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Light sleeper may as well be Jon’s middle name, at this point.
Ever since he was a child, the softest sounds would wake him, the slightest change in the air. He would wake with the sun most mornings, often in the middle of the night - when Frances would slink into his room to stare out his windows at the street below. Or when he heard the soft click of the television coming to life downstairs, his grandmother unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time.
Perhaps it ran in the family, Jon would muse to himself, on more than one occasion when the television whispered up the stairs while he lay, already awake, and traced patterns in the skip trowel ceiling with his eyes. He never joined her, though. Didn’t want her to fuss; very much didn’t want her to simply pass over his presence.
Most often, when Jon would wake at inopportune moments in the night or early morning, he would read.
Books, when he was young, pulling the small desk lamp off the table and curling around it, hiding the yellow light from the room so that it just barely illuminated the pages of whatever he was reading. He’d never hide under the blankets, but sitting cross-legged with a lamp in his lap and a book propped up on the blankets in front of him was simply more comfortable than trying to read from the bedside table, or getting up to go sit at his desk.
As he grew, he transitioned to articles and periodicals and journals, anything he could get his hands on at the library. He’d kept a stack beneath his bed, within easy reach for when the moon shone too brightly through the gaps in his window shades. Nightly, Jon would fall headfirst into whichever tome he could grab first, absorbing as much as he could of whatever topic struck his fancy therein until he felt he could sleep again.
In university, he spent a lot of his first month apologizing to his roommate for waking them in the night. They’d shrugged it off, more often than not, muttering something about freshman roommate stereotypes or something. Jon had started going on walks, instead, sneaking off to explore the campus and the surrounding buildings until he wore himself out. He apologized more to Georgie, when they’d started sharing a bed a few years later; she was also a light sleeper, and he couldn’t even get out of bed to take a quiet walk without waking her. She promised it didn’t bother her. Jon learned to trace patterns in the ceiling again.
But when he got the job of Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, he was living alone again, and he had so much more to read. He hardly even felt the need to go back to sleep, when he woke from a particularly loud gust of wind or the creaking of the floorboards from the hallway outside. It became his habit, to awake and set to work, reading up on a statement or doing his own research. There was always so much more to do, and though many of the statements were a slog and the few others sent pricks of nervous energy up his spine, he was fascinated. And when things started to go... strange, and pieces fell into place and he found himself swept into the center of a multitude of eldritch horrors in the works, Jon didn’t often sleep enough for it to matter that he was a light sleeper.
Suffice it to say, it's been years since Jonathan Sims had had nothing to occupy himself with when he awoke in that quiet space between the middle of the night and the early hours of morning.
Now, though, he really isn’t quite sure what he could do.
It has to be at least three, maybe four in the morning. He isn’t quite sure. His eyes are still shut, but he can tell that the room is still too dark to see what's on the old analog clock hanging on the wall across the room. He could always Know, he thinks, but that would rather take the fun out of guessing. Besides, he’s comfortable here, warm.
He can feel a slight weight across his shoulder, draping down his back while he lies on his side - the thick woolen blanket, he remembers. He can feel it too, tangled about his persistently too-cold feet. He can feel a slight rise and fall from across the bed, shifting the blanket every few moments - Martin, still asleep, breathing slow and steady. He hears it now, a quiet sigh every fourth breath, and it’s comforting, not being alone. He can feel a pressure against the side of his hand, warm and just partially tucked underneath his pinky finger - Martin’s hand.
They haven’t really stopped touching each other since they left the Institute - small brushes here, comforting weight there, casual. Jon knows - lowercase k - that it’s helping Martin stay grounded, after an extended trip into the literal realm of eternal loneliness. He thinks it’s helping keep himself grounded too. They haven’t talked about it.
Jon doesn’t think it’s Martin that woke him up this time; perhaps he simply cannot sleep anymore. The last few nights in the safehouse have been the most he’s slept in… a while. Woken on occasion by a nightmare - his own, some times, Martin’s, others - but they had little else to do in the safehouse once they’d unpacked and tidied; might as well catch up on the sleep they’d both been missing. It was easy to fall asleep next to Martin.
Inhaling slowly, Jon opens his eyes.
It’s later than he’d thought.
The room is bathed in soft violet - still definitely dark, but tinged with a color that heralds the rising sun. Everything is soft, smudged, and not just because Jon’s glasses rest somewhere on the rickety little table behind him. It’s very still, quiet, save for the clicking of the clock on the wall and the gentle whispering of their joined breaths.
When his eyes focus, Jon’s gaze lands on Martin. How could it not? He’s inches away, cheek pressed into the old pillow and mouth hanging just slightly open. His brow is relaxed, not a trace of the troubled frown that had clung to his expression for… at least since Jon’s coma. Maybe longer; enough that it always surprises him to see Martin thus relaxed. He’s seen him sleeping before; he always woke before Martin, and he was selfish, so he often watched while Martin slumbered on, cataloguing the minute shifts in his expression as they happened. Yet still, every time, he’s captivated by how young Martin looks in his sleep; peaceful, sleep washing away the tension Jon’s become accustomed to seeing even in Martin’s most vulnerable waking hours.
Slowly, the light in the room shifts, violet bleeding away to a warmer between-color, gold alighting on the far wall of the room. The sun is rising, and even through the partially shuttered blinds it breathes warmth into the room. As Jon watches, the light dips as the sun rises, curving delicately over the ridges in their woolen blanket, the tip of Martin’s bared shoulder, the baby-fine curls in his hair, turning auburn red to glowing amber. It touches just the highest point of Martin’s cheek, kissing the tip of his eyebrow, the shell of his ear, not quite reaching down to his nose where it’s tucked down toward the pillow. Not quite touching the point of his knuckles where they rest, curled slightly into the sheets, pressed next to Jon’s thin hand. Seeing him in this between-place, where night and dawn collide, tracing the soft lines and shadows of his face - it’s far more fascinating than any book or whorling ceiling pattern could hope to be.
The sight of Martin sleeping is captivating under normal circumstances. Here, bathed gently in the faint glow of early morning sunlight, Jon’s chest aches with how breathtakingly lovely he is.
He’s known, of course, for a while that Martin is lovely. Objectively, he knew when he met him that he was an attractive man, with his bright blue, earnest eyes and the dimples that dove a mile deep when he smiled. Something had shifted, though, in the days before the thing that almost was Unknown. He’d been so worried for Martin, going up against Elias alone, even before they’d known the whole truth about Elias. The knowledge that one is going to one’s likely death has a certain way of forcing one to reassess how they feel about their current relationships; why Jon was so much more worried for Martin than he was for himself, why the thought of never seeing him again was so unbearable to consider, why his heart raced just for a moment each time Martin brought him tea (why he’d been so quick to label that emotion ‘annoyance’, afraid and hiding and unwilling to acknowledge what was writ plainly in front of him, even then).
And then he’d nearly died. Stayed, teetering between death and monster for months, and Martin had been led away by Peter Lukas to be Lonely. Jon had decided early upon his return to the Archive that no matter what, he needed to trust that Martin knew what he was doing - that he was capable, able to look out for himself, that he didn’t need Jon peering over his shoulder. He’d gone to him anyway, when he couldn’t help himself (selfish), when he thought he could get away with glimpsing his face ( selfish ), hearing even just a few clipped words. But he’d kept his distance when he could, and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt worse than any burn or scar.
And then he’d chased after him, tracked him by some miracle through the winding tunnels that led him to the Panopticon beneath the institute. Jon had found him, in that place where it shouldn’t be possible to find anyone, he’d found him and Martin had seen him, and he’d Known the way out. And whatever he’d felt, whatever he’d known about himself and about Martin before, it didn’t really seem to matter anymore. Something had changed, on that foggy plane, become more, become indescribable in those moments. I really loved you, you know? And it didn’t matter that Martin didn’t love him anymore, because Martin was okay , and he’d come with him up to this safehouse in Northern Scotland and he’d held Jon’s hand while they drove and he looks so beautiful lying asleep next to him.
But he’s never, not once, watched the sun rise over them like this, as it chases away the lingering tendrils of night and purple darkness and lights Martin’s hair aflame and caresses his cheek in just the soft, gentle way Jon wishes he himself could.
Martin stirs. The bridge of his nose crinkles as his brow furrows just so, face turning just that much further into the pillow, futilely clinging to the vestiges of sleep. Jon can’t help the smile that creeps up his face. Martin’s hand presses to his, firm for a few seconds, and then he pulls away and rubs at his eyes.
“Mmmmnnnh.”
Jon’s smile cracks wider, fondness blooming from his chest and sending comfortable warmth through every inch of him.
“Morning,” he murmurs, watching as Martin’s one eye winks open at him, the other preoccupied with the messy fist still pressing against it.
“Mm’is it?” Martin mumbles in response, dropping his hand to the sheet again. He doesn’t drop it onto Jon’s hand, but he does shift a moment later, and his pinky brushes the side of Jon’s hand again. He doesn’t say anything, and Jon doesn’t either. They simply look at each other, until Martin says, so soft it’s almost a whisper: “Time’s it?”
“Sun just rose,” Jon responds, breaking eye contact to glance briefly at the bright tangle of curls atop Martin’s head, then the glowing blinds of the window. “Probably seven?” He looks back across at Martin, who’s sporting a soft smile of his own now. Martin doesn’t answer, doesn’t move to get up, doesn’t close his eyes and drift back to sleep. He just looks, gaze flicking minutely every so often to switch between Jon’s eyes. Jon knows he’s doing the same.
They lie there, for Jon’s not sure how long. He shifts, sometimes, shoving an arm beneath the pillow when he loses feeling in his fingers, dragging the backs of his knuckles against Martin’s hand when he finds an excuse to. Martin shifts too, hunkering further into the blanket and, tentatively, like he’s not sure he’s allowed, stretching his feet to join Jon’s in the tangle of blanket at the foot of the bed. He’s just cold, Jon thinks, and nudges his feet against Martin’s. It’s cold, in Scotland in October. That’s why.
The whole while, neither of them look away. They also don’t acknowledge that every one of their quiet shifts have brought them each just a hair closer together, their hands pressed just that much more closely between them. They just look at each other, take each other in, as the sun rises higher and the golden light grows, painting their pillows and their faces, and it feels like it’s cocooning them away from the rest of the world.
Jon desperately tries to not Know what Martin is thinking. It’s easy enough, distracted as he is by the pounding torrent of thoughts in his own head, urging him to take Martin’s hand just as they urge him to sit up, break the spell, get away, he said ‘loved’, it’s all in your head.
But it’s not, is it? Because Martin is looking at him, and that soft smile is still playing about his lips, and his hand is still touching his, and he’s been inching closer just as Jon has, and…
And Jon really wants to lean forward, bridge the inches, and kiss him. But he can’t, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t Know, he can’t just-
“Jon?”
The word is soft, barely perceptible over the blood rushing behind Jon’s ears, but it snaps him back into focus in an instant. Martin’s face is still open, still vulnerable, like it had been when he was asleep; but he’s frowning now, just slightly. The corner of his mouth that had once been a private smile was relaxed again; not turned down, but not smiling either.
“Are- do, uh-” Martin stammers, a few syllables lost. “Can I-” He falters again, and Jon is frozen and he can feel his heart racing and he doesn’t know what to do but Martin’s frown is deepening and Jon doesn't know what's bothering him but he cannot be upset not now not now what can I do to help-
Before his brain can really catch up, Jon’s reached out just those few centimetres, his fingers wrapping around Martin’s, finally more than just a contact presence. He links their fingers together; it’s awkward, their hands not quite lining up, but Martin’s fingers open to let him. Martin himself is frozen, stuttering syllables dying in the back of his throat. He’s looking at their hands - they hadn’t held hands since the drive up. Jon hadn’t been sure it would be okay, but as Martin suddenly squeezes his fingers, he wishes he’d thought to try sooner.
That smile is shining on Martin’s face again, shy and small and bright as he just… looks at their hands, and smiles. Jon rubs his thumb along the side of Martin’s hand, and he feels that squeeze again. The sun has warmed the blankets by now, a soothing heat encompassing them both, and Jon has never been more comfortable in his life.
“I love you.”
Before he can stop it. Before he can think about what he’s saying. It takes him a moment to realize he’s said it aloud, and only because Martin’s blue gaze has snapped back to his own. His eyes are almost comically wide, his mouth dropped open in a small ‘o’, and Jon wants nothing more than to sink into the mattress. What was he thinking? It’s true, of course it’s true, it’s the truest thing Jon has ever known, capital K or not, but he can’t put that on Martin. Not now, when he’s so desperate for connection after what he’s gone through, being so Lonely for so long, Jon can’t put pressure on him like that, and Martin is going to-
Martin-
Martin is smiling again.
More than that, Martin is grinning, and if his soft smiles were bright before then Jon wonders that he can see at all now. It’s all teeth and smiles lines and those deep dimples and his eyes shine with wonder and with tears, and Jon doesn’t know what to do with himself so he just stares into those eyes and for once he lets himself hope .
Martin cracks, a laugh, then two, and he’s gripping Jon’s fingers tightly, just as tightly as Jon was before, and he still. Isn’t. Saying. Anything. And then he is.
“Jon, I love you so much.”
Well, what’s one’s heart to do but stop beating, when the love of one’s life - who doesn’t love you, who can’t love you - looks you in the eye and grips your hand tight as you lie in a full bed bathed in sunlight and loves you. Jon’s not sure if he’s gaping or if he’s grinning, but whatever he’s doing it’s making Martin’s grin grow, if possible, and he’s so full of joy and disbelief and love and he doesn’t have anywhere to put all of it.
“You- you do?” His voice is hoarse, like he’s gone days without speaking, not moments. “You s-said-”
“Oh, Jon,” Martin says, hushed and fond and a little regretful. “Th-the Lonely, it was- I couldn't- but I’ve always loved you. I don’t think I could ever really stop.”
And now Jon is smiling, he knows he is, he can feel his cheeks stretching and he sees the surprise and delight reflected in Martin’s eyes. His chest feels full to bursting, like he can’t contain the relief, the joy, the all-encompassing everything he feels in this moment, for this man, and he can’t stand to not be kissing him any longer.
“Martin, I-” Of course, he can’t get the words out. Reading his whole life, his whole job is - was - devoted to reading aloud, he’s always been surrounded with words. But now, when it’s actually important, he’s floundering, lost in the shape of the syllables of Martin’s name as he says it, in the tiny way Martin’s face lights up even further when he says it. “Can I-” He leans in, close to their hands, hopes Martin understands him.
Martin meets him halfway, gently resting his forehead to Jon’s, their hands clasped between them. He reaches out, extracting his free hand from beneath the blanket, and brings it to rest in the angled space between Jon’s neck and jaw, the pad of his thumb brushing sweetly against the curve of Jon’s cheek. “Can I kiss you, Jon?” he murmurs, and Jon’s so in love with him it burns, and he nods, and leans in even as Martin’s fingers tighten faintly in his hair and pull him closer.
Kissing Martin is… well, it’s any number of cliched similes that Jon always hated from the few romance stories he knows, and none of them at the same time. Their faces don’t line up quite right, with both of them lying down and most of their heads still resting on the pillow, and they both have morning breath. But it’s everything nonetheless, unhurried and gentle and Martin’s lips are so warm against his, soft and nervous pressure turning insistent as Jon leans further and further into him, as Martin reciprocates. They’re still holding hands, knuckles brushing their own chins, and Martin is still stroking Jon’s cheek with his thumb, and their knees are bumping each other with how close they are, and Jon never wants the moment to end.
It does, because they both need air, but Martin doesn’t move his hand from Jon’s jaw and Jon doesn’t retreat further than he must to make eye contact with Martin again. He never wants to not be looking at Martin. He smiles, wide and open, and his very soul thrums with delight to see Martin smiling back at him, just as wide, just as open. “I love you,” he says again, barest whisper, but that’s all they need in their private space.
“I love you,” returns Martin, just as soft.
Jon pulls his arm back from beneath the pillow, pushing himself onto one elbow until he’s leaning over Martin ever so slightly. His dark hair falls on one side, held back by Martin’s fingers on the other, where he’s absently tracing loose patterns into the space behind Jon's ear with his fingertips. “I love you,” he murmurs again, and leans in to kiss Martin once more, and again, and again, and Martin kisses him. His hand slides up to cup the back of Jon’s head, and their fingers tighten against each other where they’re still holding hands.
The sun goes up, rays illuminating their whole room in gold, and then it dips as their shadows get longer and it shines red and orange and pink, through the windows in the front room and their open bedroom door. And they don’t get up until they both decide they want to - they have nothing to do, nowhere to be, no responsibility weighing on them whatsoever.
And then, when they’re finished eating in the kitchen, and they’ve washed their dishes and set them to dry, their hands find each other’s again. One pulls the other back to the bed, but neither knows who, nor do they care. They spend the day there, wrapped up in each other, ignoring the time as it passes them by. Sometimes they kiss. Sometimes they talk, soft spoken words shared between them on each other’s breaths. Sometimes Jon and Martin lie together quietly, as they had in the early morning hours when the room was still dimly lit by the golden sunrise, and simply see each other.