Martin blinks rapidly as he tries to take this in, all of it so utterly unexpected that he feels like he has to check himself to make sure he's not missing some crucial context for a... a joke, or something he should have already known.
But no, it isn't actually that far a stretch, is it? That entire time Prentiss had held him captive in his own flat, the one thought that had kept him going was how resoundingly he was going to prove to Jonathan Sims that it wasn't all bullshit, that there are monsters in the world and things aren't all as they seem; he came face to face with it and there would be no denying it now. He'd held so hard to that as a sick sort of comfort, only to have it dissipate so suddenly on waking in a strange future, where that and so much else was all... known. Dealt with. Gone.
But it stood to reason there was more — a lot more. The scars that cover John's body, the immense changes in him, the way he's become so blithely capable of accepting that they've been swept up into an entirely new dimension and that Martin has just lost a whole swath of his memory, like it's just an unfortunate fact of living here. It feels obvious now, that all the gaps John has tried to fill have been here, while his words on their life in London have been quite absent. Martin really should have asked, and yet maybe it was fear that stopped him. Some deep certainty that he wouldn't like what he found.
It's still a lot to absorb now, here on this chilly beach, John's hard-won fossil still clutched between his fingers.
"Oh," is all he can say at first, struggling to find something else that isn't just more questions. "S-" He shifts his weight, not liking the distance that's formed between them but having no right to fix it. "So you just... with me?"
He hadn't even felt it. Would never have known if John hadn't just... laid it out like that. And all he'd asked was if Martin was okay. A compassionate question, one he hadn't meant to answer quite so thoroughly, but Christ, it's not like he regrets any of what he said.
But that doesn't seem to be the point. John hadn't meant to do it. He slipped, and now he's refusing to pretend he didn't.
Martin hates the look in John's downcast eyes, the defeated language of his body, but he doesn't know how to reassure him, still doesn't know if he even has the right. And he still has questions.
"How?" might be a difficult one to start with, but it's all he can think to say.
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But no, it isn't actually that far a stretch, is it? That entire time Prentiss had held him captive in his own flat, the one thought that had kept him going was how resoundingly he was going to prove to Jonathan Sims that it wasn't all bullshit, that there are monsters in the world and things aren't all as they seem; he came face to face with it and there would be no denying it now. He'd held so hard to that as a sick sort of comfort, only to have it dissipate so suddenly on waking in a strange future, where that and so much else was all... known. Dealt with. Gone.
But it stood to reason there was more — a lot more. The scars that cover John's body, the immense changes in him, the way he's become so blithely capable of accepting that they've been swept up into an entirely new dimension and that Martin has just lost a whole swath of his memory, like it's just an unfortunate fact of living here. It feels obvious now, that all the gaps John has tried to fill have been here, while his words on their life in London have been quite absent. Martin really should have asked, and yet maybe it was fear that stopped him. Some deep certainty that he wouldn't like what he found.
It's still a lot to absorb now, here on this chilly beach, John's hard-won fossil still clutched between his fingers.
"Oh," is all he can say at first, struggling to find something else that isn't just more questions. "S-" He shifts his weight, not liking the distance that's formed between them but having no right to fix it. "So you just... with me?"
He hadn't even felt it. Would never have known if John hadn't just... laid it out like that. And all he'd asked was if Martin was okay. A compassionate question, one he hadn't meant to answer quite so thoroughly, but Christ, it's not like he regrets any of what he said.
But that doesn't seem to be the point. John hadn't meant to do it. He slipped, and now he's refusing to pretend he didn't.
Martin hates the look in John's downcast eyes, the defeated language of his body, but he doesn't know how to reassure him, still doesn't know if he even has the right. And he still has questions.
"How?" might be a difficult one to start with, but it's all he can think to say.