Christ, this would all be so much easier to bear if Martin didn't understand — if he'd simply been stupid and hadn't known better, or if he'd let his anger overtake him in the heat of the moment instead of coming up with some half-baked plan and sitting on it for fucking weeks. But no, he'd had dozens of opportunities to come clean, or go about it differently, or abandon the whole thing, and he'd taken none of them. And now all those sleepless nights have been relegated to a retroactive waste of time, because Jacob Riggs knows. He knows John is alive, and he knows Martin is too fucking nosy for his own good. And if he decides not to honor their incredibly tenuous suggestion of an arrangement, well. Whatever plan he comes up with, it'll be far more solid and ruthlessly effective than whatever Martin had in mind.

Martin's fumbling explanation draws to a close, and the silence that follows is broken some seconds later by a sharp exhalation pushed out from between John's hands. "No," he says flatly. "You shouldn't have."

He drags his hands down his face before letting them drop, and letting his gaze list over towards Martin. He now looks as if he's about to be sick, and John can't decide if he should feel bad about that, or if he should find grim satisfaction in the fact that they're finally on the same fucking page. But the longer he looks at him, the harder it is to hold onto his anger. It was only a front to begin with, a means of hastily papering over the terror that predominates. And now, it's outlasting its usefulness.

John sighs, then straightens. He still isn't feeling particularly steady, but he wants to put more distance between them and the site of their bloody confrontation more than he wants to stay put until he's fully recovered.

"We'll tell Daisy," he says, because that plan can at least boast some prior discussion. "And figure something out from there."