Chapter Text
The warmth hit him on the way out. Did it make it harder to breathe? Martin couldn’t quite remember the vision of Jon. How his lovely voice cut through the fog until the mist had diffused and finally disappeared.
Let’s go home.
He’d collapsed on him. Jon had buckled under Martin’s dead weight, but had firmly clasped Martin at his back to steady him. He’d squeezed Jon’s hand a little tighter. The two of them got their bearings, locked eyes, and started running.
Adrenaline’s departure found him lethargic. Dry, minus the traitorous faucet of his nose. Martin felt faintly dulled at his every nerve ending. He wasn’t cold, no–Martin was antarctic. It felt like liquid nitrogen had been injected into his veins. His skin flushed in protest. His fingertips were colorless.
And Jon? Jon alternated his anxious but weighty gaze between his beloved hypothermia patient and the road. Not that it mattered. Martin didn’t want to ask, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that Jon had either failed his driver’s test several times or had never acquired his license in the first place.
An hour passes. Then two. Has he moved?
Suddenly restless, Martin sits up ramrod straight. Jon reacts with a slight jerk of the wheel, but doesn’t react otherwise. “Awake?” Jon says.
“I, uh, wasn’t sleeping.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Jon looks sheepish. He takes a hand off the wheel to motion to the stereo. “D’you want…radio?”
Martin smiles to himself, mentally penning a letter to the Martin Blackwood in 2016. Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding the surprising existence of the painfully human soul of the Head Archivist/our dickhead boss.
He doesn’t push it, now. Martin isn’t really sure where he stands with Jon, at the moment– sure , Jon had just rescued him from the physical embodiment of depression an eldritch deity with the power of love, but…that doesn’t mean Martin knows if Jon is the levity type.
He’ll have to wait and see.
He’s still bored. Aimlessly, Martin reaches towards the radio with his white-tipped fingernail. All he does is lean in and switch it on. And.
Well. That’s when everything goes wrong.
BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA mmm mmm oooo
The trumpets are an assault on all five senses. Martin jerks his head back from the dial in shock. Jon, though? Jon takes both hands off the wheel to cover his ears.
“HAD TO HAVE HIGH HIGH HOPES FOR A LIVIN’ SHOOTING FOR THE STARS WHEN I COULDN’T MAKE A KILLING DIDN’T HAVE A DIME BUT I ALWAYS HAD A VISION ALWAYS HAD HIGH, HIGH HOooPES.”
“Good Lord, Martin, turn this off– ”
“MAMA SAID–”
“‘m trying, Jon, could you keep your eyes on the road! ”
“ FULFILL THE PROPHECY, BE SOMETHING GREATER–”
“My eyes are on the fucking road, Martin! In fact, my eyes are everywhere!”
“--GO MAKE A LEGACY–”
“Jon put your hands back on the wheel so help me god–”
“MANIFEST DESTINY–”
“Martin, if you don’t get this infernal ‘song’ off–”
“ If you steered correctly, maybe it would be–there!”
“BACK IN THE–”
Martin didn’t feel Jon pull over, but after he’s slammed down on the metaphorical red button he realizes that they are stopped.
They turn to one another, panting. Jon’s eyes are wide and fearful.
Then a smile cracks on his face.
Martin can’t help it. He laughs his ass off. Jon joins him until they’re both wheezing and hysterical.
Martin pretends to not notice that Jon’s laughter has devolved into heaving sobs.
When the crying and shoulder-shaking peters out into giggles, Martin turns to Jon and sees him wipe his eyes.
The smile Jon gives him is tinged with melancholy. But it is a smile. It is a start.
“I didn’t know Grifter’s Bone had a spot on Billboard,” Jon comments, mock-affronted.
Martin’s heart grows as he smiles back. He does like levity, then. Jon has some kind of music preference.
He’s learning. They’re learning. How they come together, come apart. What they agree on and contest. And how they can unite, in the future, over objectively bad music.
Jon gets back on the road, this time selecting a soundtrack less ear-bleeding. Martin wonders how much more of Jon he will get to uncover while they remake together.
He’d give anything to make him smile again, and Martin will forever pretend that he doesn’t see all of the tragedy it hides.