It's an immediate relief when Martin pitches into his arms, curling up against him as he has countless times before. Even as John's heart breaks over the way Martin shivers, he can't help but be grateful for a more familiar physical context, and he holds Martin close, pressing a kiss to his brow. He might almost be comforting him after a nightmare, following a script so familiar he's entirely off-book. This is different, obviously — Martin has never discussed any of this with him; John's all but certain that he hasn't discussed it with anyone — but it feels good to have Martin close, to be able to stroke his back and offer solid, unspoken support as he works out how to continue.
The story he tells is, predictably, excruciating, and John has to bite back the urge to interrupt on more than one occasion. He doesn't want to make the telling harder, he knows how important it is to not halt whatever momentum Martin's able to build, but Jesus Christ, it's awful. Not just how bad it was — the terrible mundanity of a broken home and an unfit caregiver, and the way the fracture echoed through the years — but how much responsibility Martin shouldered without question. How he carried on as if all that misery was some sort of birthright, to the point where any hint of alleviation came twisted up with guilt. How he confessed his own relief as if that was somehow, retroactively, what killed her.
John is quiet for a few moments after Martin runs down, less because he's speechless and more because he wants to be careful, to not just blurt out the logjam of indignant asides that have built up since Martin began. He sorts through them, instead, picking out the most salient details, and decides to start with the freshest.
"You're not a bad person, Martin," he says, soft but firm. "Your mother... I am sure things were difficult for her," he acknowledges with frosty civility, allowing her that bare minimum of consideration and no more. "But she had no right to take it out on you the way she did. Christ, Martin, not ten minutes ago you were apologizing profusely for taking your frustrations out on me; you can't tell me you deserved that sort of treatment when you were a-a child."
no subject
The story he tells is, predictably, excruciating, and John has to bite back the urge to interrupt on more than one occasion. He doesn't want to make the telling harder, he knows how important it is to not halt whatever momentum Martin's able to build, but Jesus Christ, it's awful. Not just how bad it was — the terrible mundanity of a broken home and an unfit caregiver, and the way the fracture echoed through the years — but how much responsibility Martin shouldered without question. How he carried on as if all that misery was some sort of birthright, to the point where any hint of alleviation came twisted up with guilt. How he confessed his own relief as if that was somehow, retroactively, what killed her.
John is quiet for a few moments after Martin runs down, less because he's speechless and more because he wants to be careful, to not just blurt out the logjam of indignant asides that have built up since Martin began. He sorts through them, instead, picking out the most salient details, and decides to start with the freshest.
"You're not a bad person, Martin," he says, soft but firm. "Your mother... I am sure things were difficult for her," he acknowledges with frosty civility, allowing her that bare minimum of consideration and no more. "But she had no right to take it out on you the way she did. Christ, Martin, not ten minutes ago you were apologizing profusely for taking your frustrations out on me; you can't tell me you deserved that sort of treatment when you were a-a child."