I am literally begging to see what witch!ren and martyns interactions are like
They’re not actually that different from canon, I would say.
You’d think it would be, as Ren has someone (Owen) pre-oakhurst now, and him and Martyn are not at the place they were by episode 8, where they circumstances pushed them to the point where they could only fully trust one another. And it is different. The core, however, is about the same.
Ren views Martyn as a friend, as someone who makes him laugh and has a vested interest in helping the people around him. He’s young, and playful, and he makes Ren feel warm. He needs to be careful, though. This Ren is more cautious than his canon counterpart, where he (supposedly) had nothing to hide. He knows he’s a witch now. He has a lover. He has more to protect and in his experience, nobles don’t tend to take people like Ren (poor, defiant, magic) well. Martyn, though… he seems trustworthy. Ren wants to trust him. There’s something about him…
Martyn views Ren the same way. Ren’s funny, he’s kind, he’s welcoming and dramatic in a way that Martyn loves to lean into and hype up. He also wants to climb him like a tree, but we already know that from canon. (/silly)
(He’s strangely comforting. He lowers so many of Martyn’s walls without noticing. He may not know who Martyn is by birth, but he knows more about the core of him than anyone else Martyn has met so far, other than maybe Apo. It’s startling, to find himself being honest without meaning to. He doesn’t know what to do with that. What it could mean.)
(And if there’s something connecting them? A whisper of essence on the wind, some invisible tether that draws Martyn to this heavy place, to this strange man? Something familiar, like something he’s always known yet never met, something that sits warm and undiscovered in his own chest? Well. Surely he’s just imagining it. He really hopes he’s imagining it.)
Martyn’s… concerned, though.
Ren’s… roommate. Owen. There’s something about him that drives Martyn up the wall. Martyn recognizes a fellow liar when he sees one, and he doesn’t like when Owen pulls Ren aside to whisper something in his ear, or encourages Ren to keep his distance. He doesn’t like how controlling Owen feels.
(He also doesn’t like how much that feels like an excuse. How much Martyn sees himself reflected in the man’s eyes with how badly he also wants to keep Ren close and all to himself. Ren hates liars. Martyn’s just looking out for him.)
