#intended to be aro jon and aro daisy

[kairos-polaris]

au Jon and Elias got married pre canon

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"Have you thought about a divorce?"

Daisy realizes it's the wrong question as Jon stiffens and clutches his pen harder. She wonders if she isn't the first to ask. She wants to ask about that too

"Nevermind," Daisy says instead because she didn't mean to make Jon uncomfortable and he visibly doesn't want to talk about it.

"I…have. Of course I have. After he killed Leitner, I imagined asking for divorce as soon as my name was cleared. But then there was the Unknowing and I had no time for the bureaucracy," Jon explains, looking like every word was dragged from his throat. A perfect explanation. He must have answered this question many times, Daisy thinks distantly. She should just nod and not say anything else.

"And now?" She asks instead and Jon sighs as if he expected that.

"And now it's just not worth it. We are separated anyway." Daisy doesn't think she imagined the bitterness in Jon's words. "Elias refuses to see or talk to me, divorce would just be a waste of time and energy."

Daisy could say how it's worth it if only to be as separate from Elias as possible while he is still the Archivist. She could say it could be freeing, even, but she knows that's not how Jon would see it. So she asks instead if he wants a divorce. He stutters, predictably.

"I-," Jon looks stricken, overflowing with guilt. "Of course I do."

And had she been anyone else, Daisy could have believed him. If she wasn't a cop for so long, if she wasn't so good at seeing lies. If Jon was a better liar.

It shouldn't be surprising Jon wanted to stay married. And in hindsight it really wasn't. Daisy thought back to the few times she saw them together and the way Jon seemed to turn to Elias, to seek him out. Whatever made him say yes a couple of years ago was still there in spite of all that Elias did to him. Daisy wishes she was more surprised.

"I understand," she says and Jon must know what she really means because he looks impossibly more tense. "It's fine, Jon. I mean it."

Jon breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down next to her, resting his head on her shoulder. This is familiar still, comforting even in spite of their previous conversation and tension still obvious in Jon's shoulders.

Daisy opens her arms in a silent invitation and Jon hesitates just for a moment before coming over to her. They both weren't the most tactile of people and this, the proximity and closeness, this was new to them, made familiar by the time touch was their only comfort in the Buried.

"I don't want to divorce him," Jon whispers into her shoulder like a confession of a terrible sin. And perhaps to someone else it would be. To Daisy it was just an admission of vulnerability. She hums but doesn't say it was obvious. "It's stupid but I have been changed by him and his… our master. I will forever carry his claim so I just want to pretend he was mine the same way he made me belong to him." Jon chucked, self deprecating. He lifted his head from Daisy's shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "You must think me stupid for this."

How could Daisy think it's stupid when she understood the need to claim and be claimed in turn so well? When she knew how much Jon needed someone to belong to him?

"I understand," Daisy says instead and watches Jon's eyes be flooded with relief that his admission was met with understanding, not blame.

"Not like it actually matters. I bet the only reason Elias himself hasn't divorced me yet is because it's not worth the effort to him. I bet he doesn't even wear his ring anymore." Jon must have tried to sound uncaring about it but Daisy could hear the strain and the hurt in his voice. He wanted Elias to care as much as he did.

"Basira told me he still wears his ring." She mentioned it in passing once, how she expected Elias to take it off since Jon isn't around to see him wear it. I would think he had forgotten about it but he touched it every time the topic of Jon arose, Basira said then. "He fidgets with it."

"Ah," Jon says so quietly, Daisy would have missed it if he wasn't so close. "I didn't think he would," the hope in his words is raw and bleeding. Jon wants to, needs to believe his husband cares, if only a little.

"You love him." She tries to but fails to suppress the accusation in her words.

"I- I don't think so," Jon confesses. "I feel owned by him and I want to own him in turn. But I don't think it's love."

"I understand." And she really did, she was familiar with the need to belong to someone in a way that was not romantic but not platonic either. "I really do."

They sit in silence for a while, just enjoying the other's presence. A comfort freely given to two monsters who didn't deserve it but gave each other nonetheless. A peaceful quiet that made the maddening starvation just a bit easier to bear.

"Thank you, Daisy," Jon whispers and she squeezes his hand. This, she could give him and take in turn.