#Jon you can’t go around and ask people how they got those scars oh my god
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First part! Here’s the rest
#Jon you can’t go around and ask people how they got those scars oh my god#I’m posting half now#the other half tomorrow#I was initially going to post these in 5 separate post but nah#I made these like a year ago#yeesh#tma fanart#tma podcast#the magnus archives#tma#the magnus institute#tma jon#tma shitpost#the magnus archive fanart#the magnus archive#tma headcanons#tma comic#tma jonathan sims#the magnus archive john#jonathan sims#micheal crew#tma Micheal crew#tma the eye#tma the vast
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Day 5 of @jonmartinweek for the prompt "scars". Set in a nebulous, post-finale future that may or may not take place in the same universe as the therapy fic.
Warnings: Martin is trans in this, and briefly discusses past gender dysphoria and suicidal ideation. There is also a scene where someone reacts poorly to Jon’s scars, and mention of other such instances (staring, whispering).
*
The Riverbank Cafe is their usual go-to for lunch; it’s small and cozy, generally quiet, and does truly excellent toasted sandwiches. It’s also not far to walk, which is nice on a day like today, when the air is chilly and damp.
The bell over the door jingles as they enter, and the waitress glances up from where she’s clearing a table. She’s new—or at least, Jon hasn’t seen her before—and looks more than a bit flustered by the modest lunch rush.
“Take a seat anywhere,” she calls, bustling off to help another customer. They find a table near the back and wait; they’re in no hurry. Jon is just warming up enough to take his coat off when she makes her way over to them, menus in hand.
“Sorry about the wait,” she says breathlessly. “It’s my first day.”
“No problem,” says Martin sympathetically. “First days are tough. I remember my first day at my old job, my boss was a right arse.”
Jon rolls his eyes affectionately, and tugs off his gloves and scarf as Martin takes a menu. He reaches for his own menu, and sees the waitress’ eyes widen, darting from the pale knife scar on his neck to the shiny flesh of his right hand. Her expression goes from shock to horror to pity in the space of a second.
“Oh god, what happened?” she blurts out, and then her face goes crimson and she’s looking anywhere but at Jon. “Sorry!” she stutters, “I didn’t mean—god, I’m sorry. I’ll just...I’ll come back in a few minutes.”
She hurries away, almost running, and Jon feels a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Across from him, Martin looks furious, eyes blazing and jaw set angrily.
“I’m going to talk to the manager,” he says. “That was completely out of line!”
“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon tells him. “She didn’t mean anything.” She’s young—hardly more than a teenager—and she reacted in a perfectly understandable, instinctive way to the sight of not one but two horrible scars. Jon doesn’t want to get her in trouble on her first day,
“It doesn’t matter what she meant—” Martin begins, and then stops when Jon places a hand, the unburned one, over his. He huffs in annoyance.
“Fine,” he says. “Let’s—let’s get lunch to go though, okay? I’m not sure I can hold my tongue if we stay.”
“Okay,” Jon agrees; he’s lost his appetite anyway.
Jon isn’t vain. He knows how the scars look, and mostly, it doesn’t bother him. They don’t matter to anyone who matters to him; Martin loves him scars and all, and the friends he’s made here have never drawn attention to them or asked him to explain.
He sees people staring at them sometimes; especially children, who are too young to be polite about it. He’s heard the occasional “What’s wrong with that man?” and the whispered admonitions from parents or guardians to not be rude. For the most part, though, he can almost forget they exist, except in cold weather when his hand stiffens up, or when the deep muscle scars in his leg start aching, and he has to use his cane for a few days.
But inevitably, something always happens like today, and he’s forcefully reminded of them. Of the fact that he is wounded, damaged; of the other wounds that can’t be seen, that he and Martin both bear.
It’s not fair to Martin, either, having to put up with strangers staring or whispering when he’s with Jon. The constant, visible reminders of everything they’ve been through. Jon sees the way his expression goes hurt and closed off sometimes, when he sees the scar he gave Jon, and Jon wishes there was some way he could spare him the pain.
Jon will admit that the cafe incident throws him off kilter for the rest of the day. He doesn’t think he’s been obvious about it, however, until they’re getting ready for bed that night; he catches sight of his bare torso in the bedroom mirror, and flinches, and Martin frowns in a way that says they’re about to have a serious conversation.
“Are you all right?” he asks. Jon blinks at him, trying to look uncomprehending.
“Absolutely fine,” he says; Martin looks at him skeptically, and he relents. “I’ve been...a bit preoccupied, I suppose?”
“Moody,” Martin corrects, and Jon shrugs. Maybe.
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Is it because of what happened at lunch?”
“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon tells him. Martin raises an eloquent eyebrow, which says louder than words: I don’t believe you. Jon knows from experience that Martin won’t relent until they talk about what’s wrong; a lesson learned from therapy, and yes, it’s the correct and healthy thing to do, but sometimes Jon would like to just stew in his feelings by himself a bit, thank you very much.
He sighs.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “These—it can’t be nice, having a constant visual reminder of—of everything that happened.”
“Why are you apologizing to me?” Martin looks confused. “Those things—or, well, most of them, they happened to you, Jon. You’re the one who was hurt—who was deliberately put in harm’s way.”
“Yes, well, at least I don’t have to look at myself.”
Jon can’t keep the bitter note out of his voice, and there’s a taste like bile in the back of his throat. Martin is staring at him now, wide eyed. He sits down heavily on the bed and pats the space next to him. When Jon doesn’t move, he pats it again.
“Come here,” he says. “Please, Jon.”
Jon sits beside him, folding his arms defensively. He doesn’t want to hear reassurances now: that the scars don’t matter, that Martin loves him regardless. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t take away from their ugliness, from what they represent.
Martin doesn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he reaches down and pulls his t-shirt off over his head, leaving him in just his pajama bottoms. Jon’s eyes are drawn as always to the freckles on his shoulders, the wiry, ginger hair on his chest and belly, the softness and the strength of him. Martin takes Jon’s hand—the burned one—in his, and presses it to the pale, silvery scar on the right side of his belly.
“When you see this scar, does it remind you of the fact that my appendix burst when I was twelve and I almost died?”
“N-no,” says Jon. Martin’s told him the story, of course, but it’s an old scar, long since faded; the part Jon remembers most is Martin grinning with delight, telling him how the nurses in the hospital sneaked him extra ice cream while he was recovering.
“What about these?” Martin asks, moving Jon's hand up to his chest, to the faded t-anchor scars. “Do they make you think of how my dysphoria used to be so bad I wanted to die?”
“No—of course not!” Jon’s heart aches, and he clutches at Martin’s hand. Martin smiles.
“Good, because they shouldn’t. These scars mean I survived—I got the treatment I needed, and my life got better. I found you.”
“Martin,” Jon starts to say, but Martin shakes his head.
“I know it’s not the same. What was done to you, it was...horrifying. Monstrous. But it comes down to the same thing, Jon. Our scars might not be pretty, but they mean that we survived. You survived, and you’re here with me.” He tugs Jon’s hand up and presses a fierce kiss to the shiny, scarred skin across his knuckles. “I love them for that.”
Jon feels a lump rising in his throat, his vision blurring with tears. He wraps his arms around Martin and pulls him close, buries his face against Martin’s warm, solid shoulder. Martin’s hands pet soothingly over his back and sides, don’t flinch from the knot of scar tissue below Jon’s rib cage where the knife drove in, in those last, desperate moments.
“I love you,” he mumbles, his voice thick with emotion. It’s the only thing he can think to say. The only thing that really matters.
“I love you,” says Martin, and they stay like that for a while, skin to scarred skin.
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idk if you’re still taking requests so no pressure but maybe jmart 18 about jon’s scars? or,,, honestly however you wanna interpret that lol
Hehe bet you thought you weren't getting one. But of COURSE you're getting one! <3 HERE YOU GO!! Sorry it is late I am not a fast writer haha! This was a VERY interesting one to interpret and I got a little wonky and metaphysical there for a bit WHICH I LOVE and THE IDEA MIGHT HAVE BEEN A BIT LONG FOR A DRABBLE BUT! It's soft and I'm soft and I enjoyed this one SO SO MUCH ; w ; I hope you do too!!
Jon had Seen enough. Martin had decided that long ago. He had witnessed enough, been forced to witness enough, been the vessel into which literally everything had funneled into in an unrelenting typhoon of unspeakable, unfathomable horrific knowledge comprehensible only to him long enough that he damn well deserved the luxury of imperception. He had earned the right to not notice when Martin accidentally bought the wrong brand of chai, the one he insisted tasted like someone rubbed a stick of cinnamon on plasterboard and jammed it in a cardamom pod, but honestly tasted just like the one he preferred. The universe, whichever one they happened to be in now, owed him not realizing the buttons on his cardigan were one off until they were about to head out and Martin had to fix them, fingers humming with the warmth of him lingering in the cashmere every time. He deserved to forget his keys and then also have to go back to check that their flat door was locked twice, just to be sure. He deserved tossing cabbage in the trolley at the market, only to get home and realize it was a head of iceberg lettuce instead, and also he had completely forgotten the onion anyway so back he would have to go. Tiny and insignificant, patently human foibles that any normal person might tally up to a really rotten day overall and gripe about over a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape he had won as gleaming, pyrrhic badges on the ruins of his humanity yanked back from the claws of the yawning, devouring dark matter of the cosmos and stitched painstakingly back together with love.
But mostly Jon deserved to not notice the way people looked at him.
He need not see the painted-on expressions of strangers that ran the gamut from quiet pity, to voyeuristic curiosity, to outright revulsion that Martin could not help but see everywhere they went. They had no idea. Not even the slightest inkling of what, exactly, had composed that magnum opus of horror and pain scarred resplendently on his flesh, his bones, his sinews and synapses. To even try know was to go mad, the mind looping through and around and between consciousness and logic and love and fear and philosophy and metacognition until it squeezed into an ouroboros black hole singularity of dense unknowing that collapsed in on itself and perished in cataclysm. They had merely gotten lucky that being extruded through the plumbings of creation seemed to straighten out their fibers enough to be woven back into the fabric of reality, but they were too kinked and snagged and gnarled to ever lay fully flat again. And that was why they stared.
The invasive beings of Jon and Martin had come to mutual terms with it long ago, but they also knew they would be forever incongruous with an innocent world, with a world where they did not belong and that collectively looked at them both like an ontological cancer, benign but festering and ugly. They would never know the thing that crouched behind the stars with pointed knees and elbows that even then, groped to find their new world in the lightless vast, and Jon deserved to not perceive any hints of that either. He deserved their quiet, their peace, their wordless human acceptance.
Jon deserved to be innocently chewing a periwinkle-painted thumbnail in front of the ice cream counter, just as he was that gossamer spring afternoon, turning woeful and forever mismatched brown and green eyes at his husband and asking if he should get mint chip or rum raisin before deciding, actually, could he have a sample of the salted caramel ribbon first? He pointed eagerly at the various frozen tubs behind the glass with his gnarled right hand, where the fingers never did quite open or close properly again, and missed in his wonderment at the veritable cornucopia of sweet delights available to him the mingled look of pity and horror on the cashier’s face as she doled out samples at his request. Martin lurked protectively behind, silent, sentinel, seeing it all, a hot brand of fury boring its way through his chest as he glared icy blue daggers at the clueless young woman, who only compounded her crimes by complimenting the permanent white forelock in his ginger curls as she took his order.
Martin snatched his double scoop of rocky road and pralines and cream out of her hand with a withering scowl and said nothing. Jon, frowning in the dread shadow of Martin’s hushed wrath and finally deciding on just the mint chip, took it upon himself to pay while the poor young woman skirted around both their gazes. They took their ice cream to enjoy in the balmy sun on the metal patio tables outside the shop under a cloud of unspoken insults and slander which Jon was more than happy to pop open the conversational umbrella beneath before the downpour.
“Something wrong?” he asked solicitously.
“Nope. I’m fine,” came the curt answer, suspiciously also lacking in eye contact as Martin stabbed his pink spoon into the rocky road.
Jon’s mismatched eyes narrowed shrewdly. There was one thing that never escaped his notice, even now, and that was the painfully obvious way Martin always broadcast his inner hurts and the physical language of his turmoil he had become fluent in over the years.
“Okay, yes you are probably fine. And I’m guessing it has nothing to do with you actually, because you’re angry and you rarely get angry on your own behalf, which means it’s probably something to do with me or some perceived slight. What happened in there? Did someone make a snide remark about my eccentric ice cream selection? The long skirt on a warm spring day? Oh, no, I’ve got it. It was probably the earrings, yes? I knew I should have gone with the feathers instead of hoops, matches the outfit much better.”
The corner of Martin’s mouth quirked up in a hapless, crooked smile as Jon coaxed a laugh out of him, and he looked up into his gaze adoringly to grant him unspoken conciliation.
“No, no not at all. Nothing like that. It’s nothing, love. It’s not a big deal. Just low blood sugar or something. Just eat your nasty mint chip or rum raisin or whatever that unholy concoction is,” Martin snorted, gesturing at his cup.
“Liar,” Jon crooned with loving reproachment, reaching out to thumb a little bit of rum raisin on the tip of Martin’s nose as punishment.
Even breathed with such unfettered, undying affection, Martin hated that word. He hated how transparent he still was to the man he loved, how much he still truly saw him, saw through him. At least all it took to compel him now was a little melted ice cream rubbed clean off his nose and a winsome smile with love-puddled green and brown eyes.
“Okay, okay… fine,” he admitted with a resigned smirk and a sigh, “I don’t like the way they look at you. Okay? That’s all.”
Jon’s brow knitted together curiously.
“Hmm? Who? What do you mean?” he asked.
“Everyone!” Martin finally effused in frustration, “Everywhere! They look at you like you’re… like you’re damaged goods! Like you’re some pitiful beaten animal on the street, or worse, like you’re some sort of- some sort of um…”
“…Monster?” supplied Jon, lips pursed and lids drooping.
“…I wasn’t going to say that,” Martin stammered.
“What other word is there?”
“Fine, they look at you like you’re a monster. They take one look at your face or your throat or your… your hand. And I can just see it on their faces. They look at you like you’re a monster, and I hate it. You don’t deserve that. You never did! They don’t even know you! They don’t know what happened to you…! And sorry, Jon, but I get angry about it because it’s not fair, and I can’t exactly go about lobbing right hooks into the faces of everyone who even looks at you cross-eyed, now can I? Much as I’d like to…"
Jon went quiet as he listened, dabbling first in the rum raisin, then indulging in a little mint chip chaser, cocking his head to the side thoughtfully as he nibbled on the plastic spoon.
“Is that what you see?”
The color rolled out from Martin’s freckled cheeks along with the very spirit from his eyes in a fog, his entire mien awash in pallor.
“What? How could you say that to me? I would NEVER think that about you, Jon! How could you ever think I would think that? I-I know I said some awful things in the past about your scars, but I-“
“No no! Martin, no! Of course not! I know you would never!” Jon cut in, reaching across the table to snatch his hand and squeeze it reassuringly, rubbing his knuckles and over his wedding ring, “You misunderstand! I was asking if that’s what you see in their eyes?”
Martin clung to Jon’s hand, heart palpitating and breath easing.
“Oh…” he blurted dumbly, flushing with lively hues of reds and golds once more, “I-? Of course I do, what else could it be?”
“I don’t see that. I don’t see that at all,” Jon answered simply, “It’s… hard to describe but, damaged goods, disgust, morbid curiosity, those are all… Hard things. They have sharp edges. And when people here look at me, I don’t feel anything hard or sharp, it feels… soft? It feels gentle.”
Shaking his head, Martin frowned.
“Gentle? How is openly gawking at someone’s scars in any way gentle?”
“It’s just a feeling I have. I suppose,” Jon mused, thumbing at his beard with his free hand as he constructed an analogy that would make sense in his mind, “Mmm… Think of it like this. Humans, life, we’re all very visually oriented creatures, right? We respond to visual cues in our environments that are universally understood. We wear these rings so that everyone knows we belong together, just the same as bright colors usually mean poison, or how specialized feathers, or horns, or dewlaps and the like let others know they’d be a good mate, or how some things look like eyes or like entirely different creatures to scare off predators, and so on.”
The creases in Martin’s forehead only deepened in confusion.
“Okay sure, but scars aren’t a natural adaptation? We don’t look at scars the same way we look at pretty eyes on a moth wing or something.”
“I know that, that’s not what I’m saying,” Jon reiterated tenderly, “What I’m saying is I’ve always felt like my scars are a visual cue, but one that says to others ‘treat me gently’, because clearly I haven’t been. And it’s… well it’s been quite nice. You were about to tear that poor girl’s head off, but didn’t you see how she not only gave me about six samples when the sign clearly said two per customer, but then she also gave me the rum raisin ‘by mistake’ and then conveniently forgot to charge for it?”
“Wh-did she?” Martin gasped in shock, rewinding the transaction to remember that indeed, Jon had only asked for mint chip, but there was clearly also a generous scoop of rum raisin in his cup, ”She did… No I… I guess I didn’t notice…”
Jon let Martin’s hand go to cup his cheek pointedly in his scarred palm, running his thumb over the soft curve of his cheek and the spray of his ruddy freckles comfortingly.
“You want to know what I think? I think what you perceive as disgust or aversion or even pity is just fear, like you had. Fear of pain, fear of disfigurement, of fallibility. People are always afraid of seeing what can become of their mortal bodies, but that has nothing to do with me, or being disgusted by me. People are, at their cores, good and gentle, Martin. I know they are, we both do. They see me, my cane, my limp, my hand, my gray hair, my face, and they don’t even ask, they just know, on some primal level, that life was not kind to me. And so in some tiny way, like free rum raisin, they almost always try to give something back to me.”
Jon had known. He had noticed. It had never escaped his perception as Martin had assumed. Jon had known all along, but it was only Martin who still saw daggers in the smiles of strangers while he had taken the last vestiges of his powers irrevocably branded on his body and soul and sowed something delicate and beautiful and blossoming in his new earth. Martin had made a weapon. Perhaps no less delicate and beautiful, but still cold and sharp and deadly. The razor white edge of the sun through frigid fog.
“I’m so sorry, Jon,” Martin choked, his throat pinching shut with the threat of tears, “I-I had no idea…. I-I only thought…”
“It’s alright, please don’t cry, darling, you have nothing to be sorry for. I understand. You only thought you were protecting me. I protected you for so long, when you were desperate to do the same for me, to save me, but had no power to do either. Now you’ve got your turn to do the protecting in earnest, and honestly, it’s a… can I- can I say hot? Can I say it’s a hot look on you? Or is that weird?” Jon asked, tips of his ears blushing coyly.
Martin managed a laugh as he sniffed back the tears and thumbed both sets of lashes dry under his spectacles.
“It’s a little weird for you, in particular, to say it, just because it’s you. But I’ll take it.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Perhaps then, Martin thought as Jon leaned over their whimsical little metal table outside an ice cream parlor by a park with a striped canopy above them and birds singing and kissed his tears away and then kissed his lips into a smile, that sharp things needn’t always be weapons. Perhaps his sword was, in reality, a spade, or a hoe, something to tend and nurture the new and fragile happiness Jon had tilled. Gentle things deserved gentle protection, and he was still going to devote every iota of his being to protecting Jon until the end of their days. After all, as they finally got to enjoy their slightly melted ice cream, Jon still dribbled a bit of rum raisin down his beard and carried on none the wiser. Martin let him go on like that, blissfully unaware, talking about Polyphemus moths and the myth of the cyclops and something about someone going about as Nobody, until he finally reached out with a napkin to attentively wipe it away.
Other than a gracefully paced ‘oh, thank you dear,’ Jon never missed a beat.
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tma fic recs please ? 🤲🏽
Oooooo yes! I never get asks like this, thank you!
[my tumblr fic recs tag is here for browsing]
I had to put it under a cut because it got...entirely too long barely half an hour into making it, sorry.
Under 5k
means of cartharsis by orphan_account [G] [965]
“You’d think – you’d that at this point nightmares would be second nature for me, hm?” Martin says, forcing a smile even as he tugs the blanket tighter around his trembling shoulders.
It’s meant to be a bit funny. Instead of laughing, though, Jon frowns.
“No,” he says simply, and matter-of-factly wipes the moisture from Martin’s cheeks with a tissue like he’s a crying child.
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In a different world, one where Elias is not waiting for them outside the Lonely, everyone has a chance to savor a moment of respite. As much as they can get these days. If only to talk about things that long need to be spoken.
“Basira says we should all sleep in the same room tonight,” Jon says without looking up. “Safer. So we can keep an eye out for intruders and also each other.”
“So we’re having a proper sleepover then?”
Jon scoffs. “Technically we’ve been having a proper one for months.”
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It's complicated.
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"What're you sorry for?” Martin asks.
“I should have asked,” Jon says finally. “I'd never.... you were always so private about him, so I mean, at first I wasn't sure he was even yours, but then – when you, when you went with Peter, and I – he was so small, and I thought he was h-half-dead. S-so I picked him up and I carried him. And I'm sorry.”
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In the doorway, he fumbles with his keys. Their sound is loud in the silent stairwell. You don’t remember getting here.
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Some people make the mistake of assuming he's naive about sex, for the simple reason he hasn't dated in a while. Tim has called him a prude, at one point, and implied that he was somehow afraid of the intimacy required by the act; he wasn’t entirely wrong, but this definitely isn’t the reason for Jon's disinterest and general bafflement toward what most people seemed to consider as "what makes them human".
Jon simply hasn't found the right person. That is all it is: high standards, and a reticence to let people in.
(In which Jon finds out society is wrong about what a romantic relationship should be.)
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Sometimes you just need a good pair of hands to work out all the kinks in your life.
Good thing Martin has two.
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"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."
*
Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.
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A long series of kidnappings and international flights leaves its own special mark on someone. Before the Unknowing, Jon is a mess.
Martin helps.
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Martin moves over and watches how his boyfriend handles the dough. He's awkward with it, tentative and gentle, as if he's scared of hurting it somehow.
"Is this, uh, am I doing this right?" Jon asks, still slowly stretching out the dough and folding it onto itself.
"Well," he says shifting closer to Jon again, "you could be applying more pressure. Here, let me help you out, dear."
Martin moves fully behind Jon, and reaches around him, putting his hands on top of his boyfriend's. Jon inhales sharply, but doesn't say anything else, just lets Martin's hand rest on top of his.
Martin's hands are bigger, but not big enough to entirely envelop the other's hands, and Jon's hands are much, much warmer than his own are. To see what they're doing, Martin moves his head to look over Jon's shoulder. Though he can't see his boyfriend's face from this angle, he can see how it is slowly growing red at the edge of his vision. He decides not to tease him on it, instead content with letting a smile spread across his face and slowly guiding their joined hands in the proper motion.
Or, Martin teaches Jon how to make bread.
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“Things happened,” Jon says demurely, trying to untangle Gerry’s fingers, but it only results in him getting pulled in so Gerry can kiss him properly. “It’s not all that bad.”
“I suppose not,” Gerry says with a sigh, sitting back upright. “You somehow managed to snag an incredible boyfriend out of it.”
It takes a solid few seconds before realization clicks in Martin’s brain. “You mean me?” [...]
“You have to admit, Jon has great tastes,” Gerry teases.
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So Tim is content, one arm leaned into the spray, waiting for the water to warm, enjoying the feeling of homecoming underneath the gentle fuzz of jetlag, when he hears gasping, panicked breaths coming from the other room.
Tim and Jon, in the aftermath, relearning how to be okay.
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And there is nothing else besides this.
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“Jon?” he asks tentatively, tightening his grip around the poker as it slips against his sweaty palm. The antennae twitch, and suddenly Martin knows that it’s Jon, the knowledge sliding into his mind in a surge of desperate affection, the same profound love he felt that first time he truly saw Jon in the fog of the Lonely.
“Oh,” he whispers. “It really is you.”
*
Jon changes, but he’s still the same to Martin.
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Or: The OG Archive crew go drinking, Martin comes out, and gets some well deserved TLC. In that order.
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Jon catalogs the comforts he receives, and wonders how long he will be allowed to keep them.
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Jon has been running himself ragged, searching for every scrap of information he can possibly find about the Unknowing. He's exhausted and sleep-deprived but he can't bring himself to take a break, not now.
Luckily, Tim and Martin are there to make sure that their boyfriend gets the care and rest he needs.
only the sweetest words remain by bluejayblueskies [T] [4.6k]
This isn't how things are supposed to go, right? Jon remembers those ratty paperbacks from the charity shops, dime-a-dozen romance novels with broken bindings and yellowing pages and words that spoke of love and passion and sexuality in prose that was more than a bit too mature for someone whose age hadn’t yet reached double digits. Stolen glances turn into dinner dates turn into passionate kisses turn into…
Well, he’d never actually read those parts of the books, because it had all seemed so deeply uncomfortable and gross. But he got the picture.
Or, Jonathan Sims, on being loved
5k-20k
and they keep not letting go by Marianne_Dashwood [G] [5k]
It’s an electric feeling, something strange and new and familiar all at once, even though he has been holding Martin’s hand for most of the day. His stomach swoops, like he is standing on the edge of the precipice of realisation and staring into the void of unknowing. But at the same time, he does know. In this instant of contact between them, the last few years of cups of tea and small smiles and momentary glances, of panic and fear and only feeling safe with Martin’s solid presence in the room, despite his paranoia, rush into him, and oh, oh oh.
ready to call this love by yewgrove [G] [5.6k]
How is Martin supposed to tell Jon that he panicked, stupidly, when the lovely old lady down the village asked him what they were doing in this part of the world? Got the shopping! Oh, by the way, we're married now! Whole village thinks we're on our honeymoon, hope you don't mind!
Prenons-nous la main by luftballons99 [T] [6k]
They still haven't talked about it, any of it, not even to pass the time on the long train ride to Scotland. Instead, Martin fell asleep in the seat next to him, pressed into his side from shoulder to knee, and Jon thought about love confessions and verb tense and how the two fit together when you think you're dying.
or: Good cows, mediocre poetry, and other crucial topics of discussion.
This Must Be The Place by cuttooth [T] [6k]
“You said – you said we were going home,” Martin says softly.
“I did,” says Jon, and is grateful that Martin doesn’t comment on him calling the Archives home. “I – I don’t really know where to go. I, uh, I don’t have a flat anymore, I don’t think. We could find a hotel?”
“Let’s go to my place,” says Martin. His hand squeezes Jon’s, more gently than before. Most importantly, Jon notes, he doesn’t let go.
*
Jon and Martin go home for a little while.
Small Things, Simple Acts by ZaliaChimera [T] [6.6k]
Even after leaving London, Jon and Martin are not free, not really. Maybe they never will be.
But for now they can be themselves, and maybe in the end, that's enough.
house by tomatoes [G] [9k]
Martin can take care of himself.
roses, roses, roses by acetheticallyy (judesstfrancis) [T] [9.3k]
Rose scented laundry detergent. Running into Jon in the breakroom. Running into Jon on his way back to his desk. Rose scented detergent. Running into Jon. Roses. Jon. Roses, roses, roses.
a deeply annoying child by ajkal2 [G] [9.6k]
Jon is hiding under the desk.
----
There's a child in the Archives, who shouldn't be there.
Inseparable by voiceless_terror [T] [10.3k]
“You can stay.” The voice interrupts his internal panic, and he looks over to find Jon studiously avoiding his gaze, staring hard at a neighboring bush. Martin wonders what caused his sudden change of heart. “But you have to sit on the other side. And don’t talk to me.”
Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood meet as children. Some things change, others do not.
i'm almost me again, you're almost you by gruhukens [G] [12k]
After a second Jon steps in towards him, close enough that Martin flinches, but all Jon does is put two fingers under his chin with his free hand and raise it until Martin can’t duck away. Jon has never touched him so casually before – at least, not until today, and it raises a lot of thoughts and feelings that Martin is trying very hard not to process.
Much like a lot of other things that have happened, he thinks. Not that it’s horrible or terrifying or numbing like everything else has been: it’s just another thing on the list of things he doesn’t have the capacity to deal with.
---
In the wake of the Lonely, there's a lot that Martin doesn't really want to think about.
hello my old heart by firebirdsuite [T] [15.8k]
Peter’s wrong, of course. When it’s all over, Martin does still want to tell Jon everything. It’s just—well, there’s a few things they need to work through first before they can get there.
Martin and Jon find each other again in Scotland.
Over 20k
The Kindness of Strangers by TheOestofOCs [M] [23k]
It was easier to treat Jon like a monster when he wasn’t shivering against his back, brokenly humming—wait, was that…
“Are you trying to do ‘Hey, Jude’?” Tim demanded.
Jon stopped, stiffening. “Mm hrmh mm mmh hm,” he said defensively.
“You really can’t hold a tune, can you, boss?”
*
It was just an ordinary walk to a restaurant. Tim had insisted that if they were going to talk, there would be no tape recorders or weird Archives ghosts listening in. A bit of fresh air wouldn’t kill him, Tim had said. What could go wrong?
By the time Jon spots the white delivery van, it’s much too late.
The Stranger kidnaps Jon. Tim comes along for the ride.
Misjudged by ShastaFirecracker [T] [36.5k]
Martin's been a longtime listener of What the Ghost, so when Georgie gives a shoutout to her flatmate's Twitch channel during a Q&A, he checks it out - only to discover that her flatmate is also his most terrifying coworker at his new job. The first time they crossed paths, Jon yelled at him for incompetence. But on the streams, Martin sees an entirely different person - someone fun and relaxed, engaging and unfairly attractive. Over time, Martin begins to find that Jon buried inside his dour, awkward coworker. He also learns to live with the fact that his crush is painfully one-sided... or is it?
if we make it through the night everyone is gonna hear us (Series) by skvadern [Ratings Vary] [42.4k]
In which Sasha survives the NotThem (with a little help from a certain Distortion) and she and Jon spend s2 working together to try and make sense of everything that's happening to them. It goes...interestingly
the garden of forking paths by bibliocratic [T] [49.7k]
Whatever he had predicted might happen, Jon wasn't expecting to survive upon demolishing the Panopticon. He certainly wasn't expecting to be rescued.
Instead, he wakes up in an alternative universe where he's never been the Archivist, and Martin Blackwood doesn't exist.
Martin Blackwood wakes up somewhere else entirely.
it's only forever by lady_mab [T] [50.9k]
“The castle at the center of the labyrinth,” Jon breathes, recalling again the words from one of the past conversations with Martin. “He’s there.”
“Turn back, Jonathan,” the Goblin King says, and Jon is surprised to hear a slight edge of desperation in the tone. “Turn back before it’s too late.”
“I can’t,” Jon answers with the same tone. “You know that I can’t.”
The Goblin King’s grin is gone completely, and he regards Jon with a degree of pity before that melts into resignation.
Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey [T] [53.3k]
"Who the hell are you?" Jon could feel his hands shaking.
The man laughed, taking a step forward and raising a hand to point at him.
"I'm you, from the future!" he said, then swayed, eyes going unfocused, and collapsed to the floor in a dead faint.
--------
Post-season-four Jon and Martin time travel back to the season one Archives.
A Home For What Loves You by TheWrongShop [T] [151k]
It was completely fine that Jon was following up on this very normal, non-supernatural statement at midnight on a Friday. He was going to find nothing at all, and then he was going to go home and sleep for fourteen straight hours and feel absolutely no qualms about moving case #0150409 directly into the filing cabinet marked "discredited".
Or; Jon and Martin end up investigating Carlos Vittery's basement and finding the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss together.
RATED E *MINORS DNI*
A Look And A Voice by cuttooth [E] [6.9k]
“Do you want to have sex with me?” Jon asks bluntly, and for a second Martin can’t breathe.
“It - it doesn’t matter what I - ” he begins valiantly, before Jon interrupts him.
“Because I want to have sex with you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if you think it’s for the wrong reasons. I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions. The only thing that matters is if you want to as well.”
*
Martin meets a guy in a bar and takes him home.
Warms The Coldest Night by cuttooth [E] [11k]
"Flame that warms the coldest night
Bring to us the waxing Light,
Be with us on Solstice Night."
Gypsy - Bring Back The Light
There is mistletoe hanging in the doorway to the Archives when Jon gets in.
Curiosity by ShastaFirecracker [E] [11.6k]
“You know that conversation we had the other day about how one of the most important things for queer youth to learn is that it's okay to change their minds, because identity and self-discovery are always fluid?”
Behind him, Martin slipped oven mitts over his hands and pulled open the oven door. The scent of garlic and rosemary flooded the kitchen. “Yeah?” he said.
“I, um... I'd like to revisit the topic of sex.”
At the Interim (Series) by Rend_Herring [E] [41k]
A Measure Outside the Lines and The Residuum
triptych (Series) by Stacicity [E] [44.9k]
A collection of Jon/Tim/Martin fics
a steady hand, a delicate man by callmearctus [E] [52.8k]
Martin is the proprietor and manager of a very discrete and fairly exclusive brothel situated between Belgravia and Chelsea. Blackwood House excels at special requests and pleasing any client.
Except for Jon, who probably has never been pleased a day in his entire life.
Despite that, he still comes back. It eventually begs the question: how do you solve a problem like Jon Sims?
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Might I ask about 'Life Preserver'? I have no idea what it could mean, and that makes me very curious👀
This is my pre-S1 JonGerry AU! They meet while Jon’s still in school and Gerry’s on the hunt for a Leitner. It’s part of a trilogy in my head that includes JonGerryMartin later on, but Life Preserver takes place before Jon becomes the Archivist and is just JonGerry.
Here’s a scene from it!
---
“Thanks for meeting me,” Georgie said, by way of greeting.
Gerry shrugged. “‘S fine. What’s the occasion?”
It was a nice day. The cafe was bustling but not overcrowded. Georgie had insisted on dragging him to the one empty table outside, with the nice view of the street and the park on the other side. Gerry had eaten lunch in far worse places, with far worse company.
Shit, were they friends? Had he missed that somehow? Not that Georgie wasn’t nice enough, but he’d always figured she was more invested in Jon than in him. That was how it worked, wasn’t it? He wasn’t sure if being friends with your boyfriend’s ex was a thing you were supposed to do, and at this point he was too afraid to ask.
“Why does there have to be an occasion?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe I just wanted a lunch partner.”
“Didn’t think you liked me that much,” Gerry said bluntly. Maybe that was harsh—she’d only given him a little bit of stink eye when they first met, and she’d let up pretty quick.
If Georgie was bothered by it, she didn’t show it. “I worry about Jon sometimes,” she said. “He’s not always the best at… at advocating for himself, I guess.”
“Yeah, I’ve gathered.” For someone as prickly as Jon, he was shit at actually standing up for himself where it counted.
“Worried a lot about you, at first,” Georgie went on, clasping her hands around her coffee cup. “But I decided not to prod too much. I didn’t want to be one of those exes, you know?”
“Yeah,” Gerry lied.
“Figured it wasn’t my business anyway,” she said, pausing to take another sip. “Jon and I hadn’t talked in over a year by the time I met you.”
“Right.”
“You know, I didn’t even learn your full name?” she said. “Not til last week. Weird, isn’t it?”
Gerry paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. “I… guess?”
“And you know, it stuck in my mind for the longest time,” she said. “Could’ve sworn I heard it somewhere. So I did a quick Google search.”
Slowly, Gerry put his cup back down. Georgie continued to sip demurely at her own.
“Thought I’d find a Facebook page with a few friends in common,” she said. “Or a LinkedIn or something. So you can imagine how surprised I was.”
Gerry looked around at the cafe’s full outdoor seating area, and the crowded, public street beyond. Plenty of witnesses, in broad daylight.
“Ah,” he said.
“Yeah.”
Besides a slight lift of the eyebrows, Georgie’s expression barely changed. Gerry stared down at his cup, appetite gone. Around them, passersby remained happily oblivious.
“I didn’t do it,” he said after a moment. “The charges were dropped and everything.”
“On a technicality.” Georgie’s eyes were cold and steady when they settled on him. “Contaminated evidence, according to one of the news articles.”
“Look, I don’t know what you expect me to say,” Gerry bit out.
“I don’t know either, Gerry, but what am I supposed to think?” Neither of their voices rose above the dull roar of the street and the hum of conversation around them, but Gerry still felt like he was being shouted at. “Does Jon know about this?”
“No, and if I have my way, he won’t.”
Georgie’s steely gaze turned to a glare. “And you don’t see the red flags that might raise? That you might’ve—”
A tide of red rose up behind his eyes. Not anger, but the memory of blood, both the sight and the overpowering smell. “She did it to herself,” Gerry said coldly.
“Not what the coroner’s report said—”
“What do you want from me?” Gerry went on harshly. “I came home and found her halfway through—that. Went into shock long enough for her to get plenty of it on me, then ran out to the nearest coffeeshop and sat in a fog until the police picked me up. Happy?” Georgie’s glare only hardened. “It really doesn’t matter what you think. It’s the truth whether or not you believe it.”
She waited for him to wrest himself back to something resembling calm before speaking again. “Fine. Let’s say I believe you. Why are you lying to Jon, then?”
“Oh, tell me what the best time to bring that up is,” Gerry said dryly. “Is that a fourth date conversation, or more of an anniversary thing?”
“I’m not talking about the murder,” Georgie retorted. “Why did you tell him you’re living with your mother?”
He probably could have come up with a feasible lie. But what came out instead was, “Because I am.”
The look on Georgie’s face was viciously unimpressed. “You’re living with your mum.”
“Yep.”
“Your mum, who by your own admission, committed a violent suicide in 2008.”
“Got it in one.”
“If you’re not even going to take this seriously,” Georgie began.
“Would you like to meet her?” Gerry asked. “It’s not like it’d be the first time you saw a corpse get up and walk around, would it?”
Georgie froze.
That was the funny thing about saying cruel things, Gerry reflected. More often than not, you had to say them out loud first to realize they were cruel at all.
But it was out, and he couldn’t swallow it back down, so he let it sit there between them, bloating like a dead thing in the sun. He didn’t look at Georgie’s face again. He wasn’t sure he could.
“What did you just say to me?” Georgie said shakily.
“I don’t want to say it again,” said Gerry. “And I don’t think you do, either.”
“That’s…” She sat back in her chair, putting just a bit more distance between them. Gerry shut his eyes. “How—how could you possibly know about that?”
Gerry heaved a sigh, running his hand down his face. He could always stop. He could get up right now and walk away. Never talk to her again, never see her again. Of course, if he did that, it’d probably mean never seeing Jon again, either.
Not for the first time, he wondered if that wasn’t a good thing.
“When you live like I do,” he said at last. “You learn to see it. Recognize it—them. The marks on people. Like the one on you.”
It was subtle, as the End always was. It never looked like a proper scar, the way the more violent ones did. After all, what was more natural than death itself?
“I’m… marked,” Georgie said. It wasn’t a question.
“Kind of impressive, to be honest,” he said. “Dodging Terminus. Not many can say they’ve done that.”
“Stop.” Her hands went to her ears quickly, almost instinctively, before she forced them down again. “Just, stop for a second.”
“Okay.”
Georgie sat and breathed for a moment. Then, “So your mother—” She paused again, gathering herself. “She… she was like that woman in the medical sciences building.”
“Dunno,” Gerry replied, forcing himself to look at her again. “I can see the scar, not what left it. And what my mum did was… unique.”
Her eyes were still fixed on the table in front of her, not on him. “Is this common?” she asked.
“Walking corpses, specifically?” Gerry asked. “Or did you mean more generally?” She nodded once. “Guess so. It’s been common enough to take over my life.” He watched her carefully, waiting for a sign that he should stop again. “There are forces behind the monsters. Powerful. Omnipresent, even. Most people are lucky enough not to notice, or be noticed. Some are lucky like you, and escape with only a scar. Others—” The Eye dropped a helpful bit of trivia in his head. “Others are like your friend.” She flinched. “Sorry.”
She sat and breathed for a little while longer. Gerry picked up his coffee cup again and waited.
“And what about you?” she asked at last. “Where do you fall?”
Gerry grimaced. “Long story. Very unpleasant.”
“Broad strokes, then.”
“Mum grew up seeing the monsters and decided it’d be nice if she could be one herself,” he said. “Then she thought it’d be even nicer to start a little monster dynasty, and that’s where I came in.”
At last, Georgie lifted her chin and looked him in the eye again. “And what about you?” she asked. “What do you want?” Her jaw shifted as it clenched. “What do you want with Jon?”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” he said quietly.
“That’s not what I asked.” Georgie’s eyes hardened again. “You know what I thought, when I first met you? I thought you were just—toying with him. Because I saw how he looked at you and how you looked at him, and it didn’t match. Like he was just—just a diversion for you. Just some passing curiosity until you got bored and moved on.”
Gerry slipped his hand off the table and into his lap. It was a bit late, she’d probably already seen it shaking, but it made him feel better, at least.
“Was I right?” Georgie asked. “It makes sense, even if it’s not the same as what I first thought. Growing up like that, I bet you’re curious. Is that what Jon is, to you? A way to play at being—”
“Human?” It came out harsher than he meant it to.
“I was going to say normal,” Georgie replied, glancing away for a moment. “But if these—monsters are as common as you say they are…”
“Look, you’re not wrong, alright?” Gerry sat back in his chair, letting his spine curve into an ugly slouch. “That’s how it started. He asked, and I was curious, so I went along with it.”
“And now?” she pressed.
“And now I want to keep it,” he said. “I want to keep him. I’m finally starting to like the world outside of the one I grew up in, probably because I finally have a reason to be here. Happy?”
“No,” Georgie said flatly.
Gerry tipped his head back with a groan. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to acknowledge what this sounds like!” Georgie glared at him, sitting up straight enough to look down at him. “What you’re making it sound like! So you grew up in a bad place—fine. I can’t imagine what that’s like. But then—what, you meet a nice guy and now you’re ready to leave it all behind and defy your undead mum and turn to the light side, just like that? That is not how it works, Gerry. It’s not as simple as that in this world, much less yours. You don’t just fall in love and fix everything, and it’s not fair to put that on Jon—”
Gerry barked out a laugh. “Is that what you took from this?” he demanded, dragging himself back up to face her. “You think I need you to tell me that—that love doesn’t conquer all, and I can’t pack all my baggage away and skip into the sunset because a cute boy asked me on a date and showed me the error of my family’s ways? Fuck you.”
Georgie held his gaze, unflinching. “Fine,” she said. “How should I have taken it, then?”
“I’ve wanted out since I was old enough to want anything.” The words came as if ripped from him, raw and bloody-tasting on his tongue. “You think I’ve never tried to leave before? But where’s someone like me supposed to go, hm? Even if I didn’t have monsters in my head and her ready to drag me back if I don’t come on my own, what place is there for me to run to?”
She didn’t flinch or look away again, even with Gerry a breath away from yelling in her face. Instead she watched him without so much as a twitch of an eyelid, leeching the venom from him with steady, infuriating calm.
“It’s like this,” he said. “Like I’m on a—a ship, sinking in a storm. I know if I stay on it, it’ll take me down with it, but what choice do I have? I could jump, but it would only drown me faster.” He swallowed, struggling against the dryness in his throat. “And I can see, just off the deck, all the boats that don’t have room for me, and all the people drowning in the ocean, and all I can do is stay where I am and throw life preservers until I join them.” His eyes burned. “But then I met Jon, and suddenly it’s like I have…” He gestured vaguely, struggling with his own analogy.
“A safe harbor,” Georgie said quietly.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t think there is one. Not from this. Not from them.” He shrugged, feeling inordinately tired. “But for the first time, I feel like—like if I jump, someone will throw me a line.”
In the space that followed, the hum of surrounding conversations washed back in between them. Gerry was almost surprised to see them still there. Apparently he hadn’t gotten loud enough to scare anyone off.
“Well?” he said, when Georgie’s silence got to him.
“It’s a lot to take in,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“And I’m still worried about Jon.” She lifted her eyes to meet his again. “But, I’m less worried about your intentions than I was before.”
“Guess that’s something,” he answered, and heaved a sigh. “So what happens now? Gonna demand I come clean with him?”
“No,” she said, faster than he would have expected. “No, I… I never told him about mine. And, just on instinct… I don’t think I’d ever want him dragged into this, if it’s avoidable.”
She didn’t know, Gerry realized. She’d known him years longer than he did, and she didn’t know he came scarred by the Spider.
“Is he in danger?” she asked. “Being with you?”
“No,” Gerry said firmly. “I wouldn’t—no. I keep him as far away from my shitty life as I can. I told him I didn’t want him anywhere near my family, and he didn’t press the issue.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “He thinks your mum’s a homophobe, you know.”
That shocked a laugh out of him. “You know, he’s probably right? Think she might just hate the idea of love in general, though.”
“Messy divorce, I take it,” Georgie said dryly.
“Rohypnol and garden shears were involved, so yeah, I’d say it was pretty messy.” He realized his mistake when the sickened look crossed her face. “Sorry.”
“It’s… fine,” she said. “Probably should’ve guessed.”
They sat in silence again, but the climate of it had shifted. It felt easier, somehow. Less like he half-expected the fog of the Lonely to come rolling in for a snack. Gerry remembered his coffee, and found it just on the edge of lukewarm. He drank it anyway.
Georgie shot him one last odd look, then took out her phone. She scrolled through it for a minute or so, then snagged a paper napkin and pulled a ballpoint pen from somewhere to scribble on it.
“Here,” she said, sliding it over. Gerry looked down to find a line of neat blue numbers. “That’s the number of the therapist I talked to after—what happened to me.” She looked at him briefly, saw the dubious look on his face, and shrugged at him. “Just in case you need another lifeline.”
It was strange—usually Jon was the one to make funny things happen in his chest. This one didn’t feel the same, but he still didn’t quite know what to do with it. It left him feeling uncomfortably like he owed her something.
“I won’t let any of it hurt him,” he said, because he had nothing else to offer. “I’ll end it myself before I put him in danger.”
She nodded, though she didn’t look as relieved about it as he’d hoped. “That’s good,” she said hesitantly. “Don’t be a martyr, either. You—you deserve help. You deserve a chance to get out. You know that, right?”
He tried to smile, but it felt more like baring his teeth in fear. “Don’t think I really know what anyone deserves.”
Georgie reached across the space between them, telegraphing her movements in case he wanted to pull away. He didn’t, even as her hand settled on top of his. “I’m rooting for you, alright?” she said firmly, as if she’d just decided it then and there. “Jon’s… he’s happy with you, you know?”
“Fuck if I know why,” he forced out.
“Stop that.” She gave his hand a quick squeeze. “I changed my mind about you, before. I can tell he makes you happy, too.”
His throat felt tight. “Yeah.”
“Fuck if I know why.”
“Oh, piss off.”
He palmed the napkin while she was busy laughing at him. For a moment he eyed the nearest bin, judging the distance and his chances of making it without her noticing. The moment passed, and instead he folded it carefully around the numbers and slipped it into his pocket to throw out later.
He never did.
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Breakable Things
Martin is big.
Not in a strapping film-star kind of way. Not tall or broad-shouldered, not a ‘mountain of a man’ or a ‘tall drink of water’ or anything like that.
Just big (a dumb, blunt, smack of a word.)
He was big as a lad, he’s bigger now. He always had the kind of body that inspired too many teachers to push him toward wrestling, football, rugby even (apparently his dad had been involved with the clubs. Apparently he’d been a fair tighthead back in the day, before he left Martin’s mum, and left Martin to gather up the pieces, cutting his fingertips on every one.)
It didn’t take Martin’s teachers or schoolmates long to realize that Martin’s size did not equate to any sort of athletic skill. And once the - inevitable rumours started circulating around Year Seven, well. Any motivation he might have had to be ‘part of a team’ was drained out of him like a tire going flat (that metaphor needs work. Doesn’t really convey the violence, try again.) His motivation left him like the air being knocked from his lungs, shove after hard shove against the lockers.
Martin is strong.
Physically. He doesn’t know why - got it from his father, didn’t he - his wide back, his thick fingers, his solid legs. He took a cricket bat to the face once - ought to have broken his nose, blackened his eyes, but it didn’t. Got in a car accident when he was seventeen, didn’t even crack a rib. Flipped the whole thing into the ditch, and his mum screamed herself hoarse when she found out, but Martin walked away from it. Physically. He walked away.
He doesn’t bruise easily. If he cuts his hand chopping vegetables, it heals quickly. He doesn’t have any scars (he has stretch marks though, all over his stomach and thighs, and for all that he is strong, he’s soft. He’s soft and he knows it, all pudding and poetry and fear, oh, fear most of all. It's pathetic how easy he is, how quickly he caves, rolls over and does whatever's asked of him.
In most situations, anyway. With most people.)
“Why don’t you want me coming with you?”
Jon is in his office, seated in front of that bloody tape recorder as always. The sight of him there is so familiar, like the negatives from a film camera. Like even if Jon wasn’t there, the imprint of him would still linger, white as a ghost against the darkness.
He doesn’t seem surprised to hear Martin’s voice. Neither does he glance up from the desk where he’s shuffling papers, gathering up books. His hands move constantly, restless and bird-boned and Martin is always looking at them, even when he tries not to.
“I don’t want you getting hurt.” Jon’s voice is low, rough with exhaustion, and it makes Martin wince. Makes him want to fuss (when is the last time the man got a decent night's sleep? Someone should bring him a cup of tea, someone should rub his shoulders, someone should do something -
He knows he has a caretaking thing. He knows it’s not - good. And the sharp ones get to him like anything, he wants to win them over in a pathetic, salivating way. It’s a sickness, but -
- but there was a point when it suddenly stopped being about Martin’s Whole Thing, and just started being about Jon.
He’ll talk to someone about it, swear. A professional, even. If the world doesn’t end.)
“It’s fine if you get hurt, though, is it?”
Jon does look up now, and Martin forces himself not to take a step back under the dark-lashed scrutiny. The heavy eyebrows, the shimmer of scars. Sometimes Jon’s skin reminds Martin of the surface of a planet, a rough and distant moon. He wonders how it is that Jon can be so narrow, so small, and still take up so much room in the Archives, and in the world, and in Martin’s big (and soft and so so stupid ) heart.
“It is my job.”
“No. This - this is not your job.” Martin struggles to put the words together in the face of this vast, ridiculous injustice. “Going off to - what? Do battle with some sort of evil, circussy death-cult, that’s not your job . You don’t get paid for that.”
Jon snorts, derisive, and Martin wishes he could be angry. It’d be easier if he was angry with Jon.
But he isn’t.
“Melanie needs you here. And I can’t be - there, thinking about -“ Jon stops. He swallows and looks back down at the scattered papers on his desk. A snowfall of horror stories, laid out neatly on Hammermill Bright White. “Worrying about you.”
(“Leave it, Martin, I’m fine just - leave me alone -” Mum smacks him away with a vein-bruised hand.)
“Because I’ll make a mess of things - is that what you think? I can help you, I want to help you-”
“I will feel better knowing you’re here.”
“And how do you think I’ll feel? Knowing you - you and, um Tim and Daisy - are out risking your lives while I’m sat on my hands, drinking tea, being useless -”
“You aren’t.” Jon’s voice is suddenly loud, as if he’s in pain. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “And I don’t - I can’t - you’ll be helpful here. The Institute needs you, and Melanie needs you, and I -”
-don’t, Martin hears.
Though Jon doesn’t say it, Martin hears it.
“Right,” he manages. “All right.”
He should go. He’s going to go. But he lingers for a moment more, committing as much of Jonathan Sims to memory as he can. The angles of him, compact and rigid with anxiety. The fall of hair across his forehead, ink black shot through with grey. Thin pink lines that a blade left below his jaw, a ripple of lacy scar tissue on his hand (and Martin mostly, mostly doesn’t wonder what those scars would feel like against his own skin. On his shoulder or - or sliding down the length of his throat. At the back of his neck, tugging him into a kiss.)
Come back, come back, come fucking back. Martin isn’t religious, never one for church, but it’s as much of a prayer as he’s ever said.
“Is there something else you want?” Jon asks, terse and tired and - for one thoughtless moment he is the Archivist and only the Archivist, and Martin can’t help but gasp out a shocked, “yes.”
Jon knocks a book off the desk. It slams to the floor loud as a gunshot, and Martin flinches.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, “I’m sorry, I -”
“No, I’m - I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking -”
“It’s fine - I know you didn’t -”
“I would never -”
“But you can.”
There’s a horrible silence, like the moment after the tape recorder shuts off, statement ends. Martin feels sick to his stomach and Jon looks like - like -
He doesn’t know what Jon looks like. Maybe that’s why he keeps talking.
“You can ask me. What I - what I want.” Heat is rushing to his face, a blush that feels like thorns. Jon just stares at him, and this was a bad, bad idea. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Jon doesn’t even need to ask the question, probably knows the whole awful story just by looking at him. “If you wanted.”
When Jon says nothing, just keeps staring, Martin tries desperately to double back.
“Never mind, that was -” He flaps his hands a bit, moving towards the door. His shoulders hunch, an old defense mechanism, useless body trying to make itself look as harmless as possible. Trying to make itself so small it’s beyond notice (it never works.) “I shouldn’t have. I can’t believe I - just - be safe. All right? That’s all I -”
“Martin -”
“That was - stupid, such a - I’m sorry, I only -”
“-what do you want?”
The words are spoken quietly. Barely above a whisper. But Martin doesn’t need to hear them - his whole body hears them, and suddenly every syllable feels golden in his mouth. Saying it out loud isn’t frightening or humiliating, it’s easy. Answering the Archivist is like falling asleep in a patch of sun-warmed grass, or gasping for air after holding your breath underwater.
“I want you to come back.” It’s honey dripping off his tongue. “I want you to come back for me. And I want the world not to end, and I want to know what your hair feels like, whether it’s soft or coarse and whether I can tell the difference between the black parts and the silvery parts just by touching them.”
Jon is absolutely frozen behind his desk. He might not even be breathing, but that’s okay; Martin can’t remember why anyone needs to breathe.
“And I want to help you. And the others. I want to matter. And I want Sasha to be okay, and I want Tim to be okay, and I want Elias to finally face some fucking consequences for once. I want to take you on holiday and - and watch you while you sleep so you know you don’t have to be afraid. I want to wake you up if you have nightmares and make you tea in the morning and bake things for you, and - and I want to kiss you, even if it’s just once. Only once, just so I know, and only if you want me to. That’s what I want.”
The sweetness ends the moment the last word leaves his mouth. Suddenly the honey is cloying and acrid, suddenly his heart is unsteady with embarrassment, skipping beats like he’s just had a shot of adrenaline. Martin chokes on a breath and slams his eyes shut against the spinning room.
“Fuck.” His voice cracks on the word, insult to injury, and he claps a hand over his mouth. “Oh God - I’m - oh God. That was -” He barely remembers what he said, which is the only thing keeping him upright at the moment. He just knows it was soft, pathetically soft. Even his fantasies are as weak as his jawline. “I’m going to - go, I’ll go. I shouldn’t have -”
“W-wait.”
Martin doesn’t want to open his eyes. But he does. Just in time to see Jonathan Sims stand up. Start to walk around the desk.
And Jon is not big. Or strong, physically. Martin knows a bit about anatomy, took a couple art classes, was always fascinated by the bones of things. As Jon steps closer, Martin can only see the breakable things about him. Collarbones, fingers, bridge of his nose. What’s that bone in the arm that everyone’s always breaking?
Humerus.
Ulna.
Jon is not strong, and he is scarred, and he is small and fragile and God he is the bravest person Martin’s ever met.
“Martin, you -” Jon stops in front of him and Martin looks down, gaze almost level with the top of Jon’s head. “You can ask me. What - what I want.”
He’s shaking, Martin can see it - and it makes him realize that he’s shaking too. He barely manages the “What -” before he forgets how to say the rest, forgets how words work (but Jon, Jon is brave.)
“I think - I would like -” Jon reaches for Martin’s hand, and lifts it to his mouth. Presses a dry kiss right in the centre of Martin’s palm.
It’s a ruining sort of softness, and Martin’s big (physically) and strong (physically) but somehow Jon knows where his weaknesses are - the loose dragonscale, the slipped disc.
(And of course, after this the world will almost end (but not quite.) After this, there will be Elias and Martin’s humiliating tears over a statement he knew damn well, a beholding that came as no surprise to anyone.
After this Jon will die.
Almost. Not quite.)
But now: Jon is murmuring, “I think -” as he leans up to kiss Martin (and his warm mouth is shocking and brief, a knife sliding home.)
But now: Jon is still shaking when their lips part, and Martin’s hands are on either side of his face, tips of his fingers settled lightly in Jon's hair (it’s softer than anything, as it turns out, and the silvery parts are softest of all.)
Their foreheads press together, both of them breathing harder than one kiss should warrant. And Martin doesn’t say any of those other things he wants, any of the white-hot words he’s scratched down on paper or typed into the notes app. He doesn’t say anything about the shape of Jon’s shoulder-blades through that thin grey t-shirt he wears, doesn’t bring up any metaphors about fading light or seaglass or breakable things that are also strangely beautiful.
Because what good is poetry at the end of the world?
“Be careful,” Martin says instead (and Jon won’t be.)
“Come back,” he says (and Jon isn’t going to. Not for a long, long time).
And hours later, standing in that empty office, Martin will see the lighter that Jon left on his desk. He will notice the black handful of ashes in the rubbish bin, and wonder what Jon was burning.
And Martin is soft. People-pleasing and pathetic and terribly, terribly in love.
But Jonathan Sims kissed him once (once) and for a moment, in that office, with a small blue flame leaping in his hand -
Martin is not afraid.
#the magnus archives#jonmartin#trying to remember how this writing thing goes#some consensual beholding between bros#Season 3 episode 117#missing scene#homophobia cw#bullying cw
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Scars - JonMartin (TMA)
“What about this one?”
Jon hummed softly as Martin traced the scar that crossed over his shoulder. He had almost forgotten about it, and Martin gently running his thumb over it sent a wave of remembrance over his body, shivering slightly at the flash of the blade in his mind.
“That one was from Melanie. She had been afflicted with the Slaughter because of a ghost bullet, and I got stabbed trying to get it out, since we woke her up.”
Martin laughed softly, and Jon didn’t want that laugh to end. Martin’s voice was honey on the ears, and Jon wanted to relish in the sweetness of it. He hadn’t heard a laugh in weeks while they were living in the safe house, and now that it’d made an appearance he wanted so desperately to make him laugh over and over again. Anything to hear that sweet, deep, viscous laugh that was so unlike Martin’s normally mezzo speaking voice.
“What’s so funny, sir?” If not for the tone, maybe Martin would have stopped laughing; but Jon’s tone was nowhere near annoyed, instead showing off a light-hearted amusement. Dare he say he also heard love in it.
“I just… think you were a little stupid for trying to cut it out of her while she was asleep.”
“Oh trust me, I regretted it after I got hurt. But after that… I mean, we got our Melanie back, so it was alright.”
“The Melanie that hates your guts?”
“Alright, you, don’t remind me.” Jon looked over him and suddenly turned on his side. “My turn to ask.”
Jon hadn’t realized how many little bruises and scars Martin had. Martin wasn’t normally one for taking off his clothes, but as he grew more comfortable, and since they were isolated in that safe house Daisy allowed them to stay in, Martin grew accustomed to walking around the house without a shirt or without trousers. Sometimes both. Pleasantly surprising, as Jon always got a good look at his lover’s body, but definitely a point when Jon started to notice. All of the indentations, the bumps, the raised marks that decorated Martin’s body alongside the plethora of freckles that dotted his back like constellations in an evening sky.
“There’s really not much to ask about, but go on ahead, Jon.” Martin looked at him like he’d hung the moon. Of course, to Martin, he did.
“Alright… Let’s start with this one.” He gently took Martin’s hand and caressed a scar on his thumb gingerly, as if one wrong move would open up the wound even though it had long since closed, skin cells binding together and forming the puckered scar.
“Right! A cooking accident when I was younger. I was making food for my mother, and I cut my hand with the knife.”
“Not surprising.” Jon chuckled softly and pressed a sweet kiss to the scar, looking up at Martin with pretty green eyes that he hoped held the world’s biggest pool of affection.
“Quite the klutz, as my mother says,” Martin responded, waggling his finger gently at Jon when he moved his mouth away. “I think dinner that night was supposed to be grilled chicken, but after that accident and a proper ton of crying, we ordered takeout. I’m sure it tasted way better than anything I could have conjured up in the kitchen, I’m a right abomination.”
Jon couldn’t help it. He laughed once Martin took a pause, and Martin broke out into a gleeful smile. Jon’s laugh was so unlike his normal voice. No matter how tired or upset Jon sounded, whether the exhaustion of being The Archivist pervaded his entire being, Jon’s laugh was… god, it was gorgeous. That was as simple as Martin could get, but if Martin had used his poetry? There’d be fifty different comparisons he could make, and he wouldn’t even be able to reuse a single one. Every emotion related to enamorment crossed his mind when he heard a true laugh from his lover, and it was overwhelming in all of the right ways. As Jon’s laugh died down, Martin couldn’t help sweetly pressing a kiss to his jawline, feeling the bristles of his beard and falling even more in love by the second.
Jon finally caught his breath and calmed down enough to continue raking his gaze over Martin’s uncovered body. If he wasn’t looking for something in particular, he’d spend time counting the numerous dots that resembled raindrops on a window. In fact, Jon wasn’t a poet, but he would dare mention that every time he smelled the petrichor, he thought of Martin.
His thought process was interrupted by a long scar that covered his shoulder. “What about this one?”
“... Hm. I don’t really remember, if I’m being honest.”
“How do you not remember? It looks painful.”
“Jon. I am literally the most careless person when it comes to bumping into things, it’s not even funny anymore. I wake up with random scars every day, and bruises and scratches are not really concerning anymore.”
“Fair enough, I suppose. I get a couple of those, mostly from bumping into tables.”
“Honestly, yeah, it’s as simple as that.”
“Well… what about this one?”
Jon brought a hand up to trace an almost invisible scar that had caught his eye. It was well-hidden by the eyebrow hairs Martin had, but the top of it came into view, peeking out as if to say hello with its silent greeting. Martin was silent for a minute, his expression sort of going flat. Not blank, like Jon had learned was Martin’s clueless face. It seemed to be one that Martin got when thinking about the Lonely.
Trauma.
“What was that?” Martin asked. His voice barely kept itself from wavering, and he cleared his throat as he snapped from his reverie. The entire scene flashed before his eyes in that moment, and he could hardly stop it.
“That … that scar. On your eyebrow. Did… did you hit your head or…?” Jon was resisting the urge to look in his head. As tempting as the door was, he had promised to refrain from it. Oh how tempting the door was, the flood of knowledge pushing against the barrier as if it was putting a heavy strain on the metaphorical wood. Jon could practically reach out and touch the knob and it’d all come spilling out, and Jon would be overwhelmed with whatever had entered into Martin’s head that was oh so tempting, so close to his reach—
“I uh… When I was taking care of my mother, I ran into something,” was all Martin said. “Well, i-it was less of running into and she uh… I forgot something of hers that she needed, it was uh…”
Martin was clearly having trouble describing the scenario, and Jon almost felt bad for asking. He gently reached forward and caressed a hand against his cheek.
He flinched away, and it was at that moment, Jon knew this was more than what he was describing.
“She uh— she was upset, and rightfully so I mean— I was— I didn’t mean to do it, really, but it was— it was really bad. I did really bad and I deserved it—,”
“Martin,” Jon started, but it was almost as if Martin didn’t even hear him. His breathing was starting to pick up.
“—After all, sometimes I just— sometimes I’m just a bad son, and I need to be told what’s right—,”
“Martin, honey…”
“—And don’t even get me started on when I make the wrong meal—,”
“Martin.”
Jon didn’t realize that he’d raised his voice a bit until Martin looked at him, tears in his eyes, and he quickly began to try and rectify his mistake.
“Martin, I am… I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice… You were spiralling, I just… I wanted to get you out.”
The man next to him nodded silently, but he didn’t seem convinced. “I-I’m sorry, Jon, I didn’t intend to upset you…”
“Hey, hey…” Jon gently took Martin’s face in his hands. “You didn’t upset me at all, I promise. I’m just worried about you…”
“I… Why?”
“Because… I care about you, a lot. And I’m here for you. Seeing you like this… I want to make it all better, and I know I can’t but… I hope you know that I’m here for you.”
“... Oh, Jon…” Martin’s tears were free-flowing now, and they dribbled down his cheeks and onto the sheet of the bed. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
“You did everything. Sometimes I wonder what I did myself to catch your attention.” Jon gently caressed Martin’s cheek, thumb tracing over his lover’s cheekbone with a feather-light touch. God forbid anyone hurt his Martin again, that’s for sure. Jon would raise hell for the love of his life.
“Martin, I need you to tell me when things I do bother you, okay?”
“... Of course.”
“Martin…”
Martin squirmed feverishly under Jon’s look. “I… I know.”
“I understand that it’s hard… we want to do anything we can to please our loved ones. But you have to talk to me… I want you to be happy, and if I do something that bothers you, you need to tell me.”
“And if talking’s hard?”
“... Write a note. Just… give me something, okay?”
Martin sighed deeply. He knows inside that Jon is only trying to help, but this feels like such a monumental task that even only hearing what was requested of him exhausted him to his core. Just the thought of talking about it, it felt like a burden on both himself and the other person, and to do that to Jon of all people? For starters, Jon was going through all of this with Jonah Magnus, and then hiding in the safe house. Plus Jon was prone to anger, what if he didn’t understand? Not everything Martin worried about made sense, he knew that, and Jon had a tendency to dismiss him, especially back when they were still working together in the Institute.
“Martin?”
Jon’s voice, sweet like a melody, brought him back to his senses, and those gentle eyes, greener than a meadow in the middle of summer, sunken in with sleep yet vibrant in color still. It made him feel a little comforted. Yes, this Jon… this Jon was different. Jon wasn’t under the stress of work, he wasn’t asking for Martin to do deceptively hard tasks that just took everything out of him. Martin didn’t have to be his employee here, just his friend and someone to love. And that made things a thousand times better.
“Yes, I’m… I can do that. It’ll be hard, but… I’ll try.”
Jon smiled, and for a second, all was right. Martin almost forgot about everything in the world, just focused on the sweet expression in front of him. Sweeter than sugar, most days. Martin leaned forward and kissed Jon’s forehead before gently pushing his hands away and wiping the tears off of his face.
“Did you know that tears are actually good for the face? They can clean your face and actually help clear pores, leading to less acne.”
Martin scoffed and laughed a bit. “Jon, please.”
“Sorry, sorry! I just thought it was interesting.”
Martin was laughing once again, softer but still kind and sweet, and everything felt right.
From here on, Jon decided he would do anything he could to keep Martin happy. He didn’t know what it would take, but he knew he would try his hardest, even through… whatever was going to happen. It was his vow.
#a little hurt and comfort#jonmartin#jmart#jonmartin tma#the magnus archives#TMA podcast#tma#the magnus archives writing#fanfiction#fanfic#jon sometimes needs to learn boundaries#martin needs to learn to set them#adhd/autism solidarity#scars#angst but also not#sometimes we need to cry and that’s okay#martin tma#martin blackwood#jonathan sims#jon sims#jonathan tma#season 4 tma#the magnus archives season 4 spin off#pre-eyepocalypse#martin blackwood deserves the world
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For your writing prompts, I’ve always found that the phrase “for you” has a certain gravity, so maybe something with that? :3
This was such a good prompt, which is my only excuse for why this is three days late and barely counts as a drabble at all.
jonmartin, post-S5 domesticity and parenthood
“He was showing me another room he's made it to on his game,” Jon offers as an explanation as he ambles back into the living room. “Some sort of creepy dungeon, lots of what I can only presume are zombies. He can turn into a dragon now with this magic cloak thing, it's all very sophisticated.”
Martin, whose knowledge and ability with video games both started and ended with having a go on someone's Game Boy Colour one rainy school break, makes a supportive, 'showing-interest' noise as he feels around for the remote before finding it wedged under his thigh, muting the sound of a gritty BBC drama he is clearly not enamoured by. He shuffles over to make room on the sofa. Disturbing the cat, who jumps off his knees, casting a betrayed gaze upon the offender before she haughtily goes to commandeer the high-backed chair usually taken up by Jon.
“Dragons are one of the few things that haven't turned out to actually exist, and tried to murder us.”
“Oh, don't be like that,” Jon smiles as he drops down next to him. Martin's got a beer out of the fridge now Lewis has gone to bed, and Jon leans forward to snaffle it from the coffee table, takes an slow sip, winces at the flavour and puts it back down on its coaster. “Swimming's at ten Saturday, isn't it? Still haven't fixed his goggles.”
“Half past, they had to move the rota round for some other thing,” Martin says distantly. In the background, someone on the TV has their mouth bared in shouting, and some grim-dark poorly shaved detective is holding a gun.
Martin's shoulders are set tight. He's twisting his wedding ring round and round and round, fidgety and unsettled all evening, and now he's leant forward with his elbows on his knees, half-way through a beer on a Thursday night even though he can get funny about drinking in the house on a weekday.
“You want to talk about it?” Jon asks quietly.
Martin frowns, but doesn't ask how he knows. His palm opens from clenched to fold their fingers together, his touch chilly from the condensation on the bottle.
Jon waits for him.
Martin clears his throat. He sources out the remote again and flicks the TV to standby, the dour detective vanishing morosely.
“I'd like to talk to you about something,” Martin replies eventually. “And I know that we're not going to agree on it, but I want you to at least – hear me out, alright?”
“Alright,” Jon says carefully. A frown has rooted on his own face, but he pushes the curious simmer to a lower heat and tries to be patient. “Alright. What – what do you want to talk about?”
“What happened last week.”
“Martin...”
“Let me finish,” Martin says, his tone slightly sharper. He doesn't shout, never in the house. The only time Lewis sees his dad raise his voice in anger, he's belligerently got his hands in the guts of the boiler, pride the only thing stopping him call a plumber, or else he's stubbed his toe against the side table he always manages to catch.
Jon lets out a heavy breath.
“Fine,” he says. “Fine – we – we can talk about it. You know what I think.”
“Yeah, well, I don't.”
“It was an outlier. It doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.”
“I can't see why you're downplaying this. It was a threat, and you got hurt.”
“A few bruises from the fall. Look, Daisy and Basira handled it. They were – they were a lone Hunter. It wasn't anything organised, so I don't see the need to twist myself in knots when it won't happen again.”
Martin scoffs dismissive. “Last I counted, we've had three 'it won't happens again' in the last ten years. Face it, we've been lucky. This one got too close.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Jon says, deliberately calmly. Martin'll get to his point eventually, but he'd rather cut through whatever he's been stewing in for the past several hours.
Martin throws up his hands.
“I am suggesting that we consider the very real possibility that something like this might happen again. Something worse than some mangy Hunter or clueless cultist. These things out there.... there's more than one of them who'd see a former Archivist as a threat, Christ, I just want you to take this seriously...”
“I do take – ” Jon's voice spikes before he exhales hard and lowers his tone again. “Of course I take this seriously. Of course I worry. But if someone came here, if anyone came here, I'd – I'd Know....”
“Knowing didn't stop you from getting hurt,” Martin insists. “It – it doesn't make you invincible.”
“I've never thought that...”
“We need to prepared, is all I'm saying. Your... the knowledge you get from the Eye, it's so much, it's so much less than before. So what if it's not enough, what if it tells you something too late or not at all?”
“Martin, I'm not going to get myself worked up over maybes.”
“Maybe you should!” Martin snaps.
They are both bullishly quiet for a moment before Martin holds his hands up again.
“Alright,” he presses on, lower pitched than before. “Alright, then lets deal with facts then. Fact number one: there are – there are forces out there that want to see you come to harm.”
“Martin.”
“Am I correct?” Martin repeats. His gaze won't leave Jon's. His temper's made his neck and throat go blotchy, but he's pressing his hands down too hard on his knees to stop their tremors.
Jon meets his eyes.
“Correct,” he says. Because it's what Martin wants to hear, because it's what Jon tries not to think about when the night-time drags loud and sleepless, and every noise he cannot account for takes on the guise of malevolence.
“Fact two,” Martin continues. “There is the possibility – no, no, listen to me, Jon – there is the chance, however small, that those forces, those people, could come here.”
“So what, we should install more locks? Buy more fire extinguishers?”
“This isn't funny,” Martin says waspish.
“I'm not laughing,” Jon replies dogged.
Martin lets out another aggrieved noise. He takes a moment, steeples his hands against the lower half of his face.
“That Hunter,” Martin says slowly. “Had our address on them. Knew where we lived. If Daisy and Basira hadn't sorted them out, they would have come here, and tried again. And if it can happen once, then it could happen again. A-and some of those people, the ones that serve their gods a-and want to make a name for themselves by going after an Archivist – ”
Here Martin's voice catches thready, the centre of his terrors finally excavated.
“I can't – I can't protect you from that, Jon,” he confesses. “I can't protect Lewis from that. And if someone comes here, what if you can't either? You're not – you're not exactly in the game of e-exploding people any more.”
“Been trying to give it up,” Jon replies. Martin's laugh is a little wet.
“Sets a bad example anyway.”
Jon rubs the skin of Martin's hand. He doesn't know what he can say to make this better.
“I would like to propose an idea,” Martin says. Softer now. More tired. “and I-I want you to hear me out.”
“OK.”
“Whatever it is.”
“You're not exactly inspiring confidence.”
Martin gives him a Look.
“OK,” Jon says, rubbing his thumb over Martin's knuckles. “OK, I promise. Whatever it is, I-I'll at least listen.”
Martin nods, and though his lips are pinched, he squeezes Jon's hand once gratefully. He separates them, and gets up, going over to his shoulder bag slouched by the door. He'd been vague, earlier this week, when he'd gone out on an 'errand'. Jon had assumed it was something to do with their anniversary in the next few weeks.
Martin takes out a thick clump of folders from the stomach of the bag. Jon's heart drops when he sees the green-ink stamp of an imperious owl on the front of the beige folders but he says nothing.
“I have been thinking,” Martin says, planting himself back down. “About back-up plans. Last resorts, you know. If someone does come here, if they're more than either of us can handle, if we can't keep our son safe.”
He passes Jon the folders. They're stuffed wide with statements, corroborating evidence, photographs, police reports, newspaper snippets attached with paper clips. Jon reads the introductions of a few statements as he flicks through, feeling not a little unmoored by the way this conversation has progressed – Statement of Dai Williams, regarding a library in Blaenau Gwent; Statement of Michalis Charalambous, regarding an unusual wedding present – and something aches in him like a barely-forgotten hunger, twinges like an old wound.
Near the top of the pile, there's a photograph, blown up to A4 size, of a book. The backdrop of an unremarkable desk, the cover itself blue backed, scuffed and foxed with age, the silver title decorated with florid curlicues: The Shipping Forecast and Other Nautical Curiosities. There's no author.
“What's this?”
“It's a Leitner,” Martin says. Not briskly, but straight-off the bat.
Jon pushes down several reactions with difficulty. Martin knows how he feels about Leitner. Martin wouldn't bring this to him, knowing what histories have left their scars on him, and beg for Jon to listen to him if it wasn't important.
“Go on,” Jon says, and nothing else.
“This book is currently in Archive Storage, where it's been for the past twenty or so years,” Martin continues. He's to-the-point now, direct, and Jon appreciates it. “Those are copies of all the statements I could find related to it, or people who have been in contact with it, and it makes up a fairly consistent picture of ownership and exchange for at least the past hundred and fifty years, records get a bit patchy before that.”
“Which Power?”
“The Lonely.”
That makes Jon look up. Martin's jaw is set for an argument but his voice betrays him.
“Tell me,” he says.
“The statements are all mostly the same. The book gets found or left as inheritance or in library donations, and some poor sod picks it up. Specifically, what happens is it renders people invisible when they read it.”
Jon blinks.
“... you're taking the piss.”
“No. Practical research did some basic experiments to test it before it was boxed up properly, they've – there's notes there, if you want to read in detail, but basically, you read a few lines of it, and you and whatever you're holding can't be seen. It wears off after a while, depending on how much you've read. The researchers went up to about a page.”
“There's a catch, obviously.”
“It's addictive to some people. Some of the people in the statements can use it once, get the heebie-jeebies then never touch it again, some of them can't shake the urge. The – er invisibility is more tempting to those vulnerable to the Lonely, or so the hypothesis goes. They read a little more, a little more and then, they're just gone.”
“So it's dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Then why? Why show me this?”
“If someone comes here,” Martin says, “If it's – if it's the Vast o-or the Desolation or even th-the Slaughter, we can't fight them. We can't, OK, we-we have nothing that we could fight them with. So we can't fight them, and we can't outrun them, and I don't think hiding under the bed and hoping they leave is going to do much either. The best we can hope for is that we have a few minutes grace courtesy of your magical eyeballs. And that would at the very least give us time, to get Lewis somewhere safe, get out of harm's way, to go to Daisy's or something.”
“And your great plan is that we use a Leitner to what, turn invisible and sneak away unseen?”
“I'm asking you at least consider it.”
“I have considered it and it's – it's a Leitner, Martin! You know how I – They're not toys, they're dangerous!”
“I know that! Of course I know that. But so is being unprotected! We wouldn't be using it for – it would be a last resort, nothing more. You can read the statements and the reports. I've read them all, over and over again, I-I've checked and doubled checked. As far as I can tell, the turning invisible is a temporary state.”
“For the right people. What about you?”
Martin does not meet his eyes.
“I wouldn't be using it.”
“...What.”
“I wouldn't – I wouldn't be able to,” he says. Quieter, self-conscious. “Much as I like to think that I'm – no. No, it'd be, it'd be too much of a temptation.”
Jon's tone has slipped flat and hard.
“So you're suggesting an escape plan that, what, doesn't include you?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Jon – ”
“No!” Jon wants to get up, to stand, to shake Martin by his ridiculous shoulders, because how dare he, how dare he. “No, how can you even ask me that?”
“Because I need to,” Martin urges. “Because it's not just us. Because if the worst happens, I need to know we have some way of protecting Lewis, that you could use that book to make sure he's safe.”
“And leave you.”
“I'm not the one they want.”
“I don't remember them being all that picky about hurting whoever was in their way,” Jon bites back, and he knows he's louder now, that his eyes are getting wet and his face hot. “You can't know that.”
“No,” Martin replies honestly. “No, I-I can't.”
Jon rubs at his eyes. The anger's boiled over and out of him at a dizzyingly come-down from furious. He listens, wondering if they've woken Lewis, but he doesn't hear the squeak of bed-springs. There's a wind picking up outside, and the cat twitches in sleep.
He doesn't feel angry any more. Just sick and scared.
“That's not fair,” he swallows, looking at the damp-blurred image of his husband's face. “That – that's not fair, to ask this.”
Martin's moved closer. Places his hand back over Jon's.
“I know,” he murmurs, and he sounds sorry, but that doesn't help either of them. “I know it's not. And if there was – was any other option, I wouldn't even think of suggesting it. But I'd, I'd like you to think about it. Please. For me.”
Jon leafs through the folders in his hands without taking any of them in. Martin strokes his back soothingly, and crowds in too close, not close enough.
“I'll read them,” Jon says eventually. Wetly and unhappily. “ The statements, reports, I-I will. For you. And if – and only if they seem legitimate – I'll come with you and have a look at the book myself. And that's all I can promise you.”
“Thank you,” Martin whispers, and presses his lips to the thinning crown of Jon's hair, Jon leaning back slightly against his chest. He clears his throat. “Basira's all for performing some more clinical tests on the book, if you wanted some more concrete validation.”
“Why am I not surprised,” Jon says, feeling too tired to enquire further.
They linger on the sofa for a while after Martin shoves the folders back into his shoulder bag.
“I better put the dishes away,” Martin says.
“Leave them. I'll do them in the morning.”
Their bedtime routine is closer and quieter. Usually Martin goes up first, and Jon watches the newspaper review or the tail end of a documentary, but tonight he trails after him as Martin checks all the plugs and double-checks all the locks.
Martin pokes his head into Lewis' room, even though they said their goodnights hours ago. Jon can't begrudge him the anxiety.
“Kicked all the blankets off as usual,” he reports back as they knock elbows in the bathroom, Jon's mouth full of toothpaste, passing Martin a water glass to take his statins. Martin dutifully swallows the pill before reaching for his own toothbrush. “He sleeps like you, arms flung out all over the place.”
Jon doesn't deny it.
Jon gets into bed first, and fusses with chargers and alarms while Martin gets into a t-shirt and boxers. He gets the light and Jon follows the sound he makes as he approaches the bed in plunging darkness, the disturbance of the covers. Jon immediately curls against his shape, tucking himself tight and buried against his chest.
Martin doesn't comment on how clingy Jon is, how he knots their legs together, clutches him over-tight. On how hot the bed is going to get, on how his arm will go numb quickly from the angle. His own arms come around just as fiercely. He tells Jon goodnight, that he loves him into his hair, and Jon whispers it back into the dark and the heat, and knows it's true to the bones of him.
Neither of them sleep all that much that night.
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I was ordered to post this by @legitpumpkin . Thank you for assuring me its not horrible
"I'm ready to try again. If you are?"
The words that had been haunting Damian for days now. The words Jon had murmured, as they laid next to each other in bed, bodies pressed together, Jon's lips on his skin, kissing the smooth skin and the pale scars that ran everywhere.
The words he had felt run through his body and get caught in his heart.
The words he knew Jon meant with every fiber of his being.
Try again.
Try what again, you're wondering.
Damian could only assume Jon meant try dating again.
They had dated, years ago, back in highschool.
Then they had broken up, rather nastily(it had been a huge media event. Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson level of break up), and both had left for college Jon's sophomore year with broken hearts and bitter feelings.
And it had broken Damian.
Jon had been one of the most important people of his childhood. From 13 to 21, Jon had almost always been there for him. Jon had always stuck through all his insults and curses and his insistence that they weren't friends. Jon had been there for him through so much. Jon had been his first real boyfriend. Jon had been the first person he'd really fallen in love with.
And they'd broken up badly and it had broken him more than anything his grandfather had ever done to him.
He had learned what heartbreak meant that day.
And he was the one who had broken it off.
For nearly three years they had gone with very little to almost no contact.
Eventually he got over it. He dated a few other people, but never really connected with them like he had with Jon. Then they started talking again.
He didn't remember what started it or why, maybe a Justice League event, or a holiday party or something. But they had talked one day and then started talking again until they were at least on good terms.
And then they messed it up again.
Damian had been leaving for the summer. He was going to stay with Talia in Hong Kong.
And two nights before he left, they had slept together. Who had initiated it, he couldn't remember, but they had been together at Damian's apartment and then they started kissing and it had been so easy to fall into bed with Jon again, so easy to remember how to get him begging and whining.
And he'd hated himself for it in the morning.
He'd spent all of the summer trying his best to forget about it, only to get back in the fall and have Jon immediately come to him.
And they slept together again. And Jon had said those fateful words.
"I'm ready to try this again, if you are?"
Damian hadn't responded. He had laid there, letting Jon trace shapes on his skin and press kisses to his neck and shoulders.
And it felt so right.
Now, four days later. He had been staring at his computer monitor for ten minutes, and hasn't clicked his mouse once. He had just been thinking. Thinking about Jon. Because he wanted it. He wanted Jon back. It had been so easy to watch himself fall back in love with the farm boy from Hamilton County. And he couldn't even be mad about it.
"Hey, Plain White T, what's up with you?"
Damian's head snapped up to the door, finding Tim standing in the doorway.
How had he missed that opening?
"Pardon?" He asked, lifting his head off his thumbs, having rested his chin on the extended phalanges, the rest of his fingers clasped together.
"Plain White T. The band? It's a song reference? Ugh never mind." Tim stepped in and shut the door. "You okay kid?"
"Yes. I'm fine. What did you need?"
"Nothing, I was passing by and saw you hanging out in the clouds, thought I'd stop by and see what was going on."
Damian just hummed and reached for his computer mouse, forcing himself back into work. Tim stood there. Damian ignored him.
"It's Jon, isn't it?"
"Hm?"
"Well. Kon may have mentioned to me that Jon had started spending a lot more time in Gotham."
Damian was quiet.
"You two been hanging out?"
"Some."
"You two been hooking up?"
Damian shot Tim a glare and the man shrugged.
"I dunno, you're still making heart eyes at each other and we both know this family doesn't do well with emotions so it seemed like a good guess."
". . . Some."
"What's the issue then?"
Damian scowled at him. "Why do you want to know my relationships issues?"
"Because you're my baby brother and as annoying as you are, I care about you."
Damian sighed, closing his programs and motioning for Tim to pull up the spare chair. He sat across from Damian's desk, eyebrow arching.
"Jon wants to get back together."
"Oh shit."
Damian hummed and nodded.
"And . . . Do you?"
"I . . . Maybe? I can't decide. I can't- I want him back, but I also can't forget how things ended the last time. I don't want to do that to either of us again . . ."
"Well you two were a hell of a lot younger back then. And you've both grown a lot since then. You especially."
Damian nodded gently, tapping his fingers in the desk.
"Okay. So why aren't you getting back with him really?"
". . ." Damian opened his mouth to respond then shut it.
Tim raised an eyebrow. They stared at each other.
"I'm . . . Concerned, that I will not be able to move on from past memories and see past them to the new memories to be made."
"You're afraid of being hurt again."
Damian nodded in agreement. Tim nodded along for a moment, thinking.
"Don't be. It's better to love and have lost then never have loved all. Especially for us." He stood and headed to the door. "So, my advice, Damian? Is to just go for it."
Damian did not just "go for it".
It was another two weeks and another late night hook up later, they were laying there, Jon's fingers had been tracing scars for nearly ten minutes, and had finally made their way up to his throat, feeling the long jagged scar across his windpipe from long ago. He was staring down at it, not looking directly at Damian's face, and this gave him an opportunity to examine the man.
Jon had changed greatly with the years, and for a while it had slipped past him, but he was 25 - or was it 26? - now and this was the first opportunity Damian had had to just look at him. So much of his face was delicate, like his mother, but there was also so much resemblance to Clark you could see. His cheekbones were a little more prominent now, causing a slight shadow on his cheek with the harsh light of the moon. He sported a harsh scar on the right side of his face, and he had never really explained to Damian how he had gotten it, just that he had significantly reduced feeling on that side now. His black hair was in this interesting chop style that wasn't short but wasn't long either, it was floppy and sometimes curly and Damian wasn't sure if he liked it or not. And those blue eyes never left Damian when they were together, fondness and sadness in them.
"Jon."
Jon hummed, eyes flickering up to Damian's face.
"What are we doing?"
"I believe we're laying in bed after having just slept together."
Damian reached up and grabbed his wrist, stopping his hand from moving. Jon raised an eyebrow.
"Not that. What is going on between us? Because six months ago we were barely acquaintances and now you're wanting to get back together?"
Jon sighed and let his hand drop to Damian's chest, just looking at him.
"Yeah."
Damian raised his eyebrow and waited.
"I guess I realized sometime, over the summer, that I was still in love with you. Even with how we broke up . . . Seeing you, being around you, being with you intimately, it just kinda . . . Woke that up again."
Damian closed his eyes for a moment. That. That was what he was afraid of hearing. Because if Jon had said anything else, he could walk away and pretend and go on with life. But no. He couldn't not anymore. Not with that knowledge.
Damian pushed up on an arm, leaning up into Jon and kissing him again. Jon made a little noise and then pressed back into him, putting a hand down on Damian's other side to brace himself.
When Damian pulled back, he fell down to the bed, staring up at Jon again.
"What?" Jon asked with a laugh, reaching down to push Damian's hair aside.
"I'm still in love with you too."
Jon grinned slightly, then slowly lowered himself to kiss Damian softly.
"But," Damian murmured, gently pushing on Jon's shoulder until he pulled back.
"But?" Jon asked, tone pitching slightly.
"I- I have a lot of feelings to sort through. . . Involving our break up . . ."
"Oh . . ."
"So . . . Soon, maybe? But not . . . Not right now."
Jon was silent for a moment, considering this. Then he nodded.
"Of course."
Damian felt himself smiling, and that got Jon to smile back.
"Soon," he promised softly, brushing Jon's hair out of his face.
"Soon." Was the soft agreement, coupled with a light kiss to Damian's forehead.
Damian chuckled slightly and watched Jon fall to the bed beside him, grinning lazily. Then after a moment he got up and started getting dressed. Damian watched him, feeling a pang of longing for the Kryptonian to stay with him. Then he reminded himself, soon.
"Good night, Dami, sleep well," Jon murmured, leaning down and kissing him gently one last time before going and slipping out the window and disappearing into the night.
"Good night, Jonathan," Damian murmured after him before shifting to get comfortable, smiling lazily to himself.
Soon.
#damijon#damian wayne#jonathan kent#jon kent#jondami#damian x jon#queerbutstillhere writes#queerbutstillhere posts#queerbutstillhere#gay writing#writing drabble#writing#korey writes#writing prompt
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as i stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge (6)
Sansa
Sansa braced herself and took a deep breath as she stood in front of the door to Jon's chambers in the guesthouse. Be brave, she told herself, like Alayne, like a Stark. She knocked and waited.
He opened the door with small eyes and tousled hair, and a rumpled, open tunic he had hastily thrown on. She could see more scars on his chest, but it was too dark to get a good look at them. He frowned down at her, blinking and rubbing his eyes scruffy beard, but said nothing.
"Can I come in?" she asked, lowering her hood. "It's safe," she added. "None of Petyr or Myranda's spies are around at this hour."
His frown deepened, but he nodded and stepped aside to let her in. He closed the door behind her and turned to face her. His face gave nothing away, but then he advanced and his arms were around her, pulling her into his body. She wrapped her own arms around him and tucked her head under his chin, nuzzling her cheek into his chest.
He was warm and solid, and he smelled like pine, leather and fresh sweat. He pressed his lips to her hair and sighed, his arms tightening around her. "Why did you lie to me?" he whispered roughly.
She wasn't ready to talk yet, so she only turned her head and pressed her brow to his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she squeaked into his collarbone. She couldn't tell how much time had passed when he finally released her and walked over to the settee and sat down, patting the space beside him.
As she took a seat, he told her, "Talk. Please."
She folded her hands in her lap and stared at them. There was a candle on the table in front of her that made her blink when she looked up again. "I am sorry for lying to you, Jon."
He combed his hair back with his fingers and pursed his lips, nodding. "I was shocked, and and a little hurt, and very confused," he admitted.
He didn't have to elaborate for her to understand. Somewhere along the way, as she had tried to play her part of Alayne, the lines had been blurred. She certainly couldn't tell whether it was Sansa or Alayne who had wanted Jon to kiss her up on the gallery. She took a deep breath and allowed herself another moment to gather her thoughts. "I've been Alayne for a very long time, to protect myself."
He blinked and shook his head.
"Sansa Stark is wanted for murdering King Joffrey."
"Did you?" he asked her. "Did you kill King Joffrey?"
"I didn't know. The poison was in my hairnet." She shook her head. "I didn't know, but there are witnesses who will claim that I did."
"It would have been a righteous kill if you had," he muttered. "He deserved it."
She nodded and licked her lips. "I wanted to tell you. I really did. But it was easier this way. I was already slipping up too often since you came here."
"I don't understand," he told her. "I would have taken you home in a heartbeat if you had told me. You'd be safe back North. No one there would care whether you killed him or not, and they wouldn't sell you out to the Lannisters."
She offered him a sad smile. "But you didn't come here for me."
His brow furrowed. "No, but--
"You came here for the Vale's men and their food and resources."
He gave her a quick nod. "True."
She took a deep breath. "Sansa Stark can't give you those, but Alayne can."
He stared at her, long and hard, and then asked, "Was it him? Baelish? Did he force you to do this?"
She shook her head slowly. "No, he didn't force me, but..."
"But what?"
She inhaled deeply, and for the first time, she found herself ready to admit something she must have known for a long while now, but hadn't been able to face. "I'm afraid of him."
Jon took her hand and nodded. "I can see why."
"No," she objected. "You don't understand. He killed Aunt Lysa." Suddenly, the words started tumbling out of her mouth. "She saw... He kissed me, and she saw. She was jealous, she tried to throw me out the Moon Door, but he got to her first."
Jon remained quiet as he squeezed her hand. "Does he still try to kiss you?" His voice was a low growl and his fingers were dangerously close to crushing hers with their firmly tightening grip.
He would know if she lied to him. "Sometimes." When she looked up, Jon's face was twisted into a mask of rage and there was fire in his suddenly black eyes. So there was something of the dragon in him.
He leapt to his feet and started pacing, shoving a pile of scrolls off the table, making her flinch. "I will kill him. I swear it, one day I will kill him."
She wasn't quite sure how to feel about that vow. "But you can't," she reminded him, "not yet. You need him to get the Vale's support."
He gave her a reluctant nod. "Then what do you suggest we do?"
She wrung her hands together, staring at them as she bit her lip. "For now," she answered, looking up, "I think we should play along."
He walked over to her and dropped back down onto the settee. "You mean to say we should get married?"
She nodded. "As soon as Jon and Alayne are wed, you can take me away from here."
He arched an eyebrow. "Jon and Alayne, huh?"
"Sansa is still married to the Imp," she explained, "and Alayne doesn't exist, so it wouldn't be a real marriage."
He stared at her with a deep frown etched into his face, opening his mouth several times, but whatever it was he wished to say, he seemed to think better of it.
"I still can't believe you're really here," he said with a smile that lit up his face. "I thought you were dead, like all the others," he added in a whisper, his face falling again.
They were silent for a while, and she wondered if he was also making himself sad with happy memories.
"Well," he sighed, and she believed there was some relief in it. "This changes matters."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll be Queen in the North soon," he announced, "and Lady of Winterfell."
She smiled back at him. "I suppose people will call me that when I'm pretending to be your wife."
He shook his head. "That's not what I meant. Winterfell is yours, the North is yours. I have no right to either of them."
She put a hand on his arm. "Of course you do." He pulled away from her and she felt a sharp pang in her stomach.
"You don't understand."
"I do," she insisted.
"No, Sansa, you can't. You don't know the truth." He squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with one hand.
Oh, so you do know. "I can," she said firmly. "And I do."
"What?" he asked, lowering his hand as he looked up at her.
Her shoulders rose and fell. "I know who your mother was, Jon."
"How? How long have you known?"
She smoothed out her skirts. "The day before the feast." She lowered her head. "Lord Baelish told me." She almost expected him to be angry about that, and he probably should be. There was no telling what Petyr might use that secret for. But Jon only appeared more defeated to her.
"Then you also know who my father was," he whispered roughly. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands.
"I do," she confirmed.
He twisted his neck to look at her. "And you don't hate me?"
Her brow furrowed. "Why would I?"
He came closer and covered her hand with his own, resting his forehead against hers and whispered, "Thank you, Sansa."
She thought that was rather silly of him, but she wouldn't tell him that.
"Fa-your father lied to me all my life."
She pursed her lips. "He lied to us, too, and he lied to my lady mother."
He pulled away. "Aye, and she hated me because of his lies."
She couldn't deny that. She'd often taken her mother's side, too, unable to bear the pain in her face whenever she looked at Jon. If Catelyn Stark had known, would it have changed anything? "And what if we had known? Would we have lived our lives in fear that one day, the wrong person would overhear a conversation and find out? She might have resented you even more for that."
There was defiance in his eyes, but she knew he couldn't refute what she had said.
"He should have told me at some point," he insisted stubbornly. Sansa could almost feel his pain. "He should have told me when he learned I wanted to join the Watch." His voice broke on the last word.
She moved closer to him and held him as he tried to breathe through the sobs he wouldn't allow to come out. "I understand, Jon," she whispered after a long while. "You feel as if father has betrayed you, and let you down." She wished someone would have warned her, too, told her something to stop her from going to King's Landing. "But I'm sure Father was only trying to protect you."
"Then I'm afraid he failed me." He failed me, too. For such a long time, she had only blamed herself, but she could see that now. There was so much she needed to tell him, so much she needed him to tell her, but all of that could wait, until later.
Finally, Jon broke the silence. "You know they will all hate me once they find out who my real father was."
She didn't need to ask him who he was referring to. The entire North still loathed Rhaegar Targaryen for what he had done to Lyanna Stark. "You forget that you are your mother's son, as well, Jon. But we don't have to tell anyone, ever. I will keep your secret, I promise."
He disentangled himself from her embrace. "We do, Sansa. You may be able to keep such a secret, but I am not." That hurt, but she pushed the sting of it down, perhaps she deserved it.
"The truth must come out at some point," he continued. "And even if it's true that my mother was a Stark, Winterfell is still yours, not mine. The Stark name is yours, not mine."
An idea came to her then, or perhaps it had slowly started dawning on her from the moment Petyr had told her the truth, and it had just now drifted to the surface of her mind. "It could be ours."
He offered her a wistful smile. "Just because you say so doesn't make it so. It will always be yours, just yours."
She shook her head. "You don't understand, Jon. If Tyrion Lannister's death were to be confirmed, or if the High Septon granted us an annulment, Sansa could-- I mean, I could marry you, but truly this time, so you would be able to stay and keep the Stark name."
She couldn't decipher the look he was giving her, so she pushed her shoulders back and said, "It wasn't a lie. None of it was."
He tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows.
"The feast, the conversations we shared." She took a deep breath. "I'm not sure what it makes of me, but when I almost let you kiss me, it was not a lie;"
"I know what it makes me," he said darkly, "but it was real for me as well." He took her hand again. "As for the proposal you just made me," he added, his thumb brushing her knuckles, "we'll see about all of that when the time comes."
She leaned in and reached out to cup his cheek with her free hand, searching his eyes in the candlelight before pressing a soft kiss to his lips. "We'll see," she agreed.
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Chapters: 8/20
Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting
Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.
Chapter Summary: Following their misadventure at Hill Top Road, Jon finally takes some time off; Martin remembers something disturbing about the archives’ collection of books.
Chapter 8 of my post-canon fix-it is up! Read at AO3 above or here below.
Tumblr master post with links to previous chapters is here.
***
“Jon, take the pills.”
Jon, wrapped in a blanket and staring out over the railing of the flat’s small balcony, stayed silent.
“Fine, I’ll just wait.” Martin set the vitamin bottles and the glass of water on the sturdiest-looking part of the railing, and shifted the second chair enough so he could sit down.
“You’re going to get cold,” Jon said.
“Yeah, probably.” Martin was dressed in a light jumper with only a t-shirt beneath it. It had been warm enough earlier in the day—the weather was getting nicer—but as the sun started to go down it was cooling off.
“Your choice.” Jon picked up his lighter from the small table between them and lit another cigarette, and they sat together as the sun continued its journey below the horizon. It really was beautiful, Martin thought. He hadn’t taken the opportunity to observe any part of nature in a long time. It hadn’t ever been much of a priority to him, but there was something nice about taking in the colors that spilled across the sky—deep yellows and oranges that gave way to pinks and purples, and eventually a dark glowing blue that was only barely distinguishable from black.
Martin wrapped his arms around himself.
“At least get a coat,” Jon said.
“At least take those pills.”
“God, you’re stubborn.” Jon readjusted in his seat to pull his legs up under the blanket a little more.
“Pot and kettle, Jon.”
“Why should I take them? You heard the doctors, there isn’t anything actually wrong with me. They’re just grasping at straws.”
After an hour or so on the porch at Hill Top Road, Martin had calmed enough to make the decision to go to A&E. Although Jon had protested, the fact was that he had been too weak to do anything about it, and Martin only felt a little bad taking advantage of that. As he’d said then, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t insisted on doing it before; he’d become so used to not being able to get help, that he hadn’t really considered it until then. He wasn’t going to mess around anymore, though, especially now that he realized he might not always be able to help on his own.
After hearing about Jon’s recent fatigue and his fainting episode, the healthcare staff had run a lot of tests. They’d hooked him up to monitors, measured things, done blood draws. Martin had to admit Jon’s description of their conclusions wasn’t far off—they didn’t find anything explicitly wrong with him. There was no diagnosis they felt comfortable giving, although they had pointed out a few possibilities that they should monitor. And they’d recommended the vitamins, of course.
“They did say you have nutritional deficiency—”
“—minor nutritional deficiency—”
“—and your vitamin D levels were actually quite low.” Martin shivered involuntarily in the cool night air.
“God damn it, Martin.” Jon fidgeted with the lighter on the table, but didn’t actually reach for another cigarette. “Will you take the blanket, anyway?”
“Will you take those pills?”
“They won’t help with anything,” Jon protested. “We both know that. This is ridiculous.”
“Speak for yourself,” Martin countered. “I’m not assuming anything about what will help. Beyond that, given how you’ve been eating, they can’t hurt. And finally, yes, I am being ridiculous, and I don’t care.”
“I didn’t say you were being ridiculous.”
“No, I said it. I’ll own it. I am being ridiculous, because I don’t want to lose you, and I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you now any more than I did when we were walking through an apocalypse together, or when you were being kidnapped by actual monsters every week, or when you were taking unannounced holidays in coffins or whatever.” Martin shivered again. “Look, it’s just not that hard to take them, Jon.”
“Well, when you put it that way, I’m behaving like an ass,” Jon sighed.
“Now I didn’t say that,” Martin replied. “I’m not trying to ignore what you’re feeling Jon, and I know there’s not a quick fix for any of it. It’s just that it’s—it’s such a small thing, and if it helps, at least it’s something.”
Jon grumbled.
“And not to bring this up again, but—I mean, it might help if you would just talk to me?”
Jon shook his head. “I can’t. When I try to put it into words, I—it never comes out right. I sound like a—well, a monster.” Jon seemed to shrink back into the blanket even more. “Or maybe I am one, and I can’t face you knowing it.”
“Jon…” Martin hesitated, but decided to finish the thought. “I’ll be honest with you. I’ve asked myself if—if you are.”
Jon turned to him. “And?”
“And I don’t think so,” Martin said simply.
“Why not?”
“To be completely clear, it’s not the most rational reason. I just don’t think I could love you like this if you were. You’re just not bad. You’ve only ever wanted to do the right thing. You’ve only ever wanted to protect people, to protect me, even if—” Martin cleared his throat. “Even if we haven’t always agreed on what that looks like.”
“I see,” Jon said softly, turning to look over the railing again.
“So, if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine.” Martin leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, blowing warm air into his hands. “But in that case, it’s vitamins and freezing myself.”
“May I ask a favor first?” Jon said, eyeing the glass of water warily.
“Depends on the favor.”
“Will you make me some tea?”
“Of course.” Martin was relieved; that was one thing he imagined he’d always be happy to do. “But you’ll take those pills if I do?”
“Yes,” Jon said. “You’ve made your case.”
He reached down to kiss Jon’s head before he walked back into the kitchen, and noted with comfort that Jon leaned into him as he did.
***
That was Sunday evening. Since they’d returned from A&E, Jon had spent most of the time before that afternoon sleeping. He’d been restless, and Martin had slept on the couch for a few nights to try to let Jon get as much sleep as he could. Of course, he had woken anxiously every few hours needing to check on Jon, so he was more than ready to go to bed after their discussion on the balcony. He ended up turning in before Jon, so he was a little surprised to find him already awake and sitting back against his pillows when he opened his eyes on Monday.
“Hey,” Martin said, moving closer to rest his face against Jon’s hip, throwing an arm over his legs.
“Hey.”
“Did I keep you up?” Martin asked.
“No.”
“What time did you get in bed?”
“I don’t know exactly. Not that long after you. I’m just not that tired. Maybe I finally slept enough.”
“That makes one of us.” One night of sleep hadn’t done Martin as much good as he had hoped.
“I’m sorry.” With his eyes still closed, Martin felt Jon’s hand come to rest on his head, gently rubbing his scalp just above his ear.
“I’m going to have to cut my hair soon.”
“I like it,” Jon said, gently tugging at a few strands. “I mean, I like it shorter, too. I guess I just like your hair.”
“Flatterer.” Martin yawned, then pressed his face into Jon even harder for a moment before rolling back to his side of the bed. “Just so long as you know it’s not getting you out of those pills. Do you want to shower first?”
“Actually, I was thinking I might not go in today.”
“Really?” Martin sat up to look at Jon. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” He picked at an invisible spot on the quilt. “It’s more that I’d just—I’d like some time to think. If you’re ok with it.”
“Yes, of course I’m ok with it. I’ve been trying to get you to take it easy ever since we got here. We can—” He stopped when he saw the look on Jon’s face and realized what he was actually asking. “Oh, you meant—just you. Yeah, no, of course that’s fine. That’s great.”
“Are you sure? I mean—if you want to stay too—”
“No,” Martin interrupted. “No, it’s really fine. It’s not a problem. I mean, I know I’ve been really irritating with the—”
“That’s not it,” Jon said reassuringly. “It’s really not. I’m—I’m glad you’ve been here for me. It’s just my mind’s been so cluttered, and it finally—I feel like I can gather my thoughts.”
Martin nodded. “I get it. I do.” He did, mostly. “Would it be ok if I called to check on you?”
Jon smiled. “I’m sure I’d worry if you didn’t.”
So Martin went in by himself. He told Tim and Sasha the truth, mostly; Jon had blacked out after therapy, of course, not in an abandoned house in Oxford where there existed a possible gap between dimensions and realities, but the part about going to A&E and Jon staying home to recover was straightforward enough.
“Glad something slowed him down,” Tim said, and Sasha gave him a look. “Well, something was bound to happen, and at least Martin was there. It could have been worse. He was pushing himself too hard.”
“You’re not wrong,” Martin agreed, and Sasha patted him soothingly on the shoulder.
He went in by himself the next day, too. Jon seemed to be doing well enough. They didn’t talk much; Martin was tired and Jon seemed lost in his thoughts. Martin wasn’t sure what Jon was doing most of the day, though it didn’t seem to be much of anything. He was eating—well, drinking the nutrition shakes Martin had picked up for him—and Martin suspected he was sleeping a little, based on how the bed looked when he came home. Jon managed to eat solid food at supper again that second night, and reached protectively for his half-empty plate when Martin assumed he was done.
“Sorry,” Martin said with his hands up in apology, leaning back into the couch. “Does that mean—maybe you’re feeling better?”
“I think so. Starting to.” Jon stretched out his feet to rest them on the bottom ledge of the coffee table. For an instant, Martin already missed the feeling of Jon falling asleep against him—but this was better, he knew. He pushed the mournfulness away.
He went in by himself again on Wednesday. A little after noon, Sasha joined him and Tim in the assistants’ office.
“Want to come to lunch?”
Martin assumed she was asking Tim, but when he didn’t hear an answer, he glanced up to find both of them looking at him.
“Oh—me?” Martin asked.
“Yes,” Tim replied, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. “Might be nice to take up some old habits again.”
Martin didn’t have to think for too long to figure out what Tim was referring to; memories from this world came easy now. Not long after his mother had died, they’d started going out for lunch together once a week. It had almost certainly been for his benefit, but no one had ever admitted that to him; instead, they’d all acted like it was a spontaneous idea that for some reason had never occurred to any of them before. Martin had been so grateful for the company that he’d simply accepted it without thinking about it too hard.
“We’ll miss Jon, of course,” Sasha added, “but he can come with us next week.”
“Oh, whatever,” Tim said, elbowing Martin good-naturedly as they left the office together. “This just makes up for those times Jon couldn’t wait and stole Martin out from under us.”
Martin remembered that, too; there had been a few times when, despite their best intentions, he’d been overwhelmed by the thought of lunch with the whole group. Jon had somehow understood and anticipated those days, and had come up with some reason he had to go early, asking Martin if he’d wanted to join. They hadn’t said much when it had been just the two of them, nothing important, but that had sort of been the point, hadn’t it? It was a nice memory, anyway, and Martin was glad he had it now. He wondered if Jon had remembered it yet.
***
Lunch was pleasant enough, if a little bit awkward. Martin hadn’t spent much time with Sasha, at least not compared to how much time he’d spent with Tim, and he could tell she was being careful with him. She was polite, keeping the conversation easy, deliberately avoiding topics that held anything other than surface interest. After he finished eating, he decided to ask her some things he’d been wondering about, and hoped she’d chalk up anything strange about it to him being a little thrown off from last week.
“Sasha,” he asked, setting his fork down, “do you—like being the head archivist?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, leaning toward him slightly over their table.
“Do you like it? Is it a good job? Is it—is it how you thought it would be?”
Sasha crossed her arms in thought. “Well, I’m not really sure how to answer that. I mean, the Magnus Institute has its issues, I suppose. It’s an academic joke, of course, but it’s not like the respect of my peers was ever that important to me.” She laughed at herself. “And some of our benefactors are… well, a bit full of themselves? But I suppose that’s true anywhere. I am quite happy with the job security, and it pays well enough for what it is. Plus I’m actually using my degree, which is more than I can say for most of my classmates.”
“Have you ever—wanted to leave?”
Sasha frowned slightly. “No—no, not really. Why?”
“No reason,” Martin said as casually as he could. He couldn’t exactly say just wondering if you’re trapped here. “Just been doing some thinking, I guess.”
“Well,” Sasha said, “I’ll admit the job’s felt a little bit different lately. Hard to say exactly how… I guess I’ve been struggling a bit with—well, I’m still not sure how to handle the—incidents, I suppose? It doesn’t make any sense, but it feels like I’m responsible for the people who come here to talk to us. Like I should be keeping track of their stories, somehow. I just don’t know what to do with them. Honestly, I’ve just started asking them to write everything down. I feel bad, but I just can’t listen to some of them. I’ll have nightmares.”
“Oh. They’re still coming in, then?”
“Sometimes. Not every day, but enough.”
“I—I didn’t know. Does Jon know?”
“He’s been there for a few, yes.”
Martin took a few sips of water. Jon hadn’t mentioned that specifically, but it probably wasn’t anything.
“What about—what about Elias? He doesn’t seem too fond of the Institute. Why does he stay?”
“You’ll have to ask Tim,” Sasha said, poking at what was left of her salad with her fork again. “They’re best friends.”
Tim laughed. “We are not best friends. However, I do think you should spend a little more time with him outside of work. You’re missing out.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, come on.” Tim poked her arm playfully with the tines of his fork, and she batted him away. “He and Allan are a trip.”
“Exactly,” she replied.
“What I meant was, they’re funny. Especially Elias.” He turned to Martin. “Now the key to understanding him is to recognize that he has money—and also that he hates money, even though he has no idea how to function without it. And people with money, he especially hates. But at some point, I suppose, his father wore him down, and he has now accepted his position in life with as little grace and composure as he can.”
Martin thought back to what little he knew about Elias Bouchard, the actual Elias Bouchard, from his own world. “That… makes sense, actually.”
“And it makes him a pain in the ass when I need something,” Sasha added. “But on the positive side—he does leave me alone to do my job, for the most part.”
Martin remembered Allan’s name too; Martin remembered he had died after finding an old book. “So Allan is—his roommate?”
Tim raised his eyebrows. “That, Martin, is none of our business.”
“What?” Martin was genuinely confused before he realized what Tim was getting at. “Oh—oh god, no, I didn’t—”
“However,” Tim interrupted him, “if you find out let me know, because I believe Sasha will owe me 10 quid on that day.”
“Doubtful,” Sasha said, grinning over the phone she was now scrolling through. “Very doubtful.”
Martin could feel his face turning red, so he was grateful for the distraction when Sasha leaned forward with her phone.
“Speaking of working at the Magnus Institute—look at this,” she said, attempting to angle the phone so both Martin and Tim could see at once. “I cannot get over how much she’s enjoying her retirement. I never thought she’d leave, but then it was like she was just up and done one day, and she never looked back.”
It took Martin a moment to understand what she was showing them, but it was a picture of Gertrude Robinson—a Facebook picture. He might not have known it was her, if it wasn’t for the name posted above it. The biggest difference was that in every picture he’d ever seen of her, she’d been wearing her hair in the same tightly-pulled grey bun; here, she was wearing her hair down, and it flowed softly past her shoulders. The next most obvious difference was he didn’t think he’d ever seen her smiling in a picture before, and she looked quite happy in this one, drink in hand, next to an equally-cheerful looking older man who had been holding up the phone to snap the photo. The caption read catching up with an old friend.
Sasha pointed at Martin to emphasize his surprised reaction. “See, that’s what I’m saying. I guess you just never know.”
“Who—who’s in the picture with her?” Martin asked.
“Oh right, I forget you never met him in person. That’s Jurgen Leitner.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think she was that fond of him, really. Must be another retirement thing.”
Jurgen Leitner—what was his connection to the Institute here? It’s not like he would have been living in the tunnels, there was just no—
The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. The Leitner Room. In this world, the Magnus Institute was home to every book Jurgen Leitner had ever collected. He had collected them, of course, only his library had never been destroyed because there was nothing to make that happen. When he’d decided to downsize in his later life—when he didn’t feel quite the same sense of pride in them—the archives had been the perfect home for his books. Of course, up until now, it meant nothing except a new collection and a nice endowment for the Institute.
What did it mean now?
“Are you ok?” Sasha asked. “You look—”
“You look like you just got run over,” Tim finished.
“Sorry.” Martin pulled his hand away from his mouth; he hadn’t even realized he had put it there. “I just—I just remembered something. It’s, um…”
“Do you need to get back?” Sasha asked after a moment of silence.
“Yeah,” Martin answered, apologizing with his voice. “Yeah, if you don’t mind. You can stay, if you want—”
“No, I’m done.” Tim took one more drink to empty his glass. “Sasha?”
She shrugged. “I’m ready.”
“Thanks,” Martin said. “I—there’s something I need to take care of for Jon.”
***
After they got back, Martin tried to look busy at his desk, hoping they’d think that he was taking care of whatever it was online. He took the opportunity to review the records in the system, and was comforted to note that nothing in the Leitner group currently had any special notations connected to it. All of the books were, at least in principle, on the shelves, and no one had requested access to any of them. He’d been hoping that was why his attention hadn’t been drawn to any of them previously, and it seemed like he’d lucked out. It was an obscure collection, and there were a lot of restrictions on them at Jurgen Leitner’s request; not just anyone could come in and browse them, and only a very specific set of research purposes qualified for special permission to remove them from the library.
He relaxed a little, and then waited for an opportunity to leave the office without attracting attention. He had to wait a while, but eventually Rosie came in with something for Sasha to review. A moment later Sasha called Tim in to her office, and Martin took the opportunity to leave. He just didn’t see a reason to risk drawing anyone else’s attention to the Leitners, especially since it seemed they were all but forgotten as they were.
He walked out past Rosie’s desk and back into the stacks; the room really was quite out of the way, buried deep in a corner of the shelving units. It wasn’t a large room, and if you weren’t looking for it, it would have been easy to miss. Even the sign above the door, emblazoned with the word Leitner, was barely distinguishable from the metal door frame behind it. The room was kept locked, but as an archival assistant Martin had a copy of the key. He held his breath and turned it.
Walking into the room was anticlimactic; it didn’t feel like much. There was no threatening aura; there was no sense of danger. It felt like nothing more than a small room full of musty old books, like many other small rooms of musty old books Martin had been in before.
He took a quick look at some of the titles on the shelves. At first glance, he didn’t see any he had heard of before, but of course he hadn’t heard of most Leitners. He continued to look, straining his eyes at words written on faded spines, occasionally pulling one gingerly off the shelves to check the front cover; he just needed something to prove to himself he wasn’t overreacting. Finally he found one he knew: a thick, black paperback labeled The Boneturner’s Tale. Martin felt a shiver run down his back as he involuntarily jerked his hand away from it.
He closed the door to the room, locking it behind him, and pulled out his phone. Thankfully, he had service, and he immediately dialed Jon’s number.
“I ate,” Jon said when he picked up.
“No,” Martin said. “Well, yes, I’m glad, but—”
“Martin, are you—what’s going on?”
“I—I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m…” Getting Jon to remember for himself was going to be much easier than explaining it.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes, I—well, all right. At lunch, Sasha showed us a picture of Gertrude Robinson. On Facebook.”
“Oh,” Jon sounded puzzled. “I knew she had retired, but I hadn’t thought to—”
“Well, that’s not it. She was with someone in the picture.”
“Who?”
Martin took a deep breath. “Jurgen Leitner.”
There was a prolonged silence before Jon spoke again. “Oh. God.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re there, aren’t you? Right now.”
“Yes. I’m—I’m not sure what I should do.”
“First, don’t touch anything.”
Martin didn’t respond.
“Ok—don’t touch anything else, then.”
“All right,” Martin said.
“Damn it. I should be there. I should be there with you.”
“No—no, it’s fine. I just—what should I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I—ok, can I destroy them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like—” Martin swallowed. “Ok, I’m sure this isn’t the best idea, but—what if a fire were to start in here? Or—something?”
“Do not,” Jon commanded. “Martin Blackwood, I have never been more serious in my life, do not do anything of the sort.”
“Ok, ok,” Martin said. “I said it probably wasn’t a great idea—"
“Some of those books would—let’s just say burning them would not have the desired effect. Or wetting them down, or chopping them up, or—”
“All right, all right. I get it. I mean—that’s not surprising, I guess. So what do I do?”
“Did you check the system? Are any checked out, or reserved, or—?”
“No,” Martin answered. “I mean, yes, I checked the system, and they’re all—they’re all here, in theory. No one’s asked for any of them.”
“Ok.” Martin heard the relief he’d felt earlier echoed in Jon’s voice. “That—that’s good.”
They sat in silence for a moment, before Jon spoke again.
“You’re—you’re not going to like this, but—I think you should go. For now.”
“And just leave them all here?”
“Yes. Believe me, I’m just as frustrated as you, but I don’t think there’s another option just yet. They’re relatively protected there, and hopefully they’ll continue to not draw attention.” He paused, and then added softly, “Right now, I just want you out of there.”
Martin sighed. “Right. Ok. Um… I guess… I can at least set up an alert so I get notified if anyone puts in a request?”
“That’s a good idea. And I’ll—I’ll keep thinking. Are you leaving yet?”
“Right after we get off the phone. Just in case. I don’t want to attract attention if someone else is down here.”
“All right. Message me when you’re back at your desk.”
“Sure.” Martin hung up, disappointed there wasn’t more to be done, but Jon was almost certainly right—it would be much too easy to do damage instead of prevent it, if he acted rashly.
Before he left though, he had one more thing he wanted to do.
***
That night, when Martin got home, he found Jon on the small balcony in back again; that was what he’d been hoping for. He grabbed the small metal trash bin out of the toilet in the hallway and stepped outside, closing the door behind him.
“Martin,” Jon said, stamping out a cigarette in the ash tray on the small table as he stood up. “You startled me. You’re a bit early—we can go in.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to—I should have said something. Actually, I wanted to catch you out here. I brought you something.” He set the bin he’d brought out with him on the balcony, between the two of them.
“It’s a trash bin,” Jon observed.
“Well, that’s only part of it.” He picked up the lighter Jon had left on the table and handed it to him.
“If this is commentary on my smoking habit, I think the ash tray is big enough. Besides, I don’t plan to keep—”
“No—no, that’s not it. I don’t care about the smoking. Well, I don’t love it, but that’s really not it.” Martin sighed. “Look, I know you said not to touch anything in the Leitner Room, but—well, here.”
From behind his back, he brought out a small, square book; he could see Jon didn’t need to read the title to recognize it in the dim evening light.
“Martin,” he whispered. “I—”
“Don’t say anything. Don’t think, don’t open it. Just—take it. Burn it. This one should be fine. I can do it if you don’t want to.”
Jon reached a hand toward the book, running his fingers hesitantly over the scribbled black spider webs illustrating the otherwise plain white cover. He spoke as if he were in a dream. “Yes. I imagine this one would be ok.”
“Light it,” Martin encouraged him, reaching for the hand that held the lighter to pull it closer. “Now.”
It seemed too easy; he was afraid it wouldn’t catch, or that Jon would change his mind, or any number of other things would go wrong—but nothing did. The cardboard cover caught beautifully, the yellow-orange flame spreading elegantly out from the corner in less than a minute, swallowing the book front and back.
“Now let go,” Martin said, as the flame began to spread, and Jon nodded. They dropped it together into the trash bin, and Martin watched as the title words A Guest for Mr. Spider were consumed, slowly, letter by letter. They watched together, transfixed, until the fire burned itself out and all that was left was a smoking pile of ash.
“You shouldn’t have done that for me,” Jon said quietly. “Going through the shelves—taking it out—it could have been dangerous.”
“Yeah, well, you said the web was probably still weak, and—” Martin reached for Jon’s arm. “Anyway, it’s done now.”
“Thank you,” Jon stepped carefully around the trash bin, and then his arms were around Martin’s waist and his face was in his chest. “Thank you.”
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dearest tooth, if you are still taking prompts: jonmartin (you know how it is with me), in a vehicle, confessing feelings? :')
This was a delicious prompt, thank you Lottie! Poetry quotes cribbed from Richard Siken’s “You Are Jeff”, because of course.
*
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy.
They drive north in the rain, and that one line of poetry keeps running through Martin’s head, over and over. The car is an old VW Golf; Basira handed them the keys and told them not to come back to London until she gave the all clear, and now they’re on their way to a safehouse in the Scottish highlands.
Martin tries not to think of it as running away together but he can’t stop that thought from spooling through his stupid head any more than he can stop that single line that’s on an endless loop in his consciousness.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy.
Jon is sitting behind the wheel, eyes steady on the road, occasionally flickering to one of the mirrors or the dash display. He drives like he’s doing his test, hands at ten and two, and Martin feels something warm and heavy in his chest when he looks across at him.
It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, but it’s one made uncomfortable by time and distance, by the fog that still lingers in the corners of his eyes. He might be out of the Lonely, but Martin knows it isn’t out of him, not entirely. Maybe it won’t ever be. But he’s feeling more now that he has in months; it hurts, like pins and needles when the blood flows back into a numb appendage.
I really loved you, you know.
Martin recalls the hollow echo of his own voice, and it was true, in the moment. He had really loved Jon, and it wasn’t that he’d ever stopped (how could he?) but that he’d forgotten how to be that person who loved so deeply.
He remembers, now. He remembers, and he aches; for the sight of Jon’s fingers careful on the wheel, his small, distracted frown as he scans the road, his quiet grumbling at the traffic and the weather. The hundred little sounds and gestures he’s not even aware of, but each one makes Martin feel warmer, makes his heart beat and his blood flow, and he’s so, so glad of the pain.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.
Jon loves him. Martin knows that now, he knows it, he saw it truly, clearly. Look at me, Jon had said, and what Martin saw in his eyes couldn’t have been anything but real. Jon loves him: enough to follow him into the Lonely, and enough to pull Martin back out again. It’s okay, if it’s not the same kind of desperate, wanting love that Martin feels.
(It couldn’t be, that isn’t something Martin could dare to hope for, not something he can allow himself to even think about.)
He saw Jon’s love, and it was immense, and fierce, and more than enough. It’s so much more than enough. Jon deserves to know that Martin loves him too, present tense, all the tenses, has and does and will love him. He deserves for Martin not to be a coward about it.
“Jon,” he says. Jon’s head turns slightly towards him, not taking his eyes off the road of course, just a physical acknowledgment that he’s heard, that he’s listening.
“All right?” he asks, softly. His voice is so soft, now, so careful, as if he’s afraid of the power behind it. As if he’s afraid he might tear Martin to shreds like he did Peter, might crumble him to ash and send him scattered on the breeze. Martin thinks if Jon keeps speaking so softly to him, he might just crumble anyway. He looks at Jon’s sharp profile, the little worried line between his eyebrows, all the weight of fear and responsibility on his shoulders.
“We - we should stop soon,” he says. “You’ve been driving for hours, I can take a turn.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Jon says, but he pulls over a while later into the forecourt of a service station and turns the engine off. He sits there for a moment without speaking, looking down at his hands. Martin looks at Jon’s hands as well, scarred and elegant, one finger tapping anxiously at his thigh. Looks at them, and wants, and swallows it down as those lines run through his head.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him.
“All right?” Martin is the one to ask this time, and Jon looks at him, gives a small smile.
“Do you want to come in or wait here?” he asks. Martin considers. The prospect of lights, noise, people, is...well, it’s a lot. It makes him anxious, makes him want to shrink down and fade away and hide. But the thought of staying here, alone, with the drizzle sifting out of the gray sky, making the world go blurry and indirect around the edges, is bad in a whole different way. There’s a small, scared part of him that thinks if he lets Jon out of his sight - if Jon lets him out of his sight - that he’ll be lost all over again. It’s ridiculous, but still -
“I’ll come. I could do with stretching my legs.”
The inside of the service station is brightly lit, inoffensive pop music jangling over the radio. There are only a handful of people in here, paying for petrol or browsing for snacks, a bored looking woman behind the counter, but Martin is far too aware of their presence, his skin prickling with it. He breathes slowly, deliberately, while Jon picks up bottled water and pre-packaged sandwiches. He can feel the tight, anxious feeling rising by the second, and as they’re standing at the till he finds himself grasping for Jon’s hand.
(They held hands all the way home, because Jon knew the way, and his fingers tangled with Martin’s were strong and sure, his warmth bleeding into Martin’s skin, reminding him that this was real.)
Jon glances at him, eyes dark and surprised, but he doesn’t say anything, just picks up the plastic bag with their purchases and grips Martin’s hand firmly. They walk back out to the car and he ushers Martin back into the passenger seat despite his protests that he can drive for a while. Jon doesn’t start up the engine, just slips into the driver’s seat and takes Martin’s hand in his again, holds it quietly while Martin’s heartbeat gradually returns to something resembling normal and he becomes very aware of how foolish and awkward he’s just been.
“Sorry,” he says eventually, and Jon’s fingers squeeze his gently. When Martin looks up at him, his expression is serious.
“You don’t need to be sorry for something bad happening to you.”
“Sorry,” he says again, reflexively, then winces. “I mean - well, it’s over, isn’t it? I got out. You got me out. I shouldn’t be…” He trails off miserably, unsure how to even describe what he is right now. Feeling too much and not enough, afraid of being around people and even more afraid of being alone, needles and pins and the warm weight in his chest every time he looks at Jon.
“You shouldn’t tell yourself how to be, right now,” Jon tells him, his voice gentle. “After everything, the fact that you’re here at all is - it’s a miracle.”
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, Martin thinks, and after everything, how can he give this man any less than all of himself?
“Jon,” he says, and then: “I love you,” quick and shaky, before he can stop himself. Jon makes a small sound that’s almost wounded, and his hand tightens around Martin’s.
“Martin…” he says softly. Martin doesn’t want to look at him, with those bruised and fragile words out in the open between them. He does, though, and what he sees is what he saw before, piercing the veil of the Lonely. What he sees stops his breath in his throat, and then Jon leans towards him, slowly, so slowly, and steals that same breath from his lips.
“Oh,” says Martin when Jon stops kissing him. He lifts the hand Jon isn’t holding to his lips, touches them almost reverently, as if he could feel the kiss lingering there. Jon’s smile is tentative and careful, and it is only for Martin.
“I love you too,” says Jon, and the warmth in Martin’s chest flares, a bright and blazing thing spreading through his veins, burning away even more of the chill.
“Oh,” says Martin again, and then Jon is crawling across the center console, hissing as the parking brake jabs him in the thigh, pulling Martin into his arms and holding on. Martin thinks he might be crying, and his heart is so full it aches, but it’s good. It’s good.
And you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.
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frame the halves and call them a whole
also on ao3
--
“Alright, I’ve got a bad one.”
“Oh, lord.”
“Brace yourself.”
“I’m bracing!” Sasha made a show of gripping the short carpet on her living room floor and Tim grinned, leaning back against her coffee table.
“Would you rather… date a spider with the head of a human, or a human with the head of a spider?”
“Jesus. I see someone has been reading the discredited statements.”
“Guilty.” Tim shrugged cheekily.
The two of them were sitting on the floor in Sasha’s flat, and she’d long since lost track of what time it was. Ever since they’d been moved to the Archives, they’d made an agreement to go out and do something together once a week. Sometimes that meant getting sloshed and losing at pub trivia, sometimes that meant dragging each other to whatever new film had made it to theaters that week, and sometimes that meant playing sleepover games in the middle of the night, as if they were twelve year olds and not thirty-somethings with 9-to-5’s. Neither of them had the energy to go out drinking and there wasn’t anything good in the theaters that week, so the third option had won out. They’d ended up on the floor when Sasha made an ill-advised comment about not being ticklish and Tim called her bluff. She’d dissolved into hysterical giggles and he’d said something about how being an oldest sibling meant having a sixth sense for someone’s ticklish spots, and then he’d gone very still and quiet. She’d taken his hand and squeezed and initiated the game of would-you-rather they found themselves in now.
“Okay. Let me think about this.” She drummed her fingers on her lips contemplatively. Tim smiled in that fond way he did when he didn’t want to outright laugh at her. “Are the human and spider bits proportional?”
“Ooh, very good question, Sash. Let’s say they’re the normal sizes for your average spiders and humans.”
“So my options are a human head scuttling around on spider legs or a human with an absolutely microscopic spider head?”
“Yep!” Tim said, popping the ‘p.’
“I’m going to go with option A. I mean, if it’s a human head, I could still hold a conversation with it, right? And I don’t think spiders would make good kissers.”
“I think some of our statement givers would disagree with that judgment.”
“Please don’t tell me we have a statement about a human body with a spider head. I don’t think I could take it.”
“Sure do! Statement number 9170108, or something like that. Some freaked out old coot convinced his neighbor’s head was fake and he was keeping a tiny little spider underneath the fake head.”
“Christ. I’m glad Jon didn’t ask me to look into that one. I might have quit on the spot.” Sasha laughed.
“Aw, and then leave me and Martin to deal with Jon? You know how he gets with the spider ones.”
“Hm, fair. The Archives need someone sensible around.”
“Hey, you’re not the sole voice of reason down there!”
“You’re right. Martin can be fairly practical when he wants.” She failed to bite back her smirk when Tim clutched his chest, feigning pain.
“Oh, how you wound me, Ms. James! Here I was, thinking it was Tim and Sasha versus the world, but you’ve betrayed me for Martin!”
“Is that your proposal for a Scott Pilgrim reboot? Am I Ramona in this scenario?”
“No, we’re both Scott Pilgrim because combined, we can equal the pure sexual energy of one Michael Cera.”
“Eugh! Gross!” She retched and kicked at him, making him laugh.
“I’m kidding!”
“You better be! Any and all horniness for Michael Cera is banned in this flat!”
“That’s fair.” He caught her foot and shoved it back at her. “Knives and Ramona were both way too good for him, anyway. They should’ve ended up together at the end.”
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”
“You’re really not pulling any punches tonight, huh?”
“Nope. My turn. Would you rather...” She crossed her arms and stared him down long enough to make him squirm, “get stoned with Jon or Elias?”
Tim groaned so loud she worried her neighbors would complain. “No. Absolutely not. You cannot make me choose that.”
“Hey, you asked about spider people!”
“Yeah, and I’d argue that dealing with my bosses while stoned is worse than a human head skittering around on the walls!”
“Oh, come on. Jon isn’t that bad.”
“Sasha. You were friends with him in Research. I was friends with him in Research. Last time we got drinks, he talked about South American moths for forty minutes. I’m getting a headache just thinking about listening to him while he’s stoned.”
“Maybe it’ll calm him down.”
“Maybe.” Tim pouted, and Sasha did her best not to giggle. “Alright fine. I choose Jon, but only because I cannot imagine Elias getting within eyesight of anything as fun as weed without shriveling up and acting like an affronted Victorian gentleman.”
“Okay, first of all, the Victorians loved drugs, they were high on opiates all the time-"
"Like hell am I doing opiates with Elias."
"Second of all, I may have looked into what Elias was like before he got promoted…” She trailed off and bit back a laugh when Tim's jaw dropped.
“No.”
“And he was a major stoner.”
“You can’t just say these things. I refuse to accept it.”
“I’m serious!”
“Are we talking about the same Elias? The Elias Bouchard that uses words like grandiloquent and apropos? The Elias Bouchard that gets pissy if you round up on your time card?”
“You know what’s even worse?”
“Please don’t make it worse.”
“I’ve seen him wear those socks with weed patterns on them.”
“I told you not to make it worse.” Tim wailed and covered his face. “I swear, if I saw that, I would gouge my eyes out without hesitation.” Sasha patted his leg sympathetically.
“Well, good thing you chose Jon, then.”
“I guess so! Fuck’s sake.” He sighed and flopped over onto his side to lie on the floor. Sasha laughed at him goodnaturedly, and then joined him on the floor. She expected him to be thinking of his next would-you-rather prompt, but after a long minute of him silently running his fingers through the carpet, he surprised her by asking, “Do you ever miss Jon?”
“Sorry?” She said, confused. “We see him every day, Tim.”
“No, I…” He huffed, “You know what I mean. Do you miss the Jon we knew in Research?”
“Oh…” Sasha caught onto his drift and fell silent, unsure what to say. Tim was clearly brimming with emotions that he was struggling to get out, so she let him take a minute.
“Not saying he’s a completely different person now, but… I don’t know. We used to get drinks with him. He used to laugh at our jokes. He used to make jokes. Weird, dark jokes, but still jokes, you know? But these days, it’s all business, all the time. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile in months. All… All snappish comments and ‘research this, call this statement giver, stop goofing off during work hours.’ Never mind that just a year ago, he was the one using work hours to show us cat videos because he got distracted during his lunch break.” The side of Tim’s face was smushed into the floor and his one free eye was focused on the whorls he was creating with his fingers in the carpet. Up close as they were, Sasha could see the light scar on his chin that he’d once told her was the result of an ill-advised dare as a child, when his brother had challenged him to see if they could jump off the back deck of their house. She touched it, and he leaned into her hand, eyes distant and sad. “I just…” He spoke softly, “I miss my friend.”
“I miss him too.” Sasha said honestly, though she knew Tim was taking it harder than she was. “You know it’s not your fault, right?”
“I know that.” Tim said, and she believed him. “It’s this stupid job. The stupid Archives. I miss being in Research, where I could make fun of the weirdos in the Archives, but now we’re the weirdos in the Archives.”
“We work at an institute that studies the supernatural. I think we’re the weirdos no matter which department we’re in.” She said, aiming for some levity and feeling relieved when Tim let out a soft huff of laughter.
“Fair. Still. The vibes in there are…”
“Bad.” She finished for him.
“You can say that again.” He finally shifted to look at her again. “If you were the Head Archivist-”
“Tim-” She warned, not wanting to dig up an old sore point.
“I’m serious. If you were the Archivist, do you think you’d act like this?”
“Would I push you away, you mean.” She said. He shrugged and nodded. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Tim. I’d like to say I wouldn’t, but who knows what kind of pressure it involves. I can be just as intense as Jon when I feel pressured.”
“Yeah, but you’d be way nicer than him.”
“You don’t know that.” Sasha said, firm but gentle.
“...Guess I don’t.” Tim sighed and shut his eyes. She reached down and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.
“Next time you’re missing Jon, call me instead, okay? Or Martin, he’d love that.” She ran her thumb over his and gave him a small smile. “You can always count on me.”
His gaze is impossibly soft as he looks up at her, and he seems to almost forget to respond at first. “Yeah.” He finally says. “I can always count on you, Sash.” A cheeky grin spread across his face, breaking the tender moment. “The Pilgrim to my Scott.”
She laughed and let go of his hand to push his shoulder into the leg of the coffee table playfully. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense!” He protested despite his own laughter. “Okay, maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the thought that counts. I’m poetic.”
“No, you’re sleep-deprived.” She sat up enough to eye the microwave from her vantage point in the kitchen. “Oh lord, it’s 2am, no wonder. You always get sappy at 2am.”
“I do not!”
“You do. Big sap.” She patted his cheek playfully and stood. “Want me to get you some extra blankets for the couch?”
“That’d be great.” He hauled himself to his feet, groaning all the way. She snickered.
“You sound like an old man.”
“I’ll have you know, I’m young and spry.” He complained, stretching.
“Mhm.” She rolled her eyes and went to the closet.
“At the prime of my life.”
“And yet you make dad noises getting out of a chair.”
“Hey, lying on the floor isn’t good for your back! Aren’t you older than me anyway?”
“Maybe, but I’m not the one complaining about my back.” She cut off whatever complaint he had prepared by throwing a quilt at him. He caught it and stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture and grabbed another blanket. “Are two blankets good?”
“That’s perfect.” He took the blanket gratefully and settled on the couch. “Should I make breakfast as thanks?”
“You don’t have to,” Sasha immediately said out of politeness, but then added, “But if you want to make pancakes…”
“Understood. I’ll see you bright and early with some pancakes, then.” Tim smiled up at her and made himself comfortable on the couch.
“See you in the morning, Tim.” She turned to walk to her room, but stopped at the doorway when Tim piped up again.
“Sasha?”
“Hm?” She looked back at him and saw his best flirty grin on his face. He winked and blew a kiss at her. More than used to his nonsense, she gasped and pretended to catch the invisible kiss, then promptly put her hand to mouth and pretended to eat the kiss. Tim clutched his heart and fell back onto the couch, trying to act like he wasn’t holding back laughter. “No, you’re so cruel!”
“Good night, Tim.” She said, closing the door behind herself before her poker face could break.
“Good night, Sasha.” She heard through the door, full of fondness and amusement in equal parts.
Sasha rolled out of bed the next morning to find Tim making pancakes, as promised. They sat at her kitchen table and bickered playfully about movies; Tim listened patiently as she infodumped about the history of science fiction as a genre, and she let him rant for the fiftieth time about Indiana Jones. Tim insisted on washing the dishes like a gentleman, and Sasha insisted on squirting bubbles out of the dish detergent bottle at him. They didn’t speak a word about work or their conversation from the night before, but she hugged him very tightly before he left, as if conveying all the emotion she could through touch alone. From the way he squished his face into her shoulder, it seemed the message came across.
“I’ll make sure to get you the spider guy’s number.” He said when they finally pulled apart, and she snorted.
“You’re insufferable, you know that?” She said, shoving him out the door.
“So I’ve heard.” He winked and walked backwards down the hall outside her flat. She sighed and waved, a smile on her face as she shut the door.
If he bugged her and Martin more than usual after talking to Jon the following week, she didn’t mention it.
#tma#the magnus archives#sasha james#tim stoker#ambiguous timsasha#my writing#okay to reblog#I blame the liveshow for making this more emotional than intended#wrote more than half of this in one sitting instead of writing my final paper how are y'all doing#my hobbies include infusing dialogue with as much dramatic irony as possibly and crying about s1 archival gang
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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic
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Chapter 16: Sasha
There’s a long silence after the door shuts behind Jon Prime. Sasha stares at Martin Prime for a long moment, several possible things to say next running through her head. How did we actually die wars with how much of that really happened and a slight humorous side trip into I don’t think I’ll ever wear this shirt again, because of course she’s wearing her favorite shirt today, as well as what words did Jon say in that memory and if he was in the other fourteen why did you talk like it was an unknown subject.
What actually comes out of her mouth at last is, “Wickie?”
Martin Prime sighs heavily. “It’s…an old name for a lighthouse keeper. Comes from trimming the wicks to keep the light burning.”
“M-my—” Martin rubs his temples hard, almost like he’s trying to manually turn the wheels in his brain. “Dad used to call…us that. I’d forgotten…” He looks up at Martin Prime, and Sasha is a little taken aback at the anguish in his eyes. “Is—was it a coincidence or—?”
“No. The Keeper is…he’s part of the Lonely, and maybe a little of the Spiral. The loneliness of distance. Not just being separated from someone you care about, but the specific loneliness that comes when you know exactly where they are but can’t get to them, either because there’s a physical barrier or because you just…can’t. The fear that if you reach out to them, they won’t reach back.” Martin Prime closes his eyes for a brief moment. “So the Keeper just…knows those sorts of nicknames. A name given to you by someone you miss…or someone who misses you. Someone you can’t reach, anyway. In this case, though…he knew it because he is the one who gave it.”
Tim’s eyes widen. “Wait, seriously? Does that mean you’re—”
“He made a deal to keep me—us—safe,” Martin Prime interrupts. “It’s why he left in the first place. I can tell you the story some other time, but…maybe not today?”
“No,” Martin agrees in a very small voice. “Not today.”
Tim drapes his arm around Martin’s shoulders and nods. Sasha is more inclined to press, but she swallows down on the urge. Curiosity is all well and good, but she shouldn’t sate it at the expense of her friends, so if they say no to a topic, she’s going to respect that. For now, anyway. Time to pick one of the other avenues of discussion.
She wants to ask about the pictures, get more details about what came before those moments, but something tells her that’s a discussion that needs to happen with the Jons in the room. Also, that’s going to hurt Tim, probably, so she starts running through her other options, looking for the least volatile one.
Tim beats her to it, which is probably a good thing. “So that was the first time…your Jon found out about all that? You didn’t, like, give him a taste last night?”
“No. That…I knew he’d need it. Like I said, he hasn’t had a statement since he got back. Sitting in on your—our, I guess—statements from last night…all that did was take the edge off of things. I knew what I went through was big enough that it’ll keep him going for a bit.”
“Right, but why not at least lay the groundwork? Warn him that it was going to be…bad?”
Martin Prime hesitates, turning in the direction of the door briefly before saying in a low voice, “He can’t always…the hungrier he gets for a statement, the harder it is for him to control himself. The last few months before the world ended? I found out, sort of by accident, that he’d been going out and…pouncing random people for their statements. One of them complained to the Institute and I had to stage an intervention. He’s doing better about it, but I didn’t want to risk tempting him. He’d never forgive himself.”
“For falling off the wagon?” Sasha cocks her head.
Martin Prime turns to look at her, and really, it’s a little unnerving now that she knows he’s blind. It explains why he always looks like he’s looking through her, but it’s still creepy. “It’s a lot more painful when he takes a statement by force. Even if I was going to offer it to him anyway, if he…pounced on it like that, it’d be more intense. He hates it enough when it’s strangers, but if it’s—someone he knows…” He trails off.
“Will that happen to our Jon?” Martin asks. His voice shakes a little when he asks. Sasha wonders how much of that is residual from hearing Martin Prime’s statement and how much of it is actually about Jon.
Martin Prime doesn’t answer for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says at last. “Probably not so quickly, anyway. Gertrude Robinson…I don’t know if she just never got as bad or if she just could control it better. You can ask Jon later.”
“He won’t pass out if we do, will he?” Tim glances towards the door. Sasha suppresses a smile at the obvious concern on his face. Honestly, Tim fusses just as much as Martin does at times. He’s the consummate big brother, while Martin is something of a mother hen.
“No. What just happened was…he pushed too hard, against the wrong subject. He can’t Know what’s going on inside the Eye. Really, trying to Know anything about any of the entities directly is beyond him, and he knows that.” Martin Prime’s voice sharpens into censure for a moment before he visibly forces himself to relax. “Usually he’s pretty good at knowing his limits.”
“So why did he do that?” Tim asks. “If he knew it would hurt him, why would he push? He’s not that…masochistic usually. That’s your job.”
“Hey,” Martin mumbles, but without any real heat behind it.
“He’s not wrong,” Sasha points out. She’s watched Martin push himself, break himself into smaller and smaller pieces, trying to be what everyone needs him to be, always putting everyone else first.
“I think part of it is that it was something he genuinely wanted to know the answer to,” Martin Prime says. “We’ve never known for sure how much the Beholding can see on its own and how much it needs its…agents to give it. It for sure can watch us at the Institute, but in a very real way, the Institute is part of the Beholding, or vice versa. Honestly, it’s not something we think about much. But knowing Jon, once he had the question in his mind, he had to see if he could find out the answer to it, despite knowing it was a dangerous idea. Part of it might have been that he was so tired, too. The longer he goes without a statement, the worse his decision-making skills get.”
“Oh, brilliant. They’re so amazing most of the time,” Tim drawls. “God knows Jon never makes poor life choices.”
Martin Prime actually laughs. “I mean, not like we can throw stones here.”
Tim laughs, too, and Martin manages a smile. Sasha wants to ask if Martin Prime considers her one of Tim’s “poor life choices” or if he even knows they slept together, but just in case he doesn’t, she doesn’t want to drag that out into the open just now. Again, she’s fond of unearthing others’ secrets, but very close-mouthed about her own; it’s probably unfair, but there you are. Lest Tim bring it up, she starts looking for the next thread to pull on.
“That was Jon, right?” she asks at last. “In the…last gallery you were talking about. Those pictures. They were all of Jon?”
That fast, Martin Prime’s smile disappears. “Yeah. Most of them haven’t happened…obviously. And one of them for sure won’t now.”
“The third one,” Sasha guesses. “That was—when Jane Prentiss attacked you all?”
Martin Prime nods. “It was the middle of the day. Jon’s the one that accidentally went through the wall—there was a spider he was trying to take out—”
“The Web toying with him?” Martin asks. He sounds a little calmer than before, but still shaken.
“Honestly, I’ve never been altogether sure about that. It might’ve actually just been a spider, but…the balance of probability is on it being the Web, yes. Anyway, Jon accidentally broke the wall, the worms got in—our Sasha and I ended up having to drag him into that storage room, but he’d already been bitten a few times, he couldn’t walk. Our Tim was at lunch at the time, he came back and—Sasha went out to save him, they got separated, and Tim wound up in the walls. He came through the wall in that storage room and convinced Jon and me to come out with him. We got separated in the tunnels, just like you all did, but Tim and Jon found the trap door and I, well, I found Gertrude. Eventually. But yeah, when Jon and Tim came out in the Archives, Jane Prentiss was there and she attacked them. They were pretty bad off before…Elias finally set off the CO2 system.”
Tim looks down at his hands—or more accurately, Sasha realizes, at one of his hands, since his other arm is still draped around Martin’s shoulders. She wonders if it’s to comfort Martin or to reassure himself. “Are we lucky, then?”
“Yes,” Martin mutters. “Extremely.”
“You’re lucky, too,” Martin Prime says. “Trust me. It wasn’t…Jon’s right, just because I didn’t come away with physical scars doesn’t mean I got off unhurt. And that was when things started going bad for us all.”
“So how do we stop the rest?” Sasha asks. “Are you all going to tell us what happened so we can avoid it?”
“Yes, I think so, but I’d really like to only have to go over it once?” Martin Prime glances in the direction of the door again. “And most of them I wasn’t there for. He’s told me about them, but…I wasn’t there.”
“But what were they?” Sasha persists. “Just how he got hurt? How he got the scars?”
Martin Prime takes a deep breath and curls his hands into tight fists. “Broadly, yes, they’re how he was scarred. They’re…they were the encounters with the Fears that marked him.”
Sasha tilts her head to one side. “Like what Michael said about you—that you’d been marked?”
Martin Prime nods. “To be marked by a Fear is to feel it, all the way through to your soul. Sometimes it’s physical, sometimes not. Mine aren’t…at least, not really.” He runs a hand through his hair, seemingly without noticing. It’s the first time Sasha realizes how much grey is streaked through his curls.
Martin swallows audibly. “How…how many fears have marked you?”
“Four, I think. Three for sure. I’m not altogether sure about whether or not the Stranger actually marked me or not.” Martin Prime tilts his head to one side. “You’ve only been marked by two, though, and…I never got the mark of the Corruption. My others were the Lonely and the Spiral, and of course the Beholding.”
“What about us?” Sasha asks. “In your timeline, I mean. How many were we marked by?”
Martin Prime hesitates. “Tim…I think he was four as well. The Beholding, obviously, we were all marked by that one as soon as we set foot in the Archives. At least I—I think that’s how that worked. Or at least as soon as we put our voices on those tapes. Then the Corruption—Jane Prentiss’ attack—and he was with me when I got tricked into entering the Spiral’s domain, so it marked him too. And I’m pretty sure he was marked by the Stranger. I can’t say when, but I’m fairly sure he had been.”
Sasha waits, then prompts, “And me?”
Martin Prime takes a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know, Sasha. If I had to guess, I’d say two. Three at most, but I don’t know if your encounter with Michael really counts as a mark. Honestly, I wouldn’t have known the Corruption had actually marked you if you hadn’t mentioned that you could hear the worms singing.”
Sasha huffs. “I’m not sure what surprises me more—that I didn’t get more marks, or that you didn’t.”
“I spent more time at the Institute than I did actually tracking things down,” Martin Prime replies. “Someone had to keep the Archives running properly, and, well, that fell on me. Our Tim was…he had a project of his own he was focusing on.”
“And me?” Sasha asks again.
Martin Prime looks in her direction for a long moment. His face is tight with pain. “You’re really going to make me say it,” he says flatly.
“Sash—” Tim begins.
“Yes,” Sasha says over whatever it is Tim’s going to protest. “Whatever reason I avoided all that…don’t I deserve to know?”
“You died, Sasha,” Martin Prime says sharply. “You didn’t get marked by more entities because you died. You were torn to pieces by a—a thing that took your place, replaced you in our memories so that we didn’t even know you were gone. We spent almost a year believing that it was you, and finding out that it wasn’t nearly destroyed all three of us. Worse was finding out that Elias knew all along and didn’t tell us because he wanted to see what it would do to Jon, and damn the effect on Tim or me.”
Okay. Sasha really should have known that. She heard him describe the painting, after all, she even thought about not wearing her favorite shirt again because of it. She knew she was dead, and Tim too; it’s obviously why they didn’t come back with Martin Prime and Jon Prime. But something in her wanted to hear Martin Prime say it out loud, and she’s not sure she likes what that says about her. She bites down hard on her tongue to keep from asking about Tim’s death. That’s not hers to ask, and she’s almost sure its going to be something the Jons need to be there for too.
After a moment of awkward silence, Tim gets up from the sofa. “I’m getting us all tea,” he says, his voice unusually subdued. “I think we’re going to need it.”
“Do you…need a hand?” Martin pushes himself to a standing position.
Tim looks like he’s going to refuse, then nods. “Sure, c’mon.”
Sasha watches them go. Martin is walking well enough, if a little stiffly, but Tim still hovers just behind him, not touching but there to catch him if he falls. It’s almost funny how flustered Martin gets when Tim looks after him, too. For a moment, Sasha is tempted to ask Martin Prime about that—if it’s Tim he has the crush on—but that feels a little bit like a betrayal of Martin, to take away his choice to tell her. And she’s still stinging a bit from the way Martin Prime flung the answer to her last question at her.
After a moment of silence, Martin Prime sighs heavily. “I’m sorry for saying it like that.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed,” Sasha replies. “Not like I didn’t know the answer. I—I don’t know why I had to make you say it when I knew I’d died during your attack on the Institute.”
“I’m beginning to see why Gertrude Robinson expected you’d be appointed Archivist after her. You’re…a lot like she was. That’s not necessarily an insult, mind, but that’s not necessarily a compliment either.”
From what Sasha remembers of Gertrude Robinson—which isn’t much—she can understand that. They sit in silence for a while, listening to the clattering of mugs from the kitchen, before she finally says, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, but I reserve the right not to answer.”
“What’s it like? Being blind, I mean.”
Martin Prime tilts his head to one side. “Are you asking me in clinical terms or in more general ‘how does it feel’ terms?”
“Both?”
Martin Prime smiles, briefly. “Fair enough.” He pauses for a moment, as if considering his options. “In the strictly literal sense…it’s like being in a room with really thick blackout curtains over the window. Sometimes there are…textures, maybe, to the darkness? Only if there’s a really bright light. For the most part, though, it’s just…darkness.” He takes off his glasses and holds them out to Sasha. “Here, take a look.”
Curious, Sasha does. She holds Martin Prime’s glasses up to the light, then removes her own and slides on Martin Prime’s. The strength of the prescription knocks her backwards against the sofa and makes her head swim. She takes them off, blinking, and puts them back in Martin Prime’s outstretched hand. “In other words, you were basically blind before all this.”
“It’s just that the glasses don’t help anymore,” Martin Prime confirms. He settles them back on his face anyway, which Sasha understands. They’ve got to be a comfort. “Not being able to see…I can work with that. It’s just the added layer of there not even being blurry shapes in front of me, and, well, Mum was a light sleeper, so I kind of got used to moving carefully and without turning on any lights when I was growing up. Moving around I can do, although I’m sure you noticed me running into things a lot over the last couple weeks because I don’t know there’s a table or a stack of books between me and where I’m trying to get. But it’s…it’s disconcerting to not know if someone’s in the room, or be able to see what they’re doing when there’s a silence. I can’t read faces or see hand gestures. I can still tell when someone is looking at me, but I can’t tell who, or even what direction it’s coming from. And there’s—there’s so much I took for granted that I won’t ever see again. Tim’s smile, Jon’s eyes, the sunlight sparkling on the Thames, the moon rising over the city.” He’s silent for a moment. “I didn’t even remember what you looked like. The—the Not-Sasha? It looked different, it sounded different. It had to, because whenever it takes someone’s place, there’s always one or two people who—who remember the person as they were before, only no one believes them.”
“Which is how it feeds its patron’s fear,” Sasha guesses. “The Stranger?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Martin Prime nods. “I recognized your voice when I got back, only because we—we had a few recordings you were in from before. Your statement, your teasing Jon about the pronunciation of ‘calliope’, the recording Tim did on Jon’s birthday…a couple more you were on. But even having seen that—painting or whatever, I still couldn’t put a face to the voice. I only knew what you looked like in shadow and the most terrified you’d ever been in your life. I knew the Not-Sasha wasn’t what you looked like, but…I had to get Jon to describe you last night.”
Sasha glances in the direction of the kitchen, to make sure Tim and Martin aren’t coming back, but she hasn’t heard the kettle yet. “What did—it look like? The Not-Me? What did it make you think I looked like?”
“She—it—was…well, for starters, it was short. Petite, I think, is the right word. At least a head shorter than Jon and scrawny on top of it. Blonde hair in a shag cut, green eyes. No glasses.” Martin Prime pauses. “Only drank green tea.”
Sasha, who admittedly has a serious caffeine addiction, pulls a face. “How’d she drink it?”
“With cream,” Martin Prime answers. He takes a deep breath. “Don’t tell Jon, but…actually, there was a little part of me that was kind of relieved when we found out it wasn’t really, well, you. The first day we were back in the Archives after the attack, it was just the two of us, and…I made a cup of tea for both of us, we were both stressed out, so I thought it would help. I thought I made it like I always did, but…when I gave it to her, she took a sip, all but winced, and asked me if I’d made it for Jon or Tim. That’s when she ‘reminded’ me that she only drank green tea with cream. It—it threw me. Badly. I spent the next three months second-guessing myself at every turn, about the stupidest things, because if I could forget something like how one of my friends like their tea, what else was I forgetting? What else was I doing wrong?” He shakes his head. “Honestly, it was hard to shake that even after we knew it wasn’t our Sasha, but at least I could convince myself that there was no good reason for me to know how it would like tea. Even though, supposedly, it replaced all our memories of her—you—with the ones it wanted us to have.”
Sasha hears the unspoken question and considers leaving it, or forcing him to actually say it aloud, but honestly, she’s put him through enough already this morning. “I can’t stand green tea. I’m more one for coffee, actually, but when I do drink tea, it’s black with lots of sugar. Tim suggested once that you just heat up a cup of syrup and call it a day.”
Martin Prime’s face lights up at that. “I did remember it right then! Christ, thank you. You have no idea…it’s been eating away at me for ages. I know it’s ridiculous in the grand scheme of things, but…”
But a big part of Martin’s identity is wrapped up in his ability to care for others, and naturally thinking he got it wrong would set him atilt. “Why leave you that, though?” Sasha asks curiously. “If you couldn’t remember anything else about—me—why remember just how I like my tea?”
“Well…I mean, I worked with you every day, if I’d remembered all about you, I’d have gone to Jon straightaway, or—probably not to Elias, but maybe. I didn’t…know I shouldn’t trust him then. If I’d laid down Amy Patel’s statement in front of Jon and pointed out the parallels, there’s a chance he’d have believed me, which would’ve ruined everything for it. So the one person it chose to remember you as you really were was someone who didn’t see you every day, or at least didn’t work with you closely enough to be suspicious. And—” Martin Prime swallows. “Part of the Stranger is that fear that you—you don’t know someone as well as you ought to. So what better way to make me afraid than to make me doubt such a fundamental part of our interaction? I-I mean, it wasn’t human. It might not have liked tea at all. Maybe it just picked something at random that was so different from what you liked that it would throw me off-balance.”
Suddenly, Sasha gets it. “That’s why you said you might have been marked by the Stranger! You don’t think that counts? If it made you that…paranoid and afraid?”
“Maybe? It was worse for Jon. It made him so paranoid he thought one of us was trying to kill him, and that didn’t count as his mark, if we’re going by the paintings.”
“Oh, please.” Sasha waves a hand. “Jon’s probably paranoid because of finding Gertrude’s shot-up body in the tunnels. That’s not a supernatural death, that’s something provable and possibly human. Was I—or the Not-Me—his top suspect?”
“No?” Martin Prime’s forehead puckers in a frown. “Actually, you—it—was the one he suspected least. At least at first. That doesn’t mean he trusted you, mind, but he did at least think you the least likely suspect.”
“Then the Not-Me didn’t mark him because it wasn’t what made him paranoid,” Sasha says. “If he’d been in his right mind, he’d have suspected me most of all because I put in for the Archivist position, so the logical conclusion would have been that I killed Gertrude Robinson in hopes of getting it and then might be out to kill him so I could take the job from him. He was on edge because of what happened, and what I’m guessing was the general atmosphere of mistrust and tension in the Archives at the time probably made it worse—but it wasn’t the Not-Me’s doing. You, on the other hand, were directly targeted by it, so any paranoia you felt was because of it. Hence the mark.”
Martin Prime blinks in her direction. “That…God, you’re right. I never thought of that before.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Do me a favor?”
“Don’t mention that to Jon, either?”
“Don’t—yeah. He’s got by all this time by reassuring himself that he wouldn’t have acted like that if the Not-Sasha hadn’t been there, but…” Martin Prime sighs and looks up at her. “I will tell him. It’s not fair not to. But just…let me do it?”
“Of course,” Sasha promises. “Despite how I’ve been acting tonight, I can keep my mouth shut.”
“I know. You knew I’d lied on my CV and never said anything.”
The kettle whistles from the kitchen, making Martin Prime flinch slightly. Sasha looks briefly over her shoulder. “They’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Martin Prime hums in acknowledgment. “Anything else you want to ask me while it’s just the two of us?”
Sasha can’t help but laugh. “Are you sure you don’t remember me?”
“Hey, I didn’t say the Not-Sasha was completely different from you, necessarily. It just looked and sounded different.”
“Fair point.” Sasha considers. She looks in the direction of the kitchen again and thinks of the paintings Martin Prime described. She looks back at Martin Prime and says softly, “Did we suffer? Either of us?”
Martin Prime swallows hard. “You, yes. The—the Not-Sasha bragged about how much it hurt you. Tim…I don’t know. The actual moment of his death might have been quick, but he was definitely suffering beforehand. Maybe not physically, but still, he was hurting and neither Jon nor I could do anything to fix it. Believe me, I tried.”
Sasha bites her lip and nods before remembering he can’t see it. “If you couldn’t fix it…I don’t think it was something that could be fixed.”
Martin Prime smiles. “Thanks, Sasha.”
A moment later, Tim pokes his head in the living room and announces, “Here we come. Tea’s up.”
He and Martin come into the room, Martin concentrating hard on holding onto a mug with each hand and Tim carrying two in each hand like it’s no big deal. He sets them down on the coffee table, then picks one up and hands it to Sasha with an overdramatic flourish. “Your hummingbird food, milady.”
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” Sasha drawls, accepting the mug. It’s not the one she had her coffee in earlier, thank God, but she does wonder just how many mugs Tim has.
Martin sets down one of his mugs, then sits on the sofa with the other carefully cradled in his bandaged hands. Tim picks up the other mug and presents it to Martin Prime. “And here, this one’s yours. We picked a mug with a sculpted handle, so you should be able to tell it apart from the others if you set it down.”
“Oh, thank you.” Martin Prime reaches out hesitantly. Tim meets him halfway, settling the cup on his palm and turning it slightly so that it brushes his fingers and he’s able to wrap them around the handle. “As long as you’re not making me drink out of a horse’s ass.”
It’s probably a combination of the fact that it’s a joke at just the right time and the unexpectedness of Martin Prime using a profanity, even a mild and correctly-applied one, but the heavy mood shatters like spun sugar. Sasha and Martin both burst into giggles at Tim’s exaggerated expression of shock as his eyes go back and forth from Martin Prime to the white mug with a sculpted face and painted horn on one side and a sweeping, rainbow-colored tail for a handle on the other.
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Rising from the Ashes: Of the Past and Nightmares
So this is Part Eleven here is to my Master List and Part Ten.
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"So how'd you get to Gotham from Paris?" Jason asks, plopping down on the couch in the living room.
"Oh easy the glasses, it's called a miraculous, this one is the horse miraculous that grants the power of teleportation," Marinette said, tapping her glasses. "I have a kwami named, Kaalki. The kwami that transforms me into Ladybug is Tikki the goddess of creation. My partner, Chat Noir, has the god of destruction, Plagg. We are balanced."
"Your partner, Chat Noir, is Adrien. Kagami is Ryuko. Luka is Viperon. Chloe is Queen Bee. I'm assuming at least, you don't seem like the type to pick people you don't trust," Damian asked. "But if Chat Noir is your balance does that not make you soulmates?"
"Yes and no. We're not the soulmates you might be thinking of. We are best friends platonic soulmates if you will. We are meant to be in each other's lives and we can’t live without each other," Marinette explained.
"That makes sense, but who is Tikki and Kaalki?" Jason asks.
Marinette lifts her hair and they fly out. "Meet Tikki and Kaalki. I have other kwamis as the guardian, but they are in the miracle box at the moment," Marinette explains, holding out their favorite food.
"Hi, guys!" Tikki chirps, landing on her head.
"Oh my gosh! They're adorable! They're so small and precious!" Dick cooed, standing up to move closer to them.
"I can bring other ones out at different times. Kaalki is just the one I had out due to her transportation powers. I would show you Plagg, but they don't show up on camera," She explains, petting Kaalki's head.
"Miss Marinette, do you have the miraculous of the peacock? I wish to catch up with Duusuu," Alfred asks.
"You had Duusuu before she was taken?" Marinette asks, shocked.
"Ahh yes, is she alright?" Alfred asks.
"She was in the hands of an evil miraculous holder recently, Hawkmoth's partner Mayura, but I think seeing a previous holder would help. Tikki, is that true?" Marinette asks.
"That is correct Mari, it would help wit the cleansing," Tikki said. "Could you also take out Wayzz?"
"Of course I would be able to," Marinette said, standing up leaving Damian's embrace. She opens her bag and takes out the miracle box she takes out the turtle and peacock miraculous after she put the horse miraculous away. "Alfred, would you be able to wear the brooch? I wore all of them once and passed out afterward. Master Fu advised against wearing more than three. I'll need it back after."
"Of course, Miss Marinette," Alfred said, taking the brooch and pinned it to her jacket. Marinette puts on the turtle miraculous.
"Hello Master Marinette, it's good to see you again," Wayzz greets, bowing.
"Wayzz, please call me Marinette," she answers.
"Wayzz I must speak with you," Tikki says, flying off. Alfred had already walked off to catch up with Duusuu.
"So those are some of the kwamis," Marinette said, snuggling into Damian's embrace.
"What do you mean you passed out after wearing all the miraculi?" Damian asks, kissing her head.
"During the akuma called Kwamibuster, every time Chat or I got hit we would lose our transformation. I went to Master Fu and asked to take all the miraculous so I wouldn't have to reveal my identity. I came up with this brilliantly over the top plan that worked. I'll show you the video Alya took some time. The miraculi are only supposed to be worn one at a time because of the power it holds," Marinette said.
Wayzz flew into the room saying. "But Marinette is the best guardian and holder of Tikki's miraculous that we've had and she somehow was able to pull it off."
"Diana's mother was a Ladybug," Alfred informed them, reentering the parlor.
"That's why she feels familiar," Tikki realizes, landing on Marinette's head. They all chat together, taking turns to ask questions to the kwamis. At the end of the night, Damian decides it's too late for her to go home. Damian leads Marinette to a guest room beside his room. They're standing by the door when he decides to give her the present he bought her.
"Angel, can you face the door for a moment," Damian asks. She turns away from him. He opens a small bow and takes out a necklace, a white gold infinity heart. "Can you look at me now?" She turns back around. "Beautiful," he breathed.
"The necklace?" Marinette asks her bluebell eyes sparkling.
"No, you," he leans down and kisses her softly.
"Prince, you're too nice," she said, breathlessly breaking the kiss. "Goodnight," She says, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. She then entered the room and closed the door quietly behind her. She falls onto the bed lovestruck. Damina places his head on the door and happily sighs before walking to his room. She changed into her pajamas which is a Jagged Stone hoodie and leggings.
Not long after she fell asleep she woke up screaming from a nightmare. Damian rushes into the room as she is sitting up out of breath. "Angel are you ok?" he asks, sitting beside her rubbing her back.
"Ya it was just a nightmare," she whispers, into his shoulder.
"How often do you wake up to nightmares?" he asks, kissing her head.
"More often than I would like to admit," she whispers. "It has been worse since the fire."
"Want me to stay with you?" he asks.
"Please?" she asks looking up at him and blushes. "Umm... Damian, why are you shirtless?'
His face goes completely red looking down at himself. "I... I heard you scream, Ummm... kinda just ran into here, and normally I sleep shirtless," he explains. "Do you want me to grab a shirt?"
"No, please don't leave me," she says, yawning. He lays down and wraps an arm around her. She looks at his arm.
"What happened there?" she asks, tracing a scar.
"When I first moved in with my father, my mother got captured by my grandfather's successor. While father put mother into the Lazarus pool I chased after him, we got into a fight. At one point he put swords into both my arms to stop me from fighting," Damian explains, holding her closer. "Now go to sleep."
They fall asleep with her partly on top of him one hand in his hair the other over his heart. He has one arm around her, and the other hand was on top of hers. Damian didn't normally like touching but sleeping like this with Marinette.
"Oh my gosh!" Dick whispered to Jason, peeking in the room.
"Come on leave them alone, remember privacy?" Tim whispered, pulling both of them away from the door by their collars. "If you wake Damian wake up, he will murder you. He won't care about Father's rule."
Damian woke up to them talking, but couldn't move to murder them due to his Angel still peacefully sleeping on him. He fell back asleep waiting for her to wake up. After an hour or two, he's woken up by Marinette moving on top of him, she was trying to get out of bed without waking him up.
"No, Angel, please don't leave," he groaned, pulling her back into his embrace.
"Dami-- Damian," she stutters, trying to wiggle out of his strong embrace. "Alfred just called us for breakfast." She finishes trying to sit up again.
"Fine, but next time we're going to stay a bit longer," he says, into her ear, his chin on her shoulder. "I... I mean if there is a next time."
She kisses his cheek. "I would love that. Maybe watching a movie of your choice next time," she smiles, getting out of bed. He quickly follows. They take a seat on stools at the island where plates of waffles sat on the counter.
"So you wanna tell me what woke you up last night?" Damian said, pouring him and her a glass of orange juice.
"Well I have constant nightmares over the last standoff against Hawkmoth," she explains, taking a sip of OJ.
"What about the last battle?" he asks, sitting down beside her after he put the OJ back in the fridge.
"You know how Jon saw a healing stab wound?" Marinette asks he nodded in response. "Well, I took that stab wound trying to save Adrien from falling off the Eiffel Tower, he was grabbing Kagami. While I was trying to pull them up I got stabbed, Luka then knocked into Hakwmoth knocking him off the Tower. When he was falling he somehow made it on to a lower platform and ran back to his liar near the end of his transformation," Marinette sighed, taking another bite. "My nightmare was me trying to catch you, but I couldn't catch you, then everything she had said about me was becoming true." she hisses at the mention of
"Who is she? What could she say to make you react like this?" Damian asks, taking her hand.
"Oh... Ummm... her name is Lila Rossi but it... it.. it isn't important," she stammered, wiping a quick tear that was threatening to fall.
"Marinette, Angel, she must have hurt you in some way if you're reacting this way to here," Damian said, wiping the stray tears.
"She turned all my friends against me with her lying ways. Adrien knew the truth but couldn't truly help me in any way due to his father's overbearing nature. After he found me crying on a roof during one of our patrols, he drew the line there and helped me with Lila's antics," Marinette explained.
"What did she lie about?" Damian asks, pulling her into a hug.
"What didn't she lie about is the real question," Marinette snickers into his still shirtless chest. "She always lying about connections, she is still currently ruining my ex-classmates' lives. She fell down the stairs and said I pushed her, I got suspended. She faked a couple of different disabilities to gain the sympathy of others. She stuck the answer key to a test in my bag and framed me for cheating. Gabriel the retired Hawkmoth, has admitted to Lila willingly let herself be akumatized multiple times. She threatened me and told me she would separate me from my friends until I was all alone." He is silent, but she can feel his heart rate speed up. She looks up at him, fury was spread across his face. "Prince, please say something," she whispered, placing a hand on his cheek.
He takes her hand and kisses her palm and says, "Angel, no one plans homicide out loud."
"You can't kill her, sadly," she said whispering the last part. "Also one more thing you should know about, apparently you adore her and you guys have had an on and off relationship from childhood," she smirks, her bluebell eyes sparkling with mischief as he gags. They finish eating breakfast together and after cleaning up Damian escorts her home.
When she arrives home she unpacks and washes her clothes, then starts Scarlette's bridal shower outfit. She makes a cornflower blue button-up blouse and a white high skirt with white sheer fabric on the top of the solid underskirt. She sent a picture to Scarlette and let her know she could pick it up on Sunday. She also recommended pairing it with a pair of pastel pink high heels and clutch.
Life went on, she started building a name for herself with the help of Diana under the name of Nette. She told Diana that Marinette knows that she is Wonder Woman and that she is Ladybug. Diana laughed it off saying that she knew Marinette had Tikki from the moment she entered the store, part of the reason Diana hired her so quickly. She was intrigued by the holder of creation. Damian and Marinette continued to go on dates. Damian came home with Marinette for Chinese New Year, he also wore a disguised just in case. In March, Damian asked Marinette if she would move into the manor with him, she declined because she has a year contract on her apartment and she doesn't want to mooch off of him.
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Ch 3 of My life (but the better version)
Looks like SOMEONE forgot to post Chapter 3 here (glares at myself
As the time passed, and a lot more time passed for sure, Tord was thinking. For once in his life. Was it even his life? Would he be considered dead right now? A huge part of him still believed all of this was a weird dream, some specific version of hell made just for him. He felt like it would get worse later on, become a nightmare. He wouldn't be surprised.
Despite the television playing almost the entire time, he had enough time to get lost in his thoughts.
He was stuck here until- ugh, he didn't remember the exact time anymore, until more things healed he guessed. A few days had already passed, but he could barely register them. Everything was moving so slow and so fast at the same time for him. It felt slow, as if a day was a week long, but fast as if the month that week was in was only 2 weeks long.
While being there he was supposed to remember his old identity and life and all that since he said that he forgot it but honestly? He'd rather actually live up to his own lie and forget than admit what he could recall everything. If he can convince others he forgot maybe he could fool himself too at some point. Those weird therapy type things that happened to try to trigger his memories did nothing when he already remembered everything.
There was just so much. He would rather focus on the shitty hospital TV in the corner. Nothing engaging was usually going on there, and right now it was just… mediocre. He could imagine it playing in the background of something if anything. Not enough to drain his thoughts out. He increased the volume, maybe that would somehow make it interesting or something.
"-After that sudden earthquake in Little Oakmoor, a lot of victims had to move to the Oakmoor homeless shelter temporarily. Today, we are in front of the homeless shelter, and our newest journalist, Theodore Andrews will be asking them about their feelings while it was happening! Take it away, Theo!"
The lady at the news station looked towards the screen that showed a young, nervous man with a microphone.
Not interesting, he didn't wanna hear earthquake victims talk. From what he gathered, nobody died or was hurt so what was the point of asking people what they thought in the first place. Stupid Theo and his stupid questions to those stupid people with their stupid little problems. Tord decided to keep switching channels until he couldn't help it, he got lost in his brain.
He tried turning to his side, hoping that just maybe he could fall asleep and stop thinking for an hour or two. But he just wasn't tired. And he hated how the pillow felt against the scarred half of his face, despite how old that already was, he could feel the pillow pressing into the bandages.
Eventually, as time passed he passed further, despite the fact that he felt like he drank 3 energy drinks, a coffee and a cola, he did eventually find himself asleep. Or the opposite because you don't exactly find yourself asleep, you usually wake up and figure that you can't wake up from being already awake, accompanied by the feeling of time having passed and realize that you were most likely asleep and wish you could go back.
Either that or you're like Tord and swore that not a single minute passed and you don't feel different so you must have only closed your eyes or taken a very short nap? Nope, when Tord used the TV to look at the time, it was the next day already. Time really was strange in hospitals, he figured.
Was it the hospital, really? Or was it him fucking switching realities that caused a mixup? He had no idea. He also still had no idea what to do, since sleep doesn't give you the answer to everything, or someone would have already invented the cure for cancer by being asleep. That would be funny.
Imagine what the interview for that would be like. That guy Theo with his bright-ass red microphone walks up to some young person with a golden crab shaped medal around their neck and goes like "So, how exactly did you find the cure?" And the person looks off into the distance, almost looking like they've decided to remember the comments of an entire novel before they respond, "it came to me in a dream" "The cure for cancer came to you in a dream" "Yeah" "If other scientist fell asleep before we could have found it sooner, ey" "Have you seen scientists" "I-"
But no, sadly sleep didn't solve all of his problems despite how much he hoped that 'eternal sleep' would do so just a few days ago. He still didn't know what to do. He couldn't keep pretending to have forgotten everything forever after all. And he didn't exactly have a home here.
But it's not like he could just tell someone he remembered, that wouldn't really do anything even if they somehow believed him.
What was he supposed to say, exactly? "Oh yeah I totes remember everything about my old life, but you wouldn't believe me! I killed people. Then I fetched a robot I forgot- and the nurse? Yeah, he should be dead! More shit happened and I actually killed myself! Hey where are we going why does that look like a psych ward-"
Yeah, no, that was off of the table.
Tord has grabbed two of the plastic flowers someone placed in the vase next to him and started moving them across the bed.
He changed the pitch of his voice whenever he made the yellow flower move.
"So do you remember anything?"
'Yellow' asked the other flower.
The red flower, AKA Tord was then moved. His voice went back to normal,
"No, sorry! I don't remember anything at all! Nothing, nada, not even my name. I can speak all 3 Scandinavian languages perfectly if that helps somehow."
"You have no known family here, nobody came looking for you and you don't remember where you come from! That means we're going to have to kill you"
Yellow responded. Tord was over dramatic, he knew, but he had no idea what would actually happen. He was wondering why he was afraid of dying a second time.
"I don't think they'll kill you!"
A voice suddenly came from the door, which had opened at some point.
"Jon, don't do that-"
Tord said. Both of them sorta- I guess you can say they became friends over the days Tord stayed here. It's weird because Jon didn't have any name to address Tord by, but that didn't matter much.
"What I was saying is- you can stay with me- eh, my roommates and I! I'm sure they won't mind and we'll find space for you!!"
Jon offered, a small grin on his face as he spoke. Thinking about his opinions, Tord looked back at the flowers. This was most likely a bad idea… he's literally their neighbor. They would definitely see Tord at some point. And he wasn't sure if he really wanted to deal with those roommates, knowing exactly who Jon meant.
But… he also didn't want to stay in this boring ass hospital and well, who knows what will happen to him when he's healed. He wasn't sure how exactly he could kill himself here, and what was the point of letting himself heal for a few days, make friends with someone and then die- would he even die, or just be sent back?
Whatever the case, that didn't matter.
"Yeah sure, if you think it's a good idea"
Tord eventually agreed.
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(link) Masterpost
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