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Jon heard a low, heavy sigh at his back, and turned to see Martin, his face smashed into the pillow.
Jon couldn’t stifle the rush of affection in his chest, and he smiled. He reached out one index finger and lightly traced Martin’s brow.
Martin frowned in his sleep, and made a noise like he was confused.
Jon grinned, and moved slightly closer, into Martin’s space. He didn’t keep tracing his brow, though. He just watched him.
I guess this is what people do when they’re in love, he thought. It was a warm notion, it made something small but happy bubble up inside of Jon.
Jon kept watching Martin; silently observing the steady rise and fall of his form as he breathed, the minute movements of his face as he dreamed.
At the risk of sounding hopelessly fond, he was the most beautiful thing Jon had ever seen.
Jon reached his hand out and brushed the hair lightly away from Martin’s forehead, revealing the constellations of freckles on his face. Jon’s hand came to rest in the small space between them, and Martin shifted slightly.
“I love you,” Jon whispered. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. The first time had been the week previous, when Jon and Martin had been joyfully dancing around the kitchen while making dinner, and Martin was singing at the top of his lungs, and Jon just couldn’t keep it inside any more. So he told him. Said ‘I love you so much it’s like there’s not enough room in my body for it,’ and Martin had paused, his eyes wide.
And neither of them had moved, for a moment, until Martin was pulled from his stillness by an apparent and overwhelming need to embrace Jon, and he had. Martin had enveloped Jon in a hug, and he held tight and tucked his face in Jon’s neck, even though he was just a bit too tall.
Jon’s heart had beat like raindrops on an umbrella, and he wrapped his arms around Martin, just as tight. They stayed there until Martin pulled away just far enough to kiss Jon soundly.
Jon hadn’t said it much after that, maybe one other time. It was… new. Good, and freeing, but new. He’d never—well, he’d had a hard go of it, the whole “interpersonal relationships” thing, platonic or otherwise. He hadn’t quite remembered how to do it all.
But he was relearning. And Martin was nothing if not patient.
So Jon would say it quietly, and mean it entirely, and soon enough he would be shouting it over the edges of cliffs, if Martin asked. He wouldn’t, but that didn’t matter. Martin would understand. He always seemed to understand the things Jon didn't quite know how to say.
It wasn’t perfect, of course. But they were both trying, and while communication is difficult for any couple, it’s especially difficult for people who’ve been one foot out of the corporeal plane, and their traumatized, dear avatar significant other.
But they were trying.
Martin cracked open one eye, and Jon opened his mouth to speak, but Martin just took Jon’s hand from where it lay between them and kissed each of his knuckles softly, his eye still only half-open.
Jon swallowed around the lump that was forming in his throat.
“Hi,” Martin said softly, both eyes now fully open.
“Hi,” Jon replied, and his voice came out a hoarse whisper.
“You okay?” Martin asked, and Jon could tell he was trying to hide how tired he was.
Jon nodded. “Yes. I’m very okay,” he said, and smiled.
“Oh. ‘S good,” Martin said around a yawn.
“You should sleep, Martin,” Jon said gently.
“Youshould sleep, Martin.”
“I’m not Martin, you’re Martin.”
“I know that.” Martin’s voice was almost petulant.
“Do you?”
“Yup. I pinky swear.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Aye, aye. Remember pinky swears, Jon?”
“Not… directly. Didn’t exactly have friends to pinky swear to, in my younger years.”
Martin made a forlorn humming sound. “That makes me sad. C’mere.”
Jon chuckled. “I’m alright, Martin. An unfortunate childhood is the least of the reasons for me to be upset, these days.”
“Come here anyways. I miss you.”
And Jon couldn’t argue with that, now, could he?
So Jon awkwardly scooted over until he was closer to Martin, and Martin tugged him the rest of the way, wrapping him in his arms until he was tucked against his chest.
Some unknown tension in Jon’s body began to release, and he let himself relax fully in Martin’s arms. He was warm, and comfortable, and the pressure of Martin’s body against him made him feel secure, not trapped.
Martin, for his part, settled in against Jon in much the same way as Jon against Martin. He had his arm around Jon’s waist, and his forehead was tucked close to the space where Jon’s neck met his back.
“Doesn’t my hair tickle your face?” Jon asked absentmindedly, and he felt Martin shake his head.
“It smells good.”
“Well, you are the one who picked the conditioner,” Jon replied.
“I’ve got good taste.”
“I have to agree.”
Martin chuckled tiredly against Jon, and he felt contentment seep slowly and deliberately into his bones.
“Jon?”
“Hm?”
“Love you, too.”
Jon smiled softly. “I didn’t know you heard me,” he said.
“I did. I always hear you.”
Jon snorted. “You didn’t hear me when I told you to stop taking pictures of cows and help me clean the shed.”
“I always hear you when it’s convenient for me,” Martin amended, and Jon burst into quiet laughter. Martin just burrowed his face deeper into Jon’s back, and clutched him tighter in his arms.
They stayed like that, in comfortable silence, both of them less than awake but more than asleep, for several minutes. Until Martin broke the fragile quiet.
“I have an idea,” He whispered.
“What’s your idea?”
“You can say no. It won’t change anything. Not… how I feel, or anything.”
“Okay…” Jon wasn’t sure if he should be nervous or not.
“We should get married.”
Jon cracked his neck trying to look at Martin. “Now?”
“No, no. Just…Sometime. In the future. When— when it’s all over,” Martin said.
Jon didn’t need to ask what “it” was.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, we’ll get married.”
Martin smiled. Then frowned as a thought seemed to occur to him. “What are we going to do about names?”
“I could take yours,” Jon offered. Martin made a throaty sort of noise.
“Jonathan Blackwood?”
“Doesn’t sound half bad,” Jon remarked lightly.
Martin seemed to agree. “No, it doesn’t. What if I took yours? Martin Sims?”
“Well, it’s no Jonathan Blackwood, but I suppose it’ll do,” Jon teased, and Martin snorted and pinched him lightly.
“Are we… like, actually engaged now? Officially?” Martin asked.
“You’re the one who proposed, shouldn’t you know?”
“I was half expecting you to say no.”
Jon furrowed his brows. “Why would I say no?”
“I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t sure if you were the marrying type,” Martin confessed easily.
Jon turned around until they were face to face. “To most, I probably wouldn’t be. But you’re not most,” he said, and kissed him. It was chaste, but deep, and Martin inhaled sharply as Jon grabbed his face and pulled him ever closer.
They broke apart a little breathlessly.
“So… fiancés?”
Jon nodded.
“I’ll buy you a ring someday,” Martin promised.
“I don’t need one,” Jon replied.
“Well I do, and I’ll be damned if my husband and I don’t match.”
Husband.
Jon swallowed, and the hopeful little heart of his best frantically at the thought.
“Anything you want, dear,” Jon said. Martin smiled, and kissed him again.
“Can I go to sleep now?” Martin asked.
“I’m not stopping you.”
“You say that, but the problem is you actually are stopping me.”
“How exactly am I preventing you from going to sleep?”
“You’re too lovely. It’s forcing me to be awake so I can kiss you.”
Jon felt suddenly glad for the darkness in their room, the only illumination coming from the full moon outside of their window. If Martin saw his blush, he’d never live it down.
“How devious of me.”
“Downright evil, I should say.”
Jon hummed. “Quite.”
Martin returned his arm to its spot around Jon’s waist, and slotted Jon easily against himself. He put his forehead between Jon’s neck and back, just as it had been before.
“G'night Jon. Love you.”
Jon’s voice was a whisper when he replied. “I love you, too, Martin. Sleep well.”
Martin sighed contentedly, and Jon felt his own eyelids growing heavy as Martin’s breathing evened out. Jon let his mind slip away like a lake wandering from the shore, until at last, he, too, fell asleep.