#jonmartin week 2022 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tired-beholding-bitch · 2 years

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you’ve got my heart bursting at the seams

look guys! a Soup Sickfic AU update! I know you missed the fluffy romcom content 🌈 and I’m also in time for the last day of @jonmartinweek which I’m delighted about actually. ✨

promise next time they’re going to go on a date. I swear this whole series doesn’t exclusively feature jmart taking turns being gay about each other, there will be some dating involved. eventually. at some point. maybe they'll even kiss sooner or later, who knows! not them for sure!

for now, enjoy Jon being in complete denial for 3k words straight ❤️

Jon is… a competitive person.

Anyone who has known him for longer than fifteen minutes, especially in a social setting - say, like a game night – could and would probably tell you that, while side-eyeing him with some amount of distrust and adding that he surely can be nice, if a bit of a prick about game rules.

He’s maybe, perhaps, competitive enough to have been permanently banned from showing up to Georgie’s weekly board game nights back in university, despite having been an active participant only the first time he went.

He isn’t especially proud of the person he becomes during a game of Scrabble. Neither was Georgie.

Unfortunately, Tim has known him for much longer than fifteen minutes.

He mentions it for the first time in the morning, as he’s handing over a stack of papers before getting started on his own work for the day, leaning over the desk to catch his eyes before he can bury himself in the documents.

«You know, boss, it’s Friday.» he says, casual as anything, tilting his head to the side. Jon makes a non-committal hum that he knows won’t be enough of an answer.

It would be an innocent enough remark, except he recognises that tone. It’s the you’re going to work yourself to death, Jon tone. The just think about it, Jon tone. The you know, boss, it’s Friday tone.

It’s too early in the morning – and four hours of sleep are too few – for him to deal with that tone. Tim pretends not to notice the suffering, pleading look he gives him, and barrels on uncaring.

«We’re all going out for drinks tonight! You should come, too, get a little bit of fresh air? So you don’t end up sneezing to death trying to sort out the new boxes, at least.» that was, to be fair, exactly what Jon had planned to do. Not the sneezing to death part, given it’s highly unlikely he will actually die because of a little dust. Or, well, considering the state of the boxes they have unearthed earlier in the week from, possibly, the filthiest, most disgusting spot in the Archives, a lot of dust. The boxes that are currently housed in the corner of his office, sitting there in all their suspiciously stained glory.

He doesn’t think Gertrude ever bothered even acknowledging the existence of these files during her whole tenure – at some point, if the smudged numbers written on the sides are any indication, they must have had dates on them, but that point is long gone and lost forever, which means they’ll have to check them one by one in order to classify the statements by date.

He isn’t looking forward to it, but it needs to be done.

He draws in a breath, preparing to tell Tim just that, but before he can get a protest out he’s being spoken over again with frankly excessive enthusiasm.

«It’s trivia night at the pub down the street, come on. The one where basically the whole Institute gathers on Friday evenings, you know?» he says. He’s still aiming for casualness, now sitting halfway on top of his desk, a cheeky grin splitting his face in an achingly familiar way.

It’s the same as when he used to drag them both out of the library for coffee, back in research, offering to pay for Jon's delirious mix of sugar and caffeine because oh no, it's way too entertaining to see you when the sugar rush hits, please allow me.

It’s been a while since he last saw that smile directed at him. He has missed it – the easy camaraderie of it, how delighted Tim looks when he rolls his eyes but ends up going along with whatever he’s planning.

Tim, being Tim, senses his hesitation like a shark with blood and proceeds to show absolutely no mercy.

«What, are you going to let David from Research win trivia night?» he asks, still smiling – his grin is sharper, somehow, pointed in a way that reminds him all of a sudden of the Admiral, whenever he managed to catch a bug. Jon isn’t smiling. He’s almost thirty years old, and he has a very serious job to be carrying out at the moment, and he’s above such petty matters, thank you, what kind of a question is that.

That’s what he means to say. He feels the words on the tip of his tongue. He can do it.

«We’ll see.» he says, instead. Before he can even register the betrayal of his own brain, Tim is pumping his fist in the air, triumphant. He’s out of the office in an instant, giving him one last wave on his way out, as he’s closing the door behind himself.

Jon wonders if his assistants are aware he can hear everything that happens in the bullpen, even with the door closed. Probably not. Or maybe they just don’t care, which is infinitely more likely.

As the day drags on, sluggish like only spring Fridays can be, with their peculiar brand of cheerful drizzles and temperatures too high for a cardigan and too low for everything else, Jon considers several ways to get himself out of it.

«He said yes, guys!»

He could try to sneak out before them, feigning a headache and then coming back later, or he could barricade himself inside the office, too, he surely has enough boxes for that.

He could also, simply, tell them he isn’t going. They probably wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss – they all have seen the state the Archives are in, after all. Really, they’re probably going to have more fun without him, anyway.

Things have been… awkward, lately.

It’s mostly his fault. It’s, to be completely honest, entirely his fault. Trying to find a balance while battling with the weight of his new role – alongside the guilt of knowing Sasha was the one who should have been promoted, really, more experienced and more qualified than him – has made him quite prickly. Even more than he normally is, and Jon isn’t great at social situations to begin with.

Martin, especially, has taken the brunt of most of his moods. He cringes slightly at the thought, the memory of some of the things he said making him wince.

He knows he has been unfair to him.

Tim and Sasha have said as much, more than once, and he won’t pretend to be that oblivious. He knows, the uneasiness of guilt poking him like a needle every time he fails to bite down a scathing remark, his chest tight with it as Martin’s face falls.

He has been trying. The anxiety tangled up with the whole situation makes it all the harder to approach – he’s stiff with it, fumbling over his words, and the time never seems to be quite right, someone butting in right when Jon has managed to work up almost enough courage to say the words, or Martin getting spooked and running off before he can say anything.

He isn’t even that bad.

He had taken longer than expected to adjust to writing reports in the right formatting, and his research hadn’t always been up to Jon’s standards, which were admittedly rather strict, for the kind of cases they had been working on, but he had learned quickly enough. He’s much better now.

And he’s… kind. Even though Jon really doesn’t deserve it.

He’ll bring him tea twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, steeped just a minute too long, with two sugars to balance out the bitterness, because he has noticed that’s how Jon likes it best. He’ll take a moment to smile at him, if they bump into each other in the morning when they get in, or in the evening before leaving. Not that he’s often arriving or leaving with everyone else, these days.

It makes something stir in his stomach, small and pointy, uncomfortable in a way not too dissimilar from how swallowing a fishbone feels. It leaves his throat tender, and if he reaches for the cup of tea left on the corner of his desk, lately, Jon finds himself smiling more often than not.

Martin being there is another reason he’s quite on the fence about going at all, to be honest.

He’s painfully aware of how narrow the booths are, and the idea of trying to make polite small talk without paying too much mind to their knees touching under the table, their arms brushing as they both reach for something, straining to hear the conversation over the music – always too loud – or the other patrons – also too loud – has him sweating already, his skin prickling with it.

However.

By the time five comes around, he has almost made up his mind to go.

He’s been reading through dull ghost story after dull ghost story for hours, the statements not even particularly well written, lacking the compelling pull some of them have, and the low thrum of boredom is driving him slowly but relentlessly mad.

The knock on his door isn’t unexpected. Neither is Tim poking his head in without waiting for an answer, cheerful as ever.

«Hey, boss! We’re leaving, you coming with?» he asks, and Jon hesitates for a second despite it all.

There’s so much to do. The boxes seem to be glaring at him from their corner, dust already settling on the floor next to them, and the pile of papers next to his laptop is seemingly unchanged from that morning, way too high and threatening to fall down any minute.

Tim looks at him, and his smile is still familiar and warm, and Jon knows he wouldn’t press the issue if he said no right now.

But he doesn’t want to.

What he wants to do, to be completely honest, is drink half-decent beer and destroy the Research team at trivia, because no one gets to call the Archives a useless waste of paper and resources unless they’re waist-deep in said waste of paper and David really, really isn’t.

The walk to the pub is as quiet as it can reasonably be expected to be with Tim and Sasha around.

He grabs his coat without a second thought.

Their constant bickering becomes an easy, well-loved background noise quickly enough, and Jon falls into step behind them, trying to not get hit in the face as Tim gestures animatedly explaining something or other about the secrets of the publishing industry. It’s a story Sasha must have heard a thousand times by now, but she’s still looking at him intently, nodding in all the right places – Jon, however, is perfectly happy with letting it fade into white noise for the moment.

Martin must notice him slowing down.

He falls back as well, hesitantly, adjusting his pace to match Jon’s, and Jon can feel a scowl already starting to dig in between his eyebrows because he doesn’t need pity, he’s made a conscious choice to step down from the conversation and he isn’t going to get lonely walking alone for five minutes.

He looks up at him, and he swallows the words as soon as they come.

Martin looks calm. Content. His glasses are a little crooked to the side, and his hair curls around his ears a bit more unruly than usual, ruffled at the end of the day like it never quite is when he first gets to work in the morning.

They walk in silence, and it isn’t awkward – not in the painful, terrible way Jon had expected it to be, hot with shame and crawling with guilt.

He can still feel it, but the night air is fresh and clean, and he doesn’t feel quite as out of place as he feared he’d be.

It’s… nice.

«Take that, Anita! God, all the times she bragged about what a good cook she is and she thinks saffron comes from lilies?»

Huh.

Jon has a problem.

The problem is that he might, in fact, be something of a shoddy judge of character.

The problem is that he has already had a couple of pints more than he normally would, and he can feel the buzzing, pleasant humming of the alcohol making his limbs heavy and his grip on his own feelings quite lax.

The problem is sitting next to him in a narrow pub booth, turning towards him in a triumph of messy red curls and freckles, and has the tiniest gap in between his front teeth that Jon shouldn’t linger on as long as he does, and is apparently the only person taking destroying the Research team at trivia as seriously as it should be taken.

Martin smiles at him, wide and easy and bright, and the expression crinkles his eyes in a way that makes the sharp, twisting feeling in his stomach very hard to ignore all of a sudden.

«Good job, Jon!» he says, and before Jon can say anything back – or, really, do anything that isn’t opening his mouth – Tim is shuffling out of his seat, clapping him on the back.

«Marto, why don’t we go get another round before the next question, yeah?» he asks, and Martin nods, getting up as well. He whispers a we’ll be right back to him and Sasha before they both disappear among the crowd, weaving through the tables to get to the counter.

Sasha clears her throat, pointed. Jon lets his chin rest on his hand, and doesn’t look at her, because he knows exactly what expression she’s wearing right now.

«Well, it seems like you and Martin are getting along, aren’t you?» she says, and he can hear the mischievous grin in her voice before he sees it, peeking at her from the corner of his eye. She’s mimicking his position, cupping her cheeks in her hands, and her eyes are glinting with delight.

«I have no idea what you’re talking about.» Jon says, because he has to say something. Sasha makes a face.

It’s a face he knows very well – usually it means she’s about to do something very illegal or something Jon won’t like in the least. Or both.

He backtracks slightly, before he can find out what it’ll be this time.

«He… he might not be as bad as- as I initially thought he’d. Be. And you and Tim aren’t taking this seriously enough.» he whispers, then, and despite having already known that privately for a while, because Jon isn’t a complete idiot, it feels strange to admit it out loud. Like a secret. That’s why he whispers – it seems appropriate.

God, he’s drunk.

Sasha doesn’t answer. Instead, she hides a giggle behind her hand at whatever expression Jon’s making, her cheeks going red with it.

When they notice Anita from the library team sending extremely murderous looks their way, wrapping her cardigan increasingly tighter around herself as she does, Jon snorts so hard he almost chokes on his beer.

«Didn’t know the library was promoting a mummification revival, did you.» he mutters, unthinkingly.

Sasha’s laughter is very loud – the kind of contagious, full-bellied laugh that makes you want to grin in return. Jon’s, under the right circumstances, is louder.

The circumstances, it turns out, are right.

They’re still folded in two over the table, every patron in the pub now either trying to ignore them or giving them dirty looks, when Tim and Martin get back.

They’re carrying two glasses each, sharing a look of utter confusion as they sit back down, but that isn’t what makes Jon pause.

He is, distantly, aware that Martin is quite handsome.

He has eyes. He can appreciate the solid build of him, the way his features are soft in places and harder in others, going together well all in all.

Jon also knows that he’s rather strong.

It’s just how things are. It’s a fact. An objective truth.

It is, however, a very different thing to be confronted with Martin rolling the sleeves of his jumper to his elbows, huffing a little at the temperature, right next to him.

They’re interesting forearms, in Jon’s defence. That’s the only reason he’s staring.

They look as strong as Jon knows they are – they all know, really. Martin had taken care of most of the boxes by himself, while he and Tim and Sasha tried to move a single one in a timely fashion and failed, earlier in the week.

So, Jon knows he has strong arms.

Jon, now, also knows Martin’s forearms are rather muscular, and that the hairs on them are a lovely reddish-brown that doesn’t quite match his hair.

Once again, facts.

He swallows. When that isn’t quite enough, his throat suddenly dry, he takes a sip of his new pint – it’s been a while since he last laughed that hard, hasn’t it.

With surprisingly good timing, that’s when the host takes the microphone back in hand, the squeaky old thing distorting his words unpleasantly as he speaks, keeping his mouth too close to it. Jon winces at the sound, barely able to make out what he’s saying.

«And now, for the last question of the evening! A cultural one, folks: “Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory” are the opening lines of which Lord Byron poem? You have two minutes to write your answers!» he says, and he scoffs, reaching for the pen and paper abandoned in front of him from the previous round.

And then he stops.

He doesn’t know.

They’ve gotten this far – and they’re so close to winning, he has been keeping count, but they need to get the last answer right or the Research team is going to have the upper hand. Jon would rather eat one of the statements from the eighteen-hundreds, dust and parchment and all, actually, before letting the Research team win.

Tim and Sasha look as baffled as he feels, frowning and repeating the words to themselves, sounding them out in case they’re familiar.

Then, the paper gets ripped from his hand along with the pen, Martin muttering something under his breath next to him, scribbling frantically.

«Oh, come on, let me. It’s All for Love. There– fuck, we’re almost out of time.» he says, and then he’s out of the booth, rushing to the counter to hand in their answer right as the timer chimes, counting down from ten.

And Jon is staring, and he’s staring, but he can’t help it.

The thing in his stomach has moved up, fluttering wildly in between his ribs, small and tender and yet really, really difficult to ignore.

It doesn’t feel like a fishbone anymore, actually.

Jon could almost miss it, swept up in the elated feeling of hearing the host confirm they’ve won, squeaky microphone and all, Sasha and Tim cheering so loudly he’s afraid they’re going to get kicked out for a second.

But when Martin turns to grin at them, delighted and proud and holding the most ridiculous plastic trophy Jon has ever seen like it’s a precious award, it becomes harder to ignore.

It sits in the very centre of his chest, and it’s warm and familiar, and it feels like holding a cup of tea in the morning, and like receiving a smile at the end of a long day, and like walking in silence on a spring evening.

It’s sweet.

Oh.

#tma #jonmartin #teaholding #tma fic #fanfic #tired writes #jonmartin week 2022 #thanks for reading! <3 #can you tell i've been listening to bubblegum pop nonstop while writing this?#probably yes #sorry about no date this time either oops #extra butterflies to compensate however #or. fishbones i guess #anyways #this was a delight to write actually

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fandom · 2 years

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Ships

Week Ending September 19th, 2022

Daemon x Rhaenyra +3 Daemon Targaryen & Rhaenyra Targaryen, House of the Dragon

Byler -1 Will Byers & Mike Wheeler, Stranger Things

Steddie -1 Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson, Stranger Things

Dreamling +1 Dream of the Endless & Hob Gadling, The Sandman

Imodna +3 Imogen Temult & Laudna, Critical Role

Buddie +5 Evan Buckley & Edmundo Diaz, 9-1-1

Lumity Luz Noceda & Amity Blight, The Owl House

Ronance -2 Robin Buckley & Nancy Wheeler, Stranger Things

Destiel -6 Dean Winchester & Castiel, Supernatural

Huntlow +5 Hunter & Willow Park, The Owl House

Rivusa Riven & Musa, Fate: The Winx Saga

Rina +6 Ricky Bowen & Gina Porter, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

Elmax -1 Eleven & Max Mayfield, Stranger Things

Hannigram Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham, Hannibal

Serirei -8 Serizawa Katsuya & Reigen Arataka, Mob Psycho 100

Jegulus +4 James Potter & Regulus Black, the Harry Potter universe

Spirk Spock & James Kirk, Star Trek

Blackbonnet -1 Blackbeard & Stede Bonnet, Our Flag Means Death

Jonmartin Jonathan Sims & Martin Blackwood, The Magnus Archives

Wangxian Lan Wangji & Wei Wuxian, Mo Dao Zu Shi

The number in italics indicates how many spots a title moved up or down from the previous week. Bolded titles weren’t on the list last week.

#ships #09/19/2022 #rivusa #fate the winx saga

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nebulous-frog · 2 years

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As you are

Relationships: JonMartin (pre-relationship)

Summary: Jon has lost so much, but maybe that's not what defines him.

Word Count: 821

Written for @jonmartinweek Day 6: Lost and Found

Link to AO3 Fics Masterlist

When Jon wakes up from his coma, he has nothing. His belongings from before the Unknowing had already dwindled thanks to his stint as a murder suspect on the run and his travels all across America, but now Basira says what little he’d had in the Archives has gone to charity shops. Even what he’d had with him during the Unknowing was gone, lost in the explosion and the aftermath.

Now, returning to the Archives, he knows he’s lost even more- Martin, who apparently is now working for the very entity of isolation, and Tim, who he probably had lost long before the Unknowing.

The Institute had continued paying him during his coma, thankfully. The one thing the Institute does right by their employees is paid time off for injuries sustained during on-the-job apocalypse prevention. With the money, Jon is able to purchase some essentials to replace his phone, clothes, and toiletries. He’s never been one for luxuries, really, but especially not now. It all just seems rather pointless.

And so he continues on, getting right back to work. What else can he do? He quite literally doesn’t have any options. He desperately tries to get his footing after everything, always hoping Martin will finally just talk to him again.

A month after his return, long after he’d given up on Martin initiating any contact, he receives a small package on his desk along with a note:

I know you lost your old one and, knowing you, you haven’t bothered to replace it. I think this is the same as the other one, but if not- or if you don’t like it- there’s a gift receipt. You’re still Jon. -MKB

Jon’s eyes well up with tears. It doesn’t exactly sound like Martin- it’s too short and doesn’t even have an exclamation point- but at the same time, Jon can practically hear Martin saying it to him. God, he misses him.

After a moment, Jon sniffs, regains his composure, and turns his attention to the package.

It’s a black box, small, clearly a ring box. Jon opens it and gasps. Inside is a thin black band, no frills or decoration. Reverently, he lifts it from the box and slides it onto his left middle finger and chokes back a sob when it fits perfectly.

What feels like a lifetime ago, he’d told Martin he was asexual. Martin had been re-wrapping Jon’s burnt hand for him, listening oh so attentively, as Jon stumbled through his explanation and finally got to the point. “Given the position of the burn, I can’t wear my ace ring anymore,” he had said in a resigned sigh. “It’s supposed to be a black ring on the right middle finger, but it hurts to even try putting it on. I doubt the scarring will ever allow for it.” Jon breathed in a measured, careful breath, trying to hold back tears. He hadn’t realized this upset him so much. “It’s just-” he huffed, then started again. “My- choices, my life, my well-being, it’s all been- taken. Lost. And now- something so core to who I am, something the monsters can’t change or cut or burn out of me- it’s. It’s still here, but it feels like it’s gone when I can’t wear the ring.”

Martin hummed sympathetically as he finished the wrappings. “I’m sorry, Jon.”

Jon sighed. “It’s- it’s not your fault. But thank you, Martin.”

Martin nodded. “Sorry if I’m- if I’m overstepping, or showing how little I know about this, but- what if you wore it on the other hand?”

Jon blinked, then swiped his unburnt hand over one eye, catching what would’ve otherwise been a tear. “That’s the wrong hand, though.”

“Well- yes, traditionally it sounds like it is. But is it all about the hand, or is it about the ring?”

“I- I guess it’s more… symbolic,” Jon muttered, brow furrowed as he thought. “And it’s just for me, not someone else.”

“Plus, as you say, you feel like your choices have been dictated to you. Your asexuality is still a part of you, you’re still Jon, even without the ring at all, but you can choose how that looks in your life.”

Jon nodded slowly, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his ring. He played with it in his palm for a moment, deep in thought as Martin packed away the first aid kit. Finally, he slipped it on his left middle finger and smiled faintly

“Still Jon,” he whispered to himself.

In the present, Jon clenched his left hand into a fist and wrapped the other around it, gently stroking the ring with his thumb.

He’d lost so much and was certain to lose more. Maybe this ring Martin must have searched for for ages would be lost, too, and maybe Martin would be lost completely soon. But Jon was still Jon, and he wouldn’t let anything else go without a fight.

#tma #jmart #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin week 2022

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bizarreandjarring · 2 years

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JonMartin Week Day 5: Poetry

this is as close to writing poetry as jon gets

#inspired by one line in a fic where martins like i wish he would tell me what he’s thinking just lay it all out. maybe a powerpoint too #the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin week 2022 #jmart #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #my art #tma fanart #feeling uh. very very bad today lads i’m hoping jmart i’ll cheer me up

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tanninbalm · 2 years

Link

Post-canon memory loss fic Chapter 3 is up!

(and chapter 4 will be posted tomorrow!)

Chapter Preview:

Milk and honey light dappled a fuzzy room that never fully came into focus though his eyes were certainly open. There were slippery sheets under his bare skin and a warm body hovering over his own, faceless, somewhat shapeless, unidentifiable and kind. This person held him tight and kissed him everywhere, and lapped their tongue between Jon’s legs as if they had absolutely nowhere else they’d rather be.

Jon awoke heaving in a breath. A sick feeling strangled his chest, and lower down he was undeniably and infuriatingly aroused. He slunk off to the shower, and made it a little colder than usual, refusing to give into some stupid dream of fantastical and impossible intimacy that made him want to curl up in a ball on the floor of his tub and cry for no reason at all. It had been years since his last relationship, and would likely be several additional years until he was -

Oh, who was he kidding. He twisted off the shower and toweled the water out of his close-cropped hair. The likelihood of him finding a partner when he could never figure out how to be attracted to anyone, when his libido was stable as sand, when he simply didn’t like seventy percent of the people he met and even fewer liked him back, when his body was a patchwork of old injuries and his brain was even worse - it was out of the realm of possibility. Jon Sims was more likely to cause an apocalypse than fall in love.

#jonmartin #jonmartin week 2022 #the magnus archives #tma #fanfiction #jonmartin fanficion

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x-ladydisdain-x · 2 years

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Happy Jonmartin week!!! in my timezone it's still day 1 and will continue to be for another 30 minutes so technically I'm not late

but yeah I attempted writing something for the first day bc it's been a while since I've written creatively and TMA brainrot has consumed me so,,

here you go

Day 1 - first date

Martin’s hands shook as he lit the candle. This wasn’t new - his hands had hardly stopped shaking since the Lonely. It had left aceaseless chill, deep in his bones. The flame flickering forth from the lighter made his chest tighten and he tried to concentrate. He was almost certain the regular fire wouldn’t be able to hurt him, should his hand happen to slip. Nonetheless, the unguarded flame made him nervous. Some fears defied all logic.

He sighed in relief as the candle finally caught the flame and set down the lighter. He took a step back, admiring his work. Presented on a red sheet posing as a tablecloth draped over the small table, was freshly made butter pasta and a salad, composed of just about every vegetable he could find (which, admittedly, wasn’t very much), and complete with a center candle that Martin had gone to great pains to light. It wasn’t much, but he’d made do.

“Martin?” Jon’s voice called out from their bedroom. It was slightly raspy, indicating that he had just woken up. He had been sleeping more lately, sometimes for days on end. The Eye had taken quite a toll on him. “It smells like- did you cook?”

Martin smiled to himself. He was right on schedule.

Jon emerged from the bedroom, his hair disheveled and his eyes bleary. His gaze landed on the table and a short, surprised laugh left his mouth. “What’s all this?”

“It’s not anything impressive, Daisy’s safehouse wasn’t exactly stocked up on food, but, you know, we never really got a proper first date, what with the world ending and all that, and yes, before you say it, I know we don’t actually need to eat, but I thought it might still be nice and after everything we’ve been through I feel like we deserve to-

Jon closed the space between them in two long strides and grasped Martin’s hands in his own. They weren’t shaking anymore. “Martin,” he said softly, gazing up at him with an expression of utmost affection. “Thank you. I love it. I love you.”

Martin flushed. “I love you too.”

--------

yeah!! there it is!! i took some creative liberties such as Jon not just Knowing that Martin had cooked but,, yeah,,, goodnight to all <3

@jonmartinweek

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #tma s5 #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin week 2022 #sometimes opal says stuff #currently torn between deleting this bc posting writing is scary and uploading it to ao3 so it can be apart of the collection #also i have not written in a v long time and I have Never written these characters before so pls read w a grain of salt #also completely unedited!!#my dear beloved beta is being responsible and sleeping and i dont want to read it over myself so.#you get the rough draft.#now has been edited! my amazing wonderful beta @getoffmybog hath awakened

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grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks · 2 years

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For @jonmartinweek Day 5 - Poetry

(view this work on AO3)

Jon had always thought he was rather good with words. He had a degree in literature from Oxford, after all; he could write an essay with the best of them. Verbal communication had, admittedly, never been his strong suit, but he managed. Even if he wasn’t eloquent, he could always get the point across.

Lately, though, he felt completely tongue-tied. He’d spent the better part of a year just trying to get Martin to speak to him, and now he had his ear near-constantly - from the moment he woke up beside Martin each morning, to the moment they fell asleep in each other’s arms each night - and he couldn’t begin to put everything he felt into words.

He knew he had the most important part covered. He said I love you freely, almost thoughtlessly - the words were never far from his mind, and sometimes he didn’t even realize he’d said them until Martin said them back. But he wanted Martin to know precisely how he felt - all the love, all the joy, all the agony he’d felt before, when he thought he’d missed his chance, all the relief he’d felt upon realizing he hadn’t. He wanted Martin to know that he felt safer here with him - on the run from the police and about a dozen supernatural threats but together - than he ever had before. He wanted Martin to know that he thought about him, always, even when they were apart.

Most of what he said, though, was completely mundane. It was all comments about the weather, debates about whose turn it was to do the dishes, reminders that they were running out of eggs.

And, occasionally, arguments about poetry.

“You really don’t like any poetry?” Martin asked one night as they lay curled on the couch together, a fire roaring in the hearth beside them.

“I didn’t say that!” Jon protested, “I said I don’t like most poetry. I just- I just don’t really see the point.”

Martin sputtered, voice going high-pitched with indignation. “The point? It’s art, Jon, the point is to make you feel things!”

“I know, I just think prose does that a lot more… cleanly.” Jon couldn’t exactly make out exactly what Martin muttered in response to that, but he thought he sensed the gist of it. “I’m sorry!” he said, though he was laughing.

“No, no, you can’t help it,” Martin conceded. “A poem either affects you or it doesn’t, it’s not something you can control. I’m going to find a poem that affects you, though!”

“I’ll save you some time and tell you that I’ve never liked Keats.”

Martin sighed. “I can’t believe I love you.”

Jon snuggled closer until he was more or less in Martin’s lap, and Martin instinctively wrapped his arms around him. “I love you, too,” Jon said, choosing to ignore the first half of the statement.

“Ooh, wait!” Martin said, pulling away briefly and sitting up to grab his phone from his pocket. “I have an E. E. Cummings poem saved to my phone!” Jon raised an eyebrow, and Martin explained, “The title’s really long and I can never remember it. I got tired of googling, like, ‘e. e. cummings tree hands fingers’ every time I wanted to read it, so I just took a screenshot.” He scrolled through the photos saved to his phone, brow furrowed in concentration, until he came to the correct one. “Here!” he said, passing the phone to Jon, “What do you think of this?”

Jon read it. He wanted to like it, he really did - if Martin liked it enough to save it to his phone, he wanted to love it, but in truth it felt like a tidy encapsulation of all of his frustrations about poetry. Why couldn’t poets ever just say what they meant? Why did they have to construct sentences that were blatantly incomprehensible and then pat themselves on the back for their own cleverness?

“It’s… nice,” he lied, rather unconvincingly.

“You hate it.”

“I don’t… I just don’t get it! If you love it, then I’m sure there’s something there, but h-honestly, I don’t even know what it means! A-And I know poetry doesn’t have to obey the rules of grammar and syntax, but this isn’t poetic, it’s just wrong!”

“That’s the point!” Martin insisted. “All the syntax is just off enough that it trips you up and makes you stop and think - A-And you can’t exactly make sense of it with your logical brain, but you can feel it-” he cut himself off suddenly, losing momentum mid-monologue and seeming to curl in on himself. “O-Or that’s how I see it, anyway. I never actually studied poetry, so-”

“No, no, go on!” Jon said. Even if he didn’t agree with his interpretation, it was mesmerizing to watch him talk about something he was passionate about. “What else do you like about it?”

“Well, the parentheticals, for one. They feel like - not afterthoughts, exactly, but like they’re so obvious that he doesn’t need to say them out loud, but he does anyway, and- and I don’t know, there’s something so romantic about that. And the second stanza! Did it really not make you feel anything?”

“Not really,” Jon admitted, almost ashamed.

“Maybe you just need to hear it out loud,” Martin said, “Sometimes that helps.” He sat up. With the hand that wasn’t holding his phone, he grabbed Jon’s hand, and Jon listened with rapt attention as he read.

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have

hands, and all the hands have people; and

more each particular person is(my love)

alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we're

a mystery which will never happen again,

a miracle which has never happened before–

and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which

fingers are without hands; and i have no

you: and all trees are(any more than each

leafless)its silent in forevering snow

—but never fear(my own, my beautiful

my blossoming)for also then's until

And Jon still couldn’t say he understood it, really, but he thought he could almost see the appeal. There was something there, but it might just have been the sound of his boyfriend whispering the words my own, my beautiful, my blossoming, into the quiet of their cabin.

***

They had developed a routine, since they came to Scotland. Every Tuesday, they would gather up all the books they’d read in the past week and head to the library. Martin would go in first, return the books, pick out a few for himself, and make sure that the regular weekday librarian was in, and had not switched shifts with the weekend librarian who’d had an encounter with the Dark when she was a child. (They’d discovered this one unfortunate Saturday when Martin had had to all but drag Jon out of the library to make sure he didn’t Compel her.) If the coast was clear, Jon would spend the day in the library while Martin ran errands. He’d pick out a week’s worth of books for himself, read in the back room on the second floor that was always completely unoccupied, and print out recipes he wanted to make in the week ahead on the library’s ancient computers.

This particular Tuesday, Jon found himself unconsciously gravitating toward the library’s scant poetry section. He hadn’t forgotten his conversation with Martin, and he wanted to understand. He pulled an anthology off the shelf more or less at random and flipped through the table of contents to find that it contained several love poems by E. E. Cummings. That seemed as good a place as any to start.

He read one, and he thought he understood.

***

Jon ran the words over in his mind. He’d read the poem a dozen times - it wasn’t very long - and done his best to memorize it, but he worried the words would flee as soon as he tried to say them out loud. He should have followed Martin’s lead and taken a picture.

After dinner, as Martin set their plates in the sink and put the kettle on for tea, Jon broached the subject.

“Martin, love, there’s something I wanted to say.”

“Oh?” Martin turned around, and when Jon saw the spike of anxiety in his eyes, he hastened to say,

“Nothing bad!”

“Alright, then,” Martin said, “What is it?”

Martin watched him expectantly, and he looked so beautiful in the dim yellow light of their kitchen that for a moment, Jon couldn’t speak. “R-Right. Um…” It occurred to him then just how odd what he was about to do was. It had seemed, earlier, like a good idea, but now it just felt awkward, and embarrassing. But he couldn’t back out now, and, anyway, he had wanted to find a way to tell Martin how he felt, so he cleared his throat and tried to remember all the words.

He could feel the Knowledge of the correct words buzzing at the back of his skull, but he ignored it. He wouldn’t take the Eye’s help in this. He’d do it properly.

“What I wanted to say, was. Well, i-it was. Ahem.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”

For a moment, Martin simply stared. “Jon, did you… Did you memorize an E. E. Cummings poem?”

Jon squirmed under his gaze, cheeks on fire. “I, erm. I did.” he said. He opened his mouth to explain further, but before he could, Martin had crossed the short distance between them and was pulling him into a kiss. Jon startled, but didn’t pull away. Instead, he leaned into the contact, bringing his hands up to cradle Martin’s face, embarrassment forgotten.

“Any, uh. A-Any particular occasion?” Martin asked when they broke apart. Jon shook his head.

“No, I just- I love you so much, Martin, and I don’t do enough to show it-”

“What?” Martin exclaimed. “Jon, you pulled me out of the Lonely! I think you’re pretty much covered on grand romantic gestures.”

“That doesn’t count,” Jon said, “that wasn’t romantic!”

“Agree to disagree on that,” Martin scoffed.

Jon started to protest, but Martin cut him off with another kiss.

“You don’t have anything to prove,” he said softly, and Jon nodded, and the moment passed. The kettle started whistling, and Martin pulled it from the hob as Jon turned his attention to the dishes. He ran Martin’s words over in his mind as he rinsed their plates from dinner. You don’t have anything to prove. Trust wasn’t always something that came naturally to him, but he trusted Martin. Which meant that, somehow, that must be true.

When the dishes were clean and Jon had set them on the rack to dry, Martin handed him a cup of tea, and eyed him thoughtfully as he took a sip from his own mug.

“I wonder if you’d like Mary Oliver,” he mused.

“Hmm?” Jon asked around a mouthful of tea.

“I still need to find a poem that makes you feel things.”

“I, uh. I rather thought I’d found one.”

“Well, yeah, you found one. But I promised that I’d find one.”

After that, as they finished their tea and rinsed out their mugs, and wandered into the living room, Martin kept speculating about what kind of poetry Jon might enjoy.

“Honestly, I bet you’d like Richard Siken,” he said as Jon finished lighting a fire in the grate and came to join him on the couch. “I should see if they have a copy of Crush at the library.”

Jon hummed his agreement as though he knew what he was talking about, and rested his head on Martin’s shoulder.

“I love you, too, you know,” Martin said after a moment. “You’re my- my world, and my fate, and ‘whatever the moon will sing’ and all of that.”

“The sun,” Jon corrected softly, “Whatever the sun will always sing.”

“Know-it-all,” Martin whispered.

“Yes,” Jon agreed, “Quite literally.”

Martin laughed, and turned to press a kiss to Jon’s temple, and Jon supposed he couldn’t be so bad with words after all.

(View this work on AO3)

#tma fic #jonmartin fic #long post #jonmartin week 2022 #jonmartinweek 2022 #jonmartinweek2022 #(just covering my bases)

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cryptidspacepirate · 2 years

Text

@jonmartinweek day two: I’ll carry you // chronic pain

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journalofimprobablethings · 2 years

Text

I missed @jonmartinweek by quite a bit, but here's what I would have posted for the "Poetry" prompt if work hadn't eaten all my time this month:

[DAISY'S SAFEHOUSE, SOMEWHERE IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS]

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST It's more than just the stories, it's–it's the language he uses, the rhythms, the way it feels in your mouth when you say it out loud--I don't know. It's mesmerizing.

MARTIN Yes, "What, you egg". Mesmerizing.

ARCHIVIST (smiling) Shut up, Martin.

(Martin laughs)

MARTIN No, but I know what you mean. And you say you don't like poetry.

ARCHIVIST (scoffs) I don't! As a general rule--

MARTIN Shakespeare is poetry, Jon. All those things you described are some of the reasons I like poetry.

ARCHIVIST All right, fine, yes, yes. Perhaps I just don't enjoy the way Wordsworth's words feel as much as some others.

MARTIN Fair enough.

(He thinks for a moment)

Do you have a favorite speech?

ARCHIVIST Hm?

MARTIN Shakespeare. Everyone's got, like, their favorite speech that they memorized at some point.

ARCHIVIST Oh, well. It's a bit--everyone knows this one, but I've always liked the speech from Macbeth. The, um..

(He starts to recite–by rote at first, but quickly falling into the feeling of the speech, until he is not just reciting it, he's performing it. It's a bit like when he starts to do a statement.)

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

(A pause, then the Archivist clears his throat self-consciously.)

Right, well. That's all the poetry you're getting out of me today.

MARTIN Wow. Jon, that was…

ARCHIVIST Bleak, I know. I-I didn't really think about the words before I started, I–sorry.

MARTIN No, no–I was going to say it was kind of amazing. Though I should have expected it, I guess, with the way you do all the voices for the statements–

ARCHIVIST I do not do all the voices–

MARTIN You do a bit.

ARCHIVIST Yes, well.

MARTIN Anyway, stop arguing when I'm trying to give you compliments.

(The Archivist grumbles)

MARTIN I know, I know. But it really was good. The feeling you put into it…you're very good at that.

ARCHIVIST Well. Thank you.

(A pause)

MARTIN

You don't…you don't believe it, though, do you?

ARCHIVIST Believe what?

MARTIN The 'tale told by an idiot' thing? That life means nothing?

ARCHIVIST I--I don't know that I would say that, exactly. Just because I like the words Shakespeare wrote doesn't mean I agree with them.

MARTIN Right. Right, of course.

ARCHIVIST Macbeth is coming from a very particular perspective in that speech. He's in a…a bad place. His kingdom that he killed to get is falling, and he's just found out his wife is dead, his partner in all the things he's done. He's looking at the loss of everything that he's given up his-his honor and his soul for and he just...doesn't see how any of it can matter.

MARTIN And you're..you haven't reached that point?

ARCHIVIST I--I there have certainly been moments when my thoughts..tended that way. But right now..no. I haven't.

MARTIN Good. That's..good.

ARCHIVIST You're not going to ask why?

MARTIN (suddenly self-conscious) I–I mean…I didn't want to put you on the spot, or-or--

ARCHIVIST (with a fond sigh) It's you, Martin. You...make me want to believe that all this matters. What you said to Simon Fairchild, about our experience having value--it stuck with me.

MARTIN Wait, you listened to that tape?

ARCHIVIST I--I listened to all the tapes. I was worried about you and--and I missed you. I liked...being able to hear your voice. Even if I couldn't talk to you directly.

MARTIN (small) Oh.

ARCHIVIST A-anyway, I--I thought a lot about what you said. At the time I wasn't--I wasn't sure I agreed. What value was there in--in anything that had happened to me in the last couple years? But you were right. I know that we will all die, that all of this will disappear and soon enough there won't be anyone left to even remember we were ever here at all. But being here with you...even after everything that's happened, this has to mean something. Maybe not in–in a cosmic sense, in a "everything happens for a reason" sense. But it--its valuable. What we have here, now, it has value to us. To–to me, anyway. Even if it can't last.

MARTIN (softly) It has value to me too, Jon. There's that line--"I love you, I'm glad I exist."

ARCHIVIST Wendy Cope.

MARTIN Okay, now you're just messing with me.

ARCHIVIST "The Orange" is a very famous poem, Martin. Besides, I do actually rather like that one. The joy it takes in--in mundane things. It sounds nice.

MARTIN Yeah. Yeah, it does. (beat) It's true, you know.

ARCHIVIST What?

MARTIN I love you. I'm glad I exist.

ARCHIVIST Oh, Martin.

(Fabric rustles. They sigh together, and hold each other tight.)

ARCHIVIST Likewise.

[CLICK]

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jonmartinweek 2022 #a few weeks late but oh well #tma fanfic #fluff #poetry #shakespeare #jon is a shakespeare nerd and you cannot convince me otherwise #also will never be over how well 'the orange' fits the safehouse vibe #scribblings #long post

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swordsonnet · 2 years

Text

and it ends how you'd expect

Jon/Martin, 4761 words, rated T. Set between MAG 199 and 200. Also on AO3!

Summary: On the last night of the apocalypse, Martin asks Jon to tell him a story.

written for day 1 of @jonmartinweek, for the prompt 'first date', because i love taking fluffy prompts and making them super sad.

content warnings:

-moral dilemmas

-guilt and self-loathing

-references to mass death and apocalypse

-mentions of smoking and knives

When Jon returned to the small partitioned-off section of the tunnels that had become their makeshift room, Martin seemed to be fast asleep already, his face almost tranquil in the dim glow of Jon’s torch beam. Jon breathed a sigh of relief. It would be much easier to sneak past Martin and make his way to the top of the Panopticon if Martin remained oblivious to all of it. He’d dreaded the thought of an outright confrontation, and for all his Beholding powers, Jon knew he didn’t stand a chance against Martin in a physical fight. Not that he wanted it to come to that in the first place.

And it would be much easier to betray Martin if he didn’t have to look him in the eyes before doing so.

His hand went to the knife strapped to his side, the cold metal of the blade beginning to warm to his body temperature. He had a plan. He had everything he needed to carry out that plan. He was as ready as he would ever be, so why was he still hesitating? When he left earlier with the vague excuse of needing to clear his head before bed, telling Martin not to wait up for him, he’d known exactly what his real goal was. True, he’d briefly considered fleeing above ground to smoke another cigarette and weigh up his options once more, but he seemed to have misplaced his lighter, and wasn’t in the mood for rooting around for a spare one. And more importantly, he knew that no amount of deliberation would change his mind. He’d known what he needed to do ever since their little group debate, ever since Annabelle Cane had first presented him with that cruel choice. On some level, perhaps he’d known it his entire life, had always been fated to play his gruesome part in a tale with no place for happy endings. He couldn’t let the Web win. He couldn’t doom countless other worlds to suffer the same fate as theirs had. No matter the terrible price. No matter what kind of monster it turned him into.

So instead he’d headed straight for the locker where he knew Georgie and Melanie kept their supplies, including an impressive array of weapons. He’d picked a knife more or less at random, only ensuring it was sharp enough to do the job. Georgie and Melanie probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone. Not until it was too late, anyway.

Once he had his weapon, he could have left for the Panopticon right away. He should have. There was no logical reason for him to go back, even just for a little while; it only increased his risk of being found out. But some foolish and sentimental part of him couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, without seeing Martin again. He’d almost wished for Martin to still be awake, as catastrophic as that would be for his plan, just so he could talk to him like a human being one last time, exchange inconsequential words that weren’t crackling with static or drenched in bitterness. He wanted, selfishly, to soak up the sound of Martin’s voice and the light in his eyes and every minute expression on his face, to drink his fill of him until he had enough memories to last him through what was to come. But he knew all too well that it could never be enough, that even a thousand years spent by Martin’s side could never give him all he wanted. Nothing would make the pain of losing him – of betraying him - any more bearable. So yes, he told himself, it was much better that Martin was already asleep. It would make it easier to leave him behind.

Still, he couldn’t resist the temptation of walking over to kneel by Martin’s sleeping bag, staring at the vague outline of his face in the dim light. He realised with a pang of premature guilt that this was the last time he would ever see Martin this calm, his features sleep-soft and not yet twisted by anger or despair. Jon would see him again after his apotheosis, most likely, but nothing would be as it was before. Jon would be a creature of all-seeing eyes and all-encompassing knowledge, feasting on the culminative fear of the entire world while at the same time propelling it towards its grisly end, and Martin… Martin would be the same old human being, kind-hearted and stubborn and wonderful, and utterly unable to reach Jon. Jon knew, deep down, that Martin would never be able to forgive him. And maybe he was right not to do so. Maybe he didn’t deserve his forgiveness. Make that another sacrifice, another dearly beloved thing to add to the burning pyre of what Jon was willing to give up in order to foil the Web’s scheme. He hoped it would be worth it. God, it had to be worth it.

He couldn’t tell how long he crouched there, simply watching Martin sleep and trying in vain to muster the willpower to leave. Probably far too long, wasting precious, crucial time. He debated whether he could risk kissing Martin’s cheek, or tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear, gifting himself one last memory of his skin. He decided against it, in the end, too scared of waking him. Nonetheless, he reached out a hand, letting his fingertips ghost over the curve of Martin’s cheek without quite touching him, but withdrew it at once, like he’d been caught doing something forbidden. He was just about to tear himself away, to finally work up the strength to go, when-

“Can’t sleep either, huh?”

Martin’s voice was rough and just a little croaky, but it didn’t sound like he’d just woken from a deep sleep, and his eyes were open and astute and looking right into Jon’s. Jon flinched so hard he nearly keeled over and let out an undignified yelp, his heart hammering in his chest. Had Martin been awake all along, had he known right from the start what Jon was trying to do?

“Wh-why, why were y-you… why were you pretending to sleep?” he managed to get out once he had regained enough of his composure to speak.

Martin gave a weak shrug, and at least had the decency to look a little sheepish. “I mean, it’s more like I was trying to sleep? I thought if I just lay down and closed my eyes, I would eventually fall asleep, but, well, that didn’t happen. Plus,” he added with a wry smile, “I really wanted to see how long you’d keep staring at me without saying anything.”

Jon felt his face heat up. “Oh, ah, um… sorry.”

“’s okay,” Martin mumbled. “It’s an occupational hazard of dating a Beholding avatar, I guess? And honestly, I thought it was kind of sweet. A bit creepy, yeah, but sweet.”

Jon smiled despite himself. “Well, um… thank you. I suppose. You should really try to get some sleep, though. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

And I won’t be able to leave until you’re sound asleep, he didn’t say. What was he going to do if Martin stayed up all night, if he didn’t let Jon out of his sight even once? Could he get away with another pretend cigarette break?

Martin sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. God knows I’m tired, but I think I’m just way too keyed up to settle down properly.”

Jon gave a hum of sympathy.

“You know,” Martin continued, “I used to put on audiobooks when I couldn’t sleep. Nothing overly exciting, of course, just… some narrator with a calming voice droning on about the lifecycle of bees or whatever. And it actually worked, most of the time! Got me out of my own head for a bit. Well – that was before the whole… worm business, obviously. But it helped with your run-of-the-mill insomnia. I kind of miss those audiobooks now.”

“Mm. None to be found down here, I’m afraid.”

“Didn’t think so. And even if there were, they’d probably be terrible to listen to anyway. At least if those bloody cans are anything to go by…” Martin’s eyes lit up. “Hey, I always thought you had the perfect voice for audiobooks. No, no,” he insisted in response to Jon’s incredulous huff, “you do, don’t try to deny it. Not the spooky statement voice as much, though I guess that works for… certain genres, but just… your regular voice. All deep and sonorous. Maybe you could’ve been a children’s book narrator in another life. Wait, I don’t suppose the Eye knows any bedtime stories?”

Jon almost laughed. “None that you’d want to hear, I can assure you.”

“Mm. Pity.”

They were silent for a while after that, a silence that felt heavy with something Jon couldn’t quite identify. Anticipation, maybe, or perhaps something closer to dread. Maybe on some level, they both knew there was no way this night was going to end well for them.

“Talk to me then?” Martin whispered in the end, his voice muffled from burrowing his head into his sleeping bag. “Only if you want to, of course. Just, you know… about normal stuff. Until I fall asleep.”

Who was Jon to deny him such a sweet request? The gentle affection in Martin’s voice was almost too much for him to bear. And if it had the added benefit of granting him an escape route, if this was what got Martin to fall asleep, then, well… he had to be practical about this. He couldn’t lose sight of his plan, not now when he was so close to bringing it to completion. Even if every second spent with Martin made the insidious doubt that had infested his mind like a stubborn canker grow larger. He leaned back until he was sitting in a slightly more comfortable position, his back slumped against the tunnel wall, and let his hand rest on Martin’s shoulder, rubbing gentle circles into it through the fabric of his jumper. Martin let out a contented hum.

“Right, then,” Jon said. “What do you want to hear?”

Down here, with the terrible weight of what he was about to do constricting his chest, it was hard to think of anything even slightly normal, anything even remotely happy. What should he tell Martin? Stories of a past he didn’t like to dwell on, of a present too bleak to contain even a tiny flicker of joy, of a hypothetical bright future they would never get to live?

But Martin’s request caught him off guard. “You know what you said earlier about… about us meeting in a different world, without the Fears or the Institute or anything like that, and living a normal life together? Can you… can you tell me more about that?”

Jon huffed a bitter laugh, not quite managing to keep his voice light. “Thought you said you didn’t believe in any of that. That we’re only compatible because of trauma.”

“Yeah, and I stand by that,” Martin said. “But this is make-believe, isn’t it? Isn’t the whole point of a fantasy that it’s not meant to be realistic?”

“Yes, yes, I get your-”

“Look, I told you I’ve been daydreaming about it too, didn’t I? It’s not like I’m opposed to the general idea of it, at least in theory. Even if I think it would’ve never worked out like that in practice.”

“Fine,” Jon conceded with a weary sigh. “Fine, fine, you’ve made your point. Um… where do you want me to start?”

Martin mulled it over for a few seconds, then asked, “Start with the basics, I guess? Like… I’m assuming we’re not working for the Institute in that version?”

Jon suppressed a shudder. “Certainly not.”

“Well, that’s a relief. So… what do we do, then?”

Truth be told, Jon’s imagination had never actually gotten around to working out the details. Manifold as his daydreams might have been, they were always rather lacking in specifics. All he had were hazy images of a world where all their fears were mundane and easy to handle, where his eyes met Martin’s across a crowd somewhere and a sudden flash of understanding passed between them, where they went straight from candlelit dinners in cosy Italian restaurants to moving into a little house in the countryside to growing old together. And what more did he need, really? Who cared about dull things like jobs and street names and mortgages when all that mattered was that they had each other, that they had a relationship untainted by terror, that they could build a life together without the constant fear of having it ripped away from them? But he suspected Martin would want something more elaborate than that, something more creative than Jon’s half-baked, sentimental fantasies, and Jon owed him an attempt, at least. For Martin’s sake, he could embellish a little.

“Well, er- I work in a bookshop,” he improvised. “A small, traditional one. I… I inherited it from my parents, a-and I wasn’t… particularly keen on taking it over at the start, but there weren’t a lot of job prospects with my degree and it… guaranteed at least some income. But the, er, the dawn of the digital age has heralded the beginning of the end for many independent shops, and I’m, uh, struggling to adjust to this era of new technology.”

Martin made an amused sound. “Yeah, I can imagine that.”

“So, um, I’m getting more and more frustrated about the decrease in revenue,” Jon continued, starting to get into the swing of it. “Which means that I’m, well, I’m kind of a prick, to be entirely honest. That just scares off any potential customers even more, of course. You, on the other hand, are absolutely lovely. You work in, um, in a… bakery. A nice little bakery just across the street from my bookshop. You don’t have any formal training, but you’ve worked hard over the years and have become quite the skilled baker. Everyone loves your cupcakes. But you… your true passion is writing. You dream of being a published poet one day, though you’ve never shown your work to anyone else.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad life, actually,” Martin hummed, his smile audible even though his face was still pressed into his pillow. “So… how do we meet, then? Do I let a dog into your bookshop or something?”

Jon smiled. “Not quite. But we do get off on the wrong foot, at first. It’s completely my fault, I have to admit. Or, well… most of it. During quiet shifts at the bakery, your gaze will often wander over to my shop, and you’ll notice that there are hardly ever any customers inside. So you… take pity on me. You tell yourself it’s just because you care about keeping local businesses afloat and because you’ve always had a fondness for bookshops, and maybe that’s mostly true, but part of it is also… that you’ve been watching me from afar for a while, but you’ve never properly metme, and so you have a certain, er, curiosity. Well… that is until you actually meet me, of course. You pay a visit to the bookshop on your break one day, with tea and a bag of fresh pastries, and tell me all about your plan to combine my shop with the bakery, as you believe it would be beneficial for both establishments, only for me to frown at your offerings like I was sure you’d poisoned them, and assure you in my most withering tone that I don’t want sticky hands all over my books, thank you very much. I was certain you’d storm off and never return. But the very next day, you’re back again, as cheerful as if nothing had happened, armed with more tea and an even larger bag of pastries, and the ludicrous idea to start a monthly poetry evening in my shop to showcase the work of local talents. I give you the unabridged version of my thoughts on poetry, detailing why I think it’s nothing more than a tedious waste of time for self-absorbed deadbeats, and you listen patiently until the very end, when you inform me that you’ve been writing poetry for decades. I do feel a little guilty now - I’m not a complete monster - but not enough to bring myself to apologise. Besides, I’m still half convinced that you have sinister motives, that you’re… trying to take over my shop or some nonsense like that. So I just wait in stony silence until you finally leave, and, well, I was sure that would be the end of it. But… you keep coming back. Not to offer me any more unsolicited business advice, but just… to say hello. Talk about your day, ask questions about my life, even though I rarely give you more than one-word answers. And you usually remember to bring me tea and leftover pastries, like you know full well that I’d just power through the whole workday without a single break if it wasn’t for you. And after about a month of you showing me unflappable kindness and me giving you nothing but indifference in return, I start to realise that the whole thing wasn’t just an elaborate ploy on your part but a genuine attempt to reach out, and… that I’ve been a massive arsehole.”

Martin snorted. “I’m enjoying the story so far. What happens next?”

Jon closed his eyes, hoping it would help him get more into the spirit of the story, and tried to remember the plot of every single rom-com he’d ever watched (which wasn’t an exhaustive list). “Well, I know I messed up, and I know I have to find a way to make up for it. Because… I’ve also started to realise that I actually care for you a great deal, that I value your company and want your friendship and… maybe even more. So I spend the whole weekend hunting through countless antique bookstores all over London, in desperate search for the oldest edition of Keats I can find. And at last I stumble upon one from the late 19th century, cracked spine and yellowed pages, but still beautiful, still the kind of thing I know you would love. It turns out I’ve been paying attention to your personal stories a lot more than I realised. It costs me a small fortune, much more than I should be spending given the inevitable failure of my sole source of income, but I couldn’t care less about money in that moment. All that matters to me is the look on your face when I give you the book, and I’m not disappointed. You insist that it’s too much, of course, that I shouldn’t have gone to such lengths just for you, but I can tell how pleased you really are, how touched by the gesture. I tell you it’s the least I could do considering my awful behaviour towards you, and you smile and tell me it’s all forgiven. And over the next few months, we develop… something of a friendship. But a more mutual one now. You still bring me tea and baked goods whenever you can, but in return I make sure to have a book ready for you that I think you’d like. And… we talk. All the time, about everything and anything, and I find myself sharing things about my personal life with you, things I’d never thought I would tell anyone, but it all feels so natural with you. Still, when I ask you out on a date, I hardly dare hope you’ll say yes.”

“But I do,” Martin said softly. “Of course I say yes.”

Jon smiled down at him and squeezed his shoulder. “Yes. You say yes, and I can’t believe my luck. We exchange numbers, though it may be kind of unnecessary with us working just across the street from each other, and I spend the entire week in a sort of ecstatic panic, trying to figure out what to do on our first date, trying to prepare for something I know I’ll never be prepared for.”

Martin turned his face towards Jon then, just enough so Jon could see his fond smile. “I’ll be feeling much the same, trust me. What do we decide on in the end, then? Where do we go on our first date?”

“Oh, ah… a museum, I’d say. Maybe the Natural History Museum? That makes for a good first date spot, in my opinion.”

Martin rolled his eyes, but there was no real annoyance behind it. “Of course you would say that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jon said indignantly. “What’s wrong with museums?”

“Nothing!” Martin rushed to assure him. “Nothing at all. I love a good museum. But, y’know, that’s where your mind immediately jumps to for a first date? It’s… very Jon, that’s all. And I mean that in a good way.”

“Fine, fine,” Jon grumbled, only half mollified. “Where would you have taken me on our first date then?”

Martin shrugged, as much as he could manage within the confines of his sleeping bag. “A café, I suppose? Not one of those soulless coffeeshop chains, but some independent place with a nice vibe. One that has those little nooks that give you some privacy. We’d get coffee together, and just… talk. Get to know each other.”

“You know I don’t really like coffee.”

Martin rolled his eyes again. “You could have ordered tea. Or hot chocolate. Or literally anything else. That’s not really the point I was trying to make.”

“Well, I still maintain that a museum date would be much more interesting,” Jon said primly. “It would be something different, at least. Doesn’t everyone do coffeeshop dates these days? And once you run out of topics to talk about, you’re just sitting there in awkward silence. At least a museum gives you plenty of inspiration.”

“Yeah, but I want to date you and not some dinosaur skeleton.”

“Alright,” Jon relented, “how about a compromise, then? We go to the museum first, and then we finish off the date in a nearby café. How does that sound?”

Martin smiled, a smile somewhere between hopeful and melancholy that tugged on Jon’s heartstrings and made it hard to breathe. “That sounds lovely, actually.”

“It does,” Jon said, his voice no more than a faint murmur, a wisp of smoke carried away on the breeze.

Martin looked him right in the eyes and Jon wished he had the strength to avert his gaze. “Does it go well? Our first date?”

“Yes,” Jon said immediately, because he didn’t have the heart to tell Martin anything else. “It’s a bit awkward at first, but we… we make it work.” His voice was almost too choked to continue, but he ploughed on regardless. “It’s clear to both of us right from the beginning that… that we’re good for each other. That… we could be happy together. One day. If we’re willing to put in the effort.”

“Do we kiss?” Martin asked sleepily, his eyes starting to drift shut.

Jon allowed a single tear to escape, forging its lonely path down his cheek. “Not on the first date, no. We both want to, but we’re too shy to act on it. But there’ll be other dates. There’ll be many more opportunities.”

Martin stifled a yawn. “Mm. You can tell me about those tomorrow, yeah? Or…” A note of indefatigable, unbearable hope crept into his voice. “If everything goes well tomorrow, we won’t have to make up stories anymore. We could just live all of it. We can go to lots of museums, and try out every café in London, and there’ll be nothing holding us back. Won’t that be nice?”

Something inside Jon, something that was still human enough to feel, shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. “Yes,” he managed to choke out. “That’ll be nice.”

Martin curled into himself, assuming a fetal position like he always did when he went to sleep. It was one of those little things that Jon had always found so endearing about him, but now it just served as yet another reminder of how vulnerable Martin was, how much Jon was going to hurt him.

“God, I’m knackered,” Martin mumbled. “You were right, Jon, I should get some rest before tomorrow. I’ll need all the energy I can get. We all do. And… thank you. For talking to me. I think it helped.”

Jon had no answer to that; not a single word would make it past the giant lump blocking his throat. Instead he just stroked a gentle hand through Martin’s hair, hoping the simple gesture would convey everything he left unspoken, and stared intently at Martin, like he was trying to memorise the contours of his face, the constellations of his freckles. He hoped that, in just a few hours, that memory would still be something worth holding onto. He hoped that, no matter how far he strayed from humanity, he would never quite stop loving Martin.

“Try to lie down as well, okay?” Martin said after a while, the edges of his words already blurred by sleep. “Even if you can’t sleep properly, just try to rest for a little bit.”

“Okay,” Jon said tonelessly. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” Martin murmured. “Good night, Jon.”

Jon blinked away the insidious tears. “Good night, Martin.”

He didn’t want his last words to Martin, his last proper goodbye before Jon wasn’t himself anymore and Martin would despise him forever, to be as dull as that, but what else was he meant to say? Anything even remotely meaningful was bound to make Martin suspicious.

He was sure Martin was fast asleep, was just about to will himself to leave, when he caught a drowsy murmur, barely audible even in the stillness of the tunnels. “Promise you’ll be here when I wake up?”

The naked trust in his voice tore Jon’s heart clean in half. “I promise,” he whispered, hoping Martin would believe this exchange to be a dream when he woke in the morning, that he wouldn’t remember Jon making yet another promise he couldn’t keep.

Martin made no sound after that, and after Jon had waited in tense silence for another fifteen minutes, he could finally be certain that Martin really was sleeping this time. Though his limbs seemed heavy as lead, he forced himself to stand. Even then, he stared down at Martin’s motionless shape for much longer than was wise, wishing him one last peaceful night before everything went to hell. Before Jon ruined it all.

He thought of all those alternate universes out there, much as the mere concept still made his head spin. There must be an infinite number of other versions of himself scattered across the multiverse, and other versions of Martin as well, all just going about their normal lives. No matter what Martin said, Jon still believed that it wasn’t just their shared trauma that had brought them together. He still had the unshakeable faith that there was at least one universe out there, maybe even multiple ones, maybe even dozens or more, where he and Martin were together, unhaunted by the motley crowd of demons that plagued them in this world. Free to live the life together that Jon had always dreamed of, and never gotten to have. He knew there was no hope for them in this universe; he’d caught enough glimpses of the script to be certain that their tale was written to be a tragedy. But maybe some of their counterparts in other worlds had been gifted kinder stories. Better endings. And if he could do his part to ensure that their happiness remained untouched, then wouldn’t it be worth it? Their world had been doomed from the start and Jon was always meant to be a monster, but there might still be a universe out there where a version of Jon and a version of Martin met in a bookshop and went to a museum for their first date, and no evil befell them for the rest of their lives. Where Jon’s daydreams were reality. Without a doubt, there were countless universes out there where ordinary people found some ordinary joy in their ordinary lives, and that was worth fighting for. No matter the cost.

He could only hope that Martin would come to understand that one day.

#jonmartinweek 2022 #tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #jonmartin #my writing #first one to kick off this week lads!#can i interest you in some angst

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