Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Martin is determined to not spoil Jon's day out. He’s not going to come running down to interrupt it just because he’s a fussy worrywart. He’s going to be respectful, reasonable, and level headed, and he’s going to calmly wait until Jon calls him to come and fetch him, and not bother him even a moment before that. He’s making a point. He’s showing Jon that he can do what he wants without interference, even if it’s something that Martin isn’t one hundred percent comfortable with. 

He cracks and loses his resolve after five hours have passed without a word. In his defense, he doesn’t rush down to the village in a panic. He calls Rosie’s phone number, which he still has in his call history from that night, which he thinks is a perfectly measured response to five hours of complete radio silence. 

He waits in tense silence as the phone rings, rings, rings-- 

“Hello?” 

“Jon!” Martin says. He’s somehow surprised to hear his voice. To him being the one to pick up Rosie’s phone. “Is everything okay?” 

“Yes? Is something wrong, Martin?” Jon’s voice lowers with urgency. “Are you in danger?” 

“I-- no, Jon. I’m sorry for calling, I just-- I got worried, I guess. Sorry. You’ve just been gone for so… longer than I was expecting. Is everything going well? I’m guessing Rosie found something for you to do?” 

“She did,” Jon says, sounding very pleased with this. “I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I’ll be ready to leave in three hours.” 

Three hours? What task could Rosie have possibly cooked up for him, that it would take eight hours to accomplish? He assumed that she’d just push her daily chores on Jon to satisfy him. Apparently she found something a bit more intensive than that. What, is he repainting her house for her or something? 

“She’s not… making you do something, er, unpleasant, is she?” he asks. He has a vague sense in his head that it’s his duty to make sure that Jon isn’t taken advantage of. 

“No, it’s very interesting,” Jon says. “I think I finally understand how the cash register works now.” 

Martin blinks. “What?” 

“She’s shown me where everything is supposed to go, and what buttons to push.” Jon’s voice grows slightly more distant, as if he’s holding the receiver away from his mouth. “That will be… three pounds. I think.” 

“Jon,” he says, “are you… dealing with a customer right now? Hang on, did Rosie give you a job?” 

“Well, of course I’m dealing with a customer, I’m in the store. I can talk to you at the same time, though.” 

“You-- how about I hang up and you call me back once they’re gone?” 

“Martin, that’s not going to happen. There’s always customers who need my help.” 

“Are there?” he asks skeptically. Rosie’s store may be the only general store in town, but it still isn’t ever exactly bustling. 

“Of course,” Jon says. “It’s interesting what sorts of things people come here to buy. The woman I’m ringing up came here to buy a single roll of toilet paper, and the man before her only bought a stick of gum.” 

“Ah,” he says. “And I’m guessing they’re all pretty talkative? Very curious and friendly?” 

“Yes, they are.” 

“Got it.” Rosie’s store, Martin surmises, has never been doing better. Probably half the village has suddenly ‘remembered’ that there are a few odds and ends that they need to go and pick up at the shop. “So… you’re working at Rosie’s store to repay your debt? For free?” 

“Yes, that’s right.” 

“And how long are you going to have to work there to restore your debt?” 

“I tried to convince her that ten days and ten nights would be fair,” he says, “but she insisted on just a week, and only for eight hours per day.” 

“I see.” 

“She said that if I did a good job and I liked it, maybe I could keep working here afterwards,” he goes on. “Part time, whatever that means.” 

“That’s… exciting,” he says. “So-- so long as you’re happy?” 

“I am,” Jon assures him. 

Martin feels himself soften a bit at that. Yes, so long as Jon’s happy… that’s all that matters. 

“Well then, I won’t bother you anymore. Call me when you-- when your shift is done, and I’ll drive down and pick you up. Have a… good day at work.” 

“I will,” Jon says, and hangs up. 

Setting the phone down, Martin stares at the wall for a while, processing this new state of affairs. 

“Huh,” he says to himself. How about that? 

Living in a home in which both of the occupants are terrified of spiders can be… challenging, at times. 

“It’s just a spider,” Martin says. His eyes are very wide as he says this, and he’s clutching at a broom like he expects to have to fight for his life with it. 

“Just a normal house spider,” Jon agrees. He’s fidgeting where he’s standing, fighting the urge to outright hide behind Martin. 

The spider crouched in the corner of the room twitches forwards an inch. Both Jon and Martin recoil backwards, yelping and squeaking respectively. Martin has his broom up in a defensive position, and Jon is now fully hiding behind him. After a moment, Martin embarrassedly lowers his broom, and Jon bashfully steps back out from behind Martin, smoothing down his skirt self consciously. 

“We’re both so much bigger than it,” Jon says, making his voice firm. “It can’t hurt us.” 

“One hundred times bigger, at least!” Martin agrees. 

“We can very easily kill it.” 

“What? No! We’re not going to kill it, just put it outside!” 

Jon gives him an incredulous look. “Do you think that it would show us mercy, if our positions were reversed?” 

“Jon, that’s-- no. You’re being ridiculous.” 

“Do you want to try and catch it?” 

Martin visibly blanches at the suggestion. 

“Oh, god,” he says. “What’s wrong with me? I used to be able to pick them up with my hands and take them out.” 

Jon looks at him with horror. “You touched them? Why?” 

“Some of them can’t even bite humans!” Martin cries. “And they’re not venomous! It’s fine. It’s not dangerous! This isn’t a big deal!” 

The spider suddenly skitters several inches forward. Jon and Martin shriek, and Martin backs up so abruptly that he bumps into Jon and bowls him over. Jon moves without thinking. 

“Jon?” Martin asks, his voice going confused and fearful. “Where did you go?” 

Jon opens his eyes, blinks, and realizes only after a solid moment that he’s-- 

“I’m in your hair,” he says, and he stands up. Martin’s hair is thick and curly enough that he can, apparently, successfully hide himself inside of it if he lies down and curls himself up small. He’d turned himself into his smaller, more familiar form on terrified reflex, and dove for the first hiding place that felt safe to his fairy hindbrain. A foolish instinct under the circumstances, really. He’s much safer from the spider in his larger form. Clearing his throat embarrassedly, he flutters back down to the floor and turns back into himself. Without taking his eyes off the spider, he picks his dress back up from the floor and pulls it on. 

“Maybe,” Martin says, “we should call Rosie? Just… ask her to deal with it?” 

“Would she go along with that?” he asks eagerly. 

“... No. No, almost definitely not. That-- it’s a stupid idea, nevermind.” 

“Perhaps a controlled fire,” Jon suggests. 

“No.”  

“I said controlled.” 

“This is ridiculous. We’re being stupid. It’s harmless! We can take it out of the house, easy.” 

Neither of them make a move towards the spider. 

“We could just… leave it,” Jon says. “Lock the door and never open it again. It’s the spider’s room now.” 

“Jon, that’s the only bathroom in the entire house.” 

“How necessary is it really? Animals can just use the woods.” 

“I’m going to act like you didn’t just say that. Watch the-- I’m going to go and get a cup and paper. I’ll be right back.” 

What proceeds are the most stressful twenty minutes of his life, barring that time he was literally trapped helplessly in a spiderweb waiting to be eaten. (And that first night he shared a bed with his husband master, a stranger, an unpredictable unknown.) There is screaming, swearing, a great deal of fumbling and panic, and by the end of it Jon is stubbornly hidden in Martin’s hair again, small and clutching onto the locks with a white knuckled grip. 

“Get it out, get it out get it out--” 

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” 

“Don’t let it get free again!” 

“I’m not! I won’t-- oh, Christ!” 

“Don’t drop it!” 

“I’m not-- I didn’t! It just suddenly jumped up against the side of the cup and startled--” 

“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to see--” 

The spider is eventually deposited outside, the door frantically slammed behind it. Martin hurriedly locks the door, as if the spider might possibly open it up otherwise. 

“There,” Martin says, his voice high and frayed with forced cheer. “That-- that wasn’t so hard, was it? No big deal.” 

Jon doesn’t grace this with a response. 

“Jon,” Martin says. “It’s out of the house now. You can get out of my hair-- if you want to.” 

He keeps doing that. Quickly cutting himself off and changing his wording, or tacking something onto the end of his sentences to avoid having them be orders. He doesn’t always quite manage it, but-- the show of effort makes the times that Martin actually slips up not feel as… heavy, somehow. Softer, lighter, duller. It’s hard to explain. He just knows that every time he hears Martin catch himself on his own and rephrase his words, it makes some part of him warm up. Makes him want to find an excuse to sit closer to him, to touch him. 

“I’m perfectly comfortable, thank you,” he says neatly. 

There’s a beat. 

“Okaaay,” he says, drawing the word out in a way that clearly telegraphs that he thinks that Jon’s being strange, but that he’s willing to play along with it. And then he goes about his day. They’d discovered the spider when they’d gone to the bathroom to brush their teeth, and Martin goes to do just that, the interference dealt with. Jon decides that he can brush his teeth later, and stays right where he is. 

He stretches himself out a bit on Martin’s hair, not curled up into a small, panicked ball any longer. He flicks his wings. The movement feels good, cathartic. He hasn’t been in his smaller, winged form in over a week, he realizes with a jolt. He’d just… let it slip by him. It’s easier to be in his larger form. Easier to be too big to be caught in webs and eaten, easier to be big enough to pick up books and turn the pages. His small form is… weak. Vulnerable, fragile. It’s better to be large. Safer. 

He still feels safe now, though. Nestled in Martin’s hair on the top of his head as he brushes his teeth, small and delicate enough that he could simply wrap his hand around Jon and squeeze, and he’d be done for. He wouldn’t even have to exert much strength. He wouldn’t even have to try and catch him. He could just tell Jon to stay still. 

He’s not going to do that, though. He doesn’t think that he will, not for a moment, not even a little bit. That just isn’t Martin. 

Martin spits into the sink and rinses out the foamy toothpaste from his mouth, from his toothbrush. 

“You going to brush your teeth?” he asks. 

“Later,” Jon says. 

“You going to go back to your human size?” 

He wrinkles his nose at the phrasing. He’s not a human, he’s never human. He’s a fairy when he’s big too; his wings are just tucked away, and he’s large enough that birds can’t eat him any longer. That’s all. 

“My big size,” he corrects him. “And later.” 

Martin makes a muffled noise of amusement. 

“You’re barely over five feet tall,” he says, a smile in his voice. “That is not big.” 

“The only reason that you say that is because you are unnaturally large, even for a human. Are you certain that there isn’t any giant blood in your ancestry?” 

Martin snickers at this display of waspishness, unoffended. 

“I’m going to go and read in bed for a while,” he says, “You… you can hitch a ride if you like, or do whatever you want.” 

“I will,” he says. He’ll do whatever he wants, because that’s something he can do. Only because it’s been allowed to him, because he’s been given permission, but it’s still something he can do. He will take that option every single time. 

Martin goes to bed. He reads, propped up against pillows piled up by the headboard, the bedside lamp casting soft, warm, yellow light. A tiny mothish part of Jon wants to flutter towards it, but he shrugs it off easily. He may be the weakest magical creature in existence, but he’s not a literal insect, thank you. He can control his instincts. 

Martin reads, and Jon just… basks in being able to feel like this. To be small and breakable, but to feel completely safe anyways. Martin wouldn’t do anything to him; Martin wouldn’t let anything happen to him. He realizes that he’s never felt anything but wary around others in this form before. On his guard, cautious, ready to fly away and hide at the first sign of trouble. 

He used to think that he despised being so small, but he feels perfectly comfortable now, like this. Apparently, he’d gotten confused. He’d mistaken which part of the experience that he hated. 

He drifts off into sleep without even meaning to. It’s a peaceful doze more than anything, consciousness lingering distantly at the edges of his mind as he nestles into Martin’s hair like he’s found the perfect nest to hide in for the night, soft and comfortable and out of sight, safe from predators. He only comes back to himself when Martin gently speaks up, breaching the silence. 

“Jon?” he says. “Are you awake?” 

“Mmph,” he mumbles. 

“I’m done reading now,” he says, softly fond and amused. “So-- I’m going to sleep now. You can stay like you are if you want to, but-- I’d be kind of worried about, um, squashing you.” 

Grudgingly, he has to admit that this is a fair point. He’s woken up more than one morning pinned beneath the grounding weight of Martin’s body. There’s a pleasant quality to it, but it would probably be a bit too much for him when he’s like this. Reluctantly, he changes back to his larger form, tumbling onto the bed. 

“Oof,” Martin says. Jon is now sprawled on top of his chest, over the covers. Martin’s hands have come up to encircle him, as if on reflex. A smile flickers over his face, as if in greeting. And then his eyes flick downwards-- and he flushes and quickly averts his gaze. 

“Would you… like for me to put something on?” Jon asks. Martin seems less wildly uncomfortable with him not wearing clothes nowadays, but it’s also happening less often in general. The old awkwardness seems to resurface with a vengeance though if Jon does it while he’s in his larger form and close to Martin, as if size and proximity have something to do with it. This is why he makes himself wear clothes even to bed, despite it feeling utterly unnecessary and borderline stifling. Most mornings, he wakes up to find that he’s somehow managed to shuck his clothes off during sleep. But if Martin can make concessions for him, being careful with his words, Jon can make concessions for him. Even if they’re strange ones that don’t quite make sense. 

“Um,” he says, still looking off to the side. The flush is slowly spreading across his face, covering more and more skin. It’s a gentle pink color. “You don’t have to-- you can do whatever you want--” 

“I don’t have to,” he says, “but should I? Does it upset you?” 

“Ummmmm,” Martin says. He briefly peeks at Jon, reddens further, and then squeezes his eyes shut. Throwing his head back into his pillow, he groans. “It-- it’s not that I don’t like it. It’s more like I like it too much?”  

Jon tilts his head. “And that’s… a problem?” 

“Well-- yes? Kind of? It’s not like you’re doing it to-- to get a reaction out of me, or anything. You said you don’t like-- that sort of stuff.” 

“Sex,” Jon says. 

Martin sets a hand over his eyes. His mouth twists into a strange shape that looks like it can’t decide if it wants to be an endeared smile or an embarrassed grimace. “Yeah. That. You’re just… getting comfortable. And I’m being all weird about it.” 

He furrows his brow, considering this. After a moment, he reaches out and pokes a finger at Martin’s cheek. Martin startles slightly, pulling his hand away, blinking up at him. 

“I like this,” he says. “When you get all red. It’s… endearing.” 

Martin’s eyes flare open wide. Satisfyingly, the blush travels further down. Jon can see it poking out of the neck of his shirt, spread down to his chest. 

“Oh,” he squeaks. “Uh. Thank you?” 

“You’re not being weird,” he says. “You just flush and trip over your words and avoid looking at me. If you’re not uncomfortable, then I’m fine with that. It’s not like you’re doing anything. You aren’t uncomfortable, are you?” 

“Well,” Martin says. “Not in a bad way?” 

Uncomfortable in a good way? What does that even mean? 

“... So long as you’re not unhappy, then,” he amends uncertainly. “You’re allowed to think things, and I’m fine with you seeing me. There isn’t anything wrong with just wanting, is there?” 

“Yes,” Martin answers immediately. 

Jon blinks. 

“I mean,” Martin hurriedly continues, wincing, “there’s-- I mean, I shouldn’t want something you don’t want, right?” 

“I don’t see why not,” Jon says. “So long as you don’t do anything about it, why would it be wrong? It doesn’t hurt anything.” 

“But--” he says, his face twisting up with doubt, but he can’t seem to come up with an actual argument. Because Jon’s right. 

“If it bothers you that I distract you so much, then there’s a simple solution for that,” he says. “If you get used to seeing me without clothes, it will have less of an effect on you. Yes?” 

“That,” Martin says, “is… a theory.” 

“If I begin regularly sleeping without clothes, you should become inured to it eventually,” he says, warming up to his idea. Martin will become used to something that currently flusters him, and Jon won’t have to sleep while wearing clothes! It’s brilliant. 

Martin makes a strangled noise, like he’d coughed and then choked on his spit halfway through, and is trying to muffle the entire sound. 

“... Or not?” he asks, some slight doubt creeping in. If Martin doesn’t want to… 

“It,” Martin says, his voice slightly strained. “If you-- it’s not a-- I mean… yes. Sure. Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yep. Why not! No big deal! Just-- yeah. Get-- do you want to get under the covers?” 

Jon gets under the covers. Martin turns off the lamp, and they both get settled. The bed is large enough for two, but not sprawling. Trying to lie in it without risking touch makes it feel cramped, uncomfortable. Jon doesn’t try to avoid touch. Martin wears a t-shirt and boxers to bed, so the only bare skin he feels brush up against his own is that of Martin’s arms, his legs. Martin lies still and quiet, his breaths even and steady. The only reason that Jon knows that he’s tense is because he knows that Martin doesn’t like to sleep on his back. He’s too still and quiet. The silence is heavy and tense, instead of soothing and peaceful. 

“Are you afraid,” he whispers into the dark of their bedroom, “of accidentally brushing a hand against my buttocks?” 

The noise Martin makes could almost be described as a sportle, a sprufle, a snork. A deeply undignified spurt of laughter shocked out of him. 

“Does it scare you, to think of mistakenly touching my…” he searches for a suitably silly term, “nether regions?” 

Martin squawks. 

“Jon!” he gasps out. The room is very dark, but Jon can just catch the white flash of his teeth, his eyes, horribly shocked and amused. 

“Is the thought so terrible?” he asks solemnly. “Does the possibility of it haunt you, to the point that it keeps you from your sleep at night?” 

“Oh my god,” Martin hiccups, laughter bubbling around his words. Any nervous tension that had been there before has been thoroughly smashed to pieces. Jon is terribly pleased with himself. “You’re so-- christ.” 

“You’re allowed to touch me when I’m naked, you know,” Jon says while Martin’s still giggling with little aftershocks. “The way you normally do.” 

“Okay, okay,” he says, instead of squeaking or freezing up like a panicked deer. Traces of humor still linger in his voice, coloring his words. “I will.” 

Reaching out, Martin hooks an arm around Jon’s middle and pulls him in closer to him, into his usual position. Sharing a bed with each other has been second nature to them before they even had their first conversation, but the familiarity of it doesn’t feel unfamiliar any longer. They slot together like puzzle pieces, and that feels natural and right and correct, instead of strange and uncanny and vaguely disturbing. Martin had been especially put off by it, at first. 

Not any longer. Jon nuzzles into the space by Martin’s collar bone, and sighs with satisfaction. Martin affectionately squeezes him once, and then relaxes. 

It’s a quick trip to falling asleep from there. 

“Maybe,” Martin muses, “we should get a cat.” 

Jon, who is washing the dishes--he’d insisted, as Martin had made dinner-- startles badly enough to drop the plate he’s holding back down into the soapy water. He turns from the sink, suds dripping from his hands, and gives Martin a horrified look of betrayal. 

“A cat?” he asks, as if he’s maybe misheard. 

“Yes?” he asks, bewildered. “Are you-- do you prefer dogs?” 

“Why would you want a cat in the house?” Jon asks, aghast. 

“Well,” he says. He honestly hadn’t expected to be interrogated this intensely on the subject; it had mostly just been an idle idea, a casual what if. “It’s just-- we’re both really scared of spiders now, and it’s kind of a whole ordeal whenever we spot one that we’ve got to remove from the house, so… I feel bad about it, but maybe we could get a cat? They like eating spiders.” 

“They like eating fairies too,” Jon says with a shudder. 

Martin blinks. “Oh. Oh, Jon, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of that. Have you ever seen a fairy get eaten by… in front of you?” 

“No,” Jon says. “But there have certainly been attempts.” 

“Ah,” he says. He feels less terrible now, knowing that Jon hasn’t had to watch the grisly horror of a cat eating one of his fellows before his very eyes. He’d been pretty worried about that for a moment there. “You… do know that a cat can’t eat you the way you are now, right? Cats don’t eat humans. Well-- alive humans.” 

“Cats are awful, cruel beasts, and I would not like for any of them to be in this house,” Jon says firmly. 

“We don’t have to get one. It was just a thought,” he reassures him. An idea occurs to him. “... Hey, can I show you a video?” 

Martin’s shown Jon a number of Youtube videos so far. Most of them have been educational ones, explaining certain things way better and more articulately than Martin could manage himself. A lot of cooking videos, on Jon’s request, who has decided that one of his favourite things is coming up with increasingly elaborate breakfast surprises for Martin. He had crème brûlée yesterday. He’d wondered what Jon had wanted to buy that blowtorch for. 

Getting out his phone, Martin searches ‘cute cat video.’ Jon comes over to curiously peer over his shoulder after the ad finishes playing. It’s one of the ones where a cat warily bats at a cucumber that it thinks is a snake, the fur along its back standing on end to puff itself up, back arched, ears pinned back and tail raised, trying to intimidate the inert vegetable lying on the floor. Jon, who does know that things can’t touch him through the screen, flinches back at the first bat of the cat’s paw. 

“Maybe a different one,” Martin hastily decides, and clicks on one of the related videos listed to the side of the playing video, this one with a thumbnail of a close up shot of a cat’s face with its eyes shut, sunlight shining on it. That one’s much more relaxed, with much purring and petting involved. Jon, he notes, watches it intently, as if he’s expecting a jumpscare at any moment. It never comes, of course. 

They lose about ten minutes to several more cat videos like that. Eventually, Martin passes the phone over to Jon who accepts it wordlessly and keeps watching, and he goes to finish washing up the dishes. Jon doesn’t seem to notice. The way his brow is furrowed with concentration, he looks like a serious academic translating an ancient text for study. On the phone, a cat meows. 

Grinning, Martin turns to focus on the dishes and leaves Jon to his research. 

Humans, Jon notes, have a tendency towards thinking that they’re talking much more quietly than they actually are. Either that, or they think he must be half deaf for some reason. 

“Maybe he was just born that way?” a woman with a massive head of red curls says to her companion speculatively. They’re standing at the other side of the store, by all appearances avidly perusing the shelves of wares, but it’s a small store so he can still hear them quite well. 

“Or he’s a foreigner who’s really good at accents,” her companion suggests. Whether he’s a family member, a spouse, or a friend, Jon truly couldn’t guess. He’s tried a few times now, and nine times out of ten, he’s been wrong. A mother had come in with her child the other day, and she was apparently under the impression that her son was her daughter. He hadn’t known how to respond to the situation, and so he’d just made an excuse and left. She’d looked quite baffled by the interaction. “Foreigners, they can be very strange, you know.” 

“Just because he looks different doesn’t mean he’s a foreigner, Jimmy,” his friend chides him. Cheerfully, she goes on. “Or maybe he just got hit on his head early on in life.” 

“Oh, yeah. That happened to the cousin of a guy I know. Bit of a funny fellow for the rest of his life. Eccentric, you know.” 

“He seems very nice, though,” the woman hurries to add. “Very nice lad.” 

“Oh, yes, yes, of course. Naturally.” 

Is Jon nice? Because that would be news to him. He’s never thought of himself as particularly nice. People here keep saying it, though. He wonders why. 

“That gardener chap,” the man goes on, “I never would’ve thought it of him, you know? That he’d be a-- that he’d have a-- not that there’s anything wrong with that! Just didn’t see it coming at all. He seemed so, well, normal.” 

“Jimmy,” the woman chides. 

“Well, I’m just saying. I guess that goes to show that you can never really know, you know? I mean, it’s not like he’s ever acted like--” 

“Can I help you find anything?” Jon calls out. The two of them startle guiltily, their heads whipping towards him. “You’ve been standing there for a while.” 

“Just browsing, dearie!” the woman calls back, smiling widely. 

“Oh, there it is,” the man says, and reaches out and plucks an item off the shelf in front of him. “A-- a… toilet plunger. Just like we wanted.” 

“So much nicer than the old one,” the woman agrees fervently. “Long past time for a change. Don’t want a worn out toilet plunger.” 

“They wear out?” Jon asks. “How quickly?” 

No one actually answers his question. The pair pay for their brand new toilet plunger, smiling all the while, and the man reaches out across the counter and companionably slaps him on the shoulder once, and then immediately makes an expression like he profoundly regrets the gesture. Jon isn’t sure of how he’s supposed to react-- is he meant to slap the man back? Before he can decide one way or another, they’re out the door, the bell tinkling after them. 

“You’ve very good for business,” Rosie remarks. Jon turns to see her standing in the doorway that leads to the backroom, where mostly collapsed cardboard boxes reside. 

Jon has also noticed this by now. Everyone wants an excuse to look at and talk to him, apparently, and the best excuse they can come up with is to go and buy things at the store he works at. It is, honestly, mostly just ridiculous. 

“My novelty will likely subside after some time,” he warns her. He’s strange and conspicuous; he knows it. There was never any chance of him blending seamlessly in with the rest of humanity. He isn’t a changeling. Honestly, he’s terribly pleased with himself that everyone seems to be reading him as an eccentric human, instead of outright inhuman. He doubts that any of the fairies back in the forest would be able to pull that off. They couldn’t get through even one simple mischievous deception without smirking or snickering. 

“And by then you’ll be a finely trained employee in your own right,” Rosie assures him, waving the warning away. She hesitates. “It doesn’t-- bother you, does it? The way people treat you? I know that the people here can be a bit… they don’t really quite know how to just treat a gay person like they would anyone else, even when they’re trying to be nice.” 

Gay. He’d run into the word a couple of times while reading books, but it had never really been explained. Within the context, it usually seemed to be some sort of insult. The dictionary definition that he’d found claimed that it meant ‘happy’, which he somehow doubted was what those books meant. Martin had explained it to him last week, awkward and stilted and red faced. Gay is a thing that Martin is. Gay is something that people are going to think that Jon is, whether he is or isn’t, because of his relationship with Martin. 

He’s still not quite sure that he entirely grasps the concept. Having a word for who likes which gender, in relation to their own gender, seems absurdly unnecessary to him. 

“It doesn’t bother me,” he assures her. To be treated like something strange and unusual, something not quite a part of the group-- he’s been treated like that his entire life. He’s used to it. Besides, he’s fairly certain that he’d be treated like a strange thing even if they didn’t think he was gay, considering that he’s a magical creature doing his best to pretend at humanity and quite often stumbling across unexpected pitfalls along the way. He is strange and unusual. 

Besides, it’s Martin that he lives with. It’s Martin who he goes home to at the end of the day, who he eats meals with, who he shares a bed with. And Martin treats him more like he’s marvellous than like he’s strange. That’s a novelty. 

No, he doesn’t mind being talked about in that way. But he has a creeping feeling that Martin would mind, hence his interruption. 

Rosie has a moment to look relieved, and then the bell above the door rings again. Jon turns to face the new customer-- 

“Martin,” he says, smiling. He saw Martin only this morning, sees him every single day, and yet he’s noticed that to see him in a place he wasn’t expecting to see him always feels like a delightful surprise. Like a wonderful chance meeting. “Is it that late already?” 

“Yep,” he says. “Hullo, Rosie.” 

“Hello, Martin,” Rosie greets him back. She lingers in the doorway, as if she’s maybe hoping to see or hear something interesting, pleasantly smiling. Jon imagines just outright telling her that he’s a fairy, that Martin saved his life and thus the rules of Magic ruled that he had to offer Martin his hand in marriage to repay him. He has a feeling that if he did it matter of factly enough, it wouldn’t even occur to her that he was being serious. She’d just roll her eyes at him for his cheek, probably. 

“Had a nice day at work?” Martin asks him, tolerantly ignoring Rosie’s presence. 

“It was interesting,” Jon says, which is his usual answer. It is interesting to get to interact with so many humans. They do and say such strange things, and it’s fascinating to get to witness first hand. It turns out that some things that he was attributing to being human things were actually just Martin things, so it’s good to have a larger sample size. 

“That’s good,” he says. “Are you ready to go?” 

He looks over at Rosie, who smiles and shoos them away good naturedly. 

“Go on,” she says. “I’ll find some way to fend for myself against all of these rabid customers beating my doors down.” 

They leave the store together, making the walk towards the edge of the town where Martin usually parks his car. 

“You know,” Martin says. “Once it starts getting colder, you’ll be in danger of freezing your toes off if you don’t have any shoes on.” 

“Your opinion is noted,” he says archly. 

“It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact--” 

They bicker like this as they walk, the argument toothless and petty and quite honestly rather enjoyable. He likes arguing with Martin, when it’s meaningless little arguments like these. It’s fun. Activities with Martin generally are, merely due to his presence. 

That’s an odd thought to have, a voice inside his head points out. He blinks, strangely disoriented by the realization, as if he’d expected for there to be one extra step on a flight of stairs. It is an odd thought to have, but it had felt utterly natural and matter of fact in the moment. It had almost passed entirely without any notice, so normal and unremarkable had it felt. 

But why is it odd? Martin does improve things, just by being there. The trip home is better for his company, making meals is easier with his assistance, and falling asleep is warm and comfortable thanks to his presence. The gentle rhythm of his breathing, the reassuring dip in the mattress from his weight, the reassuring knowledge that he’s there. Martin does make everything better, easier, lighter. His days and his nights and his life. Everything. 

Maybe that’s what’s odd, he thinks. Not the fact that he thought it, but that it’s true. 

“Jon?” Martin asks, and Jon blinks his way back to the present. They’ve made their way back to the car by now, and he’s apparently walked a few feet beyond it without really noticing or registering it. He’d gotten too distracted. “Everything alright?” 

Jon looks over at Martin, whose brow is slightly furrowed with gentle concern. As if Jon’s well being truly and deeply matters to him. 

A new crop of fairies come in every spring. They are weak little things, and they often don’t last long. They aren’t important, or precious, or special. But sometimes, Martin looks at Jon like he’s all of these things. It makes him want to convince him that he’s wrong, because it makes him prickle with guilt like he’s told a lie. Because he doesn’t want to watch as Martin slowly realizes it on his own. It would be the most painful in the world, he thinks. 

“Oh,” he says, realization dawning on him. Then he feels a bit like an idiot, because it suddenly seems very clear and obvious, and he should have realized it sooner. 

“Oh?” Martin parrots him, raising his eyebrows in query. 

His mouth has abruptly gone dry. He knows something now that he hadn’t before. He doesn’t know what to do with it. His first instinct is to hide it, as the raw, vulnerable weakness it is. Hide it, and don’t let anyone ever know about it, and no one can ever exploit it, can touch it, can hurt him with it. 

Like he’d done when he’d realized that Martin didn’t understand what a bride slave is. 

He shakes his head at himself. Right. That hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly. And besides-- 

“You asked me if I had any more important secrets left,” he says. 

Martin tenses, wary. “Yeah. Is there… something you haven’t been telling me?” 

“Yes. No. I mean-- I didn’t have a secret back then. I was telling the truth at the time. But I got a new one. Just now.” 

“While we were walking?” Martin asks dubiously. 

“Yes,” he says, and then struggles with himself to find the right words to express what he just discovered inside of himself. It’s more difficult than he’s anticipated. Finally, he grasps for the simplest words that feel utterly underwhelming, inadequate. “I like you.” 

“Um,” Martin says, and then he smiles, happy in an awkward, crooked sort of way. “I-- I like you too, Jon.” 

“No,” Jon says, frustrated. Martin blinks in surprise. “Not like-- you don’t-- I’m not properly getting myself across-- ” 

He takes a deep breath, and then strides towards Martin. He sways backwards slightly, like his first, stifled instinct is to take a step back from his approach. Jon stops in front of him, glares up into his (round, freckled, lovely) face, and then makes a snap decision. Reaching out, he snatches up Martin’s hand in one of his own. Martin squeaks, surprised. Jon hesitates, and then very deliberately gentles his touch, trying to make it soft and tender instead of harsh and abrupt. Slowly, he brings Martin’s hand up to his face-- and making direct, unblinking eye contact with him, he brushes his lips against his knuckles. Martin stares back at him, frozen and wide eyed. 

A kiss on the hand. It is an undeniably romantic gesture. He’s read about it in books. He has seen, spying through the leaves of a tree, as a witch performed the gesture for a dryad. The dryad hadn’t killed her. This has to make his intentions clear. 

“I like you,” he repeats, softer. Raw meaning in the words. 

Red floods Martin’s face all at once. Jon watches, fascinated, as the color spreads and darkens. He otherwise doesn’t move or make a noise, looking rather rooted to the ground where he stands. 

“Martin?” he eventually asks. 

“Yes?” Martin asks, his voice an octave higher than normal. 

“Is that okay? That I like you.” 

“Ahhh-- um, that, that’s, ye--ees? It’s-- it’s okay. When did-- when did that happen, exactly?” 

“Just now,” he says. 

“Just now,” Martin repeats. “While we were arguing about shoes.” 

“Well,” Jon amends. “It most likely happened before that-- gradually, over a span of time. I only just noticed it while we were arguing about shoes.” 

“Right,” Martin says. “Of course.” 

There’s a beat. 

“Well!” Martin says with bright forced cheer. “Time to go home, then.” 

And he opens the car door, gets inside, closes the door, puts on his seatbelt, and sits there. Waiting for Jon to get in the car as well, presumably. His eyes are fixed woodenly ahead of him, not looking at Jon out of the window. He’s still fairly pink cheeked and wide eyed, but there’s a strained smile on his face now that gives him a bit of a manic air. 

Jon… doesn’t know that this is the reaction that he’d been expecting, and is also unsure of what this reaction even means. He hadn’t expected any kind of reaction at all, actually. He’d acted too quickly to give himself the time to expect anything. The realization had simply occurred to him, and then he’d blurted it out. 

He hesitates for another moment--a moment in which Martin simply continues to silently sit in the car without looking impatient or confused by Jon’s delaying--and then he gets into the passenger’s seat. Martin had said, after all, that it was okay for him to like him. So that must mean that it’s okay. He hopes. 

Martin drives them home. 

Martin may or may not be losing his mind. Three words have been looping on repeat inside of his skull for the last few days. I like you, I like you, I like you. The knuckles of his right hand intermittently prickle with something that feels like static electricity, as if the touch of Jon’s lips persistently lingers there, a ghost of a kiss. The heated, piercing look Jon had given him as he’d brushed his lips against his hand haunts him, vividly flashes in front of his mind’s eye at random moments in the day like a jumpscare that makes his stomach swoop with dizzy, fluttery warmth. 

And Jon is just acting like nothing happened. He reads his books, tucked up into the corner of the sofa in what has become his regular spot. He learns how to use the vacuum on his own with a vicious determination. He makes meals with Martin, sometimes on his own, sometimes letting Martin do it. He goes down to the village three times a week to work at the general store. Sometimes, he follows Martin to his job at Moorland House, and he pokes around in the library while Martin tries to wrangle the garden into submission, or he flutters around in Martin’s general vicinity, as if he’s doing anything even vaguely interesting. 

He doesn’t look at Martin differently. He doesn’t talk to him differently. He doesn’t act differently around him. He’s just… Jon. Martin can’t imagine acting so casually around someone he’s confessed his-- his-- some kind of feelings to. Some irrational part of himself wonders if maybe he’d just… had a particularly vivid sappy daydream, and had somehow gotten confused and convinced himself that it had really happened. That would be so much more plausible than that actually happening, right? Everything would make sense, then. Jon acting like nothing has happened, because nothing did happen. 

Except for how it definitely happened. 

They’re unpacking Martin’s weekly grocery run, when his strained grip on his composure finally crumbles all at once. It’s not even for any particular kind of reason. It just abruptly snaps, while he’s in the middle of putting the biscuits away in the high up cupboard, Jon putting cartons of milk away in the fridge. 

“Why did you say that?” he asks, the words out of his mouth before he even realizes that he’s going to say them.  

Jon looks over at him with curious incomprehension. “Say what?” 

“That you-- by the car. Four days ago.” 

“Oh,” Jon says, understanding. “When I said that I like you?” 

Martin’s stomach does a little flip at Jon saying it again, like there’s nothing wrong or difficult or momentous about it. His palms start to sweat. He wonders, half insane for a moment, how many times he could get Jon to say it. Over and over and over again, until the words wear a groove into his brain, so that he can listen to them without being overwhelmed. 

“That-- yes. Mhmm.” 

“Because… I like you?” Jon says, tilting his head to the side, in the way he does when he thinks that Martin’s being confusing. 

Another flip in his stomach. He’d said it again. Martin turns his attention back to unpacking the groceries, putting tea bags away in their appropriate spot with razor sharp focus, his eyes fixed on his hands. 

“I mean,” he says, “why would you say that even-- even if it’s true? Why would you say it?” 

Out loud? Where someone could hear him? Sheer madness. 

“Well,” Jon says, and he stops to actually consider this, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder before now. He speaks up. “I didn’t like the idea of keeping another important secret from you. It didn’t go so well the last time.” 

“You know, it’s not like you’re not allowed to keep secrets from me. I just wanted to know all of the ones that could potentially, um, get one of us killed.” 

“It’s an important secret,” Jon says firmly. “It’s important that I like you.” 

He said it again. Martin can feel his cheeks, hot and red. He’s not even trying to lead and coax Jon into saying it, he’s just doing it on his own. 

He has to clear his throat before he can speak again. 

“So you just wanted to tell me because you didn’t want to keep a secret.” 

“I suppose so,” Jon says uncertainly. After a moment, he adds, “And because I just wanted to share it with you, I think.” 

Martin doesn’t understand that impulse. He’s had about a dozen crushes in his life, and he hasn’t confessed to a single one of them. He’s kept them secret and clutched close to his chest, something private just for him. He barely even spoke to about half of them. He can’t imagine just-- telling them. He can’t imagine that it would have gone well, in most cases. At best, he’d probably just get an amiable rejection, an awkward I’m flattered, but. He never saw the point in putting himself through that, for the sake of something hopeless. His feelings could just be for himself. That was fine. There was no need to go and make himself anymore vulnerable than he already was, rolling over and revealing his soft underbelly to be cut open. 

The idea of being hurt doesn’t seem to have even occurred to Jon as a possibility, much less a consideration. 

“But--” he says, and stalls out. There’s so many protests and arguments inside of him that his chest feels packed tight with them, like he’s about to burst, like he has to be careful and deliberate to speak them coherently, instead of letting them spew out in one big tangled mess. 

“But?” 

“But doesn’t it bother you?” he demands, his voice going thin and frayed at the last two words. 

“That I like you?” Jon asks, baffled. 

He said it again. 

“That I didn’t say anything back!” he says. “I-- I didn’t say that I like you back--not like that--and I didn’t even say-- you’re just fine with that?” 

Jon looks at him like he doesn’t understand what the problem is. Martin feels a sharp, irrational spike of defensiveness. He’s not the one being weird here. He’s being perfectly reasonable! 

“The way I feel is the way I feel,” he says. “Why would that change depending on the way you feel?” 

“But--” He’s just not getting it. Martin struggles for a way to make Jon understand. “Jon-- okay. What-- what reaction were you hoping for, exactly, when you told me that you-- when you told me?” 

“I wasn’t… Well, I suppose that I didn’t want a negative response. Is this… you said that it was okay, is it-- is it not okay, after all?” 

“No, that’s not what-- it’s fine, Jon, really. Just-- weren’t you hoping that I’d say that I feel the same way? If you got to pick my reaction, the most ideal way for it to go?” 

“... As I said, Martin, it all happened rather quickly. I didn’t stop to hope for or expect anything.” 

“But aren’t you disappointed?” he presses. “Hurt? Let down? Why are you just-- you’re acting like it’s fine.”  

“Isn’t it fine?” Jon asks. “We’re still on good terms, aren’t we? We’re still married, we still live together. I’m happy like this. Are you… not?” 

“No!” he bursts out, and then quickly clarifies at the startled, dismayed expression on Jon’s face. “I mean-- yes, of course I’m happy, Jon, but that’s not the point!” 

“You don’t seem very happy,” Jon says skeptically. 

“Well, I am!” he snaps at him, the picture of happiness. “You’re just-- you’re really fine?” 

“Would you… like for me to not be?” 

“No, of course not--” 

“You don’t seem to like that I’m fine.” 

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say here, okay, you just-- you--” 

Like a man settling down to watch someone drown, Jon doesn’t interrupt or save Martin from himself. He just waits and listens, watching, looking at him. Martin’s tongue twists on him, betraying him. 

“Yes?” Jon gently prompts him, after he takes too long to continue. 

“You’re not making any sense,” Martin gets out. 

“I’m not making any sense?” 

He says that like Martin’s being absurd, but he isn’t. Jon’s being weird. He is. He’s walking around like he wasn’t rejected, and like rejection isn’t like a knife to the gut, something to send you crawling to a quiet, hidden place to lick your wounds in peace until you recover enough to put a fake smile on your face and go back out into the world, except this time just a little bit more quiet, a little more drawn into yourself. It’s driving Martin crazy. Isn’t he hurt? Didn’t Martin hurt him? 

It’s almost like Jon hadn’t even thought to hope for or wonder if Martin reciprocates. Like that wasn’t relevant to the moment, to his secret, his confession. His feelings for Martin exist independently from how Martin might possibly view those feelings, how he might react to them, how he might treat Jon for having them. Like they’re not deeply entangled together, impossible to separate from each other. 

… Martin gets the sinking feeling that he might actually be the weird one here, at this moment. 

“I,” he says. “I’m… sorry.” 

Jon stops short, clearly caught off guard by his sudden deflation. 

“You are? For what?” 

For being damaged enough that he can’t even understand how Jon can act like this, can be fine with this. For still not really getting it, even as he’s accepting that Jon’s not harboring some secret heartbreak behind his back, as if he’s at all a skilled enough liar to pull something like that off. Jon is actually fine and that’s… he doesn't get it at all but-- but he supposes that that is good. He’d be able to understand it better if Jon were avoiding being in the same room as him, if he looked like a kicked puppy every time he looked at him. It would make sense to him. So… maybe it’s good that it doesn’t. He does want for Jon to be fine. Always. 

“For-- for not making any sense. You’re right. Sorry. I’m-- being weird.” 

Jon looks at him warily, clearly not understanding what this entire conversation has been about. Then after a moment, he softens and reaches out and kindly pets Martin’s hand. 

“It’s okay,” he says sincerely. “I forgive you.” 

It’s incredible, how Jon has such a gift for casually finding the exact right combination of simple words to knock the wind out of him. 

Martin has been acting very strangely lately. It seems like Jon’s little confession has… unbalanced him more than he’d anticipated. Alarmed him. He shoots glances at Jon when he thinks he won’t notice like he’s a profound mystery, an inexplicable creature with unpredictable behaviours rummaging through his fridge for the orange juice, squinting at the paper that he buys down at the general store with his own money solely for the crossword section, or sorting out the laundry. (He has found that it is immensely pleasing to sort things into categories, such as darks and lights and colors.) 

“Okay,” Martin says one night as they’re laying in bed, less than a minute after he’s switched off the bedside lamp, as if he was waiting until they were blanketed in darkness to initiate conversation. “I get that you’re fine, everything’s fine, that’s great-- but why do you like me?” 

“Can’t I just like you?” he asks. 

“People have reasons for liking people. Even if it's for silly reasons, like they’ve got a nice jawline.” 

Jon frowns. “What does that have to do with-- that makes no sense. I’d like you no matter what your jaw looked like, Martin.” 

“That’s-- very nice of you to say. I get that you don’t like me for my looks, that goes without saying--” 

“Why does it go without saying?” he asks sharply. Just a moment ago, he’d thought it absolutely ridiculous that anyone would ever like someone specifically for their appearance. Now, he feels oddly offended and defensive at what Martin’s implying. 

“Well-- I’m not… it’s not really my strong suit. But that’s not what I’m trying to talk--” 

“I like your looks,” he says firmly. Martin chokes a bit on his words in the darkness. Jon goes on. “I like your hair. I like your freckles. I like your eyes. I like your hands. I like your nose. I like your teeth--” 

“My teeth,” Martin repeats, sounding mildly horrified. “That-- that sounds kind of creepy, Jon, I’m sorry. That sounds like you want to rip them out and keep them in a jar.” 

“That would be dreadful,” he says, aghast. “And entirely against the point. I like them because they’re your teeth. They’re good teeth because they’re a part of you, and you’re good. And they-- they do what teeth are supposed to do, and that’s good. Everyone needs teeth. Except for people with beaks.” 

“I feel,” Martin says, “like we’ve gotten a little bit sidetracked and lost track of the subject, here.” 

“Perhaps,” Jon grants. “What was the subject, now again?” 

“Why do you like me?” 

“Oh. Well, I don’t like you because of your teeth. I like your teeth because I like you.” 

“Can we please stop talking about my teeth?” 

“I suppose…” he says, searching for words. He frowns with frustration up at the ceiling that he can’t properly see. “It’s difficult. It’s like trying to describe why you like a particular dish, or a song, or a smell. You’re just… lovely.” 

“Lovely,” Martin repeats, his voice slightly strained. He clears his throat, and continues. “Can you try? Please? I-- I want to understand.” 

Privately, Jon doesn’t get why Martin can’t just understand that Jon likes him because he says he does. But he had said please. And-- he’s not sure that he even has the option not to. Requests are as good as orders. Furrowing his brow, he tries. 

“I like every part of you,” he says. 

“You can’t like every part of me,” Martin says. “No one likes every single part of someone. Everyone’s got annoying little flaws. You don’t think I’m perfect, do you?” 

“No,” he says defensively, mostly because Martin asks the question like that’s obviously the answer. Of course Martin isn’t perfect-- who is? Yes, he has a point, there must be parts of Martin that he dislikes. He tries to think of one. 

… He’s having trouble thinking of anything. Anything that occurs to him that is even a touch irritating is ludicrously minor, and easy to forgive, and Jon has worse qualities than that himself, and it seems so very petty to hold grudges over-- over Martin forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge once, so it spoiled overnight and they had to pour it out. It was one milk carton. It’s one of the worst things he can think of, when it comes to Martin, and he honestly can’t bring himself to care. He’d just wrinkled his nose at the smell and then opened a window and proceeded to forget about it. 

Martin does still give him orders sometimes--rarer now, he’s getting into the habit of being careful with his words, but there are still occasional slip ups. There likely always will be. Yesterday, he’d made Jon help him change the sheets on the bed. ‘Help me,’ he’d said, and it had been intended as a request, as something Jon could refuse if he wanted to, but the curse had turned into an unyielding command. Jon would’ve done it even if the curse hadn’t made him. It was a small, reasonable request. They both sleep in that bed, and fresh clean sheets are nice to sleep in. But he’d felt the leash of their marriage tighten around him anyway, closing off all of the other options that he hadn’t been going to take. 

Martin hadn’t noticed, in the end, and Jon… hadn’t brought it to his notice. What would have been the point? He would have changed the sheets either way. All he would manage would be to make that crestfallen, guilty look flash across Martin’s face. It wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t needed. He’d wanted to just move past it, ignore the small blip, and go back to enjoying their cozy, quiet afternoon. It would be harder to do that if he pointed out what had happened, if Martin had to carry yet another mark of failure, of letting his guard down. Jon wants for Martin to be able to let his guard down around him. He wants for him to be able to ask Jon for help with the small chores that are necessary for taking care of their mutual home. 

Sometimes, it’s just easier to act like nothing happened. 

But that isn’t Martin’s fault either. It isn’t one of his flaws, a part of him to dislike. Like he had said: he hadn’t asked for any of this. He hadn’t wanted it. He hadn’t been able to even anticipate it, innocent in his ignorance of the reality of the world of magic. It isn’t something that Jon can, or even wants to, hold against him. Martin always tries so hard, so sincerely to avoid it. It doesn’t count. 

So, all he has is a slight bad habit of sometimes forgetfully leaving food outside on the kitchen counters, instead of immediately putting it back inside of the fridge. Not much, that. 

“So?” Martin prompts him. He’s been quiet for too long, thinking. 

“You’re the least annoying person I’ve ever met,” he says truthfully. “I’m having a difficult time thinking of anything substantial.” 

Martin makes a dissatisfied noise, as if Jon being unable to rattle off a laundry list of his sins and imperfections is somehow… frustrating? A failure? Does he want Jon to criticize him? 

“There is one thing,” he says, managing to grab onto something as it flits past him. 

“Yes?” Martin says. Finally, there it is, his tone seems to say. I knew it was there. I knew it. 

Moving quickly, he leans over and clicks the bedside lamp on. The yellow light snaps into existence, breaching the darkness, revealing them to each other. Martin blinks owlishly at the sudden light, wide eyed and startled. 

“You seem to find it utterly unbelievable that I could actually like you, no matter how many times I say it. That,” he says, and he makes sure to lean in towards Martin in emphasis, giving him an unamused look, “is annoying.” 

Martin stares up at him, looking like a deer caught in headlights at suddenly having the lights turned on, at being confronted with Jon’s unblinking stare. 

“But,” he continues magnanimously, “I forgive you. I’m sure I do annoying things occasionally as well.” 

Martin opens his mouth to say something, his eyes still wide, but nothing comes out. After a moment, Jon wordlessly turns the lights off. He rolls over to settle into the freshly changed sheets, satisfied with the warm glow in his chest of having won the argument. 

Jon hadn’t actually managed to come up with a proper, convincing argument for why he likes Martin, in the end. No satisfactory explanation to help the whole thing go down easier for him, to help it all make sense in his head. He’s simply been handed the fact that Jon likes him, apparently, and he’s expected to find a way to readjust his world views to accept this, with zero help. 

He doesn’t know why it had been easier for him to accept that magic exists than the fact that Jon has feelings for him, but that seems to be how things are turning out. It makes him feel faintly ridiculous, but there it is. 

“He could be lying,” Martin tells himself. He’s at work in the Moorland House garden, busily uprooting a small patch of weeds that have been growing unchecked for what seems like a few weeks, hidden away in a blindspot he’d just happened to stumble across this morning. Jon is off in the library. “It would make more sense for him to be lying. He can lie.” 

Except for how he’s a terrible liar-- and why the hell would he lie about this? Jon isn’t cruel, and Martin had already promised to try his best to not take advantage of the whole gross bride slave thing, so there’s no reason for him to try and… what, endear himself to Martin? Seduce him? Seduction is a concept that fits poorly on earnest, sincere Jon, who is lovely and wonderful but also not even a little bit coy or flirtatious. He can’t see it. 

“He could be lying,” he argues feebly. With a firm tug, he pulls yet another weed up out of the earth. He could just spray it with weedkiller, but he needs something physical and time consuming to do to keep his brain from devouring itself while he pulls this problem apart in his head. And it’s not good for the insects, anyways. Shouldn’t use it unless he has to. 

Jon could be lying. Technically. In some version of reality. It’s possible, in the same way that most incredibly unlikely things are technically possible. 

“But he isn’t,” he mutters in resignation. Viciously, he uproots another weed. 

Like a man desperately grasping at straws, he searches for an explanation that will make this all make sense, that missing puzzle piece that will make the whole picture snap together into something comprehensible once it's put in its proper place. Because as it stands, it just-- doesn’t. Make sense. 

And Jon’s clearly pretty exasperated by his pestering already, so. He has to figure it out on his own. 

“Maybe he only thinks he likes me,” he says. Having voiced this tentative theory, it immediately sounds more plausible than the last one. He brightens. Yes, that could be it. He doesn’t know how old Jon is, but he gets the impression that he is at least inexperienced. Not in sex-- or not just sex, but just… in general. Like he hasn’t gotten the chance to live a lot, to experience events or milestones. The way he describes it, it sometimes seems like most of his life prior to meeting Martin consisted mostly of hiding from humans, predators, and everything and everyone who might want to do him harm while he constantly searched for more information, more knowledge. So-- this might be the first time he’s ever lived with someone. Hell, this might be the first time he’s ever even spent this much consistent time with one person. Maybe he just got… confused. Maybe he made a misunderstanding. He doesn’t like Martin; he thinks he likes Martin. 

“He said so earlier,” he says, tossing another weed into the bucket next to him. During that incredibly stressful, emotional, draining argument, when Martin had found out what ‘bride slave’ actually means. It had somehow led to Jon launching into a list of all of the things he likes about Martin, to prove to him that he didn’t hate being married to him, despite all circumstances. Martin had been able to accept it at the time, although it had felt intense enough to almost make him burst into tears. It hadn’t been the same sort of like that Jon’s talking about now. That like had been practical, platonic, reasonable. This like is… intimate. Romantic. Entirely focused on Martin, as if he’s the most special person in Jon’s life. 

Martin’s never been anyone’s most special person in his entire life. The idea of it happening now, after all of this time, is just-- it’s ridiculous. He can’t really bring himself to believe it. Something else must be going on here. And he’s got it. 

Jon had gone off on a rant about all of the things he liked about Martin, back then. And he’d mentioned Martin’s belongings that he shared with him, the things Martin did for him, the things Martin got for him. It had been an entirely practical and believable and tangible list. Like putting coins into a vending machine. Martin put effort into taking care of Jon, providing him with what he needed and wanted; Jon appreciated his efforts, was grateful. 

It must be the same thing now. It must be the same list. Jon doesn’t like Martin, despite literally saying those exact words over and over again. He likes what Martin has and does for him. And that-- that’s much more believable. Much more understandable. And thus, much more comforting. The world makes sense, with that explanation. Everything slots neatly into place. It works. 

“He doesn’t like me,” he says out loud, almost reassuringly. Just to hear the words. “He likes my stuff. He likes that I do things for him. That’s all.” 

Yes. He can let himself believe this. 

He kneels there in the dirt and feels satisfied and pleased with himself over solving the mystery, the puzzle, until he realizes-- he’s smiling, an almost flustered happiness tugging at the corners of his mouth. His face is hot, tingling, flushed. There’s a warm glow lodged somewhere in the center of his chest. 

No one’s ever appreciated the things he’s done for them before. No one’s ever liked him for the effort he’s put into helping them. 

He’s not even just thinking about his mum, is the thing. He’d done his best for her, for years and years and years, until it felt like he’d been scraped empty and hollow and exhausted, and then he’d just kept going. He’d kept going until the day she died. Every single part of him had been desperate to stop, but he wouldn’t know how to even begin to stop if he tried. He took care of his mum. Always. No matter how little she wanted it, or appreciated it, or loved him for it. 

But it’s not even just her. There was the boy in his class back at school when teenage hormones were only just beginning to light up in his brain. He’d used to do his English homework for him, the only subject that Martin was really good at. He’d lent the boy his pencils every single time he asked, even though he knew that he’d never give them back. He smiled every time the boy spoke to him, even though he knew that he wouldn’t invite him to come and visit his house, or sleep over, or anything. He’d kept doing the boy’s homework for him, and he’d kept lending him his pencils, and he’d kept smiling at him every time they talked. The boy hadn’t ever publicly admitted to even being his friend. They were shuffled into different classes when they went a grade up one year, and the boy stopped asking him for help with his homework. They never really talked to each other again. 

There were his coworkers at the library in London that he’d managed to scam his way into working for. His first time with what felt like a real adult job where he got paid decently enough and everyone around him wasn’t so exhausted that socializing was out of the question. He’d tried to reach out, to connect. Cheery smalltalk in the breakroom about weekend plans, offers of help with tasks, asking if they wanted to eat lunch together, remembering everyone’s birthdays and the names of their kids and partners and pets, brewing them cups of tea. He’d been friendly. He’d tried. He really had. But no one had been interested. They smiled at him and responded with their own smalltalk, answered his questions, accepted his help, ate their lunch with him, and drank his tea. But that was all it ever was. Shallow, polite interactions between coworkers. Friendly acquaintances. He’d tried. He had. 

He’d tried dating apps. He’d tried gay bars, even though he’s really not the ‘go out for drinks and dancing and flirting with strangers’ kind of guy. He’d tried, he’d tried, he’d tried. Really. He’d put himself out there. He’d reached out. He’d done his best. 

But no one had appreciated the things he did for them. No had wanted what he had, what he was willing to share, what he was offering to share. He got bland thank yous and vague smiles, and that was it. 

Jon likes what Martin does for him. Jon likes what Martin has. 

And that, unfortunately, means something. It means so much that it’s making his eyes sting and something like a rock lodge inside of his throat, as the realization sinks in. 

This was supposed to make Jon’s confession feel smaller, less significant, more distant. Something that he could handle. Instead, it somehow did the opposite; he’d made it just believable enough for him to be able to swallow it, but it’s still deadly. Blindly, he reaches out, but his hand doesn’t find anything to hold onto. Blinking, he looks down. 

There aren’t any more weeds left for him to pull. 

Jon is lost in the self indulgent haze of a good book, entirely absorbed in the words on the page, when the sensation of pleasantly warm porcelain is pressed into his free hand. He automatically curls his hand around the familiar shape of a mug without startling or looking away from his book, and keeps reading. 

“Thank you, Martin,” he says reflexively, his brain not really consciously making the decision to say them, or to register that he’s been given something. He’s at a very interesting part in the story. Martin may or may not say something back; if someone were to ask him later, he really wouldn’t be able to say if he had. Completely on autopilot, he drinks from the mug. He hums with approval, the taste almost piercing through his trance. It’s warm. Tasty. Martin makes the best tea. 

Over the course of… some amount of time, he slowly begins to grow aware of a niggling sensation. The feeling of being watched. For most of his life, this realization would have sent him freezing, bolting, hiding, but here and now it’s merely an odd unease that sits at the back of his head like the lingering conviction that he’s forgotten something of middling importance, like his cardigan at Rosie’s store last week. Not urgent, not dangerous, just… out of place. 

He blinks, and finally looks up from his book, distracted from the gripping narrative. Martin, sitting on the other end of the couch, holding his own mug of tea, starts guiltily as Jon’s gaze lands on him. His eyes are wide, and he looks startled, as if a character in a painting that he’d been appreciating had suddenly turned to look back at him. 

“Martin?” Jon asks. “Was there something?” 

“No! God, uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to stare. I just got lost in thought, and happened to be looking in your direction when it happened.” 

He says this very sheepishly, very naturally. It feels almost silly to believe that that wasn’t what had happened, the way he says it-- but Jon distinctly remembers the sensation of being watched. Not of having someone just happen to be looking in his direction, but of being scrutinized. 

Martin, he remembers with a sudden flare of suspicion, is an excellent liar. He’d seen it in action, him spinning that tale of robbers for Rosie on that night. 

“What were you thinking about?” he asks, trying for casualness. He closes his book and leans towards Martin, watches his reaction intently. 

“What we should have for dinner tomorrow,” he returns promptly. Too promptly? Jon can’t tell. 

“Lasagna?” he suggests hopefully. “One of my customers mentioned that she puts cauliflower in hers, which sounds… interesting. I want to try it.” 

“We had lasagna last week,” Martin says, smiling. “And it always ends up being way too much for the both of us. We had to eat lasagna for half of the week.” 

“How about next week?” 

“Okay, sure. But that still leaves us open for tomorrow.” 

Jon hums, frowning. He’s right, they still have to think of something-- 

Wait. 

“You’re trying to distract me,” he accuses. 

“From what?” Martin asks. 

“From what you were thinking about!” 

“I really wasn’t thinking about anything in particular--” 

“I thought you said you were thinking about dinner,” he retorts. 

Martin's expression flickers with a brief grimace, but it’s quickly gone. 

“I was,” he says. “Just idly. Nothing important.” 

Martin is an excellent liar. He’s certainly far better than Jon. He has a way of being able to say things in such a natural, unaffected manner, like he’s not painfully aware of how the words he’s saying aren’t true. But Jon knows him. He knows he’s a good liar, and he knows that for the last week, there’s been one singular thing that has consistently been on Martin’s mind-- 

“You’re fretting about my feelings for you again,” he says, not a question. 

There’s a beat of silence, as Martin presumably considers his options. It’s enough of an answer on its own. 

“Unbelievable,” he says. 

Martin shifts guiltily. “I wasn’t going to bring it up,” he says defensively. “It was just-- on my mind.” 

“I don’t know what it is about the concept that makes you so incredulous that you can’t just accept--” 

“Well, excuse me for getting a bit obsessed over the fact that my husband confessed his feelings for me!” 

The proper term for what Jon is is a bride slave, not a husband. He doesn’t protest it. 

“I didn’t realize that it would be such a monumental discovery,” he says, a touch sullenly. He hadn’t stopped to wonder at Martin’s reaction, if perhaps the revelation would change their dynamic in any way. But if he had, he imagines that he would picture things going on exactly as they had been, only with an added piece of knowledge between them, freely shared and acknowledged as just another part of their life together. He is, he realizes, a bit bitter that it instead turned out to be something so unimaginable that Martin would need to go through the five stages of grief to process it, apparently. 

“It’s just--” Martin says, but cuts himself off. 

“What is it now?” Jon asks. It goes without saying that Martin has found another angle to be bothered by this. He’d decided to leave Martin to grapple with it on his own, but… it’s been a couple of days now, and he’s still grappling. So he might need the help after all. 

“The power dynamic,” Martin says after a moment of hesitation. 

Jon blinks, taken off guard. “The… power dynamic?” 

“Wouldn’t you… isn’t the idea of-- of being in a relationship with someone who can literally control your every action… scary? That could go badly in so many ways. Really badly.” 

“Who said anything about a relationship?” he asks, mystified. 

“You confessed to--” 

“Yes, but what does that have to do with it? A relationship is already out of the question. It’s not as if you return my feelings.” 

There’s a long, long silent moment. 

“Martin,” Jon says. 

Martin doesn’t say anything. 

“Martin,” Jon repeats, aghast. “You can’t mean-- good lord.” 

“It’s not…” Martin protests weakly, but can’t seem to even get through the entire sentence without trailing off sheepishly. 

“You,” Jon says, “you have been grappling with the revelation that I like you as if you’ve learned the mystery of what lies beyond the veil between life and death, you have been interrogating me and worrying and nitpicking and fretting and pondering and philosophizing-- and you like me back? It’s requited?” 

“I’m,” Martin starts, as if to defend himself, and he stops and winces at the look of sheer disbelief Jon levels at him. “I’m sorry?” he finishes. 

“Why,” he says. This had been ridiculous before, back when he’d thought his emotions had been a one way street, an unanticipated shock. Now-- now he doesn’t know what this is. “Why have you been agonizing over this for-- for over a week now? It’s one thing to-- to--” 

“I just wanted to understand,” Martin says, his gaze slinking away from meeting Jon’s. 

“What is there to understand?” he asks. “If you can like me, then what’s so unbelievable about me liking you? Shouldn’t you already understand?” 

“It’s not the same,” Martin says. 

“Yes, it is,” he says, indignant with confusion. 

“It really, really isn’t,” Martin says. Before Jon can open his mouth to argue further, to declare that he’s being frustrating and obtuse and not making sense in the slightest, he goes on. “You’re… you’re amazing, Jon. I’ve never met anyone like you. And I don’t even just mean that you’re the only magical person I’ve ever-- well, the only fairy I’ve ever met. You’re just so-- so, so genuine? So kind? So ridiculous? So you? Of, of course I’d fall-- of course I’d end up liking you. Anyone who wouldn’t is just… not someone I could ever understand. You’re great.” 

Jon stops. In the rush of exasperation, he hadn’t truly taken in the fact that Martin likes him, but it rises back up now, stealing his breath away. Martin’s eyes are shiny and looking directly at him now, his cheeks flushed with sincerity, and he looks like the most beautiful creature Jon’s ever witnessed. 

He likes me, he thinks, and the words are traced through with wonder and disbelief and sheer happiness. 

“And you’re not?” he asks him. 

Martin had sat with a very straight spine during his little speech, his shoulders squared boldly, his jaw set almost mulishly, like he was prepared to die on the hill of Jon’s apparent lovableness. Like he’d fight for it, and fiercely. It’s thrilling in a way that sets Jon’s heart racing. At this, though, he wilts back into something more uncertain and dampened. 

“Well,” he says. “That’s… You know, I’m not…” 

Jon stares at Martin as he flounders for words. It’s clear that the only reason that he isn’t saying that he’s-- that he’s unremarkable or some other such rubbish is simply because he’d find it too embarrassing to say it out loud. As if it should go without saying. Martin, Jon realizes with a dawning, incredulous comprehension, does not think very much of himself. He thinks very little of himself, in fact. Much, much less than he deserves. 

Well, he thinks. This won’t do at all. 

“I like you,” he says firmly, interrupting Martin’s pained attempts at an answer. Martin twitches, and Jon notices now the deeply alert way his eyes dart towards and fasten onto Jon’s face as he says it. Centered on his mouth, like he wants to watch his lips shape the words. Has he been doing that the entire time? Every single time he’s said it? How could he not have noticed? “I like you because you’re wonderful, and I enjoy being around you and talking to you very much, and you’re my most favorite person I’ve ever met in my life. I may be capable of lying, but I don’t, as a general rule. So you’ll just have to take me on my word and trust that I’m telling you the truth, as difficult as you may find it to believe.” 

Martin’s mouth opens, closes. While Jon had been speaking, his face had grown steadily pinker and pinker. He looks at Jon now, avid and bright eyed. Jon does his best to look firm and forbidding, like someone who won’t brook any argument. 

“Okay,” Martin breathes. 

“Okay--? I, I mean, yes. Of course. Good. I’m glad that you see it my way.” He takes a breath, and continues. “We both like each other.” 

Martin’s eyes widen. 

“So,” he forges ahead ruthlessly, feeling his face heat. “That means--” 

“But the power dynamic!” Martin interrupts, his voice rising in pitch with alarm, as if he has to cut Jon off before he can finish. “That’s-- that’s a-- we can’t just--” 

“There’s already a power dynamic,” Jon says, disgruntled but trying to be cool and calm and rational. “And we already have a relationship, even if it’s not romantic-- yet. We live together. We sleep together. We make our meals together. We spend a considerable amount of time with each other. All of this, we somehow manage with a power dynamic hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles. If it’s not a problem now, then I don’t see why it should suddenly become one, even if we--  if we change the relationship.” 

Martin’s blush deepens, presumably as it flits across his mind what some of those changes might be. Changes that involve fingers intertwined with each other, lips brushing against lips. Jon curls his fingers tightly inwards at the thought. 

“But it is a problem now,” Martin says, hushed. 

He has a point. 

“Then it’s one that we can already bear,” he says. “We should be able to keep bearing it in the future.” 

“We might not,” he says. 

“We might also be eaten by bears tomorrow.” 

“Bears aren’t actually local to this area--” 

“Martin!” 

“Sorry! Just-- they’re not!” 

“We might be eaten by some local animal tomorrow, then. Anything may happen. Can’t we simply… deal with that when it happens? If it happens? We have more than enough to deal with without dreading things that might happen in the future. Let’s just… enjoy our happiness together while we have it? We could end up having it for a short time. Or,” and, he decides internally, this is the one that’s going to end up being true, “we could have it for a very long time. Either way, there’s no sense in just tossing it aside.” 

Jon looks at Martin intently, willing him to see reason, to admit that he’s wrong and Jon’s right, that the only logical, reasonable, correct thing for them to do is to be together. Jon can do this for as long as it takes; he will find a counter to every single one of Martin’s protests, arguments, and denials, because he is right and he will win and he wants to kiss--

Martin gives a little disbelieving, self effacing laugh. Jon blinks, unprepared. 

“Sorry,” Martin says, “it’s just-- I feel like I’m trying my best to stop someone from-- from giving me a million pounds, or a new car, or… I’m being kind of ridiculous right now, aren’t I?” 

“Yes,” Jon says. “Yes, you are.”  

“It’s just really hard to believe. Feels too good to be true. Doesn’t feel like it should be allowed to happen, you know? I’ve got to be doing something wrong, for this to be happening. Tricking or stealing or lying, or-- something.” 

“You’re too good to be true,” he says doggedly. “And you certainly haven’t stolen me, or tricked me or lied to me.” After a beat, he adds, “Well, not in a sinister fashion.” 

Martin does have a bit of a habit of slipping in little white lies, he’s begun to notice. Letting people assume what they want to, playing into it. Nothing drastic, but… 

“I kind of stole you,” Martin says, but he’s smiling wryly as he says it. He looks fond and a touch tired, like he’s been wrung out by all of his emotions. 

“From the mandibles of death,” Jon says. “Under the circumstances, I hold no grudges. In fact, I appreciate it.” 

“Well,” Martin says, clearly searching for a suitable response. “Good.” 

“So you surrender to my argument?” Jon asks eagerly. “You’ll admit that I’m right, and we should be together?” 

Martin laughs again, this time more from the chest. “Am I going to surrender-- Jon, you’re talking like this is some kind of debate that you have to win. That’s not how relationships work.” 

“So we are in a relationship?” he persists. 

There’s a brief beat and then softly, as if with realization, Martin says, “yes.” 

Jon beams. Reaching out, he snaps up one of Martin’s hands and squeezes it between his own. It’s warm and broad, calloused from his work in the gardens. The same hand that had so carefully plucked him out of a spider's web months ago now, cautious and delicate with his thin wings, his frantic struggling. Shh, he’d said, comforting, encouraging. Calm down. You’re out of the web now. 

He has kind hands. Jon’s always liked them. And now he gets to hold them, whenever he wants to. He rubs his thumb in a circle over the back of one of them, entranced. 

“Jon?” Martin says, something vulnerable and raw in his voice that makes Jon look back up at him. Martin’s face is red, his eyes bright and fixed on Jon’s mouth again. “Can I-- I want to kiss you.” 

“Oh,” Jon says. After a moment, he says, “I want that too.” 

“It’s-- it’s been a while since I-- for me,” Martin says. “Just so you know. Might need a moment to…” 

“No, you won’t,” Jon informs him. 

“Really, you shouldn’t get your hopes up,” Martin says. 

“No, you don’t understand. We’re married. You know how to kiss me, just like how you know how to share a bed with me. It will come naturally to you.” 

“... Seriously?” 

“Yes.” 

“That’s… wow, okay, god. This whole bride slave thing is really ick, the more I learn about it.” 

“Don’t overthink it. This is a kiss we both want, so… it’s fine. Your body knows we’re married better than your mind does. Listen to your instincts. Just--” 

Martin leans in, and he kisses Jon. There’s a flash of hesitance across his expression, of trepidation and nerves, but then he must listen to Jon. His eyes close, but his lips find Jon’s without any issue, as if they’ve practiced this. He tilts his head slightly to the side so that they won’t bump their noses together, and Jon automatically moves to do the same. One of Martin’s hands comes up to the small of Jon’s back, steady and soothing, and its presence feels almost expected, the way you expect for the floor to be there when you get out of bed in the morning. Jon’s arms come up to wind around Martin’s neck, and the motion is smooth and unconscious, thoughtless. 

They kiss, and it’s an easy, familiar kiss, their bodies slotting together perfectly. Like this is something they’ve done so many times that they’ve lost count, until it’s a movement that’s been carved into them in the same way that a river carves the landscape around it. Something as natural and easy as breathing. 

It’s their first kiss. 

Their lips part, and then they just breathe against each other for a moment, before Martin speaks up softly, as if they need to be careful not to shatter the quiet. 

“That’s really weird,” he whispers. 

“But not bad?” 

“No,” Martin says. “Not bad. Just…” 

“Strange.” 

“Yeah.” 

“... Perhaps we should kiss some more, until it stops feeling strange?” 

“That,” Martin says, “is a really smart idea, Jon.” 

Squeezing his arms around Martin’s neck, he grins into his throat, proud of himself and giddy. He did it. He got Martin to kiss him. Martin giggles above and around him, probably because Jon accidentally tickled the delicate skin of his throat. 

“Of course it is,” Jon says, happy enough that he can’t even get the smile out of his voice as he tries to sound haughty in the way that always makes Martin roll his eyes and grin at him. “I only ever have smart ideas.” 

“You were really the right one here, so I won’t argue,” Martin says warmly. 

They kiss again. And they kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss, until eventually the familiarity begins to feel familiar. And then they keep kissing some more after that, too. 

Surprisingly, their life together barely changes at all, except for how it changes completely. They still sleep and wake up in the same bed, they still eat breakfast together, they still go to their respective jobs, they still tidy up and keep their home nice and neat for themselves and each other, and they still putter about for a few hours down in the living room before going to bed each evening, entertaining themselves with whatever is at hand. 

But now, when Martin wakes up in the morning and he finds that he’s curled around Jon, his front to his back, he can reach down and press a fond kiss to the back of his neck and linger there in the warmth and comfort underneath the sheets for several minutes without feeling guilty or strange for it. When they eat breakfast he can reach out across the table and squeeze Jon’s hand if the urge ever strikes him, instead of pushing the impulse down, ignored and unacknowledged. When they part ways, on the days that they part ways (there are some where they don’t, where they stay attached to each other from sunrise to sunset) for their jobs Jon will squeeze him, firm and tight in his arms, and very seriously informs him that he should have a good day, and that Jon will be missing him. When they do chores they bicker toothlessly and good naturedly (Martin, Jon will gasp theatrically, holding up a long strand of black hair that could only be from one of them, Martin you have to stop shedding everywhere, it’s disgusting), working around each other, turning boring drudgery and obligation into something that Martin can laugh his way through. 

And nowadays, in the evenings when they while away time before they go to bed, what they entertain themselves with is often each other. Not even just kissing-- though they do a lot of that, and it’s very, very nice. Martin’s spent hours with Jon curled comfortably underneath his arm, snugly up against his side, or sat in his lap while reading a book. He’ll idly play with his hair with one hand, or be rubbing his thumb in regular soothing little circles into the bone of his hip, or have a hand shoved up the back of his shirt, comfortingly scratching at the skin there with his blunt nails in repetitive motions that Jon arches his back into like a pleased cat, humming his approval at the attention. Hours and hours spent with skin pressed up against skin, soaking in each other's warmth, matching their breathing to each other. Martin has honestly never felt this consistently content in his life. 

Today, however, Martin’s tucked away on the couch rereading his favorite poem anthology while eating clementine wedges, and Jon’s off in the kitchen, sat at the table with Martin’s phone. He could be playing around with Martin’s phone here in the living room with him, but he isn’t. That, Martin knows, means that he’s almost definitely furtively indulging in his newest guilty pleasure: cat videos. 

It’s honestly hilarious. Martin knows he’s been watching them, because that’s all the Youtube algorithm is recommending his account nowadays. He’d probably be able to see all of it in the browser history too, but he’s trying to let Jon have some privacy, even if it’s really obvious what he’s doing with it. He can hear him sometimes give startled, muffled gasps from the kitchen, probably whenever the cats in the videos move too quickly for comfort. Jon’s still jumpy, when it comes to cats. But they’re also really obviously growing on him as a species, at least from the safety of a screen. 

If Martin had to guess why Jon’s only watching cat videos in secrecy, like an embarrassed teenager trying to watch porn on the sly without being painfully obvious about it, then he’d have to say that it probably has something to do with Jon’s earlier impassioned rant about how cats are terrible and he’ll never tolerate one in the house, ever. Might be a bit embarrassing to backpedal from that one. Martin, fond and indulgent, pretends not to notice and lets Jon have his little secret. 

It’s a very, very cute secret for him to have, though. 

Martin can’t focus on the poems. Not in a bad way, where the words on the page seem dull and meaningless and pointless, pretty empty words written by people he’ll never meet and has nothing in common with. It had been that way for a long time, after his mum passed. It’s more like he’s just-- distracted. Having a hard time focusing. 

It’s only been a couple of weeks since they’ve become more than just two people trapped by coincidence and misfortune in a marriage against their will and trying to make the best of it. Since the kiss, as Martin thinks of it in the sappy, sentimental privacy of his mind. It’s only been a couple of weeks, and he still can’t quite bring himself to believe that this is his life during the quiet moments when he’s left alone with his thoughts. 

It wasn’t so long ago that he’d lived in this house alone. It had been peaceful-- and quiet, and lonely, and boring. It had been passing the days and weeks and months like he was just ticking the boxes and killing time until… for the rest of his life. He’d eat, go to work, sleep. Eat, go to work, sleep. Repeat. He’d fill in the empty hours with chores, or reading the same books over and over again, or mindless TV that he wouldn’t remember the next day, or whatever he could work up the energy for. He’d go down to the village once a week-- but only once, only for as much as he could justify to himself. It felt… stupid, somehow, to go down there just for the sake of being around people. Stupid, and silly, and embarrassing, and pathetic. Not allowed. So he didn’t. 

And now Jon’s here, and even when he isn’t in the same room as him Martin can feel his presence in the house. The way he fills it up with life and warmth and breath, turns it somehow from a building to a home. He doesn’t feel like he’s just going through the motions and killing time. Like he could die in his bedroom one night and it would take people days, maybe even weeks, to suspect something. Maybe longer. 

Bit morbid, that. He's glad he doesn’t feel that way any longer. It’s still just… incredible, though. How so much has changed so profoundly, in such a short span of time. He never would’ve been able to predict a single part of this. Not just magic, but that Jon lives with him, that Jon wants to live with him. That he wants for Martin to hold him, and kiss him, and to hold his hands and murmur stupid jokes and shy endearments to him. That he wants to return the favour. 

He really can’t understand it, not even now. He still doesn’t understand how Jon could-- but maybe it doesn’t really matter that he doesn’t understand. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s true whether he understands it or not. Like magic. Or even more mundane things like-- like magnets, or rocket science, or how to make a hollandaise sauce without messing it up. All of those things are possible and exist out there, even if he couldn’t begin to explain it himself. It’s just… another one of those strange, incredible things about life. Another one of Jon’s little oddities. 

They’d gone down to the village for a cookout, yesterday. They’d been invited as a couple. Specifically, Jon had been given an invitation, and he’d passed it onto Martin and he’d looked at him expectantly for an answer. Whether or not he’d go. If the invitation had been made to just Martin, if Jon weren’t here-- he knows that he wouldn’t have. The invitation was only made out of polite obligation, he’d tell himself. He’d only make things awkward by taking them up on it. He wouldn’t fit in, he’d stand out, he’d be awkward and boring. Best for everyone if he just… didn’t. Easier. 

But Jon was invited too. And Jon isn’t like Martin. He can’t just go for years and years while barely speaking to anyone without it affecting him. He acts like it doesn’t, but-- whenever Jon talks about his life before he met Martin it always seems so… so sad, and lonely, and empty in a way. No friends, no allies, no loved ones. Jon deserves better than that. He deserves to get to go to cookouts if he wants to. And he probably wouldn’t go if Martin didn’t come with, and if he did go without Martin he’d probably spend the whole evening fretting anway-- 

So they went. Martin had spent the entire time feeling vaguely stressed out and nervous-- but he thinks he enjoyed himself too? It, it was honestly kind of fun. Just also really tiring, in a way that had him collapsing into his bed at the end of the day. And more importantly, Jon had seemed to enjoy himself too, so. It was worth it. 

His eyes move across lines of artful words that he’s read more than a dozen times before, the poems as well worn in his mind as the pages of the book, without really taking any of them in. It’s a love poem, he thinks. A woman talking about her wife, how she’d do anything for her, and how she knows that her wife would do the same thing for her. The security in that knowledge. 

Jon would do anything for Martin. He’d set himself on fire, if Martin asked. He wouldn’t have any choice in the matter. Not… not as romantic as the poem. 

He’s really strongly considered engineering some sort of elaborate scenario in which Jon has to save his life, while lying awake at night. Balancing the scales. He’d told himself the whole time that he wouldn’t actually do it, of course. It’d be stupid, dangerous, risky, and probably wouldn’t work anyways. Martin isn’t some sort of diabolical chessmaster or a machiavellian genius. He wouldn’t be able to pull it off. At best, it wouldn’t end in serious injury. But he’d still thought about it. 

He just-- he wishes it weren’t like this. They’re so happy together, but sometimes-- sometimes, it feels like Martin’s got a knife to Jon’s throat, always. And because it’s always there, sometimes they forget about it, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still there. It just means that he gets careless, and Jon gets cut again. He’s tired of messing up and cutting Jon. Even when it’s just small papercuts, it hurts. Makes him feel like an awful person, an awful partner, to remind Jon of just how helpless he really is. How much his freedom is because Martin’s letting him have it. 

But there isn’t going to be some sort of magical fix to the problem, no button to push to make it go away. He can’t rely on some freak miracle making everything okay. He wishes there was a way to make this magical binding between them into something mutual, something equal, but if there’s a solution then he doesn’t have it. It’s just… there, and they just have to deal with it as best as they can. 

Martin puts his book down, looking in the direction of the kitchen door, where Jon is. Their situation is weird and messed up and kind of upsetting sometimes, but-- screw it. Screw capital M Magic and what it thinks his relationship with Jon should be, screw the concept of bride slaves especially. Screw all of it. Everyone and everything else is wrong. Magic is wrong. Jon… he loves Jon. He loves Jon, and they’re married, so-- so they’re equal partners. 

If Jon is his husband, then he’ll be his in return. As long as they both shall live. He’s decided. 

There’s a sharp, undignified yelp followed by the clatter of something falling heavily to the floor in the kitchen, firmly derailing Martin’s train of thought. A chair? 

“Jon!?” Martin calls out, standing up from his chair, his book falling to the floor ignored. “What--” 

There’s a frantic scrabbling noise from the kitchen before Jon appears in the doorway, catching himself on the doorframe almost as if he threw himself at it. His eyes are round and wide, something wild and shocked in his expression. 

“Martin,” he says with an incredible intensity, “what did you just do?” 

“Nothing!” he says, his hands going up as if to show that he’s not holding any weapons, or there’s no blood on them. “I-- I was just sitting here! What-- what’s wrong? What are you--” 

“Can’t you feel it!?” Jon demands, and gestures at the air between them, his hands curled up into claws. “No-- of course you can’t--” 

“Feel what?” Martin asks, exasperation rising. Jon’s acting like the house is on fire or something, but he won’t tell him where. 

“You must have done something!” Jon shouts. 

“Done what?” 

Jon reaches up to pull at his hair, looking deeply, profoundly overwhelmed. Martin hears himself make a concerned noise in the back of his throat, taking an automatic step closer to Jon, his hands held uselessly up in the air. 

“Jon--” 

“Tell me to pick that up,” Jon says, pointing at the book Martin had dropped to the floor. 

“What?” he asks, stopping, bewildered. “Why?” 

“Just do it!” Jon insists. He looks borderline manic, every inch of him shivering with energy. 

“I…” he says, hesitating. Okay, fuck it. “Jon, please-- please pick that book up for me.” 

“No,” Jon says very deliberately. They both stand there and hold their breaths for a moment, as if waiting for something. But nothing happens. The two of them just stand there-- Jon just stands there-- 

“Oh my god,” he says, feeling his own face go slack and wide eyed with realization. “You’re not picking it up!” 

“I’m not picking it up!” Jon agrees, nodding vigorously. 

Bubbly with a sudden urgent energy, Martin looks wildly around the room. 

“That,” he says, pointing at a couch pillow. “Pick it up.” 

“No, I won’t,” Jon says. 

Martin laughs with incredulous glee. 

“Throw-- throw that lamp!” 

“No! I refuse!” 

“Jump!”

“Absolutely not!” 

They keep going like this, and with each firm no Martin smiles harder, laughs more, feeling light and bubbly and almost dizzy. Jon is smiling now too, the laughter infectious, even as confusion and incredulity bleeds through at the edges. Awe and excitement and bewilderment all mix together into a weird, disorienting soup. 

“I don’t understand,” Jon breathes, once Martin’s run out of ideas for orders that Jon can simply refuse. “I don’t understand. I’m not your bride slave any longer. How? It’s not something you can just shake off. What did you do? You must have done something. You must.” 

“I don’t know!” Martin replies, still feeling disbelieving and wildly delighted. “I was-- I was just sitting there and reading-- and thinking of you…” 

“Thinking of me?” Jon says, latching onto this. 

“Yeah,” Martin says. He’d almost forgotten about it, in the sudden hectic rush of confusion and happiness, but-- “I was thinking about how-- I decided to be your husband too. That we’d be equals.” 

Jon stares at him in silence. 

“Can that have been it?” Martin asks. “It-- it can’t seriously have been that easy, could it? I was just thinking it. I just made a decision. Anyone could do that.” 

It feels too simple, too easy-- and yet. And yet it would be impossible to trick a husband master into doing it, he realizes. It’s something that could only ever possibly happen on purpose, intentionally, deliberately. It’s nothing but will, intention. A decision. 

He wonders how often it happens. It might, he thinks, be very, very rarely. 

“Why would you do that?” Jon asks, and he snaps back to the present moment, to this room. Jon’s looking at him like-- like he can’t understand him in the slightest. “Why would you lower yourself to--” 

He cuts himself off. 

Jon suddenly looks very small, in a way that makes Martin’s heart hurt. 

“Lower myself?” he asks. It’s an antiquated, almost ridiculous phrase, like he’s a lord condescending to a serf. Except that Jon says it seriously, sincerely, as if he really means it. “To what? You?” 

“I’m just a fairy,” Jon says, as if that explains everything. 

“Jon,” Martin says. “I’m just a gardener. I’m really, really not important, or powerful, or special. I’m just-- I’m me. And me properly marrying you doesn’t lower me in any way, alright? You’re amazing.” 

“Everything is above a fairy. We’re at the bottom.” 

“You’re not just a fairy,” he says doggedly. He’s said this before, and he’ll say it as many times as it takes. “You’re Jon. And I-- I think that counts for a lot, alright? I really, really, really like Jon. I want to be your husband more than-- more than anything in the world.” 

Jon just looks at him for a long moment, his chest visibly rising and falling, his eyes shiny. Martin itches to take a step forward and sweep him into his arms, but-- there’s something he recognizes, in Jon’s face. Something familiar. 

“I know that you don’t understand it,” he goes on, more gently. “Maybe you can’t. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. I… I love you.” 

There’s a long moment-- and then Jon nods. A tear slips free with the motion, and he hurriedly wipes it away with one wrist. 

“Alright,” Jon says, his voice is rough with emotion. 

“Alright?” Martin asks, tentative and encouraging. He takes one step closer, and Jon leans closer towards him, as if succumbing to gravity. Martin takes it as permission to close the rest of the distance between them, his arms coming up around him, pressing him close up against his chest. Jon’s breath huffs out against Martin’s neck, wetness on his face. 

“Yes,” Jon says, melting against him. Martin smooths a hand down over his back, tracing the tattoo lines of his disguised wings. “I love you, too.” 

There’s nothing Martin can do in the face of that but kiss his husband, and so he does. Thoroughly.