"Don't—" Martin recoils sharply from John's reach, the vehemence of the gesture and his own tone surprising him as well as the cat, who wakes and departs the couch with mild, feline recrimination. "Don't do that," he bites out, and snaps his book shut and stands up. "I don't need you... scrutinizing me."

So much for putting that to bed. Christ, now what? He feels come over with an awful prickling sensation, like a limb's been asleep but too heightened and too overwhelming to be something so mundane. Like there's fire under his skin and a touch will burn one or both of them. He still can't look at John, and he hates that John is looking at him with that — that gentle concern, that intuition of his that only crops up sometimes, and he just wants to go away somewhere where no one will look at him at all.

"Please just let it alone," he says curtly, and turns away to walk toward the front door, reaching for his coat, as evenly as he can amid that desperation to just bolt. "I'm going out, I—I just need to be alone for a bit. Take a walk. Clear my head. I'll be back soon. You won't miss me."

The words slip out easily, almost casually, but they burn like bile on the way up, and he slows just a moment, halfway to pulling his coat down from the hook.