Chapter Text
The sunlight meanders through the blinds, casting the room in a soft, warm glow, and shining directly into Martin’s eyes. He blinks awake, and shields his eyes with his free hand. His other arm is slung around Jon, who has laid his head on Martin’s chest. Martin takes a moment to hold Jon with more intention, smoothing his hand gently over his back. Jon shivers and blinks awake, his face twisting into a pout.
“You woke me up.” His voice is bleary, barely more than a mumble.
Martin brushes the hair out of Jon’s face and tucks it behind his ear. “Sorry, love, didn’t mean to. I can go make us breakfast to make up for it?”
Jon latches onto him, twisting his cold fingers into Martin’s sweater with a death grip. “Don’t you fucking dare move.”
Martin can’t help but chuckle softly at the indignation in his tone. “Okay, I won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”
He kisses the top of his head and sighs contentedly. Jon snuggles deeper under the blankets, and within a few minutes his breathing has evened and Martin can tell that either Jon has fallen back asleep or he’s faking it well. He tries to stay as still as possible while he soaks in the warmth of the man he loves so much pressed up against him. He can’t believe he gets to wake up to this every morning, that everything turned out this good, that they’ve been together for over a year and things have been smooth sailing, save for the one bump when Elias intervened.
They had worried in the immediate aftermath of the Heist—as they started affectionately calling it—that there would be some kind of reciprocity. Their worry had only mounted when they didn’t hear anything from Annabelle or the department for almost a full week. Both Martin and Jon skipped debate class the following Monday, just to be on the safe side.
But when Martin didn’t get arrested, and when no one was expelled or even disciplined, they started to think that maybe Elias was really going to pretend it never happened as self-preservation. When Gerry showed up for the debate practice round, Elias asked about Jon’s whereabouts in a decidedly neutral tone—according to Gerry, at least, though his bar for “neutral” tends to be quite low. They started to worry that maybe the evidence wasn’t enough, maybe Annabelle was actually working for Elias and wanted the evidence destroyed. They weren’t sure what to fear, but they worried.
They heard the news first from Tim. He rushed into the cafe where Martin was on shift, breathless and beaming. “Peter Lukas hasn’t come to a single class today.”
Martin stared at him blankly from behind the register. “O-okay?”
Tim shakes his head. “No, you don’t understand. He’s a recluse, but the guy has never missed a class. They just sent an email out to the comms department introducing an interim dean that’s taking over for Dr. Fairchild immediately.”
The implications of what that means dawns on Martin. “Wait, fucking seriously?”
“Whatever you did worked, Martin. It worked!”
“What about Bouchard?”
Tim shrugs. “I haven’t heard anything, maybe ask Jon or Gerry? But they had to have gotten him, too. Wait, hang on.”
Both of their phones had buzzed simultaneously, and Martin leaned over the counter to look at the screen with Tim so he wouldn’t get yelled at for being on his phone during his shift.
Daisy sent a video to the group chat with a short message about how she had been called to Bouchard’s office over Petunia again and was tactfully evicted from the room by a man in a suit. She stood in the hallway and filmed the conversation between them. The first parts of conversation were too quiet behind the cracked door to be picked up from across the hall, so Daisy crept closer.
“...are under arrest. Now, we don’t wish to make this a bigger scene than necessary, so please, if you’ll just come with me.”
“Excuse me, who do you think you are?” The haughty derision in Elias’ voice was familiar, but this time it’s ineffectual. He was calm, though, calmer than to be expected under the circumstances.
“Dr. Bouchard, you’ve been accused of a very serious crime, and the university doesn’t wish to associate with you anymore. You are to be escorted off of the premises and taken into police custody, to save you face and to not make a scene. We’d all like to handle this quietly.”
Elias scoffed. “Please, you have nothing on me, and once any court takes a look at this case, it’ll be thrown out immediately. Then I will take my rightful place as the dean of this department. If you’d kindly get out of my office, I have paperwork to file.”
“You seem to not understand what’s happening here. You have been dismissed by the university, and you are no longer welcome. It’s over.”
“Dismissed? Oh. Pity.” There’s a creak of Elias’ chair as he let out a long sigh. “I was supposed to be dean. It was going to be wonderful.”
“Dr. Bouchard, I understand that, but regardless, it’s time to go.” The suit’s voice remained level, but there was a firmness to it. “You can leave with me, or I’ll call security to take you out in cuffs.”
The chair creaked again. “W-wait. Let me, uh, call my lawyer.”
“Sir, you can call your lawyer after you’ve been formally arrested, just like everyone else.”
“But I-I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t want to suffer.”
And then the video cuts off because, as Daisy explained in the chat, the suited man got tired of waiting for Elias to comply and started to call for backup, and she left before the cops got involved.
Martin pressed a hand to his mouth, letting the joy and relief overwhelm his senses. “It’s over.”
“You did it.” Tim punched his shoulder lightly. “You absolute legend, you did it!”
That night, Martin played the video for Jon. When Martin watched it, he had nothing but contempt for Elias, but Jon started to tear up. Martin forgot that Bouchard was his mentor, his coach, and even though he was a monster, their relationship was complicated.
Martin watched his face carefully as they neared the end of the clip so he can offer the kind of support Jon needs to avoid invalidating his feelings.
“I don’t want to suffer.”
Then, Jon cracks from sorrow to disgust. “Yeah, well, neither did anyone else,” he mutters. “Christ, what a prick.”
***
It was complicated, but it also wasn’t that complicated. Jon mourned the mentor he should have had, the one he hoped Elias would be. He was also extremely satisfied that Bouchard got arrested and was fired, that he was gone. He was gone for good. He would never be able to hurt Martin or Tim or Daisy or any of the other students he tormented that semester or over his entire career.
The relief that he felt, the weight being lifted and being able to just breathe since the first time Elias made Martin cry, it makes him bawl, just curl into himself and let go of all the fear he had. Martin had held him while he cried, not saying much but saying it so soothingly that Jon felt safe and cared for.
What a prick, indeed.
He can’t believe that they actually did it, their stupid plan actually worked. Peter’s gone, Elias is gone, AND they somehow took don Fairchild too? They weren’t even trying for him! There wasn’t any guarantee that whoever they hire to take over would be better, but Jon rested knowing that he did absolutely everything he could for students like Martin, like Daisy, like Naomi. As it turned out, Jon didn’t hear much of anything about the replacements for Fairchild or Lukas, which is exactly the way it should have been.
After Martin left for his shift at the call center, Jon decided that he didn’t want to be angry over how they had been wronged anymore. Instead, they deserved to celebrate their first successful plan.
He wasn’t good at planning this sort of thing, so he didn’t try to make it a party. Jon usually picked him up from the call center when he was free, so he could offer to celebrate with Martin if he felt up for it, and if not, they could save it for later. That was enough to calm some of his runaway nerves about putting too much pressure on someone else and embarrassing himself.
He needn’t have worried. Martin grinned when he came out of the call center and saw Jon holding flowers.
“O-oh, Jon. These are beautiful.” He buries his face in the bouquet and inhales deeply. “What are they for?”
“To celebrate!” He rocked back on his heels. “Bouchard’s finally gone, and I thought maybe we could do a picnic at the park to celebrate, just us? If you’re too tired, we can do it later, but I got champagne and a cake, and then I saw the flowers at the checkout and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten you flowers before, which seemed silly, because you absolutely deserve flowers—,” Martin cut Jon off by pulling him into a tight hug.
“Yes, let’s celebrate,” he whispered, choked up. “That sounds lovely.”
And it was lovely. Jon laid the blanket on the grass. It was chilly enough and dark outside that they were the only ones there, but that didn’t bother them one bit. Jon brought blankets for each of them, and he snuggled up to Martin with his glass of champagne and slice of cake.
“I want to get the soundwave of Elias’ tirade tattooed on my body,” Martin said. Jon assumed he was kidding, but he wasn’t totally sure.
“I wish it had happened outside the room so we could have seen the rage on his face.” Jon was wistful. “I watched it again, and you can hear when his cool calm demeanor starts to slip. He was finally taken off-guard, and it’s over now. He’s gone.”
“Now you can do the thing you love and not worry about Elias ruining it,” Martin said, patting his hand. “You get that choice.”
Jon sucked in a breath. “O-oh.” He took down Elias because he needed to be brought down, but he forgot how much of Martin’s motivation was Jon. He blinked and looks up to try to keep the forming tears from falling, and he sees the star splattered sky.
“Oh, Martin, look,” he whispered, gesturing upwards at the infinite universe above them, visible only in pinpricks of light through the darkness. His brain tried to make meaning out of that thought, but he shoved it away and focused instead on snuggling up close to Martin as they laid down to gaze at the stars. He didn’t need it to have deeper meaning; he was just happy.
“Hey, you know, now that we got the heist sorted out, maybe we should become a Bonnie and Clyde crime duo!” Martin teased.
Jon shuddered. “Look, I’ll go wherever you go, but you might want to reconsider that. We did get caught in the heist.”
“You’re right, we’d need to get Michael and Gerry involved.”
“Well they graduate at the end of this year, so we’d be on our own next year.”
Jon put his hand on Martin’s cheek and was nothing but certain that he wanted to be with Martin next year, that they would be together. He was thrilled at the thought of it.
“Mm, whenever they come back to visit, we’ll do a crime spree.”
“Intermittent crime family. It has a certain ring to it.”
They bantered back and forth about how Gerry would always stake out the place and then be on camera to try to get blamed for the crime but have a rock solid alibi, and then Michael would be the linchpin of the whole operation, criminal mastermind that he was.
Martin would assist, and Jon would be lookout and the distraction because of how he’s able to piss off most people with his personality alone.
Eventually Martin began to shiver, so they packed up the leftover cake and went home.
Jon took over the teaching of the debate class for the last four weeks since he’d basically been doing all the work for it already, and Fairchild had already approved him for the role. Jon didn’t take over the class the permanently, though. They asked him to teach it for the spring semester, and he decided that he didn’t want the pressure of a brand new crop of students. Jon couldn’t stop thinking back to the first few class periods where Melanie was still glaring at him and he made Martin cry, and the thought of going through that awful adjustment period with students who didn’t have a choice to be there, unlike those in the study group, he firmly refused. Everyone got flying marks at the end of the term, which they deserved, but even if they didn’t, no one questioned them after the whirlwind of a semester.
Jon decided, after thinking about it for the few weeks while the department scrambled for someone to officially take over the team, to take the rest of the year off.
Jon came to the realization at a game night with the whole friend group. They had just finished playing Uno—Tim won, much to Sasha’s chagrin—and Jon smiled and stood up to help Martin make everyone a cup of tea. Martin kissed Jon’s cheek as he moved around him, and Jon realized that he had everything he needed. He didn’t need debate as a way to make people be around him; he had friends now. He had a loving boyfriend and a healthy social life, and he wanted some space. He applied for a job at the tutoring center, and as he was getting the job reference number from the center mentioned off-hand that he was already teaching a university class, they hired him on the spot.
The team was fine without Jon, though. Gerry took over as the interim person in charge for the rest of the semester—and once that happened, about five new people joined to the delight of Naomi (and also Gerry). Naomi melded with the new people, and Agnes really stepped up to help mentor them—something which alarmed Gerry at first, but she was actually quite the leader when given the chance. Eventually, they hired an actual professor to replace Bouchard in the department, and she also took over the debate team.
Gerry, to his credit, gave Jon his space with debate and didn’t push him. When Jon mentioned that he might, maybe, possibly be stepping back, Gerry had given him his full support and didn’t ask him about it after that.
“Can we talk?” he asked one night in spring while they were cooking dinner together. “Listen, I just want you to know that you can say no, but I wanted to see if maybe, er, if I could ask you for something?”
Jon sat down at the table and furrowed his brow, instantly nervous. “Is it bad?”
“Ah, shit, no, it’s nothing bad. It’s just that the debate tournament in a month will be the last one I ever get to do. I would be honored if you would be my partner for it. I know you’re taking this semester off to recenter yourself, but we started out together, and I want to go out together, too. But again, if it’s too much, I understand and respect that.”
Jon reached across the table and set his hand on Gerry’s to quiet his panick. “I would be honored.” His voice was thick with emotion.
Gerry looked up from the tomatoes he was cutting. “Oh, Jon, are you crying?”
But Jon was already hugging him.
It was during the mandatory practice rounds that Jon had to attend before the tournament that he first met Bouchard’s replacement: Gertrude Robinson. She seemed to be in her sixties, with gray hair pulled into a severe bun. She dressed like she could be someone’s grandma in a jumper and skirt combination, but Jon saw the sharpness in her eyes when she looked him up and down.
“So you’re the captain that bailed?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes.” He was unsure of what that actually meant for her opinion of him. “It got a bit dicey in the end, and I wanted some…some space.”
She gave a dismissive flick of her hand. “I don’t care why you left as long as you’re fully committed to going to this tournament, and you’re not rusty. You and Gerry will be closing opposition today.” Her tone indicated that this wasn’t supposed to be a discussion, and Jon was relieved that there wasn’t any mental gymnastics about his standing with Dr. Robinson. She simply didn’t care about him.
It turns out that debate was a lot more fun when it’s just about the activity and less about doing the mental gymnastics involved in dodging Elias’ nonsense. When Dr. Robinson said that Jon needed to fake eye contact better and gave him the tip of looking right above the judge’s heads. It was helpful, actually.
The last tournament that Jon had with Gerry was the most fun Jon had had with debate in a long time. They made every single round focused on crimes about humanity, even the ones where it was an absurd stretch. It was bittersweet, knowing that it was going to be their last tournament. The rounds passed by too quickly, and when Gerry started to bully Jon into sneaking out of the hotel room to go to a nearby pub, he didn’t even put up a fight.
“What are you going to do when you graduate?” Jon asked over his pint. He’d been hedging around the topic for a few weeks, wondering what the game plan was but not wanting to bring it up in case it was a sore subject. But then felt like a good of a time as any.
“Michael and I have been talking,” Gerry said, a small smile playing on his lips. “We’re going to do an adventure. I have money left over from Mum, and it’ll never be easier to travel than it is right now, so we’re just going to go and see what happens. Make art, be dumb tourists, see the sights.”
“That… that sounds like something you would enjoy.” Jon could never do anything like that, the unknowns would be way too overwhelming to him. But Michael and Gerry would have an incredible time, and so he’s happy for them.
Gerry tilted his head back and laughed. “Yeah, but we’d come back to visit sometimes, too.” He reached across the table and took Jon’s hand in his, squeezing it tightly. “We’re family now.”
“You’d better. Martin is going to be beside himself when Michael leaves.”
“You say that like you won’t be, too.”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Just because we get along okay now doesn’t mean you have to go overboard.” Jon cleared his throat. “But I will miss you, too. You’re my best friend, and I love you. It’s going to be hard when you leave.”
Gerry nodded. “I know. I love you, too. It’s going to be hard to leave you behind. I won’t miss uni, though, that shit sucks.” They both laughed, then. “If you wanted to drop out and come with us, the invitation is there.” Gerry waggled his eyebrows, and Jon wrinkled his nose.
“No thanks.” He took a drink. “But you do have to come visit. That’s not optional.”
In the end, Jon and Gerry get third, and they both beamed when they accepted their trophy together.
Dr. Robinson didn’t smile when they made their way back to their seats, but she did corner Jon after the awards ceremony. “I would like to extend an invitation for you to come back to the team. Take all the time you need to get your head right, but you’re good at this, and there’s a place for you here.”
Jon emailed later that week to say that he’d be back in the fall. Martin, bless his heart, came with him. Dr. Robinson was apprehensive at first, but after she watched Martin debate with the novices the first time, she bumped him to varsity. Jon became Oliver’s permanent partner, and Martin debated with Georgie, but at one tournament that spring, the stars aligned perfectly and they debated together. They went out and bought matching outfits especially for the occasion, and they got second. Martin got first place speaker.
***
Jon mumbles something in his sleep, and Martin can’t help but smile.
Memories are wobbly, Martin knows this, and yet he swears up and down that he can remember the first time he saw Jon with picture perfect clarity. His hair was falling out of his top knot, and he had circles under his eyes so deep that Martin could see them from behind the counter at the cafe while Jon walked through the library. He was all sharp angles and nervous energy, and Martin had stopped breathing for almost a minute after he saw him.
He hadn’t fallen in love with him then, hadn’t even known his name or if he was even a student. But he would have given his left kidney to simply be noticed by Jon, even just a glance. He never dared to let himself hope for anything more than that, and even being noticed by someone as pretty as Jon seemed like asking a bit much.
Martin doesn’t think it’s asking a bit much anymore. He never let himself hope that anything this good would happen to him, and now that he has it, he’s let himself believe that he’s worth it. He’s lucky to be with Jon, sure, but Jon is lucky to be with him, too. It helps that Jon reminds him of that fact every chance he gets. Sometimes he does it out loud when Martin does something Jon thinks is special, like bringing back extra pastries from the cafe counter, and sometimes it’s with his gestures—like when he clings to Martin and falls back asleep in his arms because he feels safe there.
Martin loves Jon, and he loves the relationship that they’re building together, but he also loves the life he’s built outside of their relationship. That’s new.
He started going with Michael to dinner at Michael’s grandparents once or twice a week so that he could practice his Polish and learn all their family recipes and simply hang out with Michael and his family. It’s sweet and wholesome and domestic in a way that Martin never thought he would get. Instead of visiting his mum, he visits his adopted grandparents instead. Now that Michael has graduated and is touring Europe with Gerry, Martin’s taken over helping them with grocery shopping, errands, anything that might need a simple repair. They’re always happy to see him, and they never hesitate to correct his lopsided grammar. The first few times it made him flush, but now he’s fluent enough in Polish to add it back to his resume.
His mum had called a few more times after Jon hung up on her, and each time Jon would offer to go with him to visit. Jon always offered his steadfast support, but after she left a particularly belligerent voice message, he blurted out that he wanted to physically fight her. He immediately clapped his hands over his mouth and bended over backwards apologizing before he realized that his comment had caused Martin to burst into shocked laughter. The whole situation was ridiculous. His boyfriend was so mad at his mother that he threatened to beat her up.
So no, Martin doesn’t meet with her. He still reads her text messages for now, but he deletes them when they get abusive. He stopped working two jobs to send her extra money, too. She’s still taken care of in the home, but Martin was able to quit the call center and just work at the cafe. He’s wracked with guilt for that, too, but oh well. He’s learned to live with it and forgive himself for taking care of himself. It helps that money’s not so tight anymore so he can support having actual hobbies, and that his rent is a lot cheaper now that he and Jon have moved in together.
He meets with a workshop group when he used to be at the call center, and he became confident enough in some of his revised pieces that he started submitting his poetry, and when he got rejected most of the time, it didn’t sting like he thought it would have.
Now Martin fills his free time with Jon, usually, going on long walks or day trips, listening to music and watching movies and playing through his entire collection of boardgames. Sometimes he hangs out with Tim or Sasha, or the people from his poetry workshop, even with Melanie and Georgie on one memorable evening when the three of them went ghost hunting in an abandoned church together. It was spooky, and he had a great time. Usually his time with Georgie is spent prepping for debate tournaments, or actually debating together each week at the practice rounds, which are noticeably more fun now that Agnes, Mike, and Jude have all graduated.
Sometimes he spends time alone, too. It doesn’t ache like it did before when it didn’t feel like it was a choice.
He loves the person that he’s becoming. That’s new, too.
After awhile, Jon stirs on his own accord with a growl of his stomach. “Ugh. Bodies.” He wrinkles his nose and pulls himself into a seated position and stretches.
“Oh, hush, your body’s great,” Martin says as he sits up and puts a hand on Jon’s back. He feels Jon tense, and it clicks what he just said. He pulls his hand back fast like it was burned. “Ah-uh, I didn’t mean-uh—”
Jon turns to face him. “No, I-I know you didn’t mean it like that. I just, um.” He huffs a curl out of his face. “I just don’t, er. Um.”
“I really shouldn’t have said that, I didn’t even think about the connotations, and what I meant is that I love every part of you, even the part that gets hungry, and I should have just said that, but I didn’t mean to make you uncomfort—”
Jon cups Martin’s face in both his hands. “Martin. Listen to me. You didn’t make me uncomfortable. It’s just that, we’ve been together for over a year now, and I just… Wanted to check in? On how you were feeling with the physical stuff? Because I don’t want—” he cuts himself off, frustrated with not being able to find the right words. “Just, how are you feeling? With the physical stuff?”
Martin’s cheeks are a bit smushed under Jon’s hands, and he searches his face with frantic eyes. “You don’t want to what? To kiss? To cuddle? Because we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to. Oh, my god, do you feel like I’m pressuring you?”
Jon groans. “No, of course not! I love the cuddling, and I really like the kissing, the kissing is great. It’s just, in the past, usually people use kissing as like… the road to the destination, rather than it being the thing itself? So there’s usually a bit when I need to suggest that we slow down or stop, but we, um, don’t do that? You kiss me just to kiss me.”
Martin stares at Jon for a long moment, uncomprehending. “That seems like it should be good? Can you please tell me what’s wrong, because I feel like I’ve done something, and I would like to fix it.”
“I don’t want to be a tease,” he finally blurts out. He drops his hands from Martin’s cheeks and shrinks into himself. “I just, I thought I’d have a better grasp on your boundaries right now so I don’t accidentally push too far.”
“Who told you that kissing made you a tease?” Martin frowns. Jon collapses even further into himself, and Martin runs his fingers through his hair. “Actually, don’t answer that, because I will commit violence.”
That gets a laugh out of Jon, taking some of the tension in his shoulders with it.
“Listen to me, love, you’re not teasing me. You’ve never pushed too far, and I’m very happy with the physical part of our relationship. If I wasn’t, I would say something, and we’d talk about it together.”
“But don’t you ever want to do more?”
Martin shrugs. “Not… not really? I mean, yeah, the kissing is fantastic, but I’m good.”
Jon squints at him. “Never? You’ve never once wanted to do more?” He leans in closer. “Because we make out all the time. Never once have you thought, ‘gee, whiz, I’d sure love to have sex right now? I know Jon’s not into it, but wouldn’t that be fun?’”
“I… No?” Martin is baffled at Jon’s insistence. “It’s never been an option, so I’ve never really thought about. Is that… is that weird?”
“Well, not to me,” Jon says with a laugh. “But I’ve been led to believe,,, yeah?” He pauses. “Never once?”
Martin pulls the corner of the duvet up into a small bundle that he hugs. “Well, I’ve never dated anyone seriously before you, so I wasn’t very experienced in that sort of stuff. I like the idea of it in theory, I guess, but no, I’ve never wished that we would do anything more than what we’ve done. If you wanted to try something, I think I’d be okay with that, but I’m honestly fine with what we’re doing now. You’re really great at snuggling, and you smell good, and your kisses are fantastic, and yeah. I hope that’s fine?”
Jon closes the distance between them and presses a chaste kiss to Martin’s lips. “Flatterer.”
“Is it flattery if it’s true?”
“Yes.”
“Then guilty as charged, love. Are you reassured? Are you going to stop interrogating me about my sexual urges?”
Jon wrinkles his nose. “Oh, gross, don’t put it like that!”
Martin scoffs in indignation. “You started it!”
Jon laughs as they finally drag themselves out of bed and make it to the kitchen where their cat, the Commodore, is pacing next to her bowl and meowing loudly, demanding food. Jon feeds the Commodore while Martin starts tea and breakfast.
They had decided to move into their own flat together once their leases ended after spending Christmas break entirely together without pause. Jon was bemoaning the fact that he needed to start looking for a new roommate immediately since Gerry was leaving at the end of the year, and Martin suggested in a stuttering and anxious way if maybe they could consider moving in together since he didn’t like his roommates all that much. At first he suggested separate bedrooms, but when they fond a one bedroom flat with a balcony, they decided that they might as well fully commit. It was the right call.
***
“Martin, I think you might be on the asexual spectrum, too,” Jon announces after they have sat across from each other with food and tea. He’s been mulling over their conversation ever since it happened, and he decided it would be best to bring it up now, before it feels awkward.
Martin shrugs. “I mean, yeah, probably.”
Jon is reeling. “What do you mean, yeah, probably?!” When he made that realization about himself in his relationship with Georgie, it was like getting hit by a wave and swept out to sea. Martin shrugs like the wave barely reached his toes.
Martin reaches across the table and takes Jon’s hand. “Jon. I don’t need a label on my sexuality or whatever because I know that I’m happy with you and what we’re doing. It’s occurred to me that I’m probably on the asexual spectrum somewhere, but I haven’t been bothered to figure out where, because I’m happy with what we’re doing now.” He pauses and then squints. “But if it’s important to you that I have a label for what I’m feeling, I can take an internet quiz? We can figure it out together, if it’s a big deal.”
Jon chews on his bottom lip. “It’s… I’d like to know? You’re right, that it’s not a big deal, but maybe that’s something that we can look at together later.” He smiles down at his breakfast. “It’s… nice to know, actually, that you don’t want something I might not ever be able to give.”
“All I want is for you to be you, and that’s it,” Martin shrugs. “That’s all.”
The Commodore meows loudly from the counter because she also wants her cup of tea, which is just warmed bone’s broth, which Martin hops up to make for her.
“So, uh, you know how we’re going to see Gerry and Michael again today?” Jon’s voice is so high-pitched and suspicious that Martin turns around to look at him, and Jon winces at his lack of chill. “Can I tell you a secret?” He asks. “But like, you have to be able to act surprised.” He chews on his thumbnail, anxious that he’s about to break Gerry’s trust, but also he has to talk to someone about the proposal, because he’s so nervous that he’s about to burst.
Martin’s jaw drops. “Wait, how did you find out?!”
Jon blinks, and then buries his face in his hands. He had been so careful! “How did you find out?”
“Well, Michael asked me to help him, and so—”
Jon’s head snaps up. “Wait, Michael’s proposing too?!”
Martin clamps his mouth shut, and then he starts to giggle. “Are you kidding me?”
They start to laugh uncontrollably. “Gerry’s planning to propose tonight, that’s the secret,” Jon wheezes out. “He asked me weeks ago to help out, and I’ve been so damn nervous about not spilling the secret because I know how close you and Michael are, and we didn’t want to put you in a weird position.”
“Mm, I did the same, love. Boundaries are good. But now that we know that we’re both in the know, the real fun can begin!” Martin claps his hands together. “Michael wasn’t sure what he wanted to do for the actual proposal itself, but we should do one of those photos where they turn around to face each other on three, and they’ve both got the ring boxes, and then it’ll be like, WOAH!”
“It’ll be like woah?” Jon snorts. “Yeah, love, it will be like woah.” He stands up and pulls Martin in for a kiss. “I’m so excited for them.”
Martin pauses and takes a step back, bumping into the counter. “Would you… I mean, have you ever put any thought into if you ever wanted to get married or not?” He looks like he’s about to start stammering and backtracking, so Jon nods.
“Eventually, yeah, I think I do. What about you? Is that something you’d want eventually?”
“Yeah,” Martin says. “Eventually.”
“Glad we’re in agreement.” Jon steps forward and loops his arms around Martin’s neck. “I like the idea of spending forever with you.” The words bubbling out of his lips before he can stop them, but the flush that appears on Martin’s cheeks is totally worth it. “This isn’t me proposing or anything, just… When I think about what I want in my future, what career, or where I want to live, or whatever, it’s always with our future in mind. You’re a part of my calculation.”
Jon takes in the sight of his beautiful boyfriend, curly auburn hair still mussed from sleep, his soft jumper pushed up to his elbows and rumpled in the places that Jon had been clinging to it, tears starting to pool in his eyes.
“Me, too,” Martin murmurs, pulling Jon into him and hugging him fiercely. “I love you so much.”
“I wouldn’t want a public proposal,” Jon murmurs into Martin’s shoulder. “Just so you know.”
“Oh, god, neither would I, the pressure would be way too much.”
Jon leans back, stretches up on his toes, and kisses Martin. In that moment, he knows that he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.