Written for Aspec Martin Week – Day 3, Prompt: Frustration
Ace!Jon / Ace!Martin
NB:// this is tagged for internalised acephobia and unhealthy ways of dealing with repression. I've discussed these in greater detail in the tags, or if it’s easier to read, I'm going to put them in the end notes when this goes on A03, so you can prepare yourself more going in if needed.
(If you need me to add tags, send me a message, and I’ll gladly)
You know lots of words.
You don't use them. That's not what they're for. They sit and fizz under your tongue like sugar pills, a crackling burst of flavour like popping candy. You're not so good, are you, with getting the words out. All those words you know and you dredge up seaweed and detritus and plastic from your sea-beds when it's time to speak. The words you want to use stuck between your molars, flattened like stuck toffee behind your slightly bucked teeth. You used to have a stutter, when you were younger, and the poorly-set bone fragments of that linger.
You collect them though. Words. It's easier. You press the petals of them into the back of your notebooks, line the corners of your nest with them. You like to admire them, the carefully noted lines and lines of obscurities.
Some of them are about Jon.
On earlier pages, you wrote saw-toothed, caustic, mettlesome. Evolving to revenant, indomitable, hallowed.
Your word for Jon at the moment, your most recent, ink-damp addition is lucent.
[lucent (adj), you wrote, meaning: giving off light, glowing, or being clear, translucent]
Since you came to the cottage, Jon's shown you everything. Like he's sworn off anything but an intense, avowed honesty, like if he's not offering you his everything, he's somehow failing you. He shows you all the places he is glass and trusts you to look through.
He sits by the window wearing the biggest jumper you own, and the light patters through him and he has his eyes closed like he's sleeping or praying or giving grace and you think of him as shining.
All of your words, and still you're so prone to lying.
–
You should be used to this.
You are kissing. Jon caught you mid-lecture on the appropriate footwear for the ground this home is founded on, and smiled and there suddenly wasn't any words for you to use at all. Jon has his fingers tangled in your hair, and you have a palm splayed steady at the dip of his back.
He plants a hand on your hip. There is an ossified mass in your chest that's gathering bigger, and it's nerves, it's always nerves with you, the stutter in your soul that never played out.
“You want to...?” he asks, and he glances up at you with a dappling light across his face that follows the streak of his giddy smile, and he looks antic, elfish. The hand on your hip gives a suggestive, implying squeeze.
You wait for him to add more, but he doesn't, so you lean back down like the submitting bough of a willow branch, distract him with another bruising collision of a kiss and hope it will drive all thoughts from his head.
Finally, you separate. He kisses like he used to talk, like he wants the last word in an argument, so every kiss is chased by a follow-up, a softer imprint like the closing of a wax seal.
His hands work on the top button of your shirt.
“Would you like to....?” he asks again, short-winded, his breath a little more gone from him than you. He even tries to wink. It's goofy, purposefully, looks silly on him, and all this feels too heavy.
This is not the first time you have done this, but it's never been right before. It'll be better. It's with Jon, you want this with him, you can do this with him and it'll be everything you've always suspected it could be for everyone but you.
You surge against his lips again so he can't see your nerves, you stupid, unfounded, calcifying anxieties, the barriers you keep putting up yourself because you are so terrified of being happy.
“Maybe... not tonight?” you mumble into your shared air. If he pushed, if he asked again, you would. He dragged you from the shoreline, out of the fog, this is the least you can give him. You'd lie on your back, or you'd cover him with your shape, and you'd try so hard to make him happy so he wouldn't notice you not sharing the same. “'m a bit tired.”
Tricky, is what you are. Perjurious. Prevaricating. Two-faced.
You're not tired. The lie makes your tongue swell, like allergies, hay-fever, rigor mortis. Something damningly biological.
These days, Jon is artless, candid, forthright. Everything is a solemn rite, a service he's engaging in that he thought he was unsanctified for.
You are the most proficient dealer in dishonesties you know. It's a growth, down to the bones.
“Alright,” Jon says lightly, like he's not disappointed, like you haven't been substandard, below par, vexing. “Do you want to continue this for a while? Or, you know, we've still not done that jigsaw.”
His easy joy is so bright it shames you. You wish the Lonely had eaten that emotion out of you.
“That jigsaw's not going to solve itself,” you say, and Jon smirks, and moves away but keeps your hand locked in his, and for a while you allow yourself the easy deception of being uncomplicatedly happy.
–
You are a solecism.
It's a useful word. It's all the words you've ever misspoken, all the poorly expressed sentiments, the wrong things you should have said or felt or been, but didn't or weren't. It's the stammer you've got ingrained in the warp and weft of you.
You are in bed, and you are kissing again. You like kissing. The pressure and huff of air. You like holding Jon's head in your hand, stroking the stubbled skin down his chin, the abrasive landscape that travels down. Scar-shiny crags and rises, his personal geography. You like looking at the evidence of his survival. If you scrape your blunt nails against his scalp, he'll take a ragged in-breath; when you press a little harder, nip with teeth against the skin of his lips, he'll sigh and hum. And you like these things too.
You've been kissing for a while now. You've been worrying whether it is acceptable to carry on like this. If you should be doing something more. If you have to.
You are on your side, and Jon has slipped his hand over your hip. Moving it up to the bunching skin circling your stomach. You breathe out shaky, because his hands are algid, nippy – 'God, Jon, you're freezing,' you complain, and he smirks, gives another goofy eyebrow raise, 'are you going to let me warm up then?'. He moves them again and he must take the noise you make as encouragement, as desired – stop it, you've done this before, it's not so bad, it's Jon now, it'll be alright this time – and traces them further up to skate over the more delicate skin below your collarbone, over your chest.
You know he's looking at you. He rarely blinks these days. He watches because he wants to see you happy, wants to know he's making you happy, cataloguing the things that bring you joy like the words you scribe at the back of your notebook.
You've never told him that you've never caught the art of this act, that you know what he wants, and that it makes your stomach fizz like you've swallowed all the words you can never say, how it's not like the books make it sound, not like all the poetry you wish you could understand. You never feel buzzing, live-wire, heady, champagne-drunk on an overwhelming, delirious passion. You feel anxious, deep-down heartsick, overthinking and second-guessing what you're meant to be doing.
But there are some parts of it that are nice, you guess. And Jon loves you, you Saw that, you see that. And if it's the admission price for all the other things, the hand-holding and kissing and the waking up with him coiled around you like a warm and sweaty bracket, then it doesn't matter, does it, not really. You've borne worse in this world for less.
“Do you want to...?” He says, and brushes his palm over your chest again. You nod, make an encouraging sound, and you don't flinch. You make to pull him closer, so his weight pushes the air out from you, and his knee has moved between your legs, and you don't flinch, and your body shores up its well-hammered armour, and he kisses you again, deeper, wetter, and your eyes clench shut even as you hum an appreciative noise, because you know that this is easier in the dark.
The weight lifts suddenly, pushing back and away.
“Martin?”
“Hm?” you ask, opening your eyes again, unsure as to why you've stopped. Jon is staring down at you, face frowning, and whatever he sees, it has him sit back on his hunches. Hair askew, eyes dark, unblinking. He fumbles around for the beside light.
You sit up slightly. You feel cold again. Frigid. Hyperborean.
“I-is everything ok?” you prompt. Jon's frown deepens like a fissure, and you wish he'd stop looking at you like he wants to solve you.
“Something's.... I Know something's not right,” he says, distractedly, looking down at his scar-seared palms. Then he looks back at you.
“Is everything alright with you?” he asks back.
“Yeah! W-why wouldn't it be?”
“Are you... do you want to do this?”
The heart in you cadaverous. You lean closer because he's too far away, because you don't want to be alone, because you don't like the creeping distress that casts itself across like shadow over his face. He leans back, keeping a distant point of orbit. Perigee. He's close, but not in your atmosphere, he's close but he won't touch you and you can hear your own voice getting pitchy.
“Course I do!”
“Do you want me to take it slower?”
“No...”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No, it's not – ”
“It's... you don't seem happy, Martin. There – there's something wrong, I can, I know it...”
“Maybe I don't like you using your bloody mind-reading powers when we're in bed together, Jon,” you snap.
Jon winces.
“I can't exactly switch it off,” he says, obviously hurt.
His eyes roaming over you, peripatetic, taking in all the parts of you you are desperate for him not to look too closely at.
Jon is breviloquent. He doesn't amble along to what he's going to say, he's direct and terse and brief as he needs to be.
“Is this – is this ok?” he asks again.
You realise you're breathing a bit harder. Force yourself to relax, showcase an almost easy smile. Because this is what you're excellent at. Evading. Equivocating. There's not an honest answer you couldn't twist into incomprehension, there's not a simple option you can't complicate because you worry and overthink and fuck it up for everyone else.
“Just nerves, I guess,” you hear yourself say. “We can... let's keep going, I'm sure I can build myself up to it.”
You reach out a hand to his, and he yanks it away. And that, that hurts. Like tearing scab-tissue, like splitting skin.
“Build yourself...” he repeats with a tinge of something horrified. “Martin, you don't have to make yourself do anything, why are you – ?”
“I'm not making myself.” You've started breathing wobbly now, desperate. Why did you have to mess up this performance with him, when he's right here and he wants you, and you can't get through dress rehearsals, never mind opening night because you can't remember your lines, where your feet should stand, what words you need to trot out of your mouth. “I – I'll, I'll manage, ok, it'll be fine, c-can we just forget this and carry on?”
Still he won't stop looking at you, won't get any closer, and you feel like crumbling.
Jon's voice has dropped soft.
“I'm not just going to forget it. Martin, you're not comfortable, you're not happy, how can I ignore that?”
“It doesn't matter,” you say, “it's nothing, it's stupid, it doesn't matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Adamantine. Headstrong.
Jon pauses in the shallow waters of the awkward silence. He reaches out, and takes your hand. Laces your fingers together, and the ossuary in your chest loosens.
“I don't trust... I don't want to ask you questions,” he finally says. “In case I... well. You know. But I'd like to understand. I want you to feel that you can tell me anything, even if you think it's not what I want to hear.”
You are suddenly so very tired of pretending with him. His brightness keeps finding the cracks in you you've poorly papered up, and it fills you with something that could be bravery if it didn't leave you feeling so hollow.
“I don't know if I can,” you reply. You sound burnt out, structurally compromised in the yellowing halo of light. You sound ashen, like you've been set on fire.
He clenches the hand he's holding, and waits. He'd keep waiting, you realise. Even if you never said the words out loud, he'd be patient.
“I can't,” you try again – Christ, it's Sisyphean, Herculean, “I can't – it's not, it's not you, although I-I'm sure everyone says that, right, but it's not. I thought, finally with the right person, I could... but it's – I can't. I can't be what you want me to be. I don't – I don't think I want the same things.”
“You mean a relationship?” Jon asks, eiderdown soft. He shrinks in on himself at the idea, but holds his head high, doesn't lose your gaze.
“N – no,” you say quickly, needing him to understand. “No. I-I want that. I want you. I love you.”
“Then what...?” he prompts.
You feel the gravel of the words under your tongue.
“I don't... I don't like it. The – when we – I don't want it, and I know that's not what you want to hear, and I'm sorry, and it's me, I can't just get out of my head and make this work, and I know it must be disappointing....”
“You don't want to have sex?”
You cringe in on yourself as he lays it out. He's always been better at jigsaws than you.
“If you – we can! - it's not, it's not such a big deal, right! Just give me a few minutes, I can work through it – ”
“Martin,” he grumbles out, and he's shuffled closer, captured your other flailing hand. “I don't need to have sex with you. And if it's not something you're comfortable with, then I don't want to have sex with you.”
“It's not about – about being comfortable, it's about making each other happy.”
“I am happy! You make me happy! I don't need sex. And it's hardly making you happy, is it?”
“That's not the point.”
“It is! Of course it is.” He deflates. Reaches up. Wipes your cheek and his fingers come away damp. “Explain it to me. Please.”
You spit the words out like sunflower seeds.
“I've never... I don't, I mean, I-I have, this isn't, y-you know, the first time, but it's not something I-I like, necessarily, a-and I'm not, I don't think I'm made like that. And I know, it's – it's not what you want to hear...”
“Martin.”
He stops you and you clamp your mouth against the onslaught.
Fractography is the study of cracks, or flaws in a material or structure. It works through observing broken, collapsed, irreparable things and figuring out what final weight snapped its back. It works through observing things unweathered by life, predicting where stresses and pressures might eventually start to form. You are worried Jon will look at you like something due to shatter.
“Martin, I think we need to talk. I think we should have talked before.”
Your voice, miserable, dull with expectation: “If you're breaking up with me....”
“No – no, oh god, Martin, of course not.”
He shuffles closer, lies back down next to you, pats the pillow to indicate that you should join him.
You slide down. He clasps your hands against his breast, and he's so close he's blurry, the air between you warm and dense, your bodies making a cocoon.
“Shall I go first? If that's ok?”
You nod.
“Alright,” he says, and for a second, you just listen to him breathing. “So, I'm asexual. I don't experience sexual attraction to people. Romantic attraction, yes, definitely. I've been in relationships with em, mostly women, a couple of men, and generally they didn't have, shall we say a physical element. But I've been in love. A few times. I'm in love with you, in case – in case you didn't know.”
He says it so matter-of-factly. You can see some of that light shining from the insides of him, incandescent when the words leave his lips.
“And I'd be lying if I said I didn't think you were attractive, aesthetically speaking. But I don't – it's hard to explain, but I don't want to have sex with you, you know, want want. I don't have that urge. But I have been in a few relationships, where I've had sex. Not often, and I don't mind the experience personally, though I can take it or leave it. I like to be involved if my partner enjoys it, and that's – that's what I thought we were doing here. You didn't seem like you were going to make the first move, and I wanted to make you happy, because I thought it was something that you'd like to do together. Like doing jigsaws, or or listening to the radio. I should have – I should have checked. I should have explained first.”
“The word,” you say, dry-mouthed.
“Pardon?”
“The word. What's the … the word you said?”
“Asexual.”
You mouth it to taste the sound. Wonder if you'll write it at the back of your notebook, next to deflagrate and ideoneous.
“That's... that's a new one to me,” you say slowly.
Jon's eyes go lower, go sad. He strokes the dampness from your face again.
“B-but I like kissing,” you say quietly. Because if this word means no intimacy, then you couldn't bear it, the way Jon held himself apart from you before. “I – I like hugs, and holding hands, a-and you know, relationshipy stuff like that. S-so I can't be... can I... those things are all part of it right, so I can't.... And my body, it has – ”
Here, you redden, the stalks of your words knotting.
“– it has r-reactions, i-i-in the mornings, and sometimes if I'm a bit stressed or I can't sleep, I want to, y-you know, sort myself, and that's....”
“These things don't disqualify you,” Jon says earnestly. “It's not something someone will give you a test on. It's personal. It's a personal thing. It's no less valid than anything else. But I want nothing from you that you don't want to freely give. Not because you think I need it, or you think it's the only thing I want from you.”
“Oh,” you say, and for a moment, you have no words left.
Jon waits.
“I don't want to have sex with you,” you manage finally. Small-worded, slipshod voiced.
Jon nods.
“Alright. That's alright.”
“I – ” You try again, and he makes an encouraging expression, and your sentence staggers forward. “I don't, I won't ever want to.”
“That's alright,” he replies.
“Yeah?” you croak, feeling your eyes go blurry with damp.
“Yeah,” Jon says.
You let him hold you for a long time after that. His fingers stroke your back, scrunch and scratch soothing motions in your hair.
“Asexual,” you repeat the word after a long while quiet.
“Hm,” Jon says. “There are some websites, I could show you. When you're... if you're ready.”
“I'd like that,” you say, and you mean it. You make no effort to move.
“There's even a flag,” Jon continues.
“Yeah?”
“Hm. It's pretty cool. Greys and white and purple. I think I've got some socks with the colours somewhere. One of my exs got me a bi-flag set, and an asexual set. ”
You give a wet laugh, imagining Jon's garish footwear.
“What a striking look,” you tease, and Jon elbows you and responds that it's incredibly dashing, thank you very much.
You linger in this liminal doze for a long time. For once, you feel like nothing is expected of you at all.
“You want to get up?” Jon says, yawning wide, cat-like. “Have another go at that jigsaw?”
“ Let's stay here a little longer?” you murmur. Your t-shirt is starting to stick to your skin. Jon's petting has made your hair go haywire, bed-headed. You don't quite want to let this go just yet.
“Looks like it's up to us to paint the town then, Martin!”
“Huh?” Martin glances up, not really in the mood for Tim's hi-jinks. He doesn't want to admit he's been frowning over this statement follow-up for about forty minutes, because Jon sent it back, covered in corrections, again, and it's getting on late on a Friday evening and Martin's brain's decided to clock out from the working week. If Tim's been talking, Martin's not heard a word.
Tim playfully throws a rubber-band ball over to him. Martin fumbles but manages to catch it.
“Sasha's got 'plans'” Tim makes finger quotes, and gives Martin a wink like he's in on a joke. “And it's not like Jon's going to come out with us. So it's you and me buddy! Two stunning single bachelors, us against the world!”
Tim grins at the idea, and Martin automatically smiles back, warmed by Tim wanting to spend actual time with him.
“O-ok!” he says, bolstered by Tim's enthusiasm. “That's... yeah, great, cool! Where are we going?”
He hasn't been out in ages. He's struggling to remember when he last did.
“Was thinking some food first,” Tim replies, catching with ease when Martin lobs the ball back. He throws it from hand to hand thoughtfully. His eyes light up as he snags on a thought. “Let's make a night of it! Head into Soho, what d'you reckon. Bit of a walk, but it'll be a nice night for it. I'll take you to G-A-Y, see if we can't set you up with some strapping lad who finds Star Wars t-shirts sexy.”
Martin's hands suddenly twitch like a grave spasm.
“I – ah, I'm s-sorry. I – er. What?”
Tim leans back on his chair, disregarding both gravity and Martin's panicked expression that's slammed the brakes down on his previous bubbling excitement.
“I know, can get packed on a Friday. If it's too busy, we'll try for the Admiral Duncan or somewhere else. The bartender at Ku Bar is really fit, might even be your type, so we could head over there...”
“I – ” There's a lot of words in Martin's throat, and he's not sure how to work with the stiff material they're formed of, making them into something sensible. “I... I've... I mean...”
It's not that he's ashamed. It's not the word he'd use anyway, even if there's defensiveness in his posture, insecurity in his constant omission, and he's strung up in a reaction that scratches up him like fight or flight. He's wondering, despairingly, does everyone know?
Tim must notice something wrong, because he's knocking the legs of his chair back onto the ground. Frowning and leaning forward, putting the ball down on his desk.
“We don't have to,” he says, holding up his hands as though backtracking. “If you've got some secret fella on the go, hey, you're allowed to keep the mystery man a secret. Just thought it might be a good night out, that's all.”
“I don't... I don't have a secret....” Martin can't even say the word, splutters and swallows it bitterly. “How did you...?” he stops again, miserable and irate at his own inability, embarrassed that he's nearly thirty and this is so hard, worrying about what gave him away. He'd been so careful.
“Ah,” Tim's face clears from the clouds of his confusion, and it's abruptly replaced by the weather front of something heavy, a sad kind of comprehension. He adjusts his cap a bit further back from his face. “Let me guess, and tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree here. You've not been to G-A-Y before.”
Martin gives a little stiff shake of his head.
“You've – and again, I might be wrong – but you've never actually been to a gay bar before.”
Another shake of the head.
“But you like blokes, right?”
Martin's throat is dry. He feels overwhelmingly looked at, and he wants to shrink away, he wants Tim to just shut up, and leave it, and forget they even started this whole thing.
It takes a lot for him to nod.
Tim's expression blooms into a kind-hearted sympathy.
“I'm not going to tell anyone, Martin,” he says, and the air in the room is a little less tight at that earnest promise. “If that's what you're.... No one here would bat an eyelid, but I, I won't say anything that you don't want me to, ok?”
“I don't...” Martin says falteringly, and he fidgets with the stapler on his desk, prods at a biro. “I don't tell people.”
There's a lot in that. Tim knows not to push.
“We don't have to go,” Tim finally replies quietly. “Not if you don't want to. If it's too much...”
“No!” Martin surprises himself with the force of his response, and colours violently, feeling his entire face heat up. “I mean – I – I'd like to. If you – if you still want.”
Tim grins, and his cocksure manner is on display like a theatre curtain lifted. He stands up, doing a stupid little bow like he's trying to make Martin laugh.
“t'would be my honour to lead you astray, Master Blackwood,” he puts on the snobbiest toff voice, and Martin can't help but unwind a little at how daft he sounds, how at ease he looks. It could be, he thinks to himself, maybe it could be this easy.
They get pub-grub in a Wetherspoons near Camden Lock, and they talk about things that aren't work. Films and sport and TV, and it's deliberately breezy and Martin's so appreciative. After a couple of pints, Tim starts teasingly pointing out people around them like he's some sort of cold war spy, asking Martin under his voice to give them a score out of ten – hey, he defends himself when Martin gets flustered and half-heartedly objects, as your wingman I need to know what I'm working with. And there's a giddy delirium to how suddenly all very simple it is to talk about things like this with someone, the cider lubricating his thoughts, his easily tied-up tongue, and soon they're a few pints down, and Martin's snorting a laugh and arguing with Tim about his taste in men, because apparently their opinions and interests vary wildly. The debate only ends when Tim points his fork at him, mock haughtily, replying that at least he's got the common sense to not fancy the boss, and that sends Martin choking on his drink for a good minute, eyes streaming and face burning.
Finally, Tim stands up and claps his hands together as though it's a moment of great grandeur.
“And now!” he declares. “It's time we got this young cub a boyfriend!”
“Would you – Tim! Would you, shush! I'm only a year younger than you, you absolute pillock.”
“No one cares! Best thing about London, Martin, everyone's too wrapped up in their own bollocks to care about ours. Now, are we going or what?”
It's... it's a really good night. They get in easily, and Tim apparently knows the bouncers at the door because he picks up some banter with them easily. Martin looks around at the lights and the people while Tim buys the first round. It's not as scary as he'd imagined. It's, well, it's a normal night club, and it's not late enough to be packed, so people are milling around in groups, drinking, half-dancing to Lady Gaga. The floor is sticky with spilled drink and the music is a little too loud for conversation to be heard, but Martin finds his feet tapping along to the music regardless, and when Tim hands him his plastic glass and holds his own drink up for a cheers, Martin's smile is wide and genuine, the knotted sensation in his chest gone slack.
He'd entertained the worry that Tim might ditch him as soon as he got a hint of attention. Tim certainly gets appraising looks and a few flirty glances which he coquettishly returns, but he sticks to Martin's side, pulling him onto the dance floor and woot-ing with delight when a song comes on that he likes.
They buy more drinks. Martin's round, then Tim's round, and then it's someone's round but Tim's had the grand idea of shots. It must be after midnight, and the music has dissolved into thumping chart-toppers, and Martin is buzzing. Dancing in his own artless way to the music, his shoes stained with some drink he spilt earlier, sing-shouting to the words he knows in the songs. He's danced with people, people who were interested, interested in him, and he hasn't felt the urge to step back, to make sure no-one is watching, to make sure no one gets the wrong idea.
Tim's nudged him forward with a go on Casanova, strut your stuff towards a short blond man, dancing flat-footed and throwing himself into the music, who has been giving Martin impressed, slightly wowed side-eyes all evening, who beams when Martin joins his dance space and draws him into a complicated dance move which Martin stumbles over but tries his best. The man is trying to shout something complimentary in his ear but the music is too loud to hear.
They're both sweaty but the other man is giving him such a look, and Martin feels like an uncorked bottle of champagne, and he finds himself shyly smiling back as the song merges into something louder and more energetic.
He doesn't notice his mobile vibrating. Can't hear it over the music. He pulls his phone out of his pocket almost absent-mindedly, intent on checking the time, figuring he'll have to get the night bus back if they stay here much later, and he blinks as the blurry words and shapes realise themselves into multiple missed calls.
He is suddenly, shockingly sober.
He pushes his way through the dancing throngs, throwing out apologies like scattering seeds, and he clatters back down the stairs, bumping to a few people queueing for the toilers, and then he shoulders his way inexpertly through the downstairs bar and its clusters of people, and then he's out the front door. His breathing is too fast. He's returning the call with a panic, clearing his throat, hoping desperately he doesn't sound too drunk, that he's not slurring his words, because what if something's happened, something bad, and what's his excuse, really. He should have been there, he's just been out, getting pissed, and what's she going to say when she realises....
“Martin?” comes a hollered shout, and Tim's tumbling out of the doors, holding both their jackets and an expression of such concern. “Martin, what...?”
Martin desperately shushes him with an expression.
“Hey,” he croaks down the phone line. “I got your....No, m-my phone was.... No, n-no honestly, it wasn't, I wasn't ignoring....... I-I know, I know, I'm............ yeah........... yeah, I know, but................. Just some people from work, I just lost track of time, I'll.............. I know...... I'll get a taxi, I can be there in...... Ok. I-I know. Sorry, I'll...... Ok. Ok. Bye, mum.”
He ends the call. Rubs at his face. He feels wound up in his chest again.
“I have to go,” he says, and he refuses to meet Tim's eyes. He has the strong suspicion his own eyes are shinier than he wants them to be. “She's not well. She had an episode earlier, and I.... I just need to go. Make sure she's ok.”
“She doesn't know, does she?” Tim's voice is rough from singing, from drinking, but his expression is hard and dark.
“It doesn't matter,” Martin replies shortly.
“Of course it matters!” Tim says, almost with disbelief. “Martin, I know it's your..... but this isn't, this isn't ok. You can't let people tell you what to do with your life!”
“What are you doing then?” Martin snaps back. Because Christ, he's tired and the night's drawn on too late, and his skin feels sticky, and his mum, she sounded bad, sick under the snapping annoyance at the bother he's caused her yet again. He wasn't there, wasn't there to check up on her, and she'll know he's been drinking and he doesn't need this, not now. He can't do this now.
“That's unfair,” Tim replies curtly. There's something like anger on his face before it dissipates into something Martin can't read. “Martin, you can't keep... one of these days you're going to have to be honest with yourself.”
“You say that like it's easy!” Martin responds, almost enraged, his voice cracking. “I can't be – I can't be like you! I can't – it's all so easy for you, a-and I just... I can't. I'm, I'm sorry. I can't.”
Martin breathes out a tear-stifled breath. He thinks there's a taxi rank a few streets away that he saw on the way over. The lights and loud music are pulsing away, and it's distant, like a bubble he's had to walk away from.
“Thank you for... for trying,” he says hoarsely. “I did.... I had a really nice night, you know.”
Tim pauses and then nods wretchedly, a weight to his shoulders. He walks up to Martin, a little wobbly from the shots, the skin of his exposed arms beginning to get chilly, signposting his intentions so Martin has the chance to move away.
Martin doesn't. Tim's arms come crushing around him, and he slumps into it, full of emotions he doesn't have the ability to name, he doesn't have the bravery to face up to yet.
“We'll do this again sometime, yeah?” Tim mumbles encouragingly into his sweaty hair.
“I'd like that,” Martin replies faintly, before he pulls away, taking his jacket back. Gives Tim a worn-down little wave before he turns away.
The music takes a long time to fade from his ears.
