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Martin sits on the couch and stares into the cold fireplace, listening to the sounds of recorded laughter start up again from the bedroom. He’s been holding a pen against the blank page for what he thinks might have been several minutes now, and he’s forgotten what he was going to write. A poem? A diary entry?
“Dear Diary,” Martin says out loud to the empty room. “I don’t know what day it is, because we don’t have days anymore. We don’t have nights anymore either, so I guess that balances out. I’d measure time by how often I have to eat or drink, but I haven’t done that since the incident with the thing that wasn’t tea. I hadn’t realized that until Jon pointed out that I wasn’t hungry or thirsty anymore, and now it’s all… it’s all I can think about. All the little ways people have of organizing time. Day and night. Hunger and thirst. I guess I could still use sleep as a measure, but what if I’m only sleeping because I think I need to?”
There’s the sound of a cork popping in the next room, followed by Tim’s voice, Sasha’s voice. Martin remembers that day so well, time and circumstance making the memory something shiny and sharp enough to cut, to make him wince and grip his pen even tighter. The bright, happy tone of Sasha’s voice through the wall had hit Martin like a punch to the chest the first time he had heard it, literally knocking the breath from him. That was how she had sounded. How she had really sounded.
“I told them that the tannins in wine are a headache trigger so they wouldn’t tease me about not having any,” Martin says, addressing the burnt out fireplace logs. “People usually don’t push if you say you’re allergic to something or it gives you migraines. Not that Jon was pushing,” Martin is quick to correct. “He was just stating a fact, and he was right, of course, I mean, I didn’t know that at the time, tea does have tannins in it too. I just didn’t want everyone to know that the taste of red wine reminds me of my Mum and that first year after Dad left. Sometimes just the smell makes me—“ Martin cuts off abruptly, staring down at his shaking hands. He remembers Sasha handing him a glass anyway, but he still can’t remember what Sasha, the real Sasha, had looked like.
“I don’t know how to make him leave,” Martin says quietly to the empty page in a voice that shakes. “I’m trying to give him space. He doesn’t… he doesn’t need me hovering. But… we can’t stay here. It’s… it’s like in the Lonely. It’s quiet here, and maybe it’s safe here, but he’s not… I’m not…”
Tears start falling on the page, and it’s just as well that the page is blank, that there’s no words there, no ink to smear and smudge. He hurls the notebook off his lap, chucks the pen into the corner with a burst of anger that leaves him feeling drained, feeling cold as he puts his head in his hands and begins to cry in earnest. The words he’s been holding back from Jon don’t pass his lips, the argument that he doesn’t want to have, but they echo in his thoughts like waves crashing on an empty beach.
You said that you didn’t just want to survive, but that’s all we’re doing here! We can’t stay here, I can’t stay here, but I can’t go without you! I won’t!
Martin hears the door to the bedroom open, the first time Jon’s opened that door since the world changed, but he doesn’t lift his head from his hands. He can’t. He can’t meet those eyes because he knows he’ll see himself reflected there, see Jon’s own guilt at the state Martin is in, just another layer of blame Jon will wrap around himself like a blanket, no matter how hard Martin tries to tug it away from him. He doesn’t look up but he also doesn’t resist when Jon sits down beside him and holds him close, just buries his head against his chest, ignoring the slightly unwashed smell of him as Jon’s hands stroke Martin’s back, chasing away the chill of loneliness that had been creeping up his spine. The clocks in the house have long stopped ticking, but Jon’s heart still beats a steady measure in his chest, and that in itself is a comfort as well.
Martin can’t stop crying as Jon holds him, as he whispers softly into Martin’s hair. Martin is expecting to hear a litany of apologies in between the gentle shushing, but when he finally stops crying quite so loudly, what he hears instead surprises him.
“You’re right,” Jon says in a whisper. “You’re right. I was right then and you’re right now.” His voice wavers slightly. “I’m just afraid of losing myself in all there is to see. I can’t protect you if I lose myself. I don’t want to leave you alone again. I don’t want you to—
Martin manages to lift his head then, trying not to think of how a mess he must look. “Jon,” he says, voice rough from crying. “Jon, I won’t let you lose yourself.” He thinks of holding Jon’s hand in the hospital, of piling tape recorders on a coffin. “You want to protect me, but that goes both ways. Let me protect you too.”
Jon leans his forehead against Martin’s and takes a long, shuddering breath. “Just say the word,” Jon whispers. “Say the word and we’ll go.”
Now, Martin thinks, but his head is beginning to ache from the aftermath of crying, and he feels so tired. Maybe he doesn’t have to sleep anymore, he still doesn’t know, but he wants to sleep, just for a little while.
“All right,” Jon says, as if Martin had said any of that out loud. “All right.”
They curl up together in bed, both of them clinging tightly to the other as if in defiance of the forces in the world that might tear them apart, one of them sleeping, the other one watching. One last moment of rest before they go out and face the rest of the world. Together.