An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Martin, I like touching you.”
He said it so simply, so plainly, that Martin just had to let himself reel for a second.
That wasn’t really an, ah, option? That wasn’t something people liked, and especially not Jon, who was so particular about touch in the first place, and -
He didn’t answer at first, instead just pushing Jon’s plate towards him with an averted gaze. The man pulled it in a bit closer, and finally dropped his own searching gaze, instead opting to grab some of the bread - a mercy, and something for both of them to focus on. Butter, spread across a shitty loaf that Martin had tried to bake from scratch, yesterday. It’d turned out ugly as sin, but…decent tasting, at least. And now, there was butter to be spread on it, and scrambled eggs with probably-expired spices on their plates, and the sunlight streaming in from the living room window was bright and pale gold, lighting the whole scene just a little too real for Martin to process.
Jon looked back up at him after a moment, handing him a piece of the bread, and he took it easily enough. He…didn’t over-analyze the way their fingers touched as he did.
Eventually, he choked out the word, around the tightness in his throat.
“...Why?”
Jon and Martin finding any bit of peace or levity in their day to day work lives,,,,,
Jon and Martin reading through statements with warm drinks and light music playing, Jon and Martin doing something silly to lighten the mood of the day, Jon and Martin bringing in funny mugs and little objects to work for their desks, Jon and Martin looking at each other at any mention of a dog, Jon and Martin dancing, Jon and Martin laughing, Jon and Martin sharing small talk,,,
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I am once again posting a oneshot instead of updating my WIPs. Really sorry about that, but I promise I will get to them eventually. In the meantime, enjoy some Somewhere Else/Upton House fluff!
Content Warnings for this work:
memory loss
“I love you.”
It was a rainy Sunday morning, threatening to turn into a rainy Sunday afternoon as they lazed in bed in a cottage very much, though not exactly, like Daisy’s, in a Scotland very much, though not exactly, like their own. Jon lay with his head on Martin’s chest while Martin played absentmindedly with the long, sleep-tangled curls of Jon’s hair. In response to Jon’s admission, he gave a warm, contented hum.
“I know it’s bad form to say that before we’ve had our first date, but–” Jon said with a soft chuckle. The absurdity of their situation always struck him at odd times.
“Jon, we live together,” Martin laughed, before Jon’s words fully hit him. “Wait, what do you mean? Yes, we did. Remember? At– Oh, right.”
“Hmm?” Jon rolled over so that he could see Martin, and so that Martin could see his puzzled frown.
“At Upton House,” he explained in a quiet murmur, voice suddenly soft and mournful. “I always forget you don’t remember.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“Sure.” Martin shifted, pulling Jon slightly closer. When he spoke, he addressed the ceiling, eyes glazing over with memory. “We had a picnic. You made scones.”
Jon laid his head back down as he listened. He could feel as well as hear Matin speaking, like this – the pleasant rumble of breath and vocal chords hummed from Martin’s chest into Jon’s, and he savored the sensation.
“You insisted it wouldn’t be romantic if I helped – which I vehemently disagree with, by the way – so you shooed me out of the kitchen while you baked. Which meant a couple hours wandering aimlessly around Upton House, waiting for Annabelle Cane to pop out and say something cryptic.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was cute,” Martin said. “You always get so focused when you have a plan, and it’s adorable.”
“Hmm.” Jon was fairly sure Martin used the word ‘adorable’ specifically because he knew Jon objected, so he grumbled dutifully at the descriptor. “If you say so.”
“After that, we found a nice spot by the lake and laid down a blanket. It was gorgeous – all water lilies and dragonflies. You should have seen it. Well, I mean, you did see it, but– b-but you know what I–”
“I know what you mean,” Jon said.
“Honestly, I would have written a poem about it if I’d been in the right headspace. But the– y’know, the apocalypse sort of put me off it for a while there.”
Jon traced his finger in fond loops across Martin’s arm. “Do you think you’re in the right headspace now? Now that we’re here?” In their Scotland, Martin had left snatches of poems scribbled on every available scrap of paper in the safehouse, and Jon had noticed, but not mentioned, its absence in their new home.
“I don’t know,” Martin whispered. “I think I just need some more time.”
Jon brought Martin’s hand up to his lips and gave it a quick and hopefully reassuring kiss. “What did we do next?”
“Oh, you know, just ate, really. We had the scones and some sandwiches, and, heh, and a bottle of champagne.” Jon raised his eyebrows, and Martin flushed. “Well, Salesa wasn’t going to miss it! Believe me, he had plenty to spare.”
“So we just ate?” Jon asked. “Well, and drank, I suppose.”
“And talked.”
“What about?”
Martin’s face clouded. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Oh.” It was precisely the sort of thing to awaken that old, disastrous curiosity in Jon, but he had learned, since losing his connection to the eye, to resist temptation, so he said. “Alright. You don’t have to–”
“Sorry, it’s just– we talked a lot about… y’know, the state of things, and it’s– I know it’s stupid, I mean, we’re fine now, but I– I don’t like to think about how I felt back then. Just so completely helpless. The whole world was broken, and we didn’t even know if there was any fixing it, let alone if we could manage it, and you–” His voice broke. He looked at Jon with a terrible sort of sincerity painted across his face. “You’re the only thing that kept me going. You know that, right? I would have fallen apart without you.”
Jon lifted Martin’s hand to his lips again. This time he lingered, pressing a long, purposeful kiss to his knuckle.
“I can’t say that I agree, but–”
Martin gave a wet, startled laugh. “What?”
“Mr. ‘I’ve already packed our bags; I found some tea under the sink?’ You would have made it to London in record time and defeated Jonah yourself. I only slowed you down.”
“I would have gone insane on day one.”
“You–”
This time it was Jon’s turn to be kissed. Martin lifted himself up to press a kiss to the corner of Jon’s mouth. “You were my reason, Jon.” He flushed, just a bit more, before he confessed, “Still are.”
Jon swallowed.
They’d been in an odd place, since coming here. They still hadn’t talked about everything, not really – it was all too fragile and too fresh – and Jon knew that eventually they were going to have to have a long discussion about everything that had happened in the Panopticon. It felt like they’d spent the last few weeks in the eye of a terrible storm, waiting for it to wreck everything they’d built, but this grounded Jon. Martin was his reason, his anchor, and, despite everything, he was still those things for Martin. Whatever happened next, that wouldn’t change. They could handle this.
In the long silence that followed that admission, Jon pressed his ear to Martin’s chest so he could hear the reassuring pumping of his heart.
“Anyway,” Martin said after a moment. “What I’m trying to say is, it was hard, at Upton House. You were the one thing I could count on, and without the Eye, you were… fading.”
Jon took Martin’s hand and laced their fingers together, reassuring him that he was here. They were safe.
“Tell me more about the scones,” he murmured. “What did we have them with?”
Martin’s lips twitched. It wasn’t quite a full smile, but it was on the way to one. “Strawberry jam,” he said. “We couldn’t find any clotted cream, so we had to make do with jam and butter, but it was good. You definitely used too much baking powder, which wouldn’t have happened if you’d let me help, but–”
“Bold words.”
“But they were– they were nice. Really nice.” His voice was wistful, and more than a little sad. Jon squeezed his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything?” Jon offered. It was always his instinct.
But Martin sighed, “Not helpful, Jon,” so he tried again.
“I’m sorry I forgot? I’m sorry I ended the world. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“Okay, in order: you didn’t choose to forget, you didn’t choose to end the world, and I just told you you were the only thing that made going through all that at all bearable.”
“Well,” Jon muttered, not quite willing to give up on his apologies. “I’m also sorry for putting too much baking powder in the scones.”
Martin smiled, still a bit sadly. “That one I can’t forgive.”
They laughed, and for a moment, all was well.
Sunday was the only day they both had off. Martin Blackwood, king of lying on his CV, had put his skills to good use finding them new identities and new jobs, but their options had still been limited, and their schedules left plenty to be desired. Some weeks they hardly saw each other at all, communicating almost exclusively through sticky-note love letters and post-nightmare soothing.
This week was different, though. Jon’s rotating one day off per week, given to him in compensation for working Saturdays, fell on a Friday this week, and he knew that Martin was in the habit of leaving early at the end of the week. (It was a habit that had irritated him to no end as Martin’s manager, but as Martin’s boyfriend, he was grateful for it.) Which, conveniently, gave them the better part of the afternoon for Jon to enact his plan.
By the time Martin returned from work, he had cleaned the kitchen thoroughly, scrubbing it free of dirty dishes or any incriminating flour stains. The only remaining evidence of Jon’s machinations was the overstuffed grocery bag sitting by the door.
When Martin opened the door, Jon stepped up to greet him.
“Hi, love,” Martin murmured, kissing Jon first on the cheek, and then on the lips – a habit they’d developed from two parts love and one part indecisiveness.
“How was work?”
“Ugh,” Martin groaned. “I’m just glad it’s the weekend.” He set down his messenger bag at the kitchen table and began massaging his shoulder.
“Are you too tired to go out? I was thinking maybe we could take a walk.”
“That sounds nice,” Martin said. “Just give me a minute to change out of these bloody shoes.”
Martin shot him an odd look when he picked up the grocery bag.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing,” Jon lied. “Just some things for the walk.”
Martin’s face betrayed precisely how much he believed that, but he didn’t argue.
It was a beautiful day. They seemed to have arrived in this new world only a few days after their own had ended, and a balmy September had given way to a chill and pleasant October. The air was crisp and cool, scented with heather and rich, fertile earth.
“How was your day off?” Martin asked him.
“Not very eventful,” he reported. “Naomi did try to get me to come into the office – I know this will shock you, but they’re short-staffed again today – but I declined. This has been on the schedule for more than a week now.”
Martin shook his head fondly. “Jonathan Sims taking an actual day off. Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Jon brushed him off. “But it’s hard to be a workaholic when the work is this dull.”
“As opposed to the archives, which were so very thrilling.” Jon opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Martin specified, “Before the Horrors started. Obviously things did pick up a bit eventually,” he said, in a bit of an understatement, “But you were working weekends when we were basically still just filing things.”
“Well, yes, but the mystery! There’s no mystery at this job!”
“Look on the bright side,” Martin said. “Maybe your new boss will turn out to be possessed, too.”
“Maybe...” Jon sighed.
They reached a fork in the path. Martin, out of habit, started down the left fork, the one they always took, but Jon tugged his hand toward the right.
“Are you sure? I thought the hills played havoc on your legs.”
“I can manage.”
And he could. He wasn’t going to make a habit of it – the worms had done a number on his calves in a way he’d never quite recovered from, and he didn’t enjoy walking on an incline – but just this once wouldn’t do any harm.
“At least let me take the bag–”
“I’ll be fine.”
And he was. A bit out of breath, by the time they reached the spot, but fine.
The spot in question was a little patch of grass on the lee side of the hill, sheltered from the wind but not yet cast into shadow. The earth spread out below them in a sharp tangle of heather and thistle and wildflower before rising again, and again, a series of rolling hills that seemed to go on forever.
Jon grabbed the blanket he’d stuffed into the bag and spread it out on the soft grass.
“It’s not exactly Upton House, but–”
“It’s beautiful.” Martin stared at him, amusement battling with wonder on his face.
Jon gestured to the blanket, and they both sat down. It was a bit chilly on the hillside, even without the wind, but Jon had prepared for that eventuality. He’d packed a second blanket, this one a bit less ratty, and he pulled it around both their shoulders.
Martin’s expression kept shifting – pleased one moment, uncomfortable the next. Jon knew he had a hard time being on the receiving end of, well, anything – attention, affection, assistance. He could hardly let Jon make him soup when he was ill, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that surprise romantic gestures caught him off-balance. Jon must have learned that firsthand at Upton House, but the memory was gone. Still, he had said that it was nice, that first time around, so Jon plowed on. He reached into the bag again and pulled out a bottle and a pair of plastic cups.
“You actually bought champagne?” Martin’s face was a battleground again, but this time amusement won.
“Well, it is a special occasion,” Jon said, removing the foil and setting to work twisting the metal cage around the cork. “It’s our first date.”
“Second,” Martin corrected.
“Second for you, maybe.”
“I mean, you were there! It’s not like I went on that date on my own!”
“Fine,” Jon said with a faux-irritation that couldn’t have been even the slightest bit convincing. “Second. Still a special occasion, though.”
He popped the cork, and a stream of bubbles fizzed out over the neck of the bottle and down his wrist. He always hated that, both for the waste and for the way it left his hand sticky and wet, but today he couldn’t find it in himself to mind. He poured them both a glass and raised his own in a toast.
“To second chances.”
They both drank to that.
“Now for the main event,” he said, reaching into the bag one last time and pulling out a series of tupperware containers, plus plates, knives, and a jar of strawberry jam.
Martin’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You didn’t.”
“I had to,” Jon said, grabbing himself a scone. “I take this seriously. And my baking ability has been impugned, if memory serves.”
Martin shook his head. “Petty, petty man,” he muttered with a fond laugh.
“I managed to get some clotted cream this time, so this is already an improvement.”
He sliced his scone in half and spread on a thick smear of jam and a dollop of cream.
It was delicious, in his perfectly impartial opinion. Martin should never have doubted him.
He watched as Martin took a bite.
“What do you think? Too much baking powder again?”
Martin wiped a smear of jam from the corner of his mouth. “The baking powder is good,” he said, and Jon had the feeling that there was a ‘but’ attached to that statement.
“But…?”
Martin bit his lip. “But you may have overmixed them just a bit.”
“Slander!”
“Just a bit!” Martin threw up his hands defensively. “I’m just saying, if you’d let me help…”
Jon sighed.
“I don’t know why you’re always fighting me on this!”
“Martin, you've seen me in the kitchen. It’s–”
“Adorable,” Martin finished for him, and Jon pretended he hadn’t heard.
“Intense,” he said instead. “I don’t know why you think adding another person to the mix will make things less frantic.”
“Because that other person happens to be your boyfriend who, a) loves you very much, and b) is a very good baker!” Martin picked up another scone before muttering, not quite under his breath, “And knows how to measure dry ingredients correctly…”
“Slander,” Jon muttered again. “Unfounded, unprovoked–”
And then, just as petulantly but a great deal more honest:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
The final part(s) of my first kiss 5+1 written for Jonmartin Week 2024! Here's a preview:
If he were Orpheus, Jon reasons with only the faintest edge of hysteria, then Martin would have been turned into salt enough times by now to fill the whole of the Lonely’s endless ocean. He doesn’t need to look anywhere other than Martin, not with the Eye calling them back, so he won't.
Jon had expected Martin might fade away into the Lonely at least once, but had been positive he would return. He’d been less confident after Martin’s second disappearance. So when Martin reemerges from the fog and Sees Jon, when the edges of his shape firm up as if a smearing of grease had been wiped from a lens and his eyes had begin to lose their seaglass haze and take on the golden flecks Jon remembers, Jon cannot but grab onto him and hold tight.
People talk about letting opportunities “slip through their fingers,” but Martin had literally turned into mist and slipped through Jon’s fingers, and he’s not inclined to let that happen again. With each glance over his shoulder he squeezes Martin's hand to reassure the both of them that they are here and real. Though Martin is silent, his grip around Jon’s fingers tightens incrementally. Jon’s hand aches. The pain is grounding, exquisite.
They do not emerge from the Lonely in the same place they entered.
This was silly, a little voice inside of Jon tried to scold him. It was childish and ridiculous and…
And he was loving every second of it.
He buried his face in the crook of Martin’s neck, giggling quietly and constantly, his cheeks flushed bright red.
Martin’s arms were wrapped tightly around him, his fingers resting against Jon’s sides and tapping a gentle rhythm against his clothed skin, just enough to have him twitching.
Jon clung to him in return as if to a lifeline, lost in the giddy, playful feeling that Martin’s hands brought out. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so instead tried to focus on keeping as still as he could, not guarding his many sensitive spots from his amazing boyfriend.
Martin pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You,” kiss, “are,” kiss, “so,” kiss, “cute!”
Jon’s face scrunched up at the unexpected affection, and his giggles jumped. By rights that really shouldn’t tickle, but the shivery delight his kisses brought about might as well, for how much they made him smile.
He wished that all days ended like this.
Yes, there was a voice inside trying to chide him, trying to tell him that he was a grown man, but even that voice felt… amused. Happy. Apparently even his insecurities were ticklish.
Martin kissed a line over to Jon’s neck, mouthing over the sensitive skin there and making mischievous crunching noises as he did.
Jon hiccupped, turning his head from side to side to resist the urge to squash away the feeling and letting his legs writhe.
Teeth nipped at his ear and Jon squeaked in response. “I love you like this.” Martin whispered, his breath tickling too. “Wish you could be like this all the time.”
That was impractical, the trying-to-be-stern voice in his head replied. They’d never have another conversation if Jon couldn’t stop giggling for the rest of his life, and yes, yes, yes please.
Even if he’d wanted to say something, Jon knew he wouldn’t be able to. His mind had melted into happy goo, and his body wasn’t far behind. Martin’s hands moved off his sides to float just over Jon’s ribs, not quite touching but not exactly not touching either. The duality of it made him snort and hug Martin all the tighter.
Martin couldn’t stop smiling if his life depended on it. How was he expected to cope with this? His boyfriend, his Jon, clinging to him, giggling and snorting and melting and letting Martin take him apart like this, enjoying it.
Even his daydreams had never gotten this indulgent.
Jon’s legs kicked out with a squeal when his squirming accidently sent him into one of Martin’s teasing fingers, and Martin was struck by a mischievous idea. He floated his hands back down to play at Jon’s stomach, then raised his leg until his foot was level with Jon’s, and wiggled his toes against his sole.
A loud squeak escaped Jon at the touch, his leg jerking up against his will and bubbly laughter breaking up his giggles. Just to be mean, Martin squeezed at his kneecap, since it was so conveniently within his grasp.
And Jon… didn’t even flinch. He just flopped against Martin with a loud cackle, barely twitching as he continued to dance his fingers over Jon’s stomach and squeeze his kneecap. Laughter bubbled from him freely, flowing from snorts to laughs to giggles to squeaks and back again.
All of Jon’s resistance had melted away. All he could find it in him to do was lay there tangled up in his boyfriend and laugh and laugh and laugh, even the stern voice inside had been rendered mute against the tingly sensations shooting across his nerve endings and lighting his brain up with happy electricity.
Jon wasn’t sure when the touch started to slow, or later than that, once the tingles started to ease. He was floating among a starry sea of sensation, and all he knew was Martin.
Another kiss was pressed to his cheek. “Tired enough for sleep, then?” Martin chuckled.
Jon huffed a laugh in response but deigned not to say anything.
That concept can't stop spinning in my head so I'll just leave it here.
Haven't heard of any canon so Jon and Martin wake up somewhere else and the credits go on with scattered photos of their happy life together to the “Elvis Presley - Can't Help Falling In Love” because it's super fluff and the song is made for them.
