#but first he has to make sure Tim understand how fragile the timelines are and how to reset messing with them... to much.

[haberdashing]

Debating All Your History

Martin notices how odd Jon’s been acting since gaining memories of the future. A sequel to Unravelling All The Mystery.

on AO3

Jon kept acting weird around Martin, and Martin wasn’t sure why.

Okay, so Jon kept acting weird around everyone, but after that impromptu explanation at the ice cream parlor, most of it actually sort of made sense. It was still weird to see Jon looking at Tim like he was seeing a ghost, or doing a double-take when he hears Sasha talking, but he had his reasons for it, and they knew those reasons now, and that was fine, that was all fine.

Well. Maybe Tim and Sasha didn’t think it was fine, but it was better than the alternative, anyway.

“The alternative” in this case being how Jon was still acting weird around Martin in a way that he hadn’t explained, that didn’t make sense even with his whole spooky future memories thing going on.

Jon kept... kept looking at Martin, sneaking glances at him when he thought he wasn’t looking, always with the same strange expression on his face that Martin couldn’t quite decipher. Sure, it was better than when the only expression on Jon’s face looking at Martin was something like disgust or hatred, but that was a pretty low bar to set there, and Martin kept wondering if... if maybe he’d done something wrong, in the future that only Jon knew about.

Martin kept thinking back to what Jon had said about the future he remembered, trying to fill in the blanks, put together the pieces there. Jon hadn’t actually said much about Martin then--he’d found Gertrude’s body, apparently, and also something about “the Lonely,” whatever that was? Granted, Sasha and Tim mostly got mentioned because they died, and Martin wasn’t asking for that, of course not, but...

What was his future like? What was he like, in the future? Did he do something to set Jon off in the future that he doesn’t even know about in this timeline yet, something that would explain all those surreptitious glances his way? He wasn’t one of the bad guys or something like that, was he?

Martin thought about asking Jon about it, but never quite managed to actually do so. For one thing, it sounded so minor when he tried to actually put words to it, made him feel like maybe he was just imagining it all. For another, he was worried that Jon really was hiding some big future secret about him, and bringing it up would just shatter the fragile façade of normalcy that Martin was so desperately clinging to.

Instead, when Jon bumped into him in the archives, Jon stammering out something about not knowing Martin was there but then just standing in place and staring at him again as Martin kept sorting through the files, Martin just... snapped.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Jon paused, then, blinking a few times as Martin stepped away from the files and returned Jon’s stare with one of his own.

“Like what?”

Did he honestly not know what he was doing when he stared at Martin like that, or did Jon just not think Martin would notice?

Either way, Martin didn’t hesitate to respond. “You look at me like, like you’re trying to solve a puzzle in your head or something, like I’m one of your precious mysteries instead of an actual person! What’s the deal with that, honestly?”

Jon shook his head, a soft sigh escaping his lips. “I, uh... maybe we should talk about this.”

“Yeah, I think we should, Jon! That’s why I brought it up!”

“I mean, er, I think we should talk about this-” A brief but meaningful glance in the direction of the stairs leading out of the archives. “Outside.”

Ah. Meaning the ice cream parlor. (Jon never seemed to want to mention it by name in the institute, seemed to think that might make it easier for Elias to track them down, though if even half of what Jon said about Elias was true Martin highly doubted something that simply would actually make a difference.) Meaning this was tied to the future Jon had memories of after all. Brilliant.

“Should I go get the others? I think Tim just went on his lunch break, but Sasha-”

Jon shook his head again. “No, no, this is probably best kept between the two of us.”

Martin’s stomach lurched at the sound of that even as he went through the motions of grabbing his things and following Jon to the ice cream parlor. They trusted each other, the four of them, they had to trust each other--Jon had made that much very clear. What kind of revelation did Jon have in store about Martin’s future that was so weighty he didn’t even want to share it with Tim and Sasha?

The two of them didn’t say a word to one another during the walk over, didn’t make small talk in between their orders (Martin got chocolate peanut butter this time, while Jon got rum raisin again--really, somebody who regularly ate rum raisin ice cream had no room to criticize his taste in ice cream flavors!), but once they sat down at a table, Martin spoke up before Jon could.

“Is this about that- you called it ‘the Lonely’, before? Is that what all this is about?” It was a shot in the dark, admittedly, but given that Jon had still said previous little about what the future had in store for the rest of them, it seemed like as good a guess as any.

“No, no, it’s not about that, though...” Jon let out a shaky laugh, shaking his head before continuing. “I suppose it is connected, in a way, that’s sort of where it started and all...”

Martin gulped down some ice cream. “What is it, then?”

“Well... I should, I should probably start by making it clear that just because something happened in the future I remember doesn’t mean that, that it has to happen again now, or that it should happen again-”

“I mean, that future involved the world ending, right? So I’d certainly hope it all doesn’t have to happen again.” Martin’s heart sank as a thought occurred to him, as he considered its implications. “Is that what this is about, the end of the world?”

“No, it- it isn’t that, either... although again, it’s not entirely unrelated, really, that did, did have something to do with it as well...”

Jon let out another shaky laugh, and Martin tapped his spoon against his cup a few times to get his attention.

“Look, maybe the Martin you remember would understand all these vague little hints you’re dropping here, I get that, okay? But I’m not that Martin, and I don’t know what it is you keep dancing around here, so I’d really rather you just get to the point already.”

“Right. Right, I’m sorry.” Jon sighed a little before speaking up again. “It’s, uh... after the Lonely, after the end of the world, after everything, we... we were together. The two of us.”

“I know, we were the only ones left, because Tim and Sasha, they-”

Martin was actually kind of grateful that Jon cut him off then, because he really hadn’t been looking forward to the end of that sentence.

“I mean, yes, but also no, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Martin sighed and let out a soft “Jon...” before he continued.

“I don’t just mean we happened to be in the same place when the world ended and we stuck together after that. I mean we were...” Jon made a vague hand gesture. “We were together. You and I.”

It took Martin a moment to process that, and another moment to second-guess what he had just processed, wonder if he was just hearing what he wanted to hear.

“Together.” he echoed. “As in... dating?”

“Not sure if that’s quite the right word for it, given the circumstances...” Jon’s face was coloring oddly, turning a bit redder than he normally looked--was he blushing? “But essentially, yes. I mean, we were boyfriends, certainly. And the, the L word was used.”

“The L word.” God, this was not the conversation Martin had been mentally preparing to have here, and now he was left flailing about. It was only a bit of a consolation that Jon seemed barely more put-together than he himself was. “You mean... love. One of us said he loved the other.”

“Both of us said it.” Jon corrected emphatically. “Multiple times over, in fact. But like I said before, just because it happened in the future I remember doesn’t mean that-”

Martin couldn’t help himself then, bursting out into soft, shaking laughter that he almost thought Jon didn’t notice until Jon’s stare became a bit more of a glare directed at him.

“Look, I know things are different now, I know I’ve been an arse to you and all, but is it really that absurd that in some other future, under wildly different circumstances-”

Martin waved his hand around as if to wipe Jon’s assumptions away. “No, no, it’s not that, it’s just... well... when you told us all about this whole memories of the future stuff, I figured that’d make it even less likely that we could get together down the line.”

Jon was definitely blushing now as he diverted his stare to his now half-melted scoop of ice cream. “Oh, I... I see.”

“Though I cannot promise that I’ll be breaking out ‘the L word’ on our first date or anything like that.”

Jon huffed offendedly. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I know you’re not that Martin... though sometimes it’s surprisingly easy to forget that.”

“...but you’re fine with the ‘first date’ part of that hypothetical, then?” Martin wasn’t sure if Jon hadn’t noticed that bit of what he’d said, had glossed over it, or was in fact trying to avoid it.

“Oh! Oh, yes, I- honestly that’s one thing we never really got to do, before, between being on the run and then the world ending, just go on a normal date. But Martin--I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you into this, or anything like that--you would be willing to go on a date with me?”

Martin couldn’t help but let out another shaky laugh; of all the fantastical scenarios he’d imagined that ended with Jon asking him out on a date, this had most certainly not been one of them, but it would do just as well as any of the rest.

“Yes, Jon, I would very much like to go on a date with you.”

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