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It’s messy, living together.
Martin has never lived with anyone besides his mum, and in many ways living with Jon is entirely different. He’s still wildly surprised each time he wakes in the night to find another person’s warmth beside him, each time the voice calling I’m home! over the rustle of grocery bags is not his own. To share this place with Jon -- with Jonathan bloody Sims, with Jon!! -- is bewildering and terrifying and incredible and oh so very new.
At the same time, many aspects of living with Jon are deeply familiar. For one thing, it’s messy, in a very literal sense.
When Martin lived with his mum, few things were ever truly clean. She was usually too ill to scrub or dust or tidy, and he . . . well, he just never got around to it. He meant to, he really did, but he’d forget, or get distracted, or it would all just be too much, even when he had nothing else on for the day. After she moved into the care home, he swore he’d use his newfound time to get things under control, but even his most passionate attempts would never make it more than halfway through the flat before petering out.
He’s always figured living with another person, besides his mum, would be what he needs to finally create an uncluttered space, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that Jon’s presence is only adding to the quiet chaos. Now unwashed tea mugs are left in even more places Martin doesn’t think to check, the tv is left playing nature documentaries for hours after Jon’s stopped watching, and the both of them are becoming quite skilled in the art of hoping the other will take out the trash even though it’s been overflowing for days now and it-- oh god, are those ants?!
Jon sometimes stares down the piles of unwashed laundry and wonders aloud if he should start taking his meds again, and Martin sometimes hears him and wonders quietly if he should try meds too, or at least see about a diagnosis. Jon tells him about Ritalin and Adderall and Focalin and all the other things he cycled through as a kid, about dopamine and executive function and crying in front of his teachers, and Martin is in awe of his strength all over again. Jon tells him about antidepressants and his college therapist and how much good they’ve done him, how far he’s come even on the bad days. Martin’s only childhood therapist was shit, but he thinks about scheduling an appointment with someone else, maybe. One of these weeks.
In the meantime, he reminds Jon about his Prozac, and Jon reminds him about his T shot, and they learn each other’s preferred comforts during panic attacks and favorite songs to dance to on rainy afternoons. Martin’s taken up crocheting again, and Jon reads out passages from library books, and they show each other photos of local cats for adoption and bicker about what the best sorts of cat names are, in a hypothetical-but-not-entirely-hypothetical situation where the naming of a cat would soon become relevant to them personally. They eat takeaway most nights, except when Jon has the spoons to cook.
Not literal spoons; they have plenty of those. And plenty of knives -- god, they have so many knives. Jon had excitedly bought a whole set when he had first started cooking again, only to come home and have Martin remind him that they already had more than enough, especially once they factored in the (disturbingly) large collection Daisy had left for them. Jon had been crushed, but a long hug seemed to help, and now he only carries a predetermined amount of cash on shopping trips. And he cooks, and it’s the best thing Martin’s ever tasted, every time.
Martin likes to watch him cook, and sometimes Jon likes to let him, answering questions about techniques and laughing when Martin swipes bits of batter in his peripheral vision. Sometimes Jon prefers to work in privacy, and Martin’s getting better at respecting that. He watches a favorite show in the next room over, flicking the green fidget spinner Jon particularly likes, breathing slowly and intentionally. He now knows that the time Jon needed stitches was Michael’s doing, and it’s usually fine nowadays anyway, but it’s still hard not to hover sometimes. He's apologized for how accusatory he was about it back then, and Jon had thoughtfully nodded. Jon, meanwhile, is getting better at asking for company when things are dicey, calling when he can and knocking the wall when all the words have fled and he’s left with only the knife. It helps too that Martin’s now decorated the handles in nail polish, and when they notice that the food is occasionally a bit more glittery as a result, they giggle and declare it tastes all the better for it. (It does.)
Jon wears nail polish, sometimes painted in Martin’s practiced strokes, other times by his own shaky hands. He had asked about it the first time he saw Martin with a bottle, and Martin had talked about identity and expression and being transmasculine, and transmasculine?, and other terms for being non-binary, and th- th- that’s-- that’s a thing?!, and then Jon was bouncing and flapping his hands and crying, and then Martin was crying too, and for the next week a smile would blossom across Jon’s face every few minutes, uncontrollable and undeniable.
He flaps his hands and bounces more these days, and hums and chews and rocks; usually when he thinks Martin’s not looking, and sometimes when he knows he is. Each time Martin sees it, he thinks of his mum’s scolding: years of snaps and whispers, sit stills and stop thats, and it’s hard to tell when exactly the voice shifts from hers into his own. He watches Jon sway and shake and smile and sob and sigh, moving a body that once lay entirely motionless, and he tells the voice to fuck off.
Martin tells a lot of things to fuck off. He tells it to lying awake long into the night, to flashbacks in the middle of fun conversations, to Elias and to Peter and to the fear and fog that crept into his head long before he met either of them. He tells it to heteronormativity and the gender binary and the relationship escalator, to racism and ableism and fatphobia, to the awkward stares on the train as Jon gushes about a new book in a practiced mix of Notes app and BSL. Martin isn’t sure how long he’s been this angry, or what to do about it, but every now and then he trusts he’s in the process of figuring it out.
Jon helps. With figuring it out, that is. They stay up talking late into many, many nights, until the sky outside is suddenly light. Other nights they watch bad movies together, laughing at plot holes, crying at happy endings, coughing at popcorn kernels and spilling soda on the carpet. On the nights neither can fall asleep, Jon runs his hands through Martin’s curls, and it feels amazing. In the mornings they make tea, and Jon fills out sudoku puzzles, which Martin is hopeless at, and crosswords, which Martin likes to think he would be quite good at if his primary goal weren’t offering the most humorously incorrect suggestions he can think of. They go for long walks, sunlight and raindrops falling onto their faces, except when Jon’s pain is flaring up, in which case they curl up in blankets and eat ice cream in the quiet. They memorize songs to sing that calm the other down, and discover topics of conversation that get the other excited. Martin is drawing for the first time in ages, and loves it. Jon tries writing poetry, and kind of likes it, though he’ll only admit it every now and then.
Martin blinks, remembering the book of poetry in his hands, and tucks it gently back on the shelf before making his way back to the furthest corner of the shop. Jon had been nonverbal all morning, so he and Martin had been playing the afternoon’s planned excursion to the bookshop by ear, but in the end he determined he was still feeling up for a visit to Pistachio. Martin smiles softly as he rounds the last shelf, taking in the familiar sight of Jon resting cross-legged on the floor, bundle of ginger fluff purring contentedly in his lap.
“I still can’t believe how comfortable she is with you,” Martin whispers, slowly settling down next to the pair. “Yusra says she normally hates it when guests touch her.”
Jon holds out his hand, his pocketed phone trapped beneath the furry friend, and Martin hands over his own mobile. Jon’s hands are still cold, but the shaking seems to have faded. “we’ve forged an understanding,” he types, holding the phone out where Martin can see. “screw the archives, i say i become a professional cat-cuddler.”
Martin laughs. “You’d even have the qualifications for that job!” Jon looks over with a scowl, and Martin tries and fails to bite back a grin, meeting his eye contact with equal intensity. After a few seconds, Jon cracks as well, turning back to the phone with a smile and a roll of the eyes. “its a bit loud for me in here, mind if we head home?”
“Of course not! Let's go,” Martin replies, sure to keep his voice low. “Assuming Pistachio is willing to release thee,” he adds, nodding at the cat as he clambers back up to his feet. Jon slowly shifts his legs, and she stirs, hopping neatly off his lap after a luxurious stretch. Martin reaches out an arm and Jon takes it, carefully pulling himself up.
Once he’s standing, Jon types out another message, then passes the phone back to Martin: “once we get back, how does some human cuddling sound?”
Martin looks up at Jon -- fierce, gentle, miraculous Jon -- and another swell of love rushes through him, leaving him reeling. “Y-- yeah,” he manages, “I’d like that.”
It’s messy, living together. Living, really.
He reaches out and takes Jon’s hand, and Jon smiles. Martin smiles back.