Martin meets John's half-lidded gaze with a warm, satisfied smile. "I love you, John," he says, not so much a rote reply as a separate thought, a thesis statement. He bends down to press a kiss to John's brow, his temple, then again upon each of his eyelids. His fingers curl and uncurl slowly through John's hair, soothing and gentle but just active enough to keep John on this side of drifting off. "You mean everything to me. Every part of you."
The hand on John's arm shifts to his chest, feeling the pulse of his heart. Martin continues his little exploration, his nose brushing against John's cheek in the lightest of nuzzles. The shape of his intentions is starting to form before him, even if it's still hard to quantify. Even as he feels pulled along by it as inexorably as a traincar slipping its tracks. He has never felt anything like this before, anything that could be construed as a desire to possess. Normally that skews in the other direction: he likes feeling possessed by John, and their differences have always made it simple to see that as a one way street. But that feels like hollow logic now, like a limit he set without really thinking about it. There is nothing inherently sexual about this; what he feels toward John right now is certainly not sexual. It's everything else, everything he'd tried to articulate in the kitchen, everything he's ever felt in flashes of anger over those who would try to boil away the whole messy human core of John with narrow-eyed focus on the things he can do and the ways he's been altered. There are only so many ways he can try to verbally describe his feelings; it's surpassed what language will allow now, leaving only an urgent need to show him.
Urgent, but not rushed. He remains slow and methodical as he draws his hand from John's hair to his cheek, his thumb rubbing gentle but insistent until John looks at him again.
"I've got you," he says again, and presses a kiss to his lips, wandering immediately to the corner of his mouth, to his cheek, and as tenderly as he knows how, he murmurs, "You're mine."
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The hand on John's arm shifts to his chest, feeling the pulse of his heart. Martin continues his little exploration, his nose brushing against John's cheek in the lightest of nuzzles. The shape of his intentions is starting to form before him, even if it's still hard to quantify. Even as he feels pulled along by it as inexorably as a traincar slipping its tracks. He has never felt anything like this before, anything that could be construed as a desire to possess. Normally that skews in the other direction: he likes feeling possessed by John, and their differences have always made it simple to see that as a one way street. But that feels like hollow logic now, like a limit he set without really thinking about it. There is nothing inherently sexual about this; what he feels toward John right now is certainly not sexual. It's everything else, everything he'd tried to articulate in the kitchen, everything he's ever felt in flashes of anger over those who would try to boil away the whole messy human core of John with narrow-eyed focus on the things he can do and the ways he's been altered. There are only so many ways he can try to verbally describe his feelings; it's surpassed what language will allow now, leaving only an urgent need to show him.
Urgent, but not rushed. He remains slow and methodical as he draws his hand from John's hair to his cheek, his thumb rubbing gentle but insistent until John looks at him again.
"I've got you," he says again, and presses a kiss to his lips, wandering immediately to the corner of his mouth, to his cheek, and as tenderly as he knows how, he murmurs, "You're mine."