Chapter Text
The first thing Jon does is sweep his gaze down the street they’re on, looking for what he needs. Luckily, they’re in London, so it’s easily found.
“There,” he says, and grabs Martin by the arm and starts tugging him forward through the crowd. People part for them easily. The privilege of walking with a very tall man, Jon supposes with some annoyance.
“I-- what?” Martin asks, flustered and confused until Jon pulls him into the mouth of the alley.
“Do it,” Jon says firmly, bracing himself for what’s about to happen.
“I… no, Jon,” he says, sounding highly exasperated and a little bit incredulous.
“You said you would,” he says accusingly, alarmed and indignant. He can’t lose this chance to know what it was like--!
“Yes, and I will,” he says, and Jon almost sighs with relief. “But not in some random alley.”
“Why? That’s how you always do it. That’s how you did it with me.”
“Yes, and you passed out and then I had to help you home, remember?”
“No, I don’t remember. That’s the whole point, Martin,” he says sharply, and Martin winces slightly. “We’re recreating the events as closely as possible.”
“That’s not-- wait. How are you so sure that you’ll pass out again?”
“Well, that’s what happened last time, isn’t it?”
“Yes, because you hadn’t eaten all day and also slept poorly. So it won’t--”
Martin must see something on his face, because Martin gives him a mildly horrified look. “Again? Why? Is this, is this a habit of yours?”
Instead of admitting that yes, it may be a bit of an unintentional habit, Jon thins his lips instead. “I was preoccupied, alright? I was thinking more about tracking you down and trying to corner you without dying than eating three square meals a day and getting my eight hours.”
“Oh my god.” Martin pinches the bridge of his nose like Jon’s the one being illogical here.
“Bite me,” Jon says.
“No,” Martin says.
Jon feels himself inhale to say something loud and cutting, the exact details of which he doesn’t even know yet, when Martin holds up his palm in a wait a moment gesture.
“I’ll bite you, but not in a public alley. It’s not safe and it’s not good. The only reason I do it is because I have to. Going into the homes of all of my victims is impractical, dangerous, and violating. But this is the first time I’ve actually got consent and I can coordinate with you. The fact that you think you’ll probably faint means that I’m definitely not doing it here. We’re doing it in your flat. I’m sorry that it’s not ‘recreating the events as closely as possible’, alright, but I don’t think that this is a necessary part. It’s just risky.”
Jon glares at Martin for a long moment, and Martin looks steadily back, arms crossed. I’m not budging on this, says every single inch of him.
… What if Jon pushes the issue and Martin just drops the whole endeavor entirely? It relies entirely on his willingness to play along, and Jon has zero leverage to persuade him if he doesn’t want to. He can’t afford to lose this opportunity.
“Fine,” he says grudgingly.
“Really?” Martin asks skeptically, eyebrow raised. “That easy?”
“You’re right,” he forces himself to say. “It isn’t as necessary as the over all experience.”
Martin relaxes, softens. “Thanks, Jon. This is-- it’s makes it easier for me, like this.”
The idea that this concession is for Martin’s comfort instead of Jon’s makes it far easier to stomach. Jon stops bristling quite so much.
“Let’s go to my flat then,” he says.
“Yeah,” Martin agrees. “... Do you still not have any food there, though?”
Jon unpacks the groceries with Martin impatiently. Martin had insisted they get something beforehand, further deviating from the original events. Jon tries to remind himself that it doesn’t really matter if Martin does or doesn’t have to pop out for fifteen minutes for a quick Tesco’s run in the middle of the whole thing. He’s still getting the important bits.
Since they were already deviating so much, though, he’d gone ahead and put his foot down on more orange juice. He’s never liked the stuff, and after having obsessed over it for a solid month he’s quite firmly done with it. He’ll simply drink water instead. Martin conceded the issue, looking confused but amused at his firm stance on the matter.
“There,” Jon says with vicious satisfaction as he just barely doesn’t slam the egg carton down in the fridge. “I have food now. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” Martin says dryly.
He closes the fridge door and spins around to pin Martin down with his eyes. “Then do it already.”
They’re inside Jon’s flat, the door locked, all alone. They have food for later. Consent has already been made clear. There are no more excuses, delays, or issues to stop them. Martin looks abruptly very nervous, as if Jon has dropped this into his lap from out of nowhere, instead of working with him towards it for about an hour now.
“Um,” Martin says, flushing. Jon wonders if that’s the blood he drank earlier tonight. “Right. Yes, o-- of course.”
Jon takes a step back so that his back is braced against the fridge behind him, the quiet humming vibrating very slightly through him. He tilts his neck slightly. He raises his eyebrows at Martin expectantly, because he doesn’t want to say ‘bon appetit.’
Martin steps forward until he’s within Jon’s personal space, close enough for Jon to feel the lack of warmth radiating from him. He closes his eyes, trying not to tense up.
“I-- are you sure about this?” he asks anxiously.
Jon opens his eyes and glares at Martin. “Oh no, you’re right, I’ve just been having you on all night for a lark. Get out of my flat immediately.”
“I mean it, Jon,” Martin says, sounding annoyed now. His face goes quickly back to ‘worried’, though. “It wouldn’t be-- it’d make sense, if you’d decide to back out now. No shame in it. It’d be fine, I’d be fine with it.”
“You almost sound like you want for me to back out.” He hadn’t meant it as he said it, but Martin’s shoulders hunch for a moment, and Jon straightens. “Wait, do you? Why?”
He can sort of see why Martin would think Jon would suddenly change his mind. He’s the one letting himself be vulnerable here. But why would Martin? It’s the easiest meal he’s ever going to get, consequence free. It doesn’t make any sense.
“I just,” Martin works his mouth for a moment, presumably getting his words in the right order. “I’ve never let someone remember before. What if it’s awful for you?”
Jon relaxes. It’s just more of Martin worrying for him. He can handle that.
“You said that the enthrallment process is very enjoyable for the victim,” he points out.
“Yes, in the moment. But what about afterwards? In retrospect? Wouldn’t it be-- horrifying, to remember yourself being that defenseless and controlled?”
He raises a decent point, so Jon does him the service of actually considering it for a moment.
“No,” he decides. “I don’t think I’ll react that way.”
Martin gives him another one of those annoyed looks. “How can you know that?”
“I can’t, obviously. I’m just pretty sure that I won’t feel that way. I’m not completely helpless, after all. You’re listening to me. And I’m the one who asked you to do this. I won’t be completely defenseless and controlled, since I’m the one who made this situation happen, and we have an agreement that I trust that you’re going to follow. I might be traumatized if you do something bad, but I doubt you will. Right?”
“What if I do something bad on accident?” he asks in a small voice, and he looks like he actually means it, like he’s really scared of something like that happening.
Jon bites back a don’t be irrational. Fears are rarely rational, he reminds himself. “Are you going to injure me?”
“No,” Martin denies fiercely.
“Are you going to take advantage of me?”
“Of course not!”
“Well, that’s what I count as ‘bad’, so you’re fine.” He hesitates before he says the next bit. He’s barely knows Martin, after all. But Martin seems to need it, and it is, to some degree, true. “I trust you.”
Martin gives him a wide eyed, alarmed look. “You shouldn’t.”
Jon shrugs. “You seem to be a decent fellow,” he says frankly.
Martin does that thing where he just looks at Jon for one quiet moment, and then bursts into mildly hysterical giggles. It’s annoying, how often that seems to happen, but at least it breaks the tension, makes Martin’s shoulders ease.
Prompting, Jon tilts his head to the side again, baring his throat. Martin’s laughter eases, sobers. He doesn’t go tight and anxious again, but he looks more serious now. Intent. Eyes fixed on Jon’s throat. Jon very deliberately doesn’t let his hands curl up into fists. Now isn’t the time to let Martin notice any nerves he may or may not have. Not when he’s so close to fixing this.
Martin leans in and down, but instead of going for his throat, he puts his mouth next to Jon’s ear.
“Hold onto me, Jon.”
It’s like all of the whirring thoughts in his head suddenly go muffled all at once, and the only clear thing left is hold onto me.
Jon holds onto him. He curls his fingers into his sweater, sways into him, leaning against his reassuring solidness, pressing his face into his chest. Close. It’s like all of the blood in his veins is pulsing with a warm rightness. He is exactly where he’s supposed to be, and it’s good. Jon can see himself standing here and holding onto Martin for the rest of the night, for forever, and being perfectly content.
Martin curls his hand over the back of Jon’s neck, stroking, and he shivers, the simple peace being breached by a small excited thrill of happiness. Being touched by Martin is good. He silently hopes he keeps doing it.
“Ah, lean back a bit, Jon,” Martin says. Jon leans back a bit, still holding onto Martin with his hands. It had been good and right, being pressed up so close to him, but doing as Martin says feels more right. Fulfilling, satisfying, correct. Martin looks down at him, a faint furrow in his brow, and he looks perfect. Jon could stare at him forever. “This isn’t going to hurt. It’ll feel good.”
“Okay,” Jon agrees. It won’t hurt. It’ll feel good.
Martin starts to lean down, and something inside of Jon that feels as natural as blinking or breathing makes him bare his neck for him without prompting. Martin’s lips settle over the pulse of his throat and yes, that’s where he should be, this is where Jon should be. Everything is right, everything is proper.
Martin bites down, and all of the air leaves Jon’s lungs in a soft exhale of wonder. It feels good. Martin seals his mouth over the wound and drinks, and it’s connection, communion, impossible to describe perfection. Jon makes a helpless sound of pleasure that almost sounds like pain from how overwhelming it feels. He doesn’t know what to do with this much goodness. He feels like he should move to try and express it or else he’ll fall to pieces from the inside out, but Martin had said hold onto me, and he doesn’t want to jostle him, interrupt the goodness. So it comes out of his throat instead, his mouth, loud, unsteady breathing interspersed by breathy, wrecked moans.
Martin’s tongue on his skin, his hands holding him close and steady, his teeth resting against his flesh as he drinks, taking Jon’s blood. He can have all of it, if he wants. Jon doesn’t know how he could possibly withstand this overwhelming pleasure for so long, but that doesn’t matter, he would simply hold on and be ripped through it as Martin took everything he wants.
It feels like an eternity and a blink of an eye later when Martin stops. His lips move away, he stops drinking, and Jon pants in the aftershocks of it. Martin leans in to lick along his skin against the opening, and it’s bliss. He melts into Martin’s arms, boneless, holding on.
“There,” he says softly. His voice sounds husky, good. “I didn’t take as much as last time. I’ve already eaten once today.”
Jon listens to Martin’s words raptly, because he has a perfect voice and he wants to give him whatever he asks for, but the words don’t really connect into a comprehensible sentence for him. Any world or time or people that aren’t this kitchen and right now and Jon and Martin feel impossible to even conceive of.
Martin strokes a hand through Jon’s hair, and it’s so right and good.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Good,” he says. He feels briefly helpless, because what he feels couldn’t possibly be encapsulated in such a small and underwhelming word. He doesn’t know how to tell Martin that was heaven.
Martin huffs softly. “Right. Of course. I mean, I mean physically, Jon. How do you feel physically?”
It’s difficult to try and think about how his body feels when his mind is enveloped in such an ecstatic fog. But Martin wants to know, so Jon will do it. It’s as simple as that.
“... Dizzy,” he decides eventually. “Really dizzy.”
He realizes that the only reason he’s standing is because he’s mostly leaning onto Martin, at this point. He hums happily, eyes closing, pressing himself into Martin. He’s much warmer now. Jon could stay here forever. Martin strokes a hand down his back, makes a fretful noise.
“You should go and lie down then,” he says.
“Okay,” Jon agrees.
Martin takes him by the hand and leads him away from the kitchen, and Jon follows, staying close. The world sways as he walks, but Martin keeps him steady. He’s so nice, so good.
They’re in Jon’s bedroom now. Okay. Martin leads Jon to the bed and he sits down. Martin kneels down and takes his shoes off for him, and Jon just sits there and watches him, feeling content. Martin can do whatever he wants. Anything he does would feel perfect, because it’s Martin. It’s okay if Martin thinks it is.
Martin sets Jon’s shoes aside and stands up, setting a hand on Jon’s chest--yes, touch him, close--and then gently shoves him down onto the bed.
“Stay there,” Martin says. “I’m going to go and make you some food.”
“Okay,” Jon says. Martin leaving isn’t great, but he’s coming back, so it’s okay. He closes his eyes, feeling more relaxed than he ever has in his life. Everything is perfect.
Martin hopes this is going okay. He busies himself with making the food, cracking eggs into a bowl. An omelette and toast should be fine. Too simple for him to mess up.
Maybe he should’ve picked something a little bit more difficult, though, so it would take up more of his attention. His mind keeps drifting back to Jon, lying in his bed. Worrying at him.
Jon had said he felt good, but of course he felt good. Before Martin had enthralled him, he had said that he’d probably feel fine even after Martin’s influence left him. But that was based off of nothing but a gut instinct. He just-- he really hopes that this isn’t going to be an upsetting memory for him, is all. Frightening or disturbing or embarrassing--
Every single one of the noises Jon made as Martin drank from him flashes through his mind, and he has to bury his face in his hands for a moment. God, he hadn’t even thought about the noises until now. Jon is going to remember that, this time. As according to plan.
Martin desperately focuses on the omelette. Gets a plate and cutlery, a glass of water--he has never seen someone be so firm about their stance on juice of all things before he met Jon--and plates the toast as soon as it’s done. He goes and gets Jon.
Jon looks… absolutely wrecked, in the best possible way that makes Martin flush. Awkwardly, he reaches down to shake him, and Jon’s eyes open slowly, reminding him of a cat napping in a sunbeam. Languid, that’s the word. His eyes are so dark as he looks hazily up at Martin.
Part of Martin wants to tell him to go back to sleep and leave him there for the next eight hours, but he can do that later. For now, Jon needs to eat, and there’s a hot meal in the kitchen.
“Come on,” he says softly. “I’ve got food for you.”
“Okay,” Jon agrees easily, and Martin helps him up, leads him to the kitchen, and holds out the chair for him. Jon sits down and starts eating mechanically, like the taste doesn’t really matter to him. Martin knows that it doesn’t. He’s seen thralls eat five star canapes and tasteless rations with the same expression. He tried his best to make it a good meal anyways.
“... You sort of dodged the question, earlier,” he says. “About if you not eating or sleeping enough is a habit.”
Jon swallows, and says with simple honesty, “It’s a habit.”
Yeah, he’d kind of guessed. He’d been hoping, though.
“Why?” he asks a little bit helplessly.
“I just forget. Or ignore it. It doesn’t matter as much as work, or finding out what I need to know. I can always just eat or sleep later.”
“But it’s unhealthy. Being always at least a little bit hungry and tired, it must be exhausting.”
He says that like he isn’t a little bit hungry all of the time, now. But that’s different. Martin has to hurt people to eat, and Jon doesn’t. Except for today, he realizes. He feels full for the first time in a long time.
Jon shrugs. “I have good work ethic.”
Martin sighs. “I’d prefer it if you prioritized taking care of yourself. You’re more important than your job, Jon.”
“Okay,” Jon says. It won’t stick. Too longterm.
“... Do you think that? That your job is more important than you?”
“Yes,” he says, and Martin doesn’t even know how to respond to something that’s so wrong. “But not if you don’t want for me to think that.”
“I… yeah, I don’t want for you to think that.” Not because Martin told him too, though. Just because Jon values himself.
Jon finishes his meal. Martin puts the plate away, and leads Jon over to the couch.
“How do you feel? Better now?”
Jon nods. His hand feels warm in Martin’s.
“Is there anything you need or want?”
“You,” he says immediately with no hesitation or consideration, and Martin has to look away from him for a bit.
“Oh, um, yeah, ha, right. Yes. Right. You can, ah, come over here.” He sits down on the couch with Jon and holds open an arm, and Jon pushes himself underneath it and up against Martin’s side immediately. He melts against Martin, sighing with contentment.
Martin is dying.
“Just relax,” he says, voice an octave too high. “I’ll just, I’ll watch some telly. Let me know if you need anything-- anything else.”
Jon hums, eyes closed, Martin’s arm curled around him.
Martin has a hard time focusing on the television.
Jon wakes up slowly from the best rest he can remember having in-- well, in a month, really. Except this time there isn’t a creeping sense of wrongness accompanying it.
“Morning,” Martin says, and he remembers all at once what happened last night. He remembers.
“It worked!” he shouts, springing up in his bed.
“Jesus,” Martin swears, recoiling a little from where he’d been sitting at the foot of the bed.
The bed? Unease washes away the euphoria.
“I-- hang on. I feel asleep on the couch, I’m fairly sure. Are there holes in my memories? Martin did you--”
“I carried you, Jon,” Martin says in a placating sort of way. “I didn’t want for you to wake up to a sore back.”
He sighs in relief, and the triumph seeps back in. “It worked,” he repeats, satisfied.
“Yeah,” Martin says, looking carefully at him. “How… was it?”
Jon slows down and tries to think about it. Flushes.
“The… reward function was, ah, intense.”
“Um, yeah,” Martin says awkwardly, also flushing, looking away. “There isn’t really-- there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground with that stuff. Trust me, I’ve tried to find it.”
“You told me that it wouldn’t hurt and it’d feel good.”
“Right. Uh. Sorry. I just, you said that you wanted to know what it was like for you the first time, and I told you that back then, s-- so--”
“So it would have hurt if you hadn’t specifically told me that it wouldn’t?” Jon asks keenly. He’s been curious about that point for a while now, after he noticed that Martin always made sure to include that in his script when he was dealing with his victims. He’d just forgotten to ask that particular question until now in the excitement of achieving his goal.
“Yeah,” he says. He looks a little paler, now, as if remembering something unpleasant. “I didn’t know, the first time I fed on someone. I wasn’t really thinking at all, then. I was just, so hungry. But then they started making these awful, hurt noises and I had them enthralled so they weren’t even trying to get away, and I was too hungry to stop eating…”
Martin trails off into silence, his expression uncomfortable and distant.
A hazy, golden, thoughtless memory rises to the top of his mind as he looks at him, not knowing what to say in response to that. You’re more important than your job, Jon he had said, sincere and a little sad for someone he had known for such a short time. Martin’s a genuinely kind person, vampire or not.
Hesitantly, Jon moves from his position on the bed, getting closer to Martin, setting his hand on his shoulder. Martin startles, as if woken up, and gives Jon a wide eyed look like he doesn’t know why Jon’s decided to cross the distance between them.
“I’m-- sorry that that happened,” he says, stilted. Kindness has always felt awkward on him. He pushes through it anyways. “That sounds like… a very unpleasant experience.”
Martin gives him an incredulous, wobbly smile. “For them, yeah.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like you particularly enjoyed it either.”
Martin huffs. “This is supposed to be about you. You just woke up from-- well, was it everything that you hoped? Are you satisfied, all of your questions answered? Can you stop obsessing about it now?”
“I haven’t been obsessing,” he defends himself, because that makes him sound unhinged, and he’s not unhinged. Even if he has barely been able to think of anything else for the past month. That’s just reasonable.
“Jon.”
He relents. “It was a very… illuminating experience. Thank you. It helped, truly.”
Something in Martin relaxes, softens. “So… I didn’t do anything wrong? It was alright?”
“It was perfectly alright,” he says, and tries not to flush as he thinks that it was perhaps more than alright. He’s never felt so trusting, so safe, so relaxed in his entire life. He remembers the simple truth that he would have done anything in the world that Martin asked of him, and it would maybe be a bit frightening if it weren’t for the fact that all Martin wanted of him was for him to eat some food and value himself.
He had, simply put, really liked it. Jon is for some reason more embarrassed about this than anything else, even his breathless squirming when Martin had been feeding on him.
Martin’s shoulders loosen. “That’s, that’s really good to hear. I’m glad.”
He smiles at Jon, relieved, and Jon can’t help but smiling back a little.
And then Martin gets up. “I’ll just, um, leave then. I won’t, I won’t bother you again, don’t worry.”
Martin stops though, and Jon realizes that it’s because he’s snatched his wrist in a vice like grip, halting him. He lets go as if it’s a hot stove, embarrassed by himself. Martin gives him a curious, baffled look. Jon can feel his face start to go horribly hot.
“Jon? Is everything alright?”
“You,” Jon says, hardly knowing what he’s about to say except that it feels rather urgent. “You don’t have to never bother me again.”
Martin stares at him. Jon is usually fine with letting a silence linger, even an uncomfortable one that has the other people in the room squirming. But Martin’s looking at him and now all of a sudden he’s the one who desperately needs to fill the air with words.
“It was, it wasn’t a bother, really. Well, the paranoia and worry wasn’t enjoyable, but now I know what’s going on and-- it was alright. Or, I mean, that makes it sound like it was just tolerable, but it was more than that. It was… fine.” Damn it, he can’t seem to stop using lukewarm words to try and describe it. Martin’s looking at him as if he’s not making any sense at all. “What I’m getting at is, is, you’re welcome to… do that again. If you’d like. I might… learn more…”
“It… wasn’t good enough?” Martin asks, brow furrowed like he’s trying to understand. “Jon, this didn’t help? I thought you’d be able to move on if I--” He stops talking abruptly, teeth clacking shut, and he looks upset.
This isn’t what Jon was going for at all. He’s not quite sure what he’s going for, just that he doesn’t want to never see Martin again. That if Martin wants to, to stay a little longer, or come back and tell him more about what it’s like being a vampire and-- have a bit of a drink perhaps--
His face feels so unbearably hot. “No,” he makes himself say. “It helped, definitely. I suppose what I mean isn’t that I’d learn more from a repeat experience. It’d just be… nice.”
Why is admitting to that so humiliating? Doing something not to learn the truth or get work done, but simply because it’s enjoyable-- it feels wrong, somehow. Frivolous. Like he’s doing something that he shouldn’t. But if Martin’s fine with it, then maybe--
Martin goes still. “You liked it?” he asks, and he sounds astonished.
“Obviously,” he snaps, prickly with embarrassment, with having to repeat himself and stress the point. It was bad enough saying it just once.
“And you want for me to do it again,” he says, as if he can’t quite believe it.
“Yes,” he grits out.
“How many times?”
As many times as you want. “I don’t know.”
Martin’s taken a step closer to him, not on the verge of leaving any longer. It’s a relief. If Martin leaves, who knows how long it’ll take Jon to find him again?
“You know, there’s a word for that,” Martin says, voice strange. “For a human that a vampire comes back to again and again.”
Curiosity sparks. “What is it?”
“A thrall.” He almost breathes the word, like it’s sacred. “You’d… it’s an important bond. Like family. Except, well. Not everyone sees it that way, exactly. But everyone does get possessive of their thralls, at least. Protect them from others, keep them to themselves. You’d be… mine, sort of.”
He frowns. “You’d own me?”
Martin flushes. “Um, lots of vampires would see it like that, yeah.” He gives Jon a tentative, sincere look. “I wouldn’t, though. You’d be yours. You could leave whenever you wanted to, have nothing more to do with me if you ever change your mind. I’d only drink from you if you said it was okay. I’d ask you before I enthralled you, of course! To make it fair.”
Jon tries to imagine it, what it might be like. He can’t, not exactly. Like a lot of things, he won’t know for sure until he goes and sees for himself, putting it into practice. He’s so curious. He wants to see, wants to know.
It might be dangerous, risky. Except it’s Martin. Martin’s a good person. Jon can trust him. He can’t say as much for other vampires; the way Martin talks about them, Jon doesn’t think that he wants to be on any of their mercies. It might be nice, to be firmly Martin’s.
“I… enjoyed myself, with you,” he makes himself admit. “It was-- lovely. And you did well by me. Being your, your thrall doesn’t sound so bad.” Lukewarm words, again. He corrects himself. “I mean, it sounds… potentially good. And being your thrall sounds better than being someone else’s, so it’s not just because I want to experience that again. I just…”
I like you, he wants to say, except that sounds so horribly juvenile. The fact that it’s true simply makes it worse.
Martin darts in and quickly presses a firm kiss against Jon’s lips.
“Mmph!” Jon did not see that coming. Martin hurriedly moves away, and his face looks bright red.
“Sorry!” he says. “I, I just, before you say yes or anything, I just thought you should know about… that.”
Jon blinks, stunned. That hadn’t even occurred to him.
“When did that happen?” he asks, feeling as bewildered as if someone had gone ahead and rearranged all of the furniture in his living room while he had his back turned for just a moment.
“Well, it’s not like there was one particular moment,” Martin says, and he looks about as embarrassed as Jon has been feeling until now. He’d feel more satisfied about the reversal of roles if his head wasn’t still spinning with this newest development. “It just sort of… grew. You’re, you’re very nice.”
Jon stares at him. “Are you sure that you aren’t thinking of another Jon?”
Never once in his life has Jon been described as nice. The worst part is that Martin actually looks like he means it, somehow.
Martin gives him a look like he’s the one being silly here, and now that he looks for it, he thinks he can see fondness there. “I only know the one.”
“Are you certain? It’s a very common name.”
“Very certain.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose,” he says, and Martin looks almost offended, and on the verge of laughing, his mouth quirking upwards, face still red. “I… suppose I would be amenable to that.”
“Really?” Martin asks, looking highly surprised. “Wait, amenable? You suppose? Jon, that, that’s not--”
Jon winces. “Poor word choice, yes. I heard it as soon as I said it.”
“You don’t have to-- look, I know sprung all of this on you. Just… slow down and think about it for a bit. It’s fine. You don’t need to rush into anything, Jon.”
There’s a part of him that rails against slow down, but… Martin’s making sense. He’s right. He takes a deep breath, and tries to actually consider what’s being said here. The possibilities, the options.
His main thought it mostly just incredulity that someone as sweet as Martin would want for Jon to be his thrall, much less his-- his boyfriend? That is what he’s asking for here, isn’t it? Jon feels like a question that important deserves clarification.
“You want to be my boyfriend,” he checks.
“Oh my god,” Martin says, face flaming red again as he hides one half it in one of his hands. “Yes, Jon,” he says, a little bit muffled. “That’d be-- that would be very nice.”
It’s been years since Jon has been someone’s boyfriend. It had hurt, when it had broken down. Enough for him to not want to try again. Enough for him to just want to distract himself with work to avoid thinking about it, and then just never stop. It’s been a long while since he’s let himself think about it. Tentatively, he tries. Remembers how much he’d liked it before it had started breaking down. How happy and comfortable he’d been.
Jon likes dating, to be honest. Likes having someone to be close to. He’s just not much good at it. He barely knows Martin much at all. He can see it going badly far too easily. Martin doesn’t know what he’s getting into. He could grow tired of Jon within a week.
“If it doesn’t work out,” he says, “we can just walk in separate directions and be done with each other?”
Martin looks him in the eyes at that, and he looks very serious as he says, “Yes. I promise you, Jon, if you want to break up at any moment then we will. I’ll leave you alone. You’ll be okay.”
Jon believes him. He had also mostly been thinking about Martin breaking up with Jon, but that doesn’t seem to be occurring to him.
Martin wants to be with him. Jon likes being with him. Even when he isn’t enthralled, Martin is easy to talk to, interesting. If it doesn’t work out, they can just end it. As easy as that.
It feels frivolous and childish to pursue something potentially dangerous or upsetting or even just unlikely to succeed, just because he thinks that it’d be nice. Just because he thinks it might make him happy.
But that was what Martin had asked him to do last night, wasn’t it? To prioritize himself? It doesn’t hold the all consuming weight of an irresistible command any longer, but he knows that it’s what Martin wants. And it doesn’t sound so unreasonable, when he phrases it like that.
Experimentally, he stands up and--popping up on the tips of his toes, supporting himself against Martin’s chest--he kisses him. He had been too shocked to appreciate the first one. He closes his eyes and lingers in this one, trying to savor and taste it, see what it feels like. Martin makes a small, surprised sound, standing stiffly, before he noticeable makes himself relax, his arms winding around Jon, leaning down a bit so that Jon doesn’t have to crane his neck quite so much.
Jon should not be so surprised to notice that Martin’s breath tastes like blood. Despite the taste, it’s… good. He remembers that he likes kissing. When he pulls back, his lips tingle. Martin is looking at him with breathless, barely veiled want.
In the end, Jon just really wants to know what being with Martin Blackwood might be like. He won’t be able to stop thinking about it unless he sees it for himself, he can already tell. He’s just saving himself from future sleepless nights and wonderings.
“That sounds agreeable to me,” he says, words too lukewarm and stuffy once again, like he’s talking to a coworker in a meeting.
Martin snorts, tension breaking, because apparently for some reason he thinks that Jon’s nonsense is endearing. No accounting for taste.
“You’re a bit of a madman, you know that?”
Jon’s more used to being called a boring bookworm. “If you say so,” he says skeptically.
“I’m going to do my best by you,” Martin swears.
“I return the sentiment,” Jon assures him. Just because he thinks that the relationship will almost certainly sink doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to try, even if that may make it hurt more when it does. Martin’s a good man, and he’s already been doing his best by Jon, who has admittedly been a bit consumed by his own issues until now. He wants to return the favor. It’s the least Martin deserves, the least he can do for him.
Martin makes a soft, ragged noise like a hole inside of him has been filled and kisses his throat.