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The sheer, quivering power of the Eye, of ripping Peter Lukas to static, frayed pieces that disintegrate and fade to nothing, mixes tightly with Jon’s pulsing adrenaline, concoting an almost overwhelming pressure of power that’s steady underneath his heart and mind.
He turns, the echo of his footsteps mingling with a distant pair that soon becomes loud yet lost.
“Martin.” Jon calls out to Martin, his voice wavering slightly. “He’s gone, Martin. He’s... He’s gone.” Martin’s back is to him, and Jon steps forward, reaching out to Martin, his hand stopping just short of Martin’s shoulder.
“His only wish was to die alone.”
Jon’s hand falls, his fingers curling into tight fists at his side. “Now, listen to me, Martin. Listen.” The reverberating roar of compulsion nips at the edges of his tone, but he swallows the pulse of power down, working with his own raw, twisted emotions instead. He lifts his hand once more, grabbing Martin’s shoulder and pulling until Martin’s absently turning to face him.
“Hello, Jon.”
Just as before, Martin’s eyes are endless, white pits that are far too hollow and void of life. His face is carefully posied in a neutral, distant look that has Jon digging his fingers hard into Martin’s shoulder.
“Listen, I know you think you want to be here; I know you think it’s safer, and well... well, maybe it is. But we need you.” Jon’s voice breaks, lips and tongue working thickly around the three, single words he’s been desperately itching to say the moment he woke on a hospital bed. “I need you.”
Martin’s passively still before him, looking but not seeing. “ No, you don’t. Not really. Everyone’s alone, but we all survive.” His words, predictably, come with a lifeless echo that Jon interrupts, unknowingly tapping into a desperate, frustrated plea.
“I don’t want to just survive!” The burst of words come easily, his emotions flipping quickly through his lexicon to form the sentences he doesn’t think he could easily form on any other given day.
“I’m sorry.”
Jon lifts his other hand to Martin’s other shoulder, and he digs his fingertips into Martin’s skin, with only a thin shirt stopping the contact of skin. He steps forward, his elbows bending as he shortens the distance until he can feel Martin’s even breaths puffing warm against his face.
“Martin.” Jon presses, unaware of the inner tremble that’s jerking to his hands. He stares desperately hard into Martin’s vacant, lifeless eyes, searching frantically for any sign of familair life. “Martin, look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see.” The cutting jolt of cumpulsion tiptoes across his tongue, as if teasing him, but this time, Jon welcomes it, if only faintly.
“I see...” Martin’s voice quivers, shaking similarly to Jon’s hands, and Jon’s breath catches tightly in his throat, air building underneath a growing lump.
The endless white of Martin’s eyes is beginning to darken and fade to familiar colors that Jon wordlessly drinks in with bated breath, relief hesitant.
“I see you, Jon.” Martin laughs, his distinct echo fading, and then he laughs again, his lips curling upward into a wild and very real smile.
“I see you.”
The wall of air pressing against Jon’s rib cage pushes past the lump in his throat, and his entire body sags under the heavy yet very welcome pressure of relief. “Martin.” The smile that crosses his lips is warm yet worringly short-lived when Martin’s breathing hitches before him, his chest rapidly rising and falling in time with the large, pooling tears slipping from his eyes.
“I... I was on my own. I was all on my own.”
Jon’s mind falls blank, no words available to ease Martin’s tether to the Lonely, only actions. He steps forward again until the toes of his shoes bump into Martin’s, and he gently leans forward, hands steadying on Martin’s shoulders, and brushes a careful, warm kiss to Martin’s cold lips.
It feels... impossibly right, Jon thinks. Martin’s lips, warming under his touch, mold perfectly to his, a fautless match of comfort and pressure he melts into. A complete feeling of honest rightness he chases through the easy brush of a kiss.
He pulls away, lips tingling, tasting of Martin, of a warm, present safeness he longs for.
“Not anymore,” he tells Martin, soft, authentic certainty coloring his tone. “Come on. Let’s go home.” Home, he thinks, one hand slipping down to lace easily into Martin’s. He’s fond of the word, of the scenario that Martin is home.
“How?” Despite the simple yet heavy question, Martin’s voice is already leaning toward an unwavering trust that Jon solidifies with a tight squeeze of Martin’s hand.
He turns from Martin, the Eye working to break through the foggy, gray blankness of the Lonely until a wavering path manifests before him.
“Don’t worry. I know the way.”