle fingers and delicately caressing them. Jon shivered, his eyelids fluttering, lidding his still-glowing gaze.
“Yes. I do, Jon. So… know that you mean the same to me.” Martin took a deep breath, feeling lighter than he had in months. “I’m getting you out of here. Tonight.”
_
He waited for night to fall fully, when only the least crew would be out and about. And aboard this ship, it was terribly easy to go unnoticed.
His plan was… well, alright, it wasn’t complicated, but it’s not like it needed to be! Just… get Jon out of the tank, carry him up the stairs and across the deck—staying out of the wheelhouse’s line of sight—walk to the edge of the deck, and let Jon fall over the rail.
That’s not to say it couldn’t go wrong… Martin just very much hoped it wouldn’t.
Martin pulled a warm knit cap lower over his ears. “You ready to get out of here?”
The siren nodded earnestly, his tail swishing impatiently through the water. “Please.”
Jon linked his arms around Martin’s shoulders, and he lifted the siren out of the water. A breath rushed out of him at the surprising weight. Well, yeah, with a tail that long, of course he had to weigh something, but the rest of him was so scrawny, Martin hadn’t expected…. But that was alright. Martin had never been a small man. He could do this.
To keep it from dragging on the ground, Jon settled his tail across Martin’s shoulders, coiling around him like a snake. Martin made his slow way up the stairs, emphasising silence over speed. He had to pause once to catch his breath, leaning against a wall. It took a bit longer than it should’ve because every time Martin looked at Jon, Jon was looking back at him with so much trust in his eyes, it punched Martin’s breath right out of his lungs.
Martin emerged onto the deck. The night was cold and quiet, muffled with a low-lying fog. Martin shivered involuntarily, the cold washing over him, but Jon’s arms tightened marginally around his neck, and he knew it posed him no danger.
Martin stuck to the shadows as much as possible, sneaking between the half-circles of white lights. He chose a secluded spot near the aft of the ship, seating Jon on the railing and taking a half-step back. Jon uncoiled his tail, letting it rest on the deck, but kept his hands on Martin’s shoulders.
They were silent.
“Well,” Martin huffed a laugh, not quite sure what to say. “This is it, then?”
“Y-yes. I suppose it is.”
What more could he say? Jon had saved his life, and now Martin was returning the favour. Paying the debt. They owed nothing more to each other after this. But how could Martin be strong enough to walk away from this?
Martin pulled back until Jon let go of his shoulders. “Good luck, Jon. Be safe.”
“Wait,” Jon called, grasping Martin’s hand. “C-come with me?”
Martin laughed, his fingers tightening around Jon’s despite his better judgement. “And where would we go? We’re miles from any shore, I wouldn’t be able to make it. And then, what, would I keep you in my bathtub?”
“But I-I can’t stand the thought of never seeing you again,” Jon said. “I—I think—I… I need you.”
Martin laughed. “Well, yeah, you could hardly have gotten out of the tank by yourself, could you? You’ll be alright without me. Everyone always is.”
“Martin, don’t say that. I’m not just… I wasn’t just using you to help me escape, I need you.”
“Jon…” Martin breathed out. “You already saved me. I can’t go with you. You know that.”
“Th-they’ll know you helped me. Peter, he’ll know you’re not—what are you going to tell them?”
Martin shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. I’m actually pretty good at lying.”
Jon snorted with frustration, but Martin knew there wasn’t a lot he could say. After casting his eyes about for a while, Jon acquiesced. “Yes, yes alright, fine. If I am to leave you aboard this… wretched ship, you must promise me that you’re not going to stay here. As soon as you get back to shore, you leave this place and find another way, because you are better than this. You deserve better than this. Find a house near the coast, I’ll—I’ll come to you, I’ll find you, and we can be together.”
That sounded… wonderful, and Martin wanted it to happen, God, did he…. “Jon—”
Someone yelled. Martin jumped half out of his skin, looking frantically around. Voices raised and footsteps thudded beneath the deck, doors thrown open, an alarm bell rang. Martin could feel it all beneath his feet. Someone had discovered the siren’s absence. He turned to Jon, panic in his eyes.
“Go, Jon, go now!”
Jon leaned forward, matching Martin’s panic. “What about you? You’ll be—they’ll know you helped me—I can’t just…”
Martin knew he only had a few seconds. “I’ll… I, I’ll handle it! Just go, get out of here, now!” He raised his arms as if to push the siren off the edge of the rail.
Jon grabbed Martin’s upper arms, fingers tight on his biceps. “No, no, I’m not going to leave you!”
Martin heard footsteps behind him. A floodlight swiveled from the wheelhouse and shone on them. Blocked from the brightness by Martin, Jon’s eyes widened for an instant, and he leaned in close, whispering in Martin’s ear.
“Play along.”
“Martin?” Peter’s voice called.
Martin whipped around, spreading his arms as if to shield Jon from Peter’s vision.
Though it was the middle of the night, Peter was still fully dressed, including his greatcoat. The only thing missing was the white captain’s hat, and his thick salt-and-pepper hair waved in the night wind.
Peter was typically a jovial man, hardly ever letting anything visibly get to him. Now, Martin thought he looked anxious, his arms out at his sides, palms facing Martin as though to calm a startled animal, rather than held behind his back in his typical deliberately-casual pose. A few other deckhands stood behind Peter, watching over his shoulders.
Fog gathered. Peter’s eyes turned from Martin to Jon and back again.
“Martin… think about what you’re doing. It is lying to you.”
He took a step closer. The fog swelled and built, obscuring the deckhands from view. Martin froze. Any conceivable excuses he could have given fled from him.
A dark, watery laugh sounded from behind him. One of Jon’s arms wended its way across his shoulder, the other wrapped around his ribs. Jon’s hand caressed Martin’s throat, and he rested his chin on Martin’s shoulder.
“I’m afraid Martin isn’t really in a position to think at the moment, Lukas,” Jon hissed, voice gone low and dark. “He’s spent far too much time with me for that.”
Some part of Martin’s hindbrain shivered in primal fear, suddenly very, very aware of the predator sitting right behind him.
He won’t hurt me, Martin struggled to convince himself. He’s giving me an out. He’s protecting me. Better that Peter think he was manipulated into this. He loved Jon for trying. He let his eyes go blank, his head lolling back onto Jon’s shoulder.
“Martin?” If he didn’t know better, he would have said Peter sounded genuinely worried. Jon’s tail wound slowly around Martin’s legs, coiling front and back. “You’ve… the lessons I taught you. The gift I gave you. You can still do this, fight him—”
No. Martin thought. You are the liar. And I’m never listening to you again.
“You’re too late,” Jon sang, with a low laugh. “He’s mine.”
“Martin!” Peter called in warning.
The fog surged towards them. Jon’s tail tensed, his arms clamped tighter around Martin’s shoulders, and with a great coiled spring, Jon launched himself—with Martin in his arms—backwards off the edge of the ship.
Martin sucked in one last breath of cold air. The frigid water hit like a slap, and as they sank below the waves, Martin saw Peter staring over the railing, face crumpled in disappointment, until fog and water distorted his vision.
Pressure grew in his head and lungs, the icy ocean buffeting him from all sides, but Jon’s body pressed along his was a solid, steady presence, warm now in comparison to the water. Jon propelled them through the water, his tail beating against the current, getting further and further away from the Tundra.
Martin’s stomach started to spasm, his body aching for a breath. Though it was hard to tell in the dim water, Martin thought his vision was going dark at the edges, succumbing to the pressure and lack of oxygen. He tried to signal to Jon, to gesture to the surface, indicate that he needed air, but Jon didn’t seem to understand. His eyes glowed, casting rippling green light over them both, his gills flaring, his face inches from Martin’s.
And then Jon kissed him.
Martin’s breath whooshed out of him in shock, bubbles streaming from his nose, costing him precious seconds of consciousness. Jon’s lips were warm and silky soft; his hands came up to clasp Martin’s face and hold him still.
How… fairy tale, he thought.
And I wish we’d had more time.
And God… I’m going to die.
If these were to be his last moments, Martin supposed there were worse fates.
The pressure in his chest and head eased, his body lacking the fuel it needed to keep him fighting. The growing blackness in his eyes opened up and sucked Martin under.
The very last sensation he knew was Jon’s lips on his.
_
Awareness returned slowly to him. His eyes felt stuck shut, rimed with salt, so he didn’t even try to open them, letting his other senses stretch out. Cradled in cool, rough sand, the salt and gently-rotting seaweed smell of a shoreline, the rush and hiss of waves and the distant cry of seabirds.
Experimentally, he cleared his throat. He was a little thirsty, but there was no burning, after-drowned pain in his throat or lungs. The slight movement, however, sent a lance through his temples and down the back of his neck.
“God, my head,” Martin groaned, rolling over onto his side. He curled up into the fetal position, sand scraping the side of his face.
“Oh! Martin!” Too loud, far too loud, and Martin winced, clamping his hands over his temples. The echoes sloshed around his head, worse than the worst hangover Martin had ever had.
The voice immediately quieted, apology in every syllable. “Oh, God, yes, sorry, th-that should go away in a minute or two.”
Jon. Jon was still with him. Martin swallowed, peeling one hand away from his head and seeking out the source of the voice. Familiar cool, webbed fingers grasped it and held it tight.
Martin licked his lips and swallowed carefully before trying to speak again. He tasted saltwater. “You didn’t leave me.”
“Never, Martin. N-never.” Jon sounded irritated he would even imply it. Martin smiled, testing out his facial muscles. The pain in his head was easing back, going out like the tide.
He cracked open an eye. It was overcast, for which he was grateful, but the light was still bright. The gray ocean hissed in sedate waves, further down the beach. The sand he was laying on was dry.
Martin opened both eyes, blinked a few times, then shifted and sat up, ever so slowly. Jon put a steady hand on his back, helping him up. Martin’s headache flared once more, then bled away entirely.
Jon was laid out in the sand beside Martin, his long tail curving around them both. His eyes were full of worry. And love. Martin had to fight the instinct to recoil from it, reminding himself he didn’t have to anymore.
“Right. Okay. Where are we?”
Jon looked around, surveying the desolate stretch of sand and scrub. “South coast of England, somewhere near the Isle of Wight, I think.”
Martin searched his most recent memories. “Hang on… I-I drowned, didn’t I?”
Jon sniffed, looking equal parts worried and self-satisfied. “Nearly.”
“I remember…” Martin took a deep breath, touching his own lips. “You… you kissed me!”
Jon shuffled, drawing a random pattern in the sand. He looked sheepish. “Ah, yes. Yes I did. Bit of siren magic. I… bonded us, sort of? Not—!” He tripped over himself to explain when he saw Martin’s shellshocked expression. “Not permanently or anything, not… not unless you wanted it to be. But giving you a bit of my magic was the only way to ensure you’d survive the trip to land.”
“Woah,” Martin breathed.
“You… you did nearly drown, Martin,” Jon said defensively. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“Thanks,” Martin said, sincerely, if a bit lamely. He still wasn’t sure how to respond to such blatant affection, after so long trapped with Peter. So, with a deep breath, he wrapped his arms around the siren and pulled Jon into his side. The siren buried his face into Martin’s shoulder.
“I—I meant what I said, Martin. I need you.” The siren huffed, frustrated. “No, that’s not… I don’t wish to make light of it. I love you.”
Martin pulled back to look at the siren. He was staring at Martin almost challengingly, as if daring him to say otherwise. Martin huffed a quiet laugh.
“I know, Jon. You showed me. The seeing song was filled with it. I love you, too.”
And Martin closed the few inches between them. Jon was definitely not expecting to be kissed. The siren went completely still, eyes widening in shock, then sliding closed as he leaned into it.
Martin only broke the kiss because, despite everything, he did still need to breathe. The deep blue-green blush was high in Jon’s cheeks, pupils blown so wide only a small ring of green showed.
“So… bonded, huh?” Martin asked, pressing his forehead to Jon’s.
The blush deepened. “Only if you want to be.”
Martin’s smile widened. “I do. I really do. Guess this means I have to find a place on the coast, now, huh? Unless you really do want to live in my bathtub.”
“Well, you could always come and live with me,” Jon stretched and sighed, laying back in the sand.
Martin looked at Jon in shock. Jon looked innocently back.
It took Martin a moment to find his voice. “What? You—we’d—you’d… I could… with you?”
Jon let Martin stutter to a stop before explaining. “Well, proper bonding ceremonies are long and complicated, and several of the steps involve things I doubt you can find on land. So, yes. You could. If you chose it.”
Martin flopped down in the sand beside Jon, as breathless as if he’d been running. Leave… everything he knew, every bit of his old life behind, to go to a place where culture shock probably didn’t even scratch the surface of what he’d be going through.
Jon swallowed nervously, turning to face Martin and taking his hand, his voice quiet but earnest. “It’s not… it’s not an easy life, Martin, I won’t lie. It is an… entirely different world, and there are extremely dangerous things, dangerous people down there.” His eyes grew dark and he gestured to the myriad scars dotting his entire body. “Not everything is as friendly as I am.” And there was a bit of a self-effacing smile on Jon’s lips.
“But you said yourself you don’t have a lot left for you in London, so. Just a thought. Of course, I would be perfectly happy if you stayed up here, as well, wherever you wanted, and I’d visit you as often as I could. Whatever you chose, I would be with you on it.”
Martin couldn’t remember the last time he’d had unconditional love and support from anyone. He didn’t fear the decision he’d have to make, because he knew—without doubt—that Jon meant what he said.
Martin turned Jon’s hand up and kissed the center of his palm. Feeling unburdened, light as air, freed from obligation, from expectation, he met Jon’s eyes. Whatever Jon saw in his expression made him smile, his entire face alight with hope.
He breathed deep the clean air and gave a sharp nod. “I want to. Let’s do it.”
“You’re… you’re sure?”
Martin nodded.
“Right,” Jon sounded breathlessly pleased. “I’ll offer you my protection, then, such as it is. I promise, you’ll be okay.”
“I know that,” Martin grinned, bumping his shoulder with Jon’s. “I’ll be with you.”