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misterghostfrog · 4 years

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[IMAGE ID; a digital drawing of Martin Blackwood carrying Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives. Martin is a fat freckled white man with curly ginger hair that is shaved close at the sides. He has a pair of round framed glasses in a bright red, under the glasses he is wearing eyeliner, and a navy eyeshadow. He has black lipstick, two black snakebite piercings under his lip, and a small black nostril piercing. His ear has a large black piercing that cuffs a chain to a small black piercing higher up his ear, and one final black piercing in the middle. He has a black choker, and then a looser chain necklace with an eye ornament on it. He has a studded lather jacket on that is covered in multiple patches and pins, mostly hidden by Jon: of the visible pins there is a trans flag patch on his chest, and on his shoulder is a large dark colored patch that has A-C-A-B on it in white. Under the Jacket is a black shirt that he has partly tucked into his pants, the shirt has a large anarchy symbol drawn on it in red. Under that he is wearing jeans that are significantly ripped as far as we can see. On his right hand he has several black rings, and his nails are painted black. Jon is a skinny Jordanian man with brown eyes and shoulder-length grey-streaked dark brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail at the base of his neck. He has a beard beginning to grow that appears to be the product of forgetting to shave. He is covered in a series of small round scars that vary in exact size. He is wearing a pair of rectangle-framed glasses, a plain t-shirt, a pair of jeans that are ripped at the knee, and converse. Martin is carrying Jon bridal style in his arms, and is looking away, he is blushing, though his expression is concerned and appears to be speaking. Jon has his arms wrapped around Martins neck, his cheeks are darkened and he is staring at hte ground with an expression somewhere between fear and the face one makes when they’re having to retrace every step they’ve taken to get here. END ID]

Punk Martin but make it Jonmartin.

Also I wrote a lil thing to go along with this under the cut, its only barely edited because it was mostly for fun so be warned its a big ol mess! But its s2 jonmartin nonsense with Martin being very cool and attractive and Jon being seven layers deep in denial (Also I may have written Jon as a touch autistic because its projection hours tonight i’m too sleepy to mask and that goes for writing too babey)

(Mentions of worms, past injuries, and Jon dealing with some internalised ableism and general foolishness)

Jon forgot his cane.

It’s a relatively regular occurrence, for a multitude of reasons. For one thing it’s something of a recent addition to the list of things he needs to keep track of when he leaves the house. Another lovely parting gift from Prentiss, a worm in his left leg that went just quick enough to start burrowing into the bone before it was removed.

For another, he really has other things to worry about. And if it doesn’t hurt, it shouldn’t matter. Most days he can get by just fine without it- it hurts of course. But not so much he can’t support himself, and really, does he need it otherwise?

Martin and Tim don’t seem to agree, though Sasha has kept respectfully to herself on the whole business. Martin, of course, he trusts. Albeit only recently. But that doesn’t make him right, his priorities are warped. Naturally. He doesn’t see the bigger picture.

(or at least that’s what Jon tells himself)

Which is what leads to this moment, sitting on a bench outside the shop, single grocery bag by his feet. He’d only run out to get a few things, but somewhere between the his flat the the shop his barely visible limp had become more pronounced as his hip began to throb, then he was halfway through the frozens when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to finish the trip. After that he’d barely made it through checkout to the nearest seat before all but collapsing into it.

And now he’s sitting, stuck. An insurmountable walk from home, without his stupid cane. Which, he notes, he wouldn’t need if he’d brought in the first place. Funny how that works.

“Jon?” A familiar voice jolts him out of his thoughts. Jon jolts upright. Martin.

He knows Martin lives in the area, a side effect of his... investigations. Though he was unaware he used the same shop. He looks up, a greeting or perhaps a question on his lips that dies as soon as he actually lays eyes on Martin.

Martin is wearing a leather jacket. Not just a leather jacket of course, but that’s the first thing Jon can process. He’s wearing a studded leather jacket covered in various patches that advertise various opinions and identities that Jon doesn’t have time to think about. His jeans are about as much rip as they are Jean, and he’s got piercings- and eyeliner. he’s dressed like he should be riding a motorcycle, not the beat-up red bike he’s got beside him.

“Are you alright?” Martin says, and Jon realizes he’s been staring.

“Are you going to a costume party?” Jon blurts instead of answering. A costume party would make sense, of course. Martin doesn’t dress like this, he dresses like- like-

It occurs to him dimly that he’s never encountered Martin outside of work, at least never in a scenario that would allow him to change out of his work clothes. And some part of him has always assumed that sweaters and khakis were simply how he dressed. It suited him, really. Or Jon had assumed, but then again he assumed anything familiar is suiting.

“Wh- A- no?” Martin answers, looking vaguely offended. Jon flushes.

“I- sorry, I just- I’ve... I didn’t think you seemed the type to dress... like that...?” Jon fumbles, pathetically trying to salvage the conversation. Judging by Martins expression, he’s failing.

Martin opens his mouth to say something, and Jon realizes there’s likely no coming back from this particular mortification. He snatches the bag by his feet and moves to stand. Some excuse already tumbling out when the reason for his sit-down, which had dulled to a shockingly forgettable throb, decides to remind him of his place in the world.

He lets out a cry of pain, and crumples. Only stopped from hitting the ground by a pair of arms that wrap around his chest and under his shoulder.

“Oh my god, Jon. Are you alright- what- is it your leg? Where’s your cane-” Martin babbles, Gently replacing Jon on his bench as Jon breathes through gritted teeth.

“It’s fine- i’m fine Martin I-” he sighs, studiously avoiding Martins gaze. “My cane is at home.” He tries not to sound chastised as he says the last part- he shouldn’t have to after all. He’s still Martins boss. He shouldn’t be looking away like he’s been caught at something.

“Jon” Martin sounds exasperated, and Jon crosses his arms. Once again, nothing like someone being scolded. He’s not being scolded. He’s an adult. “How long have you been sitting here like this?”

“I...” Jon begins before trailing off, he’s not actually sure. The period between sitting on the bench and the pain dulling enough for him to think through the fog is something is a blur. He is pretty sure someone asked if he was alright at some point. His lack of answer seems to be enough for Martin though.

“Just give me a moment.” He says, stepping away from Jon over to his bike- which has fallen over onto the ground -pulling it upright and over to Jon on the bench. He pushes down the rusted kickstand with a hearty kick- and Jon briefly notes he’s wearing steel-toed boots -and sets the bike gently upright.

“Okay, so! If you sit on the bike I can push it, and you can get home and rest that leg without jostling it too much by trying to walk without your cane.” He says pointedly. Jon makes a face,

“This... this really isn’t necessary Martin- I’m perfectly capable-” He grumbles, waving a hand dismissively. But a glance at Martins expression shuts him up quick.

“Do you think you can stand?” He asks. Jon pauses, the memory of the white-hot flash of pain still fresh in his mind. He grimaces, shaking his head. Martin hums thoughtfully. “Alright, would you be alright if I picked you up? Just for a moment to get you on the bike” He asks carefully.

Jon hesitates, looking between Martin and the bike. And weighs his options. After several seconds he nods. Martin smiles, and Jon feels something in his chest flutter. Anxiety at his decision most likely. Or perhaps nerves in relation to sitting on a bike, he’s never ridden one- of course Martin will be doing all the work but surely there’s some sort of balance required isn’t there? Really he shouldn’t be riding a bike like this-

Those thoughts are all swept away at the feeling of large warm hands gently scooping him off the bench. He instinctively throws his arms around Martins neck for support as he’s lifted into the air.

He can feel Martins chest warm against his side as Martin holds him close, one hand on his shoulder and the other supporting his legs. He’s being cradled by his subordinate, carefully as so not to jostle his leg. And all he can think about is how warm Martin is. He’s large and soft despite all the sharper accessories and he smells a bit like leather and tea on top of whatever soap he uses. Probably something that Jon wouldn’t be able to name with a gun to his head. And Jon can see the freckles on Martins cheeks and neck close enough to count if he wanted to even as he looks away, saying something Jon can’t quite parse because he’s too busy reeling from the realization he’d be happy to sit in Martins arms like this for the rest of his life.

His face goes hot and he forces himself to look down at the ground. The pain is clearly messing with his head, or perhaps the sleep deprivation. Or perhaps he’s still riding the high from that moment of realization that Martin isn’t trying to kill him, that he can trust him.

Either way he’s not thinking straight, which is why he’s dissapointed instead of relieved when Martin gently places him on the bike with the exact amount of care he took in picking him up. Which shouldn’t make him feel so oddly jittery but it does.

The ride is quiet, aside from awkward instructions from Jon on where to turn as Martin guides them carefully along the sidewalk. They miss a turn once because Jons too preoccupied with the feeling of Martins arm bumping against his shoulder as he guides the bike.

And then they’re at Jons flat, and Jon once again feels that misplaced disappointment. He wonders if perhaps Martin will carry him up to his flat, and his face burns again as the silliness of the thought hits him.

Martin does very, very briefly lift him to help him off the bike when he stumbles. But his leg has recovered enough that he can make it up to his flat without assistance, or so he tells Martin. Who looks unconvinced.

“Let me at least walk with you, yea? That way I know for sure you got home safe.” He insists, and Jon forced himself to be displeased with the situation.

It ends up being a good thing Martin came along though, a partway up the steps the railing is no longer enough to support Jon, and he ends up half-carried the rest of the way. Martins arm under his shoulder, his own loops around Martins back, gripping the jacket for support. He can feel his head drifting at the contact- Martin is just so damned warm and safe and Martin it’s impossible not to get distacted.

He forces himself to think about something else, anything else. The jacket- he can feel the leather under his fingertips and it’s as good distraction as any.

It’s a nice jacket, really. Clearly well-worn. And it does suit Martin, in an odd sort-of way.

Jon winces internally, remembering the conversation from earlier. He hadn’t meant to come off so... well. It doesn’t matter. Except that it does, even though it doesn’t, but it does.

Once they reach Jons door, he pushes off of Martin to lean on the wall while he fumbles for his keys. Martin lingers as he does so, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly in the silence.

Jon finds his keys and sighs in relief as the door swings open.

He nearly wanders inside and shuts the door before remembering basic human etiquette. He pauses in the doorway, turning to Martin. Who smiles awkwardly.

“Thank you.” He says stiffly, still leaning heavily on the doorframe. “That was... very kind. Of you.” Martin shakes his head.

“It’s nothing, really. Couldn’t exactly just leave you there, could I?”

Jon shifts awkwardly, wincing at the brief weight on his leg. He’s right of course, morally at least. If not logically.

“I... I suppose not.” He says, hesitating before adding “I’m sorry.”

“Look, Jon. I already said it’s fine-”

“No-” Jon grimaces “not for that. I- I meant... for what I said. About your clothes. They don’t... I just- I didn’t expect it, and I may have come off as... rude.” He mutters

“Oh.” Martin says flatly, Jons sure he’d forgotten about that until just now, and he wishes he could have kept it that way.

“they do suit you, though.” He says, after an awkward pause. “Your clothes, I mean. It looks- you look nice.” he finishes as genuinely as he can- he does mean it. Of course, he just doesn’t know how to make it sound like he does.

“Oh” Martin says again, brightening slightly, his cheeks going blotchy red in a blush. “I- er- thank you...? I suppose?”

“Yes. Well. Your welcome, I suppose.” There’s another awkward pause, Martin isn’t quite smiling at Jon, but there’s something soft in his expression Jon can’t quite parse. “ Have a good day, Martin.” He says finally, after a long pause. Martins cheeks redden again.

“Oh- yeah, er. You too Jon- and take care of yourself. Alright?”

Jon nods, and Martin smiles. And Jon thinks he’d like to see Martin smile a bit more.

He waves as Martin heads down the stairs, he can hear Martin humming as he goes.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jmart #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #punk martin #fic #art #fanfic #fanart #ghostly doodle #ghostly doodles #Jons a mess!#and Martin has cool fashions #ghostly scribbles

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artxyra · 4 years

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The Secret Life of MDC | Part 5

Part 5 – Haha, wait you’re serious?

Fun fact: This rewrite was supposed to be five parts, but as I was writing and changing things, I have no idea how long this is going to be.

Parts 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

What a relaxing evening the couples group plus one was having. Everyone but Jon and Damian was wearing a disguise of some sort. Marinette in her usual lace netted veil, Chloe with her hair down and sunglasses on, and Adrien with a dark wig and punk clothes. It was never easy being out and open like this, but it was relaxing.

“I’m telling you, she’s not worth it.” Marinette states before taking a sip of her ice coffee beverage. She doesn’t know how or when their conversation regarding the upcoming gala turned into a revenge plan to reveal the liar that has made her life miserable back in Paris.

“Angel, she is making up stories about me. How can I not make her suffer any more than she had made you?” Damian asks taking her hand into his own. Marinette huffs unsure what to say.

“C’mon buggy, even Luka agrees with him. Let him take over for a moment.” Adrien comments showing the designer his phone with a series of messages from Luka on the screen.

Marinette still doesn’t reply. Instead, she looks up to the sky as of it hoping for a miracle. Nothing was working.

“Kagami even she said she’ll help hide the body. Just give me the okay and she’ll be on the next flight here or I’ll go get her with Kaalki.” Chloe adds in taping away on her phone as if she wasn’t paying attention.

“Absolutely not. Look, guys, we have three weeks left here and I don’t want to spend it worrying about the class despite being the damn TA for this exchange. I already need to finish the touch-ups on our dresses and grade like a shit ton of assignments.” Marinette groans leaning into Damian’s chest. He places a kiss on her forehead before resting his chin on her head.

“Why are you guys even like this?” It’s Jon’s turn to cry out in frustration. Everyone turns to him with an eyebrow raised. The half-Kryptonian should no better by now than to question anything his boyfriend and friends do. “Alright, alright, I fold. What do I need to do?”

“Stay my handsome hero.” Adrien absently adds swooning in Jon’s arms looking upward to the hero. Shaking his head, Adrien turns to Marinette and blinks. “Did I really just say that?”

Marinette tries to hide her giggles, nodding. However, Chloe didn’t even try to hide her laughs causing the model to blush.

“I actually liked it,” Jon says before placing a kiss on the blonde’s cheek furthering his blush to a deeper red.

“Ooh, Gami just replied back to me, she wants to see if we can do a movie night stream?” Chloe asks on behalf of her girlfriend. Planning movie nights are often frequent amongst the group especially when they are missing each other.

“I know my father wouldn’t mind, but depending on who’s staying at the manor tonight it might turn into a family affair,” Damian responds gently pushing Marinette off of him and stand up to stretch.

“She’s fine with that.”

“Good; I’ll message Alfred to set to the theatre room.” Damian pulls out his phone and immediately proceeds to message the family butler.

“You know he’ll probably send a message with an image of the theatre room decked out with pillows and blankets with the caption: already have, young master.” Marinette jokes but little did she know her guess was actually right.

Damian’s phone dings with a message from Alfred. It is indeed a photo of the theatre room with pillows and blanket gently piled together. Underneath the photo is the message “Already done, young master, just be home before dark.”

“How does he do that?” Adrien wonders before adding, “It’s witchcraft?”

“You know as well as my brothers that we still do not know that answer.” Damian murmurs sliding his phone back into his pocket. He then holds out his hand for Marinette to take as she pushes herself off the wooden bench.

“We should head back then…” Marinette is then cut off by her phone along with her blonde sibling’s phones simultaneously buzzing. The three Parisians grab their phones and see the answer.

It’s the Headmistress of Gotham Academy calling her. Confused, Marinette answers the call just as Adrien and Chloe read the variety of messages from the classmates or at least those that still have their numbers.

Damian and Jon look to one another cautiously. It’s not every day that the trio’s phone would go off especially when they are not in a group chat with the others. Damian takes a step closer to Marinette as panic rises her eyes.

When the call ends, Marinette takes a series of deep breaths. “First the Riddler and now this shit. They better be damn glad to stay on this trip once we find them.” Was the only thing that would come out of the designer’s mouth.

Chloe and Adrien stop reading. “Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.” This really draws two teens to their friends. Adrien stays silent which is unlike him especially when there isn’t a battle or around them.

“Um, care to fill us in?” Jon asks knowing that Damian would not as he tries to get answers from Marinette.

“Apparently Mlle. Bustier and the GA staff are losing their heads.” Chloe starts.

“Nino messaged me that something had happened after we left,” Adrien adds shuffling his feet against the ground.

“Yeah; Alya and Lie-la are missing. The headmistress says that no one has seen since we left and asked if we, more specifically I, knew about their whereabouts.” Marinette shakes her head, “Which I have no clue about. I’m not a sheep’s keeper.” The noirette sighs, face-palming.

“I guess movie night is off then.” Jon ponders.

“No, no, we can still find them before it gets super late. By we, I mean Robin and Superboy along with the Gotham’s miraculous team.” Marinette counters before anyone could get a word in.

“Wait, you’re serious?” Chloe asks in disbelief.

“Yeah, let’s just hope the liar’s big mouth didn’t get her in trouble with the Joker or any other Gotham villain,” Marinette grumbles as if all happiness crash and burned right in front of her.

“And here I have thought that after last week, they would stay on the down-low, but no~ they just had to disappear. This will really put a stick into Mlle. Bustier’s teaching qualifications.” Chloe groans as she starts packing her stuff up with looks ready to kill.

“I’ll see you in a bit, suit and all. I have damage control to handle before we make our next steps.” Marinette and Adrien give their significant others a peck on the lips. As much as Damian hates the veil covering her eyes, he knows the pain the reset inside them.

“I’ll talk things through with the family. Maybe even hack into the security cameras for some leads.” He whispers into her ear holding her arms. Marinette looks up to Damian and nods.

~*~

If those phone calls didn’t give light to the current situation, it would have been like walking into the middle of a war zone. Everywhere you look there were teachers asking questions, normally this would never happen to Gotham Academy, but when the exchange happens it like the school turns on its head.

Chloe, Adrien, and Marinette decided to split up. Adrien went to speak to Nino to see if he had knowledge of his girlfriend. Chloe sneaked into the security room while Marinette takes on her teacher assistant role to speak with Mlle. Bustier and the GA headmistress.

Marinette could tell how heated the conversation is from just a few feet away. The closer she got the more she could tell that Caline was sweating where she was standing.

“Marinette doesn’t belong in conversations like this.” Caline tries to get Marinette removed from the conversation the moment she sees the girl, but the headmistress wasn’t having that.

“Marinette is allowed to be here, Ms. Bustier, she is apparently the only one with the contact information regarding your students.” The headmistress states and it was true. Even though Marinette is technically the class representative despite no longer being a student of the school, she still holds vital information regarding the class.

“Hold on, you didn’t contact our parents?” Realization began to hit. “We were nearly killed last week and today, not even a full week since we have arrived, you have lost two students.”

“Marinette, you guys made it back safely, and I just didn’t have time to call everyone’s parents or guardians.” Caline is really trying to save face here.

“We’re in a whole another country. It is your duty to inform parents and or guardians about any situation, mishap, whatever happens to them.” Marinette nearly screams at the teacher. Anger could not even begin to be Marinette’s main emotion.

“I’m sure they’ll show up, Alya and Lila are very responsible.” Seriously? She cannot be for real.

“Mlle. Bustier,” Marinette takes a deep breath, clasps her hands together. “They can be killed here. I may not like those two but even I know the importance of safety here in Gotham.”

“Marinette, I’ll take it from here. How about you go help the others in finding the two missing girls.” The GA headmistress says placing a hand on the designer’s shoulder. Marinette calms down and nods. It was for the best.

Marching down the halls, everyone avoided Marinette. How could they not, she was a woman on a warpath. The Paris exchange students have never seen Marinette so angry before it was causing them to quake in their shoes.

Adrien was finishing his conversation with Nino when he joins Marinette’s side on the march to glory. Chloe had just finished up with the security room before she joined her crew. Together, the three exits the school grounds knowing exactly where they are heading to.

It was no secret that everyone knows each other identity between the Batfam and the Miraculous crew. So, when Alfred pulled up in a disguised car, with the window rolled down he simply raises an eyebrow. The trio gets in as the school just watches in shock. Nothing was making sense to them.

“So, I found that they did indeed leave minutes after we did. The cameras lost them upon walking across the streets towards this building.” Chloe states pointing to the screen with confidence.

“From what I had gathered from Nino, they had missed their check-in time at least three times before the flags were raised. As you know the class aside from us needs to check-in with the teachers at least once an hour after what happened last week.” Adrien then adds in.

Marinette nods before she turns to Tim, who was surprising on his fourth cup of coffee.

“Tim, what did you find?” She asks before sliding a coffee flavor “health” bar over to the hacker. Tim takes it and slides the bar into his pocket.

“Let’s just say its not the Joker behind their missing appearance. We got Gordon on the lookout, but you know what they say when it comes close to nighttime here in Gotham.”

“Out of everyone, it had to be the two of them. If my job wasn’t also kind of on the stake, I would have just left them to figure it out and stay out of it.”

“You know that’s not true Mars; you love to save people even those who let deserves it.”

“Who asked you, Kitten, let him bitch about things that we know would never happen.”

If it wasn’t for the growing tension in the room, everyone would have burst out laughing.

“We got movement,” Jason calls out while cleaning one of his guns.

Everyone catches the other’s eyes before simultaneously nodding. It’s going to be a long night ahead of them.

Tag List: *View my Tagging System guidelines for how to to be properly tagged or removed.

Note: The SPECIFIC Tag list is officially closed. If you wanted to follow the story please mark the tag fic:The Secret Life of MDC.

#maribat #daminette #ml x dc #mlb x dc #ml crossover #dc crossover #fic:The Secret Life of MDC #teacher assistant Marinette AU #ta marinette

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hateswifi · 4 years

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No More Second Chances: Chapter Four

So as I promised, here it is. I’m a person of my word... enjoy. salt and chaos

Master: Master List

No More Second Chances

---------------------------------------------

She was woken up to multiply phone calls from Adrien. “You realize I’m five hours behind you, why are you calling me this early?” Marinette said groggily into the phone.

“I sent you a video, I’m going to be in my room if you want to,” Adrien said before hanging up. Marinette sighed, and opened the link. She proceeded to cry. Not even thirty second later, Jon appeared in the doorway. He found Marinette in full tears, her phone playing a video on her bed, and her digging through her draw.

“Marinette, are you ok?” Jon asks, looking at the girl in bewilderment.

“I’m sorry for waking you, but I have to go!” Marinette says, quickly opening the Miracle Box.

“What’s that?” He asks, approaching the distressed girl.

“I’ll explain everything later,” Marinette said, standing as she placed the box on her bed beside her phone. She opened the smaller box she had taken from the big box. As she opened it, a blinding light emitted throughout the room.

“What the actual-”

“Miss Marinette, are you ready for action,” Kaalki said, looking at the young guardian earnestly.

“What the heck is that thing!” Jon asks, taking a couple steps forward.

“I am no thing! I am a demi-godess!” She says, looking down on the boy.

“Like I said Jon I’ll explain later, I have to go to London and Paris, I’ll be back by lunch! Kaalki! Transform me!” Marinette said, letting the familiar feeling of the transformation cover her. She picks up the Miracle Box.

“One normal person, that's all I ask,” Jon sighs before snapping out of stupor to watch his unofficial sister open a portal. Before he knew it, the portal closed, leaving her in the dark. He looked over at Marinette’s phone, which was playing a video. He picked up the phone and restarted the video. It was of a big mustache man and petite asain woman they were talking to in french before the video cut to a dark pink room. There was a flash of light similar to the one that just happened but in pink. “Mom! Dad!”

In London with Marinette, she broke down crying into Adrien’s hug. “I’m such a mess up, I first revealed myself to my parents, then to Jon, and now everyone knows,” Marinette cried.

“They’re doing an interview later if you want to bomb it,” Adrien smirks, as he rubs her back. “You could finally reveal everything, you could clear your name, and right the wrongs that were made against you.”

“Noir what even was that wording?” She sniffles with a little giggle.

“It’s early, ok? Hey at least I got a laugh out of you,” Adrien said, with a groan.

“Adrien it’s time to leave,” Felix said,opening the door. “Marinette.” He nods.

“I’ll be out in a minute Fe,” Adrien says. “Their interview is at the tower, it starts at nine, stay here and get ready if you need to. I have to go to school, but remember I’m proud of you, you’re strong, and we are partners through this all.”

“Will you come to the interview as Chat Noir?” Marinette sniffles, looking up at her blonde friend.

“I’ll have to talk to my aunt, but I think that can be arranged,” Adrien says, leaving the room. A minute later, she heard the door reopen.

Marinette wipes her tears, and says. “That was fast, what did she say?” She then looked up, it wasn’t Adrien, it was Felix.

“I heard the video earlier, I’m sorry for trying to force myself onto you,” Felix says, sitting beside her.

“Apologizing doesn’t make it right, but I accept your apology. Did you learn not to do that again?” She asks, he nods his head. “Then we’re good.”

“Marinette I got permi--,” Adrien says, opening the door. He looks to the bed and pauses. “Do you guys need a minute?”

“No we finished our conversation,” Felixa said, standing. “Good luck with the interview today.”

“Thank you, Felix,” Adrien said with a nod. “Do you need to do anything?”

“I need to wash my face, and maybe wear something that isn’t pajamas,” Marinette says with a laugh.

“I'll go ask Aunt Emelia if you can look through her closet,” Adrien said, leaving her to compose herself. Next thing she knows, she is looking through a closet of clothes, most of them appropriate for a fancy setting. She found the closest thing she could dress down in, a white fitted blouse, and a black tube scalloped skirt. She washed her face and tied her hair up in a princess bun using a red ascot. She took one last look in the mirror as Adrien said. “Ready to go? It’s eight-fifty.”

“Yes, I want to make a dramatic entrance so we're gonna wait a bit ok?” Marinette says, putting on her glasses. They walk through the portal and Marinette transforms into Ladybug and watches the interview on Adrien’s phone.

“So where is your daughter today?” Nadia asked a couple of minutes into the interview.

“She’s in the states doing an exchange program,” Sabine said with a smile.

“Do you know if she likes it there?”

“I don’t know, we haven’t talked to her since we told her about it,” Tom says, sheepishly.

“Did she want to go?”

“I mean we told her that she had the option to stay here in Paris,” Sabine said.

“Are you trying to say that Ladybug no longer wanted to be in Paris?” Nadia asks, shocked. Before Sabine or Tom could answer, Chat Noir and Ladybug land on set.

“I feel like that question is more directed to me,” She says walking into view of the camera.

“Someone get them seats!” a shout came off screen. Marinette drops her transformation, Tikki immediately hiding. After seats were taken, Marinette decided to answer the question.

“I, originally, didn’t want to leave and thought it was unfair because of the reason I was being sent to America,” Marinette pauses, her parents’ eye watering. “Some of my old classmates decided to approach my parents and tell them that I was bullying a girl. Sabine and Tom believed them over me and didn’t bother to listen to my side of the story. They only asked me to stay once they found out I was Ladybug.”

“We still want you to come home,” Sabine said, tears falling down her face.

“Mom you took away the only place I felt safe, you believed someone you didn’t know over me and ridiculed me over it,” Marinette said quickly. “I’m going home, it's just not here in Paris anymore. Now that’s everything I wanted to say, I’ve got to get to school, I promised someone I would be there.” She said, standing. “Also Lila Rossi, I’m not your best friend, never have, never will be. You made my life hell, I was almost akumatized because of you. I hope you enjoy your sheep, I don’t want them. Let’s go Chat.”

“Wait! What’s your relationship status?”

“Seriously? He’s like a brother to me, Noir, its now or never,” Marinette said, looking at her partner.

“I wasn’t in your corner when you needed me, but I’m here now,” Chat said, detransforming. “Umm… hi!”

“This amazing sunshine is the closest thing I have to family now,” Marinette says, firmly. “Don’t give him crap over his father. His father is not him. Adrien worked his butt off to get to where he is today. If I hear otherwise, you’ll deal with me.”

“Let’s go.” Adrien said, leaving behind chaos.

---------------------------------------------

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toosicktoocare · 4 years

Text

The Magnus Archives Hurt/Comfort Week!

Day 5: Hiding Pain/Injury

Setting: Season 4, JonMartin

Note: I’m pretty early on still in season 4, but I’ve gotta write something about the whole rib incident. Just imagine this is a little, soft side scene.

Martin bumps into Jon, the two unavoidably crossing paths down a hall in the institute. He tenses, and he hates himself for it, for the pained look Jon shoots him throughout the incredibly long second they lock eyes. Martin breaks the gaze first, eyes casting downward, slowing when he spots Jon’s hand pressed gingerly to his side. He can’t keep the frown that plays at his lips, and he whips a quick, silent gaze back up, hoping his eyes, his furrowed brows, will do all the talking, but Jon just lets his hand fall to his side and walks past him with a curt nod, and Martin wishes, of all things this damned institute is capable of, that the floor beneath him would crack open and swallow him whole.

He trudges back to finish a task he’s working on for Peter, wishing, deep down to the very pit of his stomach, that he was with Jon, that things somehow were back to normal. But then Peter’s voice is infiltrating his thoughts, reminding Martin of why he’s isolating himself, and per usual, images of Jon laid up in a hospital bed flood his mind, overwhelming him, leaving him gasping, gripping at the closest wall to keep upright.

He recovers, and though he knows that Peter can read his every feeling based on his distant expression alone, he still manages to impress him once more, and when Peter slips out for a bit, he opts to seek out Jon, too curious and far too worried to play the whole distant act today.

He starts toward the archive, expecting Jon to be recording as if nothing insane has happened to them, but while he whips down halls, he pauses, catching a glimpse through a crack in the door of the break room.

Jon’s inside and hunched over a counter, arm wrapped tightly around his abdomen, and even with his vision partially blocked, Martin can still see the tight, trembling hand that Jon has pushed deep to his side, his fingers clenched tightly around the fabric of his shirt. His breathing is ragged, and Martin pushes the door open, heart practically in his throat.

Jon’s body goes tight the second Martin wordlessly slips in, and Martin watches Jon draw in a few deep breaths, his tense muscles releasing along each exhale until he’s standing normally and turning silently to face Martin.

“Two times in one day? Lukas must not have the leash so tight today.” Jon leans back against the counter and crosses his arms, and Martin doesn’t miss the faint wince that pulls across Jon’s face with the small movement.

He chooses to ignore the bite to Jon’s tone; he’s gotten pretty good at it, if he might say. “Are you... You’re... What happened? You seem like you’re in pain.”

“Spying on me for Lukas? Can he not just watch my every move like Elias?”

“I’m not,” Martin sighs, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, “spying,” he spits out. “I’ve just... noticed. It’s your side...”

Jon hums, and the sharp aggravation softens on his face to somber curiosity. His gaze travels down to the floor, to his worn shoes, and he hunches inward and starts out of the room, mumbling “I’m fine,” as he passes by Martin.

Martin watches him go, and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until the hitch in his breath echoes against the bare break room walls. He covers his mouth, swallowing back the pain, the dark emotions, and sniffles quietly, turning to leave the room.

When he reaches his desk, he loses himself in his work, anything to distract himself from Jon. He often mutters under his breath, reminding himself that he’s doing this for Jon, that he never wants to see Jon edging death and wired to hell on a hospital bed again. He repeats a static mantra: he is strong, and he will prove that he is an asset. He will show everyone that he’s not some chum who pours tea with a happy-go-lucky pep to his step.

He works furiously for hours on end, only stopping when his back begins to twinge in pain, a telltale sign he’s been hunched over his computer for too long. He stands, backing and legs popping loudly, and starts toward the break room to get some tea.

Despite everything, he’s still curious and concerned, so he alters his route, making a small detour to pass by the archive. To his surprise, the door is ajar, and he spots Jon asleep on a cot he must’ve pulled into the room at some point. Jon’s lying on his side, curled into himself in a fetal position, and, once again, he’s got his arm wrapped tightly around his middle.

Sighing, Martin slips quietly into the room, padding as softly as possible to the cot. Jon’s face is a bit pale, he notes, and his face is pinched in pain. He’s breathing a bit ragged again, and Martin ghosts his palm across Jon’s forehead, finding it oddly cool to the touch.

Jon stirs under his hand, and Martin draws his hand back and drops to a crouch until he’s eye level with Jon’s slow, disoriented eyes.

“Martin,” Jon drags out, voice a few octaves lower than normal, edged with sleep.

“Jon, what’s going on? I know things are a bit... off right now, but you’re clearing hiding something. Did you get hurt?” Martin keeps his tone soft, not wishing to bombard Jon with loud, frantic questions when the man’s very clearly exhausted.

“My rib,” Jon mutters, and Martin watches as Jon’s hand curls tightly against his side.

“Your... rib? Did you fall or something? Is it broken?” Martin’s heart is beginning to thump hard against his own ribs, and he has to force his voice to not follow that building panic.

Jon turns his face into the flat pillow with a grunt, muttering “it’s gone. Still really sore.”

He’s fading, Martin decides, when Jon goes still before him, save the slow, ragged rise and fall with each breath.

“Jon? What do you mean it’s gone? What have you gotten yourself into?”

Jon doesn’t answer, and Martin tests the water, cautiously placing his hand over the one Jon has still pressed tightly to his side. He pushes carefully against it, and Jon’s body jerks underneath his touch. He whips a sharp gaze toward Martin before burying his face in the pillow once more.

“I’d rather you not do that again. Please.”

“What can I do?” Martin asks, whispering, and Jon sighs into the pillow, body deflating just a fraction.

“Do you have any pain killers? I can’t find mine...”

“Yes,” Martin gets to his feet, briefly eyeing the doorway. “Have you eaten? It would be better if you don’t take them on an empty stomach.”

“Not hungry,” Jon growls out quietly, and then Martin watches as Jon nods off once more, far too put out to fight a losing fight against the tug of sleep.

He has questions, a lot of questions, but Peter’s due back any minute now, and he doesn’t wish to fall victim to another lecture about how he should remember his place and why it’s important he isolate himself.

Still, he can’t leave Jon like this. There isn’t a single bone in his body that would allow him to leave Jon in so much pain, regardless of how confusing the whole situation is. He slips out to snag a bottle of water from the break room fridge and a bottle of pain killers, and he leaves both at the floor by Jon’s cot.

He hesitates at Jon’s side, unable to pull his gaze away, not a single ounce of will to move his legs. Gently, he bends over to brush a few strands of black, graying hair from Jon’s face, just a ghost of a touch, and Jon hums, content, in his sleep, and a rare smile creeps at his lips.

“I’m so sorry, Jon,” Martin whispers. He slips out of the room, his heart a sinking ship. He knows Jon most likely won’t remember much of their brief meeting when he wakes, but he clings to the small hope that he will remember and that he will, maybe, understand, even if just a little, that Martin doesn’t hate him in the slightest.

In the meantime, Martin thinks, he’s got work to do, and he’s determined to perform and do his best because he will not let anything else happen to Jon.

#TMAHCweek #tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #hurt/comfort #whump #whumpfic

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abduct-me-helen · 4 years

Text

Class 108's Apocalypse Field Trip | Chapter 2.

The school, bathed in green light, seemed to loom over them in a way not unlike the panopticon. Its pillars stood wide and the lot between the foyer of the school was far longer than Jon recalled. The gate seemed to twist with something akin to malice.

“Why are we here, Jon?” Martin asked, running his hand through the curls sat on top his head.

“It’s…not right here. They aren’t trapped, not like…” Jon wavered. “It doesn’t matter. It’s the calm before the slaughter... The taste of innocence being ripped away while watching flesh being ripped-”

“Okay! Okay, please don’t get ominous on me. I can’t be that for you.”

“I know, it’s just…” Jon ran his hands through his hair in distress.

“It’s a lot.” Martin finished for him, putting his hand on Jon’s shoulder in an attempt to steady him. “But wait, I thought we already did the slaughter?”

“It’s…it’s complicated. This place is like an epicenter. The school isn’t consumed in a nightmare, but it’s surrounded by them.”

“Like the safehouse?” Martin questioned, thinking back to the place they’d stayed in blissful peace for months before the end of the world.

“Exactly. I think…” he sighed, “I think I need to make a statement.”

Martin nodded, resigned. “I’ll wait over there.” He pointed to a tree near the gate.

Jon tilted his head in acknowledgement and waited until his footsteps grew quiet, then took a breath and began.

“See Marcy. See Marcy dance. See Sydney. See Sydney scream as she sees Marcy dance. Marcy is dead, but her body still moves. Her body still moves she sees nothing at all. See Katie cut, cut, cut and slice the webs with her knife. Cut, cut, cut and slice. Cut, cut, cut and slice.

Marcy is dead, but see Marcy dance.

See Tabitha. See Tabitha laugh. See Tabitha. See Tabitha cry. See Tabitha. See Tabitha trapped in spiderwebs.

Why are they laughing? Why is Tabitha laughing? Why is Tabitha crying?

See Tabitha. See Tabitha cry because she does not want to laugh.

See Rosie. See Rosie free Katie. See Katie drag Tabitha out of the theater, still laughing and crying. See them run, run, run, home to their little cove in the sun. The sun that is an eye. The sun that does not blink. The sun that watches, always.”

Jon was shaking, and he noticed that Martin was hovering over him, holding him close as he came back to himself. His palms were sweaty but his body was ice cold.

God, what had he done?

“Jon? Jon, are you okay?” Martin asked, worry creasing his brow.

“I-they’ve been through a lot Martin. That was only one statement…there’s so much more…and the watcher drinks it all in…” He shivered, digging his nails into his palms.

“They’re alive?!” Martin said in surprise, eyebrows raised.

Jon nodded. “Not all of them. Not most of them, but I think Elias spared them from the nightmares. Maybe as a gift? Maybe he wants to use them for something. I don’t know.”

“That’s…mildly horrifying. Actually, drop the mildly.”

Jon barked out a bitter laugh, before going quiet. “I think I need to do another one. Maybe two. This place, it’s…”

“Another-okay, got it. I’ll be over there. Take your time.”

Jon nodded in thanks, waiting until Martin was far enough away to not hear him.

He loathed this, and he loathed himself for bringing it about. Mentally steeling himself, he began to speak.

“Eva knows guns. Eva knows guns. Eva knows guns. Her father, when he was alive, had told her that she’d need to defend herself one day. He was a military man through and through, and used the discipline he’d learned there to guide her through her life.

Nothing she learned had prepared her for this.

She is a prodigy with a gun, her aim impeccable from years of practice and innate talent. She’s selected as a sniper as soon as she joins.

She doesn’t like to think about her bullets and where they go. She just pulls the trigger; it isn’t her place to argue about the morality of the situation.

The battleground in bloody, and there’s that bagpipe sound in the background, annoying and loud. Eva’s never been a musician, but she’s certain they aren’t meant to sound like that.

Eva does not like the trenches.

She wakes everyday at dawn, and then she gets her gun and leaves on a cart that will surely be filled with the dead bodies of her friends by the time she returns. The cart leads to various places, all deadly.

She hates the trenches.

When had she came here? Oh, that’s right. Something big happened, something she can’t quite remember. The world was bathed in green.

The blink!

She does not know what that means, but that’s what it was called. The blink.

And then she was here, in the trenches.

And then…what had happened then? She didn’t remember. All she remembered was the war. The war and the gunfire.

The war that never seemed to end.

There is blood in the trenches. It pools like water, and it smells rancid with rot and the tinge of chemical does not help at all.

Eva does not like the war, but there is no choice but to fight. Fight. Fight.

Fight.

Eva is the youngest in the trenches. She is 16.

Eva is the youngest in the trenches.

See Eva.

See Eva bleed.

See Eva scream.

See Eva kill.

See Eva stich her skin back together.

See Eva sleep.

See Eva wake.

See Eva.

See Eva bleed.”

Jon repeated those lines over and over until his head hurt and he was panting. Martin was still at the tree, humming to himself.

Probably for the best.

Jon was quiet. He was so numb he didn’t want to move. It was bad enough he had to know all these things happening to strangers, but to children? To his students?

It was hell.

He laughed bitterly, running his hand through his hair and flapping his hands in an attempt to steady himself.

“Martin?” he called, “I’m done!”

Martin nodded and returned to his side. “How was it?”

“…One of them is in the slaughter.”

“Shit, Jon.”

“Yeah.”

They walked in silence through the gate, until they heard a noise from their left.

All of a sudden, a boy with curly red hair bounded into Martin. He yelped and feel back, and the boy raised his club to strike him down.

“Cypress!” Jon shouted, getting in front of Martin.

“You aren’t Mr. Sims! Mr. Sims is dead. Get away from us!” Cypress shouted frantically, eyes wide in fear.

Jon tried to calm him down. “Cypress, I can explain, but you need to put the club down.”

Cypress hesitated, before steeling himself once again and slowly reaching down into his pocket.

“He’s getting a gun-Jon he’s getting a-” Jon waved away Martin’s concerns, knowing full well what was in his pockets.

Sometimes being an eldritch all-knowing horror is helpful.

Cypress pulled out something covered in polkadotted cloth, before dragging the cloth of the item that was revealed to be a sharp piece of glass.

“Hands out. Both of you.”

Martin looked to Jon, who nodded. They both put their hands out.

Cypress cautiously came closer, before using the glass to cut into Martin’s palm. Martin yelped, drawing his hand back, but Cypress seemed satisfied that he could bleed at all.

He did the same for Jon, who grit his teeth and looked away as the shard pierced his skin.

“You aren’t-you aren’t made of stuffing, are you real?” Cypress looked torn between hope and caution, eyes filling with tears.

Jon slowly approached, before pulling the boy into a hug, Cypress melted into it, fighting back the tears in his eyes. It occurred to Jon that this must’ve been the first interaction he’d had with an adult since the eye opened.

These were children. These were students. And they’d all been through so much.

Jon held him closer, hand stroking his curls and tears threatened to escape and his body shook with the effort not to sob.

All of a sudden, Cypress shot up.

“What was I doing outside?” He said frantically, wiping the tears away from his face, still trembling.

“What?” Martin questioned him.

“We aren’t supposed to go outside without consulting everyone-I only just realized it now. I just woke up outside and I didn’t even question it. Oh my god, I could’ve been killed.” He panicked, eyes widening. “Something might be inside. There’s no way I got out here on my own!”

Cypress whipped around and sprinted to the door, Martin and Jon in his trace. The door was locked, of course, and he started pounding on it.

“Hello!”

Martin pushed him out of the way gently, before fishing out some knitting needles from his coat pocket.

“What are you going to do, make me a sweater?!” Cypress said frantically, trying to resort to wit in order to abide his terror.

“No, I’m going to pick the lock.” Martin answered, focusing on the door as he maneuvered his needles into the lock.

Jon could’ve sworn he heard Cypress say “pick my lock daddy” under his breath, but he wasn’t going to get into that.

It only took Martin a few seconds to unlock the door, before Cypress was sprinting in. Martin slammed the door behind him as he entered the school, locking it while Cypress jetted into the classroom with Jon in his trace.

Jon entered just in time to see Katie trying to stab…Cypress? No, it was a not-them. He narrowed his eyes.

“Stranger.”

“Archivist! How nice to see you!” not-Cypress stood up unnaturally, its body moving robotically. “You killed Sasha, well, not-Sasha, but names aren’t important to me! So, I decided to murder all of your students. Isn’t that grand!”

Jon narrowed her eyes. “I see you, Stranger. You forget your place in this world.”

Not-Cypress shivered. “Empty threats, Archivist You wouldn’t do that,” it paused, looping its hand around Sydney’s neck and bringing its blade to her throat, “when I’m doing this.”

Jon narrowed his eyes in apprehension.

“BEGONE THOT.” Tabitha screeched. She lunged at it, kicking it in the face with her boot. It didn’t damage it, but it distracted it long enough for Katie to grab its weapon.

It laughed. “Oh, but you forget. What is a knife, anyway?”

Katie looked around, eyes wide, but she didn’t know what was in her hand. It was weighted, and sharp, but she didn’t know-

“You forget your place.” Jon said once again. “I see you. No, I Know you. You aren’t anonymous, you’re just a nuisance. Ceaseless watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing.”

Dozens of glowing, neon green eyes seemed to surround him, and Sydney felt as if she was being watched by the entire world.

It didn’t feel good, but the thing that wasn’t Cypress started screaming, so she took that as a good sign.

And then there was green.

And then it was gone.

“...what the fuck?”

#tma #the magnus archives #teacher jonathan sims #teacher!jon #tma fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #tma spoilers #tma season 5

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cdelphiki · 5 years

Text

Bewildered was the only word Damian could use to describe how he felt.

Because just that morning, he hadn’t expected anyone to acknowledge what the day even was. But now, after he’d spent the morning playing video games with Jon, chatting with his Father on the phone, and then having a rather lovely lunch, people were showing up at the apartment.

Lots of people.

People Damian knew.

That he’d call family, if pressed.

...Plus Drake’s insufferable friends.

Which was just weird. Kon and Stephanie were there among the attendees, right along side Jason, Cass, Duke, and Alfred.

So yes, Damian was bewildered. Or befuddled. Or just plain old confused.

Alfred he understood, of course. Even if the two of them had barely spoken since Damian got whisked away to the Kent’s, Alfred had always been one to remember things. And despite their relationship’s rocky start, Alfred had always been someone stable and supportive in his life. So, actually, he thought himself stupid for not realizing Alfred would actually remember.

It was the rest of these people that startled him.

He’d felt off kilter ever since he’d answered the door, an hour before, at Jon’s insistence that “it’s for you, D.”

Which, that was just annoying. The x-ray vision. The flagrant use of powers within the privacy of the apartment. Damian wasn’t used to it. Clark and Jon just…. casually floated around, sometimes. Used heat vision to heat things up. Speed to get chores done in a blink. And x-ray vision to look at and find things.

Damian was becoming progressively more amused by the exasperated glances Lois shot him, though, whenever one of them forgot that the rest of them couldn’t just look through the fridge door to see how many eggs were left.

It usually made him grin, actually. And he’d caught himself giving her the same look, a few times.

When Damian opened the door, however, he kind of wished he did have x-ray vision. Just so he could have had those precious few seconds to prepare himself.

Because on the other side of the door was Tim Drake. Just standing there. Holding a neatly wrapped gift with a card on top, and surrounded by all those people.

“Uhh,” Damian had stammered, a horrid habit he’d acquired from Jon, no doubt.

“Hey,” Tim had said, offering a lopsided grin as he pushed the gift at Damian, “Happy Birthday, gremlin. Gonna let us in?”

So Damian did, and it’d been a literal party ever since.

Which was what was so bewildering.

He’d never had a birthday party before.

Not like this.

They had cake and ice cream, as a group, and suddenly it made sense why Lois and Clark had made such a large cake. Before Damian was allowed to blow out his candles, he had to listen to the group sing him a ridiculous song, and it made him nostalgic for that first birthday he'd had away from the League.

Back when it was just him and Grayson and Alfred.

Grayson had sung this same song, all off key and squeaky, entirely on purpose, just to annoy Damian. But it’d been that gentle teasing, The kind Damian had come to associate with Dick Grayson. The kind that made him ache for his older brother, wishing beyond hope that the man would just hit his head and suddenly remember everything. Even though he knew that was not how brain injuries worked.

But just as the song had done on his 11th birthday, it made Damian feel warm inside on his 14th. It filled, just a little, that empty spot in his chest. The one that so often burned, with a soft almost…. happiness he had a difficult time describing. But damn was he going to cry again today. Especially not in front of all these people.

It was one thing to cry in front of the Kents, but like hell would he make such a mistake in front of the Bats.

“Clark,” Damian asked, once everyone had finished their cake and Clark and Lois were gathering the plates to wash, so they could ‘open presents,’ as Jon had shouted so enthusiastically. Brat probably knew whatever Damian got would be stored in their room, and therefore was basically his, too.

At least, that had been his reasoning, a few weeks back, when Damian caught Jon using his nice markers to draw the most horrific drawing of his dad he’d ever laid eyes on. ‘A school project,’ he had said, ‘we have to draw our favorite superhero.’ Damian had just scoffed and criticized both his misuse of the expensive Copics, as well as his predictable selection of his own father as his favorite superhero.

‘Isn’t Batman your favorite,’ Jon had said, to which Damian scoffed, ‘Yes, but Bruce Wayne is not.’ It had effectively shut Jon up. And relaying the price of each marker had also caused Jon to hand them back over, not wanting to replace any by ruining them.

“Yeah, bud?” Clark asked, smiling as he rinsed off each plate at lightning speed, even while he spoke to Damian. They were alone in the kitchen, and even though it was an open concept apartment, the group was being loud enough that Damian was confident in their privacy.

“Did you invite everyone?” he asked, resisting the urge to look away or pull his hood up. He hated his tells, and he tried his best not to show them.

“No,” Clark said easily, now drying the dishes off and putting them away in the cabinets. Why have a dishwasher when you have a Clark, Lois always said. “Tim did, actually. This entire party was his idea.”

“Tim Drake,” Damian asked incredulously. Because that made no sense. Damian had just been curious whether he should thank the Kents or Alfred for the party. It had never even crossed his mind that Tim might be the culprit.

Because what the hell??

“Is there more than one Tim?” Clark asked, clearly amused, now just leaning back against the sink to chat.

Well, yes, there was more than one Tim, Damian thought, but it was true that he didn’t personally know another Tim. It’s just, never in a million years would he have expected Tim Drake to be the one to do something so…. thoughtful. To be the reason Damian felt at peace for once, in a world without Dick Grayson, that is. And without Father around.

“But… Tim hates me?” Damian whispered, failing to prevent his shock from showing on his face, “Why would he….”

When Damian trailed off, Clark just frowned. “I don’t know what all has gone down between you two,” Clark said slowly but softly. In that same tone he always used when comforting Damian. He kind of hated that he liked it so much. “But I can tell you this: He does not hate you. I’d venture to say he actually loves you.”

All Damian could do was shake his head. Because no. No no no no no. That wasn’t right.

That couldn’t be right.

Tim Drake did not love Damian. Tim was the one who always rolled his eyes whenever Damian started speaking at family meetings. He was the one who groaned whenever Damian crashed one of his cases. When he had to team up with the Teen Titans, and Damian was there. When Father assigned them to patrol together. When he just remembered Damian existed, in general.

And it’s not like Damian didn’t deserve it. He realized, now, how wrongly he had treated his ‘brother’ from the beginning. Pushing him off the dinosaur had been unforgivable, he now knew. The fact Tim even tolerated him enough to simply groan and roll his eyes at his presence was more than Damian deserved, after breaking so many of his bones for no good reason.

So, no, Tim Drake did not love Damian. It was impossible. If their roles were reversed, Damian would never forgive Tim. Ever. Would be glad to be rid of him after this whole thing went down between Father and the rest of them, pulling Damian out of Gotham and Tim away from Father.

“Damian,” Clark said, wrapping his arm around Damian’s shoulders and pulling him in a little, “whatever is going around in that head of yours is wrong, okay? Tim cares about you, pal. Otherwise he wouldn’t have reached out weeks ago to make these plans. All those people over there care about you. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t, okay?”

Resting the side of his head against Clark for a second, the only acceptance of the half hug he’d show, Damian looked at the group of people sitting in the living room, carrying on and laughing about whatever dumb thing Jason had just said.

Steph noticed he was staring, and she smiled brightly and called, “Come on, birthday boy. Come open your presents, and be prepared to be amazed by my awesome gift. Everything else on this table pales in comparison, I promise.”

“Shut up,” Jason said, tossing a chip at her for the comment, “I’ll have you know my gift is very thoughtful and incredible. The demon will cry I tell you. Cry.”

“Pfft,” Tim said loudly, “Mine’s the best. Kon already confirmed it.”

“That’s cheating,” Steph screeched, “You can’t use powers like that!”

It just devolved into chaos from there, as the lot of them continued arguing. Clark squeezed Damian’s shoulder and said, “Go on. I don’t think they’ll stop until you open them all and declare a winner.”

“Tt,” Damian huffed, even though he was smiling a little, “it is not proper to play favorites with gifts. It is the thought that counts, I have been told.”

“There’s the Alfred in you,” Clark said fondly, pushing Damian toward the living room.

The gifts were all incredible. Well, some more-so than others. Jason got him a gift card to one of the local art supply chains, as well as a copy of one of his favorite books. Alfred got him a set of teas, all of his favorites from when he was living in the manor. Steph got him a cartoon-style Robin figure, which was just insulting and kind of hilarious.

But when Damian opened Tim’s gift, he make sure to pay attention to his brother’s face, without making it obvious he was doing so. Tim’s expressions were carefully blank, but Damian could tell he was doing that to cover up for anxiety and excitement for whatever he had gotten Damian. And once the item was fully unwrapped, all Damian could do was gawk.

Because in Damian’s hands was a set of extremely rare natural pigments. He actually hadn’t even heard of half of the pigment sources, that was how obscure they were. But they were some of the most vibrant colors he’d ever seen. Bright purple, rich orange, dark blue, deep red, just to name a few of the colors he saw.

They were…. incredible.

He actually could not wait to mix some of them up and try them out.

“I got them in the gem world,” Tim explained, “a lot of those are made from materials not found on earth.”

When Damian realized what that confession meant, he almost did cry. Because at some point, months ago, before this entire fiasco had even begun, Tim Drake had seen a set of pigments while stranded in another dimension and thought ‘hey, Damian would like those,’ and then got them. Stored them away and waited for his birthday, and then planned an entire party when he realized the Bats were not doing one.

Just that realization threatened to set him over the edge again, but instead he just smiled.

He smiled and started to think that, yeah. Maybe Tim didn’t hate him.

Damian definitely didn’t hate Tim.

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vivilove-jonsa · 5 years

Note

Prompt: I suppose I shall have to keep you warm then. (me: *waggles eyebrows*)

Thank you @kitten1618x for the dialogue prompt and I hope you’ll enjoy it!

I am still doing these but it might take me a bit do them. Feel free to drop me a line of dialogue in my inbox.

This one is Canon AU of King Jon visiting the Vale and meeting Alayne Stone. It got longer than planned but I was having such fun with it :)

***

“Jon would never harm me.”

“How can you know that, sweetling? Years have passed since you last saw one another. You’re not the girl you were when you left Winterfell no more than he is the boy you knew…and I wasn’t aware you were ever that close to begin with.”

Those final words had stung though she’d been forced to acknowledge the truth of them. They had never been all that close though she’d thought of him fondly on the rare occasions she’d thought of Jon Snow at all after they’d parted.

He’s certainly no longer the boy she’d grown up. Once her bastard half-brother, she’s learned he is her cousin, the son of her aunt by Rhaegar Targaryen. And he’s not a man of the Nights Watch anymore. He’s a king now, seeking men and aid from the Vale for some coming war.

Of course, she’s no longer the girl he’d known exactly. Sansa Stark is wanted for the murder of another king. She’s currently missing and presumed dead by many. Alayne Stone is the bastard daughter of Lord Baelish who’s hosting the newly chosen King in the North in the Vale for a moon.

Littlefinger was not pleased to learn of Jon’s ascendancy. It had ruined some scheme of his but he’s already thinking of a new plan, ways he can use this to work to his advantage…and ways he can use her, she knows.

“Keep your distance until I say otherwise,” he’s told her.

But she can’t. She’s eager to see him, longing for a familiar face from the past and hoping he might help her return home again.

In the hall when the king and his small retinue arrives, her tummy’s twisted in knots and she wrings her hands so sure that at any moment their eyes will meet and he’ll recognize her.

She can almost picture it like something out of a story of the true knight finding the lost maiden. Things will grow hushed and she’ll smile at him with the hope that’s never quite left her. He’ll blink a few times and be convinced he’s seeing things until he sees her smile. Then, he’ll close the distance between them, pull her into his arms and she’ll know she’s truly safe at last.

But none of that happens.

Admittedly, he does look different but if anything, he favors Ned Stark more than ever. It makes her heart thud dully. He’s dressed in Northern furs and cloak wearing a beard. His eyes roam the hall. She detects a subtle wariness in them.

He’s startingly handsome, she decides. Her cousin Jon is very handsome. Why is that so strange? And why does it cause an unexpected and simultaneous tightening and an unfurling within her?

She must look different as well. She’s no longer a girl with stars in her eyes. She keeps her true feelings closely guarded these days and plays the role she must depending upon the company.

She’s a maiden flowered, a woman fit to be wedded and bedded. She was wedded once upon a time but she remains mercifully un-bedded for now.

She also has dark brown hair, not the auburn he’d remember.

He doesn’t remember her at all as it turns out.

When her name is spoken by the knight making introductions, she sees Jon’s head raise momentarily but then his eyes seem to slide over her before he’s back to speaking of his purpose in coming. Dead men walking. The Others being real. An army of the dead seeking their way into the lands south of the Wall with an evil aim. It sounds so fantastical and not at all like the sort of story she likes.

She’s hurt that he didn’t recognize her. But more than that, she’s hurt he didn’t give her a second glance. She’s more than hurt. She’s offended. Oddly enough, it’s not about them being long, lost family to each other. There’s a different feel to it. Alayne Stone is reputed to be a great beauty. Why didn’t he look at her longer or with more interest like most men do?

For a fortnight, she nurses her disappointment and uncalled for resentment. She’s kept mostly out of sight by the machinations of Baelish although they have caught sight of each other a few times. Actually, she’s noticed Jon looking her way more than once when he’s seated at the head table and she’s tucked down nearer the salt. It pleases her that she’s drawn his eye in one sense at least.

But they’ve not been close enough to speak and neither of them is ever alone when they’re in the same room.

No longer able to tolerate these circumstances, she’s decided upon a bolder course tonight.

Jon didn’t recognize her initially but who could blame him? He’s very preoccupied by this army of the dead business and he’s not been close enough to have a good look at her since then. She must have a moment alone with him and then he’ll see.

Balancing the tray of hot soup in one arm, she knocks upon the door of his chambers, hoping he will be alone.

She hears him beckon her to enter. He’s hunched over a table that’s covered with maps and such when she does but he turns to see who it is.

“Lady Alayne,” he says, bowing his head.

She dips into a curtsy, graceful despite her laden arms. She wants to speak but can’t find her voice.

He seems very puzzled by her appearance. And, in his eyes, there’s something. Not recognition though. It’s respectful but she sees it. He’s looking at her as a man looks at a beautiful woman. And why does that please her so?

“Is that for me?” he asks, noticing the bowl.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“I did not call for anything.”

“It’s cold tonight and I thought you might…” She’s fumbling. Why is she not telling him who she is?

“Ah. I don’t believe we’ve had a chance to speak to one another yet, have we?”

“No, Your Grace. I’ve wanted to speak with you but...”

Why can I not say what I wanted to say?

Because I want him to recognize me on his own…or I want something else entirely.

Her cheeks flush at the thought. He must notice. He chuckles and the deep, raspy sound of them nearly makes her quiver where she stands. It’s so wicked but delightful, too.

“You don’t have to call me that, not all the time at least. I’m not overly fond of it. I was nothing but a bastard until not so long ago.”

“And Lord Commander of the Nights Watch. I wouldn’t call that nothing.”

“Well, yes.”

He grimaces and she wishes she’d bit her tongue. Could he have really been murdered and brought back like the whispers she’s heard? She wants to know. She wants to know so many things. She also wants things from him she never expected. What’s gotten into her?

“Bastards can rise high in the Watch,” he murmurs mostly to himself.

“Well, girls can’t join the Watch but I wouldn’t call myself nothing, bastard though I am.”

He shakes his head, his momentary private reflections dismissed. “You mistake me, my lady. I didn’t mean to insult you. You’re a beautiful and charming young lady from all I’ve seen and I’m just...”

“You’re what?” she asks eagerly when he fails to finish. Too eagerly perhaps.

His eyes narrow as he looks at her. Her heart starts to pound. He’s really looking at her now. He’s sure to notice her eyes or something.

His mouth starts to work and she can barely comprehend his words because she’s longing to throw herself into his arms…and maybe kiss his neck.

“Have we ever met, my lady?”

“No, Your Grace.” What is wrong with her?! Why is she lying?! Tell him!

But all those years of caution, all the lies are so ingrained and there’s this new layer of confusion over what she feels when she looks at him now. What is this?

“Oh, well, you may leave the soup there.” He turns back to his maps and takes a seat. She’s been dismissed and she finds herself growing irritated. No, more than irritated. She’s furious.

Frustrated, she places the tray down more roughly than intended and he looks up at her sharply. She’d like to shout at him. She wants to scream ‘It’s me! I’m Sansa, you stupid!’ but all those courtesies are deeply ingrained as well.

“Jon, I must confess I did come here tonight with a purpose…”

A smirk appears and there’s a touch of something dangerous in his eyes. “From Your Grace to Jon already, is it? I’ve been warned of Lord Baelish and his tactics but his own daughter?” He tries to look disgusted. He doesn’t quite manage it.

“Are you suggesting…”

“Tell me, my lady, is that soup, the soup which I did not ask for, meant to warm me tonight or are you?”

Her mouth falls open in shock. She can’t believe Jon would say such a thing to her. She can’t believe she’s actually willing to consider…

“Warm you?” she repeats, trying to figure out how to fix this terrible misunderstanding. Would it be so terrible though?

“Yes, it is awfully cold in here. I could use a bowl of hot soup or perhaps a willing wench to warm me.”

He pats his thigh meaningfully. Her breath hitches when she walks over to obey as if she’s in a trance.

But something warns her she’s being toyed with. He’s leery of Littlefinger as he should be. He has no intentions of bedding his host’s bastard daughter though the way he licks his lips suggests part of him would certainly like to. This is a little game of sorts he’s playing, she realizes. He’s testing her, maybe thinking she’ll run away crying or make a fool of herself in some other manner. She’s familiar with games.

“You’re right. It is awfully cold,” she says, low and sultry, when she sits in his lap.

His bravado slips quite suddenly. His lips part and his eyes widen as she strokes his beard, allowing her fingernails to tease the flesh underneath. Then, she takes one of his hands in hers and draws it up to her face, allowing him to stroke the smoothness of her own cheek. He’s panting before he manages to draw it away.

“It is, uh...cold,” he gulps.

Maybe he had only meant to send her scurrying off but there’s a little war going on inside his head now. She’s not fled and he’s trying to decide if he truly wants her to. He’s woefully unskilled at these games. He needs a lesson. She could almost laugh that she’ll be the one to give it to him.

And so, she does laugh the next moment when she rises quickly and tells him, “I suppose I shall have to keep you warm then, Your Grace,” just before she pours the hot soup in his lap.

But her laughter dies when he looks up in complete astonishment from his soaked breeches, tilts his head to the side and breathes a name. “Sansa?”

#jon x sansa #jonsa #jonsa fanfiction #canon au #king jon x alayne #kitten1618x #dialogue prompts

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eliasbouchardisarobloxthot · 4 years

Text

you keep your socks on in bed

i wrote more fic! this is jonmartin, au where Everything Is Fine, contains mild spoilers for s3 and s4 but nothing plot-related or major. it’s very soft and fluffy and contains gratuitous descriptions of minuscule details about the apartment jon and martin share. also they’re both trans

The flat is small. One bedroom, one bathroom, half a kitchen, and a room that was probably meant to be a closet that they've converted into a makeshift recording studio for Jon. There's an empty corner in the kitchen where a table might fit if they really pushed it in close, and another empty corner that's big enough for a couch.

The bedframe is cold metal, bought from a local Ikea and put together with great difficulty even after Jon used the power of the Eye to read the instructions. Their mattress is used—a gift from Georgie after a sponsorship—and their sheets are brand new, ordered online. Martin had insisted on ordering a novelty bedspread, one with cats and a galaxy print, and Jon hadn't protested, so their bedspread currently features a very dramatic-looking cat staring up at a planet orbiting above it. The pillowcases match, two cats wearing astronaut suits gracing their pillows with their helmeted heads.

The walls are mostly bare, aside from a large abstract painting bought secondhand from a thrift store. It's vaguely orange, with a blue circle beneath it that Martin said looked like a blueberry—which was, of course, why they'd bought it. Jon has absolutely no taste in art, so he hadn't protested when Martin had taken the lead and bought everything he liked. Besides, the whole store was quite cheap, and he didn't mind if Martin wanted to decorate.

Their kitchen, too, features some abstract art. Something that vaguely resembles bread, arranged in aesthetically pleasing uneven lines. The table crammed into the corner has a secondhand wooden napkin holder in the center that reads "Bless This Mess" in curling white cursive. Jon still laughs at it whenever he sees it. Martin insists that it's "homey", though they do usually agree that it is quite cheesy.

Martin's poetry collection is stacked up in one corner of the living room, boxed up neatly and lovingly. They're each painstakingly labeled in slightly smudged pen, the same handwriting that labels most of the other tapes in the house—though those tapes have dates and statement numbers, and these have titles with tiny hearts filling wherever there's an empty space. The boxes themselves are labeled by year, again in the same handwriting, neatly arranged in the corner by the couch.

The couch itself is dark red corduroy, secondhand from the same thrift shop where they’d discovered the kitschy napkin holder and the bread painting. It’s missing a button from the decorative buttons on the arms of the couch, and the bottom looks like it’s been chewed by several different varieties of tooth, but it was cheap and it fit, so it was perfect. Martin’s decorative style could generously be described as “eclectic”, and so their apartment looks like it’s been decorated by a grandmother with a penchant for keeping absolutely everything.

One of the pillows appears to be made by hand, cross-stitched with a gorgeous picture of bluebirds on a tree. The pillow itself is white with tassels, and sits comfortably on the couch where it can easily be picked up for impromptu pillow fights or tossed aside to make room for cuddling. The other two pillows are from a matching set, which would be perfect if not for the fact that they match nothing else in the house. They’re magenta and teal and covered in slightly matted faux-fur, and most likely belonged to a middle schooler with a penchant for bedazzling things, if the rhinestones along the side of the pillows are anything to go by.

The blankets they’ve piled up on the couch do not match anything—not the couch, not the pillows, not even the terrible curtains they’d put up. One is all black and crocheted, and one reads “THIS IS MY HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIE WATCHING BLANKET” in all capitals. It was on clearance, and the whole way to the checkout Jon made jokes about how awful it was to sell this for such a low price, how undervalued this poor blanket was. Martin had just rolled his eyes and sighed, but though neither of them would admit it, the terrible blanket had somewhat grown on them.

Moving in had taken them nearly a full week and the help of Georgie and Melanie—with some additional comments on how ‘even though I’m blind, I can still tell this apartment looks like shit” from Melanie. They didn’t spend a night in their new apartment until everything was fully moved in, and when they finally did they were too excited to sleep. Jon had scoffed at this at first, saying something about how they were just like kids at a sleepover, but the realization that he and Martin were finally, really, actually living together struck him as soon as he had, and it had taken him far longer to get to sleep than he will ever readily admit.

He wakes up first. Not from nightmares, which surprises him greatly. He actually feels well-rested, too, which surprises him even more. And then he rolls over in bed and his face is centimeters away from Martin’s and he can feel his heart skip a beat because oh god, they’re really doing this, they’re really living together.

Leaning in, he presses his forehead to Martin’s. It’s early enough that he’s still sleeping, so Jon can curl up as close as he likes without having to worry about the gentle teasing he would otherwise get.

Jon’s hand finds its way around Martin’s waist and he nestles into the blankets with a soft sigh. Though the apartment is a disaster and he’s a disaster and life is a disaster, there is still a sense of calm in this, in a morning undisturbed by anything other than the gentle sound of cars whooshing by outside and the rhythm of Martin’s chest rising and falling, his heartbeat steady against Jon’s.

He stares up at Martin until he feels like he’s nearly going to cry, because god he loves him so much, and then he only looks away for a moment before he returns to gazing up at him. Without his glasses, Martin is hazy, and Jon reaches over to find his glasses before he starts to think too hard about what that means to him. Glasses on, and Martin is in focus once again, and though Jon knows it’s ridiculous, he actually breathes a sigh of relief.

The blankets shift, and Martin wakes, blinking the sleep from his eyes and smiling as soon as he sees Jon.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he murmurs quietly. “You sleep well?”

Jon nods, leaning up to give him a kiss. “Your hair’s a mess,” he says, ruffling the sleep-flattened curls that are sticking up on the side of Martin’s head.

“So’s yours,” Martin replies, sitting up and climbing out of bed. “I’m going to go make us some tea, alright? We can go get breakfast if you’d like, too.”

“Yeah. Just… let’s stay in a little while longer. Just give me a minute.”

Martin nods, leaving to start making them tea. From the bedroom Jon can hear him in the kitchen, the teakettle clattering against the stove as he places it down, the hiss of the burner, the bubbling of water, the clink of the spoon against the sides of the mugs as he stirs. There’s something magical, Jon thinks, about the honey-golden light filtering in through the bedroom window, the city waking up, the quiet of a weekend morning. There’s something magical about being in the same apartment, sharing a space, waking up side by side in a place that’s theirs and only theirs.

He gets up, throwing on a cardigan over his pajamas, and walks into the kitchen. There are two mugs of tea sitting out on the counter, and Martin’s adding sugar to his as steam rises from them.

“Jon!” He turns around, beaming as if it hasn’t been literally two minutes since they’ve last seen each other, and Jon can feel his heart melting. “I made tea!”

Jon takes a mug and sits down at the table, smiling softly. “I noticed.”

They sit in silence for a moment as Martin finishes up with his tea and joins Jon at the table, running his fingertip along the edge of the mug as he thinks. A car horn honks, but it sounds distant—like they’re somehow separate from it, on another plane of existence altogether.

“It’s nice,” Martin says. “This. Having a home with you.”

“Yeah.” Jon can’t think of anything else to say, because it is nice. There are other things, but how can he say that he loves the way that nothing matches, the way Martin always looks so happy when he sees the boxes of cassette tapes Jon organized, the stupid napkin holder and the awful throw pillows and the ridiculous space cat pillowcases? How can he describe in words the way that it makes him feel to know that it’s their stupid napkin holder, their awful through pillows, their ridiculous space cat pillowcases—the way that it makes him feel to know that they’re together?

He doesn’t have to say it. Martin reaches across the table, like he knows what Jon’s thinking and agrees, and takes his hand with careful affection.

“I love you,” Jon says under his breath, the very act of saying it curling his mouth into a soft smile.

“I love you, too,” Martin replies, brushing his thumb over the ring Jon wears on his right middle finger, turning it gently. A small, quick reminder that he’s there, present and solid and real, and Jon could cry from just this simple thing. It’s not uncommon—Martin does this nearly every time they hold hands—but now it feels different. Like he’s promising something, promising to stay here with Jon, promising to love him no matter what.

The morning draws on, and they get dressed. It’s intricate, the way they somehow already seem to anticipate the other person’s routine and make accommodations for it. Jon somehow knows the order Martin does things in, the way he takes a moment to fix his hair before putting on his shirt and then fixing it again. Martin can somehow tell what Jon’s going to do, can somehow hand Jon the right bottle at the right time when he’s finished shaving. They fit into each other perfectly.

As Jon struggles into his binder, Martin puts a hand on his shoulder and gently helps him into it. A tiny gesture. Nonetheless, it’s comforting, and strangely meaningful.

“You ready to go?” Martin’s voice is blocked by the wall as Jon looks through his shirts.

“Just a sec.” He finishes getting dressed, then heads out into the main room. “Where are we headed?”

“There’s this coffeeshop and cafe that I saw on my way here yesterday—looked really cute. I think it’s open this early, we could go get something to eat there and then maybe let everyone know we finished moving in? If you want we could do a little housewarming party, I feel like that’s fun.”

“Yeah. That sounds nice.”

And with that, they start off from their new home.

#text #original work #fanfiction #jonmartin

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haberdashing · 4 years

Text

Another Archive

The Magnus Archives fic. Jon gains an unexpected wealth of information while at the safehouse with Martin. Written for International Fanworks Day 2020.

on AO3

It was a nice enough morning in Scotland, given that the world had ended a few days beforehand.

Jon and Martin were together at the safehouse still, trying to piece together what had happened and what could be done about it. It was dangerous out there, that much was clear, and they were staying put for the time being while they developed a plan, or at least figured out what they’d need in order to develop a proper plan that wouldn’t just get them both killed.

Jon blamed himself for it, Martin knew he did, and none of Martin’s reassurances to the contrary, reassurances that the only one responsible for the hellscape that surrounded them was Jonah Magnus himself, seemed to make a difference.

Perhaps that was because Martin himself didn’t entirely believe his own words. He didn’t blame Jon, that much was true, but... but he blamed himself.

He hadn’t been there when it had happened, sure, but that was the problem. Perhaps if he had stayed there and listened to Jon record his first statement of the pile, he would have noticed that something was amiss. Perhaps Martin could have taken the action that Jon couldn’t--Jon had explained that bit, over and over again, how he couldn’t stop reading the statement even once its true nature was clear. If Martin had grabbed that piece of paper and burned it before Jon could read it to the end... well, he wasn’t sure what exactly would have happened, but it had to be better than this.

He should have been there. He should have tried.

But it was far too late for that now, of course...

But it might have been those memories, and those regrets of things left untried, that made a half-awake Martin spring into action when he woke up to see Jon frantically scribbling God-knows-what onto various pieces of paper.

“Jon?”

Jon didn’t react to Martin calling his name, or to Martin scrambling out of bed and over to near where Jon was seated at the kitchen table. Dozens of pieces of paper surrounded him, most with at least some markings on them already. Martin picked one up at random and saw that while some of it was written in regular English--and mentioned Martin’s own name, a fact that made his stomach lurch--some was in what seemed to be a shorthand Martin didn’t know how to decode, and even more was in what looked to be multiple distinct languages aside from English.

How long had Jon been doing this? How long had Martin been asleep while Jon had been up doing... whatever this was?

“Jon, what are you doing?”

Martin wasn’t terribly surprised to find that Jon didn’t respond to that question, either. Jon’s eyes had an unnatural gleam to them, one Martin knew the meaning of well enough by now, and as he started to write something more in--was that Chinese?--Martin decided that he would put an end to it.

There was no clear source for Jon’s writing, no paper to throw into the fire like he had dreamed of doing a number of times now, but Martin snatched the pen out of Jon’s hand and snapped it in two, trying not to let the plastic bits jabbing his skin or the black ink now covering his hands bother him unduly. There were more important things at hand.

Jon extended one hand towards the next nearest writing utensil, a pencil that was halfway across the table from him, but Martin pushed the pencil out of arm’s reach, making sure his face was in Jon’s line of sight as he did so.

“Jon!”

Martin’s voice was distinctly louder than before--not quite a yell, not yet, though he would get there if need be.

Further escalation proved unnecessary, though, as Jon blinked a few times in rapid succession, and that unnatural gleam faded from his eyes, leaving... well, leaving just Jon.

“Martin?”

“What is all of this?” Martin gestured towards the kitchen table, cluttered with paper, on which Jon had clearly written something.

“Right. That.” Jon let out a dark laugh without much humor in it. “It’s, uh, a bit of a long story-”

Martin sighed softly as he asked, trying to keep his voice filled more with concern than with frustration, “And is any of that long story going to get us all killed?”

“No! No, it can’t, none of it’s real...” Jon laughed again as he added, “Though I’m not sure any of this is real now, either...”

Jon made a vague, sweeping hand gesture as he finished that last statement, and Martin tried to fill in the blanks. Clearly Jon Knew something that he hadn’t before this morning, that much was clear, but... how could you Know something that wasn’t real in the first place? And while it was possible that his newfound knowledge was what was leading him to question the state of reality, there were also a number of other potential causes for such questioning, both natural and supernatural in origin...

Martin tried to sound more upbeat and confident than he felt as he said, “How about you go over what it is you’ve been writing down, and we figure out the state of reality from there, hmm?”

“Alright. Though when I said it was a long story--really it’s a lot of stories, and some of them are quite long indeed-”

“Start from the beginning, then?”

“I’m not sure there’s a beginning to start from...” Jon sighed and pressed one hand against his temple, but as Martin internally debated the pros and cons of pushing him further, Jon kept speaking.

“I’m being literal, when I call them stories, that’s the thing. Stories about us, about the Institute, the Archives... I woke up this morning with... hundreds, maybe thousands of them, all fresh in my mind, all practically begging to be written down.”

“And so you did?” Martin said, gesturing to the pile of papers.

“...and so I did, yes. But the strangest part is, some of them--most of them, really--they... they aren’t true, they aren’t real, they never happened. Office parties the Institute never held, New Years’ parties the archive staff never actually attended... and you never had a Lord of the Rings movie marathon with Tim, now, did you?”

It took Martin a moment to realize the question was being directed towards him. “Er, no. No, I didn’t.”

Martin wondered what that story was like, if he should have watched Lord of the Rings with Tim back when he had the chance, how things might have been different if he had made that one small move.

A hint of a smile appeared on Jon’s face as he asked, “I’m curious, now, do you actually know Elvish?”

Martin could feel his face heat up. “Well, Elvish isn’t actually the technical term for--yes. Yes, I taught myself Elvish.” A thought occurred to Martin, and when he next spoke, he spoke not in English but in Sindarin. (It was probably slightly rusty, but years of teaching yourself a language, fictional or not, don’t just wear off overnight.) “What about you?”

Jon blinked twice in a row, and Martin thought he spied a hint of that gleam in his eyes as he replied, also in Sindarin, “Apparently so.”

The gleam faded from Jon’s eyes once more as he looked over the papers, though not focusing on any one in particular, his voice in English once more when next he spoke.

“So perhaps there are snippets of truth in these stories, at least. Alternate universes, perhaps, worlds in which things went differently... I don’t know.”

Jon cleared his throat, clearly more to make a point than because anything was actually lodged within it.

“But what I do know is that I’ve never... been with...” Jon’s tone of voice and facial expression grew more and more uncomfortable as he kept listing off names. “Tim, Gerry, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, Peter Lukas, Elias, or... or Mr. Spider.”

Martin laughed a little before seeing the somber and disturbed expression on Jon’s face, his laughter dying in an instant.

“Is there really-”

“Yes.” Jon took a deep breath before speaking further, and Martin could see that he was shaking slightly. “Maybe it’s not alternate universes, because I refuse to believe that- that in any universe, I would-”

“What about us?”

Jon blinked with surprise, and his shaking settled down a bit. “What?”

Martin gently set his hand, still ink-stained, atop Jon’s, glad to see that Jon didn’t draw away from the contact. “Are any of these stories about the two of us being together?”

“Oh. Yes, quite a few of them.” Jon’s hand squeezed Martin’s softly as he added, “I just figured that went without saying.”

Martin shot Jon a weak smile. “It’s good to hear just the same, though.”

“Some of these stories even take place in the future--perhaps our future, but probably not, given the evidence. There’s tales of us going to London and killing Elias, or- or traveling back in time using Helen’s hallways--can she even do that?”

Martin sheepishly smiled as he said softly, “You’re asking the wrong person there.”

“But the thing is...” Jon took another deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing. “...all these stories, no matter how wrong, how far-fetched... they all feel real to me, somehow. They seem as real as... as this moment right here.”

Martin’s weak smile faded away as he processed the implications of Jon’s statement. “I... I see.”

“So does that mean none of this is real, then? Are we just a-an overwrought work of fiction? Is this just another story?”

Martin felt something wet touch his hand. He looked down to see that it was a single teardrop, its fall smudging the ink stain covering his hand, and looked up to see that Jon was quietly crying.

“And if so... then what does that make us?”

Martin wiped the tears from Jon’s eyes, stifling a snort as he saw the black mark his hand left in its wake.

“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”

Jon’s tears slowed, though they didn’t quite stop, as he made eye contact with Martin.

“Where’s that from?”

“What, you think I couldn’t come up with that all by myself?”

“I- I didn’t mean-”

“It’s from Doctor Who, Jon.” Martin laughed a little, both at his own joke and at the look on Jon’s face when he realized Martin had been messing with him.

“Say, in all those stories, are there any where we get to meet the Doctor? Go off in the TARDIS, explore all of space and time?”

The trickle of tears down Jon’s cheek finally slowed to a stop as he considered Martin’s question.

“I’m not sure off-hand, actually. Let me think...”

#ifdrabble #international fanworks day 2020 #tma fic #tma fanfic #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #ao3 #personal #my writing #the specifics referenced here do reference specific actual fics #if you think you recognize a fic you probably do #and that list? all of those are actual slash tags on ao3 #yes including the last one #i didn't make that a relationship tag on ao3 don't blame ME

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orangeflavoryawp · 4 years

Text

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 7

Whew. Alright. Been building to this for a while now. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

“A Violence Done Most Kindly”

“Freedom means no collar. It’s what Jon gave the North. It’s what he gave her. And she will not squander it anymore. She deserves this, she realizes finally. She thinks maybe she always had.” - Jon and Sansa. Stark is a house of many winters.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 fin

* * *

“I don’t like it,” Jon says gruffly, arms crossed as he looks down at Bran.

Bran offers a humoring smile. “There’s something I must do, Jon.”

Sansa shakes her head, leaning down to place a hand at his armrest. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

The smile wilts easily, his somber face turning to Sansa. “But I do.” There is no room for argument. Sansa pulls her hand from him with a quiet hurt.

Bran tells them that any room will suffice, so long as he is alone, but as he looks about Sansa’s chambers – their parents’ chambers – she swears she sees a flicker of something etch across his face, his throat tightening when he swallows, lips pursed. It is gone instantly. He clears his throat. “This will do.”

Arya scoffs. “You were always so stubborn.”

He blinks up at her, and that shadow passes over his face again. Instant and irretrievable.

Sansa narrows her eyes at him, a slow-pooling dread lighting in her stomach.

“Then indulge my stubbornness a while longer,” he says, glancing between the three of them.

“Bran, you can’t just – ”

“Do you want to defeat the dead?”

None of them answer. But their silence is enough.

Bran sighs, nodding. “Then you must leave me.” He looks to Jon then, eyes intent. “And when it is time, you will come for me.”

Jon blinks at him, brows furrowed. His arms slip from over his chest. “Bran…”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Sansa sighs, wringing her hands together. Arya scowls beside her.

After many moments of silence, the air stilted and heavy between them, Sansa hears Jon sigh on the other side of Arya. “You haven’t been wrong thus far.” Another sigh, a hand raked through his curls. “I don’t like it, Bran, I don’t, but – but I’m going to trust you one more time.” His eyes soften, mouth thinning into a tight line. “I’m going to trust you,” he tells him, voice catching.

Sansa watches Bran’s mouth open, and then slowly – so slowly – he closes it without words. Something about the hesitancy throws her, jars something in her, that pool of dread rippling out. “Bran,” she begins.

She cuts herself off when Jon leans forward suddenly, hand braced to the back of Bran’s head, lips pressed fervently to his forehead. He releases him with a heavy exhale, blinking back the sudden wetness, nodding just the once, and then turning and stalking from the room, never granting her a glance. She watches him go, eyes lingering along the familiar furs lining his shoulders. Her chest tightens without warning,

“You always had the stupidest ideas when we were younger,” Arya says dryly. “I guess some things don’t change.”

Her sister’s voice draws her attention back to them.

“I’ll be safe here. It’s the heart of the castle. And you won’t let a single wight past you.”

Arya lifts her chin, but Sansa can see the minute tightening of her jaw, the quiver she clamps down on. “Bloody right,” she says on a dark laugh, even as her voice cracks.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Sansa says softly, her nails digging half-moons over the knuckles of her other hand.

Bran shifts his impassive gaze back to hers. “But you will,” he says evenly, a gentleness to the words she doesn’t expect – has grown used to missing in his voice.

Arya slips her hand into his, fingers clenching tightly. “I’ll keep one eye on the sky. Send your blasted ravens if you must. I’ll come for you.” She squeezes his hand, reluctantly letting go.

Bran nods, but Sansa takes it more like a pacifying gesture than any real acknowledgement of Arya’s promise.

Sansa leans down, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, sighing at his ear. “Be safe.”

“Go,” he says in answer, voice tight like she’s never heard before. Her touch stills along his back, retreating stiffly.

He does not meet her eyes when she finally pulls away.

Arya’s hand is at her elbow then, stealing her attention, and she pushes down the trepidation, swallows it back behind a poised tongue.

“I’m going to trust you.”

Sansa lets the words ground her – here in her home, here in the wolf’s den –

Here where the pack survives.

She nods – just the once, shoulders straightening. And then she lets Arya’s tug on her elbow lead her to the door. She looks back as the door closes on their little brother, and he’s so pale, suddenly, she realizes. Fine-boned and frail and worn beyond his years.

Her little brother.

She does not hear the hitch in his breath when the door finally shuts behind her.

* * *

Sansa sows. It’s the only thing that keeps her hands from shaking, the only thing she feels useful at in this moment. She’s hardly a battle-trained knight, hardly a war strategist, but she knows how to mend tunics and embroider banners and hem cloaks. She can do little, but she will not do nothing.

It may be hours until the dead finally arrive. It may be minutes. She waits for the horn with a stone in her gut, her skin prickling from something far more insidious than just cold. When the call sounds, she will descend into the crypts with the rest of the remaining refugees and untrained lords and ladies. Until then, she sows. And she waits.

Arya sits beside her, sharpening Needle into a point so fine she could split the thread at Sansa’s fingertips.

It is not how she imagined the night before the end, but she is thankful, nonetheless. Arya’s presence beside her is the only thing keeping her from crawling out of her skin.

Sansa glances out the window. It is still the dead of night, still the dark hour. She imagines dawn will break across the battle red this day, if dawn comes at all.

“What’s it feel like to be in love?”

Arya’s question is so sudden and jarring that Sansa’s hand slips and she stabs her thumb with the needle in her grip. She curses beneath her breath, bringing the blood-tipped thumb to her mouth instantly, eyes alighting along her sister.

Arya is decidedly looking away from her, eyes fixed to the slow, purposeful swipe of her whetstone along her blade, brows drawn down, half her face hidden in shadow. She doesn’t repeat herself.

Sansa hears her all the same.

Blinking abruptly, Sansa pulls her thumb from her mouth. “I’m not…I mean, we aren’t…” Her words teeter off, dying as soon as they hit air.

Because she is, she realizes suddenly – blindingly.

She is, she is, she is –

Her breath rakes from her in a single, long draw.

She’s so far in love she’s learned to wear it like a second skin – like a Northern cloak, a winter fur – draping her as close as a wolf’s pelt.

She’s slipped into it so effortlessly, or perhaps it slipped into her. Sansa can’t be sure. She only knows that somewhere along the way, somehow, someway, she’s slipped into him.

A collision she stumbled toward headlong – willfully and unrepentantly.

To have a word for it now – to name it – Sansa wonders how she ever missed it in the first place.

She laughs suddenly, disbelievingly, her hands dropping to her lap with a low thud. Something catches along her throat, sharp and impossible to swallow. It staggers the laugh at her lips, her eyes wet without her realizing, her lips trembling.

Arya stills her swipe of the whetstone in her hands, eyes shifting up to watch her sister, face still a dark shadow, uncertain, anxious. She draws her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Is that what we were?” Sansa chokes out, laugh faltering somewhat with the unexpected tears. “In love?” She clears her throat, a shaky, incredulous smile tugging at her lips, her hand coming up to press at her brow, head dipped low. She digs the heel of her palm into her eyes, her face crumbling beneath the cover, shaking her head fervently.

Arya sets the whetstone aside completely, staring silently at her. She doesn’t move to comfort her. She doesn’t reprimand her or console her or scold her. She does nothing but let her cry her piece, let her swallow back her delirious, tear-stained laugh, let her rub the wetness from her eyes as though it had never been, throat sore and disused and full of ruination.

Arya just lets her be. And then she smirks, something tender to her gaze, leaning back in her chair as she watches Sansa. “And here I thought you were the smart one,” she teases softly, almost hesitantly.

Sansa sighs, head tilted back to watch the ceiling. Her eyes have been wiped dry, her bruised laughter smothered at the tip of her tongue.

“I need you to choose me, too.”

Sansa frowns, the memory splashing harsh and vibrant in its immediacy. “Not when it comes to Jon, it seems,” she says.

Arya doesn’t rebuke her, and Sansa isn’t sure whether that’s a blessing or a curse. But she appreciates the silence, nonetheless. She isn’t sure she could handle more than that just yet.

Silence pervades her solar then, the snow falling thick and unending at her windowsill, the night waning on.

Sansa glances back to her hands, stares at the bead of blood along her thumb, unblinking. She tucks it back beneath her knuckles.

“I think…” Arya starts, and then doesn’t finish.

Sansa looks back up at her.

(She’d been there, she learned, when Arya finally told her – she’d been there when their father died. She’d seen the birds as they’d flown on the upward swing of the blade, and then the absence of their wings on the downward fall. But she’d not seen the tumble of his head along the steps or through the mud, and for this Sansa is grateful.

Some things should never be shared, even amongst sisters.

So she promises to keep this. She promises to keep her secret horrors. And she promises to keep her sister.)

“I think we’ve been unkind to ourselves for too long,” Arya sighs out, fingers tightening over the hilt of Needle, eyes drifting down toward the floor.

Sansa stares at her, something building in her chest she’s too wary to call need. She licks her lips and looks away, focusing on the grey stone across from them, watching the shadow of flickering candlelight as it dances across the wall. This is comfort, at least. This is safe.

Arya looks up finally, brows angled sharply down. Her eyes are wet.

Sansa looks back at her reluctantly. Silence used to be easy between them, but it’s stifling now. Her mouth parts. Her hands clench in her lap. She aches for her, she realizes – she aches and aches and aches. She’s bereft – cleanly and absolutely.

Arya’s face pinches tight, a pain etching across her features too imbedded to be temporary. “I’m tired of being unkind,” she says, voice breaking.

Sansa draws a sharp breath in, eyes riveted to her sister. “So am I.” The words find their way to her lips before she can recognize them.

She wouldn’t draw them back for the world.

Arya nods, throat tightening, mouth a thin line. Her gaze drops back down to Needle.

Sansa swallows thickly, straightening in her seat, eyes blinking back the wetness. Her hands grip at the forgotten needlework atop her lap. “Have you been in love?” she asks. Something about the words feels foreign when directed at her sister, but there’s a warmth clawing at her chest, burrowing its way between her ribs. There’s an affection there begging for use.

Arya opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. She slumps back along her chair, brows furrowing.

Just a girl, Sansa thinks. Just a girl, and just a dream, and just a wish.

(Let her sister remember the flutter of wings, she tells herself. She will remember the rest – for the both of them.)

“I’m not sure,” Ayra says, licking her lips, hand tightening over Needle’s hilt. “But I think I’d like to find out,” she says, and something like a smile teases the corner of her lips.

It’s quite possibly the most beautiful thing Sansa’s ever witnessed.

Arya looks off to the far wall then, a fond remembrance coloring her features that Sansa doesn’t think she may ever be privy to. Even still, she smiles warmly.

Arya blinks at her, a sudden realization sharpening her features. “Once all of this is over, of course. Once our family is safe.”

Sansa smiles at her, slow and beaten and fond beyond words. She reaches for her hand, curls her needle-worn fingers atop Arya’s own rough hand. “Will you leave for a time?” There is nothing accusatory in the question, nothing demanding.

Arya nods, throat tightening. “For a time,” she says. “But I’ll be back.”

Sansa retracts her hand with a lingering, affectionate pat. She nods, words stalling in her throat.

She’s only just now learned how to need her sister. She doesn’t want to learn how to lose her.

Arya’s hand shoots out, catching Sansa’s retreating touch in calloused, hesitant fingers.

They sit staring at each other for long moments.

“I’ll come back,” Arya presses, voice hitching, a fierceness to her features that stills Sansa across from her. “I’ll always come back for you, Sansa.”

She swallows the sob threatening air, lips trembling as they pull upward into a tender smile. She squeezes the hand holding her own. “And I shall always wait,” she tells her, and means it, and needs it.

Arya nods quietly, hand retreating reluctantly, eyes shifting back to her blade, to the familiar.

Sansa stays watching her little sister.

Unkind no longer, she promises herself.

The horn sounds minutes later.

* * *

Her sworn shields leave her for the battle, as she commands. They have no place in the barricaded crypts, with the rest of the common folk still left in Winterfell. From her place at the edge of the courtyard, before she must head below ground, she watches Arya’s retreat as she cuts her way through the lines of men. Brienne steps up beside her.

“My lady,” she says, and it’s a calm bit of stillness in the chaos before war.

Sansa frowns at the greeting, her eyes still trailing the back of her sister as she slowly disappears from sight. An unmanageable terror grips at her then. “Protect her,” she breathes out, suddenly trembling. She turns to Brienne, eyes wide and fixed on the other woman’s. “She is the other half of your oath – the other half of my mother’s heart.” The words come out high-pitched and strung taut, her throat dry.

Brienne’s face twists beneath the painful remembrance, her eyes drifting down. Slowly, with a tender hesitance, she reaches for Sansa’s hands in the cold, her own gloved fingers winding surely around her lady’s.

Sansa keeps her breath tight in her chest, fingers clawing at Brienne’s steady hands, an anchor in the wind, a holdfast. She blinks pleading eyes up at her. “Protect her,” she hisses out desperately.

The anguish on Brienne’s face lessens somewhat, a thumb running affectionately along Sansa’s knuckles as she looks up. She meets Sansa’s dread-filled gaze with her own hard one. “I keep my oaths, Lady Sansa,” she tells her softly, though the words do not break.

Sansa stares at her, remembering.

Remembering the shape of her in wind and shadow, when her sword had come down through the hail of snow on Ramsay’s men, splitting her pursuers into bloody, rending pieces. Remembering the ardent plea in her eye as she begged to be of service, the way her mouth formed her mother’s name in fondness and adoration. Remembering the warmth of her hands as she wrapped a fresh cloak about her shoulders, and brushed the soil from her cheek, and helped her to her saddle.

Remembering the way she had felt safe – completely and without doubt – for the first time since her father’s head rolled down those muddy steps at the Sept of Baelor.

“Yes,” Sansa says, the terror leaking from her with her slow exhale, lungs alight with a new fervency. “Yes, you do, Lady Brienne,” she agrees, a shaky smile tugging at her lips. And then she releases Brienne’s hands to throw her arms around her, surprising her sworn shield for several long moments, until she feels Brienne wrap her own arms around her, sure and promising, before they release each other in unison.

No further words are shared. Just a look. Just a last, lingering look. A respectful nod. A shimmer of unshed tears – quiet with admiration and affection. And then Brienne’s back as she turns from her, disappears into the crowd as Arya had.

Somehow, the image is comforting rather than worrying.

“This damn cold,” Brynden says suddenly at her side, startlingly her slightly as she turns to him. He’s looking at her with a fond smile, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Makes a man wish for the warmth of hearth and home, wouldn’t you say?”

Sansa smiles up at him. “I am home, Uncle.” She’s never said truer words, she finds.

Brynden nods, sniffling in the cold, pulling a long, deep breath in as he looks out along the courtyard. “That you are, sweetwater, that you are.”

She looks at him, brows dipping down, a hand going to his elbow. “Uncle.”

He looks back to her, a dismissive shake to his head. “Not to worry, my lady. Only just that this cold has made an old man of me.” He stretches his arms at the words, cracking his head left and then right. “Never felt such a creak in my bones ‘til I came this far North.”

Sansa’s lips purse, a worrying shadow passing over her face, hand more insistent at his elbow now as she tugs him to face her fully. “Uncle Brynden, I – ”

He shushes her gently, hand braced on her shoulder. “Forgive an old man the informality but listen here, Sansa.” He steadies his gaze on hers, the crinkle at the edges of his eyes fading out, his mouth settled into a terse, thin line. “I had not expected to outlive your mother – our dear Catelyn.” A heavy sigh leaves him, the name tinged in regret, his voice tight. He raises his chin, clearing his throat. “I will not outlive you.”

Her mouth opens, a faint protest at her tongue, her hand curling in the material of his sleeve when he shushes her once more, his hand moving from her shoulder to brace against the back of her head, holding her there to him. The softness lines his mouth once more, that familiar crinkle etching back along the corners of his eyes, his heavy, anxious swallow discernible from where she stands so close.

She swallows back her words, just staring at him.

He offers her a comforting smile, and then he braces his lips to her temple, his cheek pressed to her head, and she digs her hands into his tunic, holds him there against her, smelling wet stone and rivergrass and deep, still water. The kind of water she would willingly drown in.

It’s a quiet peace – the lull of the river as it holds her to its bends.

“You know, sweetwater,” he says into her hair, “Your parents would be so, so proud of you.”

She chokes back the sob.

Her parents.

Because no, not just her mother, not just the string that ties her and the Blackfish together. But her father.

Everyone always saw little Catelyn in her, but oh, to be her father’s daughter –

She hadn’t thought to need something so much as she does now.

They stand there in each other’s embrace for only a moment longer, until Brynden is clearing his throat, pulling from her, resting his hands back on her shoulders when he cocks his head toward the north wall. “Edmure needs me now.”

Sansa nods, swallowing tightly, drawing herself straight. “You do House Tully proud, as does Uncle Edmure.”

“Don’t let it get to his head now,” he jests, chucking her chin affectionately.

Sansa laughs. She laughs. And it hurts far worse than she ever imagined it could.

She lets her hands slip from him and watches him leave, just like the rest of them.

She takes a long, lingering breath in, the cold piercing her lungs, winter sinking its roots. She makes her way resolutely through the corridors and toward Winterfell’s main gate.

Jon is gathering his men in the square when Sansa finds him. She stands watching him from the edge of the path along the courtyard, the only still thing amidst the frenzied bustle of preparation. He’s majestic, she finds, even in his fervor. But perhaps, he’s always been thus. His shouted commands carry through the light snow to her and she watches as men move instantly, forming lines, grabbing weapons, setting mail and plate, archers running along the high walls into position.

It’s a deceptively warm night for it to be the height of winter. Perhaps it’s the many torches lighting the darkness, or the thousands of troops stationed in and around Winterfell, or the bellyful of dragon fire waiting just outside the gate.

Sansa glances to Daenerys at the other end of the courtyard where she stands grasping Jorah Mormont’s arms. There’s something in her face that reminds Sansa of painful girlhood, and even from this distance, she can see the gleam of wetness over the dragon queen’s eyes. But she keeps her head high, her reassuring smile set, her hands steady along the Mormont’s sleeve. Sansa cannot hear what words pass between them, but when he dips his head tenderly in farewell, a quivering smile tugging at his lips, a gentle hand over her own along his arm, Sansa sees the way Daenerys’ face falters, quaking, lips drawn tight into a thin line as she nods fervently, like she’s trying to convince him of something, or perhaps herself. And then Jorah Mormont leaves her, making his way to his own garrison, and Daenerys’ hands linger in the air after him, as though she only meant to hold him just a while longer. She stares long and desolately at his back, seemingly oblivious of anything else around her, until her hands lower slowly back to her sides. She takes a deep breath, chin lifting, face easing back into a hardness Sansa recognizes now as a queen’s shield.

She looks away before Daenerys finds her watching. She thinks maybe such an affectionate display was not meant for her to see. And Sansa can understand that. She has her own goodbye to share, after all.

Sansa makes her way across the courtyard, men parting for her easily, and she finds herself in front of him long before she’s figured out the words she needs to say. And so, she has only this:

“Jon.”

He looks up at her, face worn and wary. He’s dressed in his battle finest, a twin-direwolf-emblazoned gorget braced over the jerkin she hand-sewed for him moons ago. His cloak billows in the wind, the evidence of her touch still crowning his shoulders.

Sansa swallows back the sob, throat tightening.

“My lady,” he greets her, but there’s an intimacy to the title, a brand of affection that lessens the formality of it, even when the apprehension lines his voice.

And she is, Sansa finds suddenly. She is his lady.

If she looks too closely, she’ll find that it’s exactly the kind of peace she always assumed to be impossible – exactly the kind of happiness she used to think girls like her never got to keep. But she’s tired of living with this fear. She’s tired of being a shackled wolf.

Freedom means no collar. It’s what Jon gave the North. It’s what he gave her. And she will not squander it anymore.

She deserves this, she realizes finally. She thinks maybe she always had.

Sansa reaches a hand up to his jaw, cupping his cheek.

Jon blinks wide eyes at her, glancing about the open courtyard and the gazes settled their way, but he does not remove her touch. He does not pull her hand away.

She swallows tightly, gathers her courage, and steps far too closely into him to ever be considered proper.

“Sansa,” Jon breathes warningly, hands coming up to cup her elbows.

“I need you to come back to me, Jon,” she says on a broken whisper. Her eyes flicker between his, the tears already hot on her lids. “I need you to come back to me, do you hear me?”

Jon stares at her, mouth parting.

She remembers suddenly the feel of him in her arms that first day at Castle Black – the hesitant, disbelieving breath he shuddered into her neck, the bruising, desperate grip of his hands around her back, how he held her, suspended, feet off the ground, up and up and away from there, temple nuzzled against hers, his chest – so warm and broad, so warm – and how he rocked her, back and forth, from foot to foot, unconsciously, swaying like a lullaby.

Sansa reaches her other hand up to mirror the first, his face cradled in her palms. “I need you to – ” She chokes with it, flounders a moment, eyes blinking back the tears. “I need… I just need you, Jon, please. Just you.” Her voice breaks with it, his name a hallowed prayer, her fingers splaying over his cheeks, trembling and stiff. She swallows back the trepidation.

(Once just a stupid, little girl – and how youth is a shackle all its own, how unkindness is a self-clasped chain.)

She promises never to be collared again.

Jon reaches up and grasps for one of her wrists, his hold tender and insistent when he pulls her hand from his cheek. She drags a disheartened breath in at the motion, but then stops breathing entirely when he draws her hand to his mouth instead of away, lips placing a slow, firm kiss at the arch where wrist meets palm, his eyes never leaving hers, his breath raking from him like a painful exhale.

Sansa blinks wet eyes at him, never moving from him. “Jon,” she pleads, not knowing what she pleads for.

He offers her a sorrowful smile, lips still braced at her skin, and he swipes his thumb over her maddening pulse in some small measure of comfort. “I know,” he says, and she has to wonder if he does.

She has to wonder if he will ever truly know –

This brutal, beating heart of hers.

Could he ever even fathom it?

“I know,” he repeats, hot breath washing over her flesh. “Sansa, I – ” But he cannot finish, the words coming out on a choke, her name on his lips blooming like a stain at her wrist.

She’d been marked by him long ago, it’s true, but not quite so exquisitely as this – not quite so ardently.

(She just needs him.)

She leans forward, mouth parting, maybe to kiss him, maybe just to speak his name.

His name.

Jon.

Maybe just to breathe his air.

Her forehead braces against his, her hand slinking back into his hair, anchoring at the nape of his neck, her other hand still held in his calloused fingers, her wrist at his mouth.

She breathes. In and out. In and out.

Another swipe of his thumb along her pulse, another pant of her breath against his lips, another sigh braced between them where neither knows who reached for who first or whose mouth filled whose with honey-laced delirium.

Sansa’s eyes flutter closed.

A grey-haired Jon. Face wrinkled and scar-marked and old. She wants it suddenly. She wants it more than she’s ever wanted anything in her entire life. To grow old with him. To face the years weathered and deep-rooted and well-worn. To have loved long and loved well – to hold him to her bones. She wants it. She wants it more than she has words to express.

Jon breathes a sigh of resignation against her lips, leaning back from her, hand lowering her wrist from his mouth, and her eyes slip back open at the loss.

If there are words he means to say, they don’t make it to air. But Sansa does not need him to speak, not past this. Not past his hand over hers and his breath at her mouth and his eyes never – never – straying from hers.

She has always known how to listen when his body speaks, after all.

Jon nods, just the once, mouth pursed tight, jaw locked. And then he slips from her – smooth and swift as the shadow of winter moonlight stretching over the banks of snow between them.

Sansa stands there without him, watching him leave, quietly bereft.

If she could only look around her, she would see the faces of her Northmen. She would see the way they keep their gazes averted, their eyes clear of judgement, their faces only hardened and loyal and ready for the end.

She would see that men marching off to war understand best what it means to cling to the heart. She would see that they choose Jon still, that they choose her still.

And she would see that love is not always a punishment.

* * *

“You know, one of these days, I’ll take you North – true North – and show you a bit of peace,” Tormund tells him, a hand clamped over his shoulder.

Jon looks at him with an appreciative smirk, a single dark brow raised. He clasps hands with Edd as he steps up beside them, nodding. Jon stands atop the ramparts with his brothers, perhaps for the last time. Shaking his head, Jon laughs at Tormund, though it’s pained with regret. “I don’t think men like us do very well with peace, Tormund.”

His response is a snort. “Maybe not this ‘peace’ you Southerners keep crying for.”

Edd shifts his furs closer around his shoulders. “You have a different sort, do you?”

Tormund crosses his arms, a gruff exhale leaving him as he looks out over the dark snow. “Peace to the Free Folk means lots of food, lots of drink. It means making your own home and waking when you like and fucking your wife beneath the bare moon. Aye, peace suits me just fine, Little Crow. And it’d suit you too, if you’d let it.” He eyes Jon pointedly.

Jon scowls, but it’s only half-hearted, and Tormund lets out a guffaw that breaks against the cold with its instant warmth.

“It’d suit your little wolf as well.”

Jon swings narrowed eyes at Tormund.

He doesn’t back down though, at the look of warning. Instead, he shrugs, scratching at his beard. “You could always take her with you.”

Jon can see the way Edd tries to hide his interest in the answer, and he can’t help the sigh that leaves him. It seems pointless to keep it hidden any longer – if they were ever any good at hiding it in the first place. And he doesn’t want to worry about pretenses or propriety or damn southern politics anymore. Not here. Not now. Not when he’s staring out into the snow-filtered night, beside the only brothers he has left, wondering if he’ll ever see dawn again.

(Specifically, if he’ll ever see the way it lights her copper hair along his pillow and pools in the dip of her collarbone and warms her intoxicating flesh as she stretches and mewls atop his furs, spent and sated and completely his – greeting the morning light with her fingers dug into his hair and his body draped over hers and a sleepless sigh braking between their hungry mouths.)

No. Here, at the end – it seems a pointless burden to bear.

So, he will wear his affections openly.

“I don’t know what Sansa wants anymore,” he says on a sigh, the self-doubt painting his voice even as he tries to collar it.

Edd scoffs, a disbelieving laugh falling from his lips. “Then you’re an idiot, Snow.”

Jon throws him an annoyed look.

Edd only shakes his head, the mirth tugging a smile to his lips. “Everyone from the ass-crack of this bloody frozen North to the pompous, boot-licking courts of the South saw exactly what she wants when she held you down in that courtyard,” he says, throwing a thumb back to indicate the main square behind them. He gives Jon a scrutinizing look. “Maybe you don’t deserve her if you can’t say the same.”

Jon wipes a hand down his face, heaving a labored sigh. “We’ve been… we were raised as siblings. Even if we – ”

“But you’re not siblings,” Edd interrupts.

“If your strange, riddle-speaking brother – cousin – blast it, whatever he is – speaks the truth,” Tormund adds on.

“Even still, I – ” Jon stops, swallows the words back, burning now that they’re at the tip of his tongue, now that they’re ripe for air.

Tormund eyes him seriously. “You been fucking her?”

Jon stays silent, his jaw working beneath his twitching cheek.

Tormund grunts his acknowledgement, arms uncrossing, staring out over the ramparts.

“We’ve seen far more dishonorable men than ‘sister-fuckers’ make their oaths at the wall, haven’t we?” Edd asks quietly.

Jon opens his mouth, but the words simmer and break along his tongue. He swallows them back.

Edd shrugs, taking in a long, solid breath. “I’d swear to you, still. King in the North and all that. Or king of more now, I don’t know. All’s I can see is a good man, either way. Guess I haven’t the head for more than that.”

Jon stares at him, throat tight.

“Let your gods judge you, Little Crow,” Tormund tells him, his hand back at his shoulder, warm and heavy, “But let no man.”

Jon nods, because he can do little else. His chest aches, and he braces a gloved hand to the forgotten wounds of betrayal marking his flesh. He remembers, suddenly, that Sansa has never been his betrayal.

So he will not be hers.

“Only,” Tormund continues, a sharp-toothed smile glinting in the night, “Let’s not meet those gods of yours just yet, hmm? Make them wait a little longer, aye?”

Jon offers a grateful smile, eyes crinkling with it. “Aye.” And then he’s staring back out across the ramparts, Tormund’s hand slipping from his shoulder, the heavy silence of the wait hanging over them like a smothering hand.

He remembers the swing of nooses, the silver light of dawn over the stones that fateful morning, the wooden deck stained with the traitors’ shit and piss, the wary parting of the crowd when he’d stalked from the hanging post.

The way Alliser Thorne’s face had purpled with panic – instinctual and irrepressible.

“My watch has ended.”

Jon clenches his jaw, brows furrowing sharply down.

He remembers a life that’s no longer his. And everything he’d lost to it.

Grenn’s broken body at the gate, Lord Commander Mormont’s silent nod of farewell, Ygritte’s burning corpse atop a pyre.

His voice is a croak when it leaves him, his words pained. “Do you wish Sam were here?” If it is to be the end, he wants all his brothers.

“Oh gods, no,” Edd barks on a laugh, staring at him with an incredulous look. “He’d be dead before the first wave, if he didn’t piss himself first.”

Jon can’t help it – he laughs. So bright and blinding and unexpected. Tormund laughs loudly beside him, slapping Edd along the back.

Edd grumbles beneath the assault, shuffling in his furs, sniffing in the cold. He glances back out across the snowy fields. “Better safe down south,” he says.

Jon warms at the words, his chuckling dying down as he ribs him, “I promise not to tell him you care.”

Edd rolls his eyes, but even Jon can see the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

And so they wait.

And so they hold tight.

* * *

The horde is spotted, and Jon stalks down the stairs as the archers mount the walls, Davos’ commands echoing through the night. He means to man the first wave, to meet the dead with his men at the gate, should their trenches and barricades fail, fields of oil lying in wait between their forces and the dead.

He meets Arya on his way to the front, startling to a stop. “Arya.”

She stands stock still, hand braced to Needle’s hilt, eyes dark grey and focused as they take him in.

He doesn’t remember what her laugh sounds like, and it’s the most painful realization he’s felt in a long, long while.

He takes a step closer. “Arya.”

“Where do you need me?”

He stops, breath hitching in his chest. He should have known.

“And don’t say ‘in the crypts’,” she finishes harshly, a sneer lighting her lips.

Jon glances to the sight of Brienne behind her, lingering in her shadow, a silent pillar. It eases the dread, somewhat – but only minutely.

He’d never wanted Arya to see the horrors of war. But then, he’d never wanted her to see the horrors she had seen, either. And in the end, here they stand, perhaps a little worse for wear, but here – alive, together, in the home they knew once – and he hates that he wasn’t there to hold her hand and lead the way back.

He hates that he lost his little sister to the cruelties of the world.

But then –

Jon swallows back the sourness along his tongue, teeth clenching.

‘His little sister’.

His eyes drop to his boots, memory a heavy, clawing thing at his chest.

He has no sisters now, he reminds himself.

“Where do you need me?” she asks again, this time with voice trembling, and Jon realizes that she’s far more frightened than she’ll ever admit to, but he doesn’t think he could hear the words either way, so he only looks up at her, only stands a little straighter, only nods at her in the passing torchlight of running soldiers through the courtyard.

“You still good with a bow?”

She lets a nostalgic smile curve along her lips. “Better,” she says.

Jon nods, clearing his throat. “To the ramparts, then.” He moves to walk past her, cloak billowing in his wake, and he catches the way her eyes drift to the stone at their feet, the way her hand tightens over Needle’s hilt, the way her throat flexes with unsaid words. He stops just past her, turning around on a sharp pivot. “Any last words?” he throws out on a desperate plea, voice cracking, and he clamps down on the tremor, skin quivering beneath his armor. He watches as she turns slowly to him, face a shadowed mask, closed off and tight-lipped and stitched up beneath an altogether different sort of armor.

Another horn sounds, dragging his attention up toward the battlements. He barely registers the shift when Arya steps up to him soundlessly and braces a hand at his heart, palm firm at his chest. He sucks a sharp breath in, glancing back down to her, eyes wide and unblinking.

She’s staring at her hand along his chest, thumb sliding almost imperceptibly across his padded tunic, not unlike longing. She looks up at him through the haze of snow drifting around them. “Don’t leave her, not like this,” she says softly.

Jon closes his eyes at the words, quaking in his own skin, racked with a terror and a yearning and a neediness so stark he’s surprised it doesn’t split him open right there, right there in the stone and cold, right there in the midst of the home he found and lost and found again.

“You are to me.”

(Her copper hair – caught between his calloused fingers, the soft pressure of her lips at his scarred knuckles.)

Found and lost and found again –

Perhaps Stark is more than a name.

Perhaps belonging is more than a feeling.

Perhaps family is more than blood.

Arya’s hand curls into a fist, knuckles braced at his chest, pressing into him with a fervency she has never impressed upon him so surely before.

Jon stares down at her, lips parted, watching the way she blinks back the wetness, throat bobbing with barely held emotion.

Her lip trembles, and she pulls it back behind stubborn teeth, chin raised. “Don’t leave me,” she tells him.

He wants to reach for her, to tug her to him and never let go, to brace her against his chest and curl his hand at the back of her head and rock her to him. To hold her. To hold her and hold her. To clutch her to his bones.

Her fist at his chest keeps him steady and still. And then she chuckles, face softening, a visage of younger years. “And don’t put so much stock in ‘last words’,” she chides him.

Jon feels his own chuckle warm him throughout, just before it breaks across his chapped lips.

Arya’s hand slips from him, her smile stained with something he cannot recognize.

“I’ll hold the line,” she tells him, and then she turns on her heel and stalks away, Brienne following quietly in her wake.

Jon watches her go, the chaos of the square fading around him, the snow settling soft and barely-there at his shoulders.

He watches her go.

(Perhaps home is more than a place.)

* * *

The army of the undead breaks upon Winterfell like a long-kept winter.

It happens in far less time and with far more blood than he’d ever imagined. Their forces are decimated near instantly.

Viserion is the first dragon to fall, his ream of fire burning through the fields of men as he tumbles to the earth, crashing into their barricades and letting through a flood of undead. Jon can hear Daenerys’ howl through the wind even from where he fights.

He isn’t there to see the ice spear that pierces Rhaegal, but he’s there when Drogon lands unsteadily across the field, Daenerys sliding from his back. Her last dragon.

It’s a haze of blood and shadow that overtakes him then, a furious swing of his sword, heaving his whole weight against a wight, another swing, crack of his elbow against one’s jaw, a spray of black bile across his cheeks, feet braced in the mud, slick with snow and blood, Longclaw slicing through the air, another and another and another. Dead upon dead upon dead. Until he’s panting with it, delirious, chest rattling, blood boiling.

Until he looks up and sees the Night King across the field, a flood of corpses between them. A flood of –

Jon stills, hands curling around Longclaw, the terror bright and beating in his chest.

The Night King spreads his arms, eyes trained on Jon, bringing his palms up slowly through the air.

An unearthly screech lights the air, a stream of blue fire piercing the night sky.

He doesn’t stay long enough to watch the newly-risen undead forms of Viserion and Rhaegal tearing their brother Drogon to shreds. Instead, he runs.

He runs – legs aching, lungs heaving, muscles singing.

“When it is time, you will come for me.”

He runs.

Jon bursts through the door, slamming it open in his rush. “Bran!”

His brother lifts unbothered eyes up at him. Outside, the battle still wages, sharply against their favor.

Jon is panting and battle-spent, marred with blood and grime when he kneels before his brother, hand bracing against the arm of his wheeled chair to steady himself. He wipes a bloodied hand down his face, tries to rein in his breathing. “Bran, you have to leave.”

“The dragons are dead.” It is not a question.

Jon nods, a knot tightening in his throat so that he cannot speak.

Bran sighs softly, hands curling in his lap. “Then, it is time.”

Jon nods again, moves to rise, but Bran’s hand on his arm stays him, and he lowers back into the kneel, eyes shifting between his with question, face soft and hard all at once. “Bran, we don’t have time. We have to go.”

“This is why you came back, Jon,” he says almost like an apology, almost like release.

Jon leans back on his haunches, eyes narrowing. “Bran, what are you – ”

“You are the sword in the darkness, the watcher on the wall, the shield that guards the realms of men. It’s you. It’s always been you.”

Jon blinks at the words, mouth opening as though to speak, but the faint sorrow lining Bran’s smile stops him.

Something’s wrong. Something’s horribly, unexplainably wrong. More wrong than the dead at their door.

A cold rush stills Jon where he kneels.

Bran lifts a palm to his cheek, the motion jarringly tender – and equally terrifying. “It’s time,” he tells him, just before his eyes go white.

Everything goes dark – dark as the flutter of raven’s wings. Jon is floundering, flailing, shouting silently in the night. A ring of hazy light catches his eyes and he’s reaching, grasping, tumbling over and over in the dark, that ring of light dizzying, until his vision blurs white and he’s blinking up into the sun-lit visage of a weirwood.

Jon looks around him, still on his knees, but it’s a place he’s never been before. It’s a forest grove, a spiral of stones jutting from the verdant green around him, and huddled before the tree is a group of seemingly children, a group of –

Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth.

“The Children of the Forest,” Bran’s voice echoes in his mind, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Jon glances back to the tree. There’s a man. A man tied to the weirwood, struggling against his binds.

Something sinks inside Jon – something unknowable – some measure of sorrowful understanding.

He watches, horrified, as one of the Children walk to the terrified man, dragonglass dagger in their grip.

“No,” he wants to shout, but it comes out a silent rasp, his voice stolen from him. He can’t even move, can’t do anything but watch as the dagger is pushed slowly and deeply into the man’s chest, the gag in his mouth doing little to smother his screams.

Jon blinks back the tears, knowing – knowing, suddenly.

And then the pain nearly cripples him.

Jon cries out, hunching over the ground, his chest racked with a searing pain, his lungs nearly collapsing beneath the shock of it. He presses a hand to his chest, gasping, blinking back the sudden, hot tears when his hand meets bare flesh. His palm comes away slick with blood. He pushes back up to his knees slowly, lungs heaving beneath the pain, glancing down, brows furrowing at his now bare chest. The wounds that once killed him are bleeding freshly now, a faint trail of red circling, circling, edging along his flesh in a haunting pattern that he recognizes distantly, connecting the gashes of betrayal along his chest in a slow, searing spiral.

Jon snaps his gaze to the circle of rocks around him, a flutter of realization beating around his chest, the pattern of the Others marring his skin inch by inch, until he wears their mark in blood. His frantic eyes meet the newly born Night King’s, caught in their hold, a blistering blue that stills him, panting, trembling, racked with a horror stained by wrath. A film of ice crackles over the Night King’s form, but his eyes never leave Jon’s. His mouth opens. He speaks.

The words are swallowed up by the darkness once more, and Jon is tumbling again, a flutter of black wings at the tips of his fingers, flailing in the dark, running, crawling, barreling into the shadows, howling with a broken, spent voice, and then the world opens wide once more, and he’s back to kneeling before Bran, his hand still gripping the arm of his chair.

Jon blinks wild, frenzied eyes up at him, finding the milk-white of his gaze gone.

“Bran,” he croaks out, and then his eyes see the dagger, the dragonglass dagger coated in blood – so drenched in it that the dark red wraps all the way up to Bran’s wrist where he holds the dagger.

A pain settles sore and insistent in his chest then.

Jon looks down to find his tunic soaked through with blood, Bran’s dagger held inches from his chest – a mirror of the Night King’s own devastating wound.

He flits slowly hazing eyes back up to his brother’s, mouth parting, a gurgle of blood splashing over his lips. He tries for his name once more, fails, tries again.

The blood flows freely now, and something not unlike ice filters slowly through his veins. He drops back along the floor, head bouncing painfully along the stone, arching upwards with a spasm, hands jerking, the blood seeping out his mouth. Through the slow inking black of his vision he sees Bran hovering somewhere above him.

“I hold your vows fulfilled, brother.”

The words are lost to him, and he groans his rejection of them, clawing at the carpet beneath him.

When the darkness finally takes him, he does not see the way Bran hides his face behind a blood-drenched hand. He does not see the shudder that overtakes him.

He sees nothing but betrayal.

But then, this isn’t the first he’s died by a brother’s hand.

* * *

{“He’s had the magic in him all along.”

Sansa bares her teeth, that white-hot wrath echoing through her bones, and a keen sort of desperation sets her to trembles there in her seat. “Bran, he’s done enough,” she seethes, the tears already hot on her lids. “Why does he have to – he shouldn’t have to die for it – for us! He’s done enough, Bran!”

“Then it is up to you.”

Sansa stiffens at his words, her hands gripping the armrests at her sides so tightly her knuckles are white with the effort.

“There is a price. Only death pays for life.”}

#jonsa #a violence done most kindly #jon x sansa #jon and sansa #jon snow #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark #house stark #starklings #game of thrones #got fanfic #my writing

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fanwarriorfictions · 5 years

Text

One-

A Stranger Things 2 Fanfic

Chapter Eight- Part Four

They were converting the shed into an interrogation room, making it to where Will would not be able to know where he was at so the mind flayer would not be able to find them. Hopper had thrown everything out of the shed into a giant pile and Steve and Phina were putting up tarp all over the walls.

Steve was up on a step ladder, using a staple gun to put the tarp in place. Phina watched him, ripping pieces of duct tape off to use on the tarp. He had been quiet since they got out here, focusing on his job.

"Are you okay, Steve," she asks, ripping off another piece of tape.

He glances down at her, "I'm fine, why?"

She shrugs, "I just... it seems like something's bothering you."

Steve shakes his head, trying to fight away the heat that rose to his cheeks, he knew exactly what was making him act like this, "I'm fine, Phina, really."

"Is it Nancy," she asks, "her and Jon?"

He sighs, it should be about Nancy, but it isn't, "no, I'm not bothered by them, if anything, I'm happy for them."

"Steve," Phina chides.

He chuckles, "I really am, Phina. I've known for a while now that they liked each other, I was angry about it for a while too but, I don't... it doesn't bother me anymore."

She stares into his eyes, "then what's bothering you now? Don't say you're fine because I can tell you're not, Steve."

Steve smiles down at her, his eyes scanning her face in a way that made her warm all over, "something else has got my attention now, and I'm not sure how she feels."

The door to the shed suddenly opens and everyone starts to pile in. Steve turns away from Phina quickly and goes back to stapling the tarp. Everyone pretends not to notice the redness in Phina's face as they get to work.

While she helps, Phina's mind is not completely on the task at hand, but on what Steve had said. His attention was on something else, someone else other than her sister. The way he had been looking at her suggested who it was, and he was right, she didn't know how to feel about that.

Piece by piece, the walls were covered until it was finally done. Jonathan carried Will out to the shed, setting the unconscious boy down on the chair. Phina helps him tie Will to it and the wooden pole behind it. It pained both of them to do it, but they knew they had to, for not only his sake, but all of theirs'.

They set up blinding white lights behind a chair across from him so he wouldn't be able to see the door and the people behind it. The people closest to him would be trying to get him to remember them, to get him to tell them what they needed to know.

"All right," Hopper says to Joyce, "you ready?"

"Yeah," she says, not taking her eyes off Will.

Hopper nods, swirling around some liquid inside a jug as he walks over to the boy. He kneels in front of him, pouring the liquid onto a cotton ball. He holds the cotton beneath Will's nose for a moment. Everyone jumps as Will gasps awake.

Will looks all around him, at the people surrounding him. Joyce, Jonathan, Phina, Mike, and Hopper. He starts to move, realizing he is tied down.

"What? What," he grunts, "what is this? What? What is this? Why am I tied up?"

Joyce kneels down in front of him, "Will, we just wanna talk to you. We're not gonna hurt you."

"Where am I," Will asks.

Hopper kneels down next to Joyce, the drawing of the mind flayer in his hands, "you recognize this? Do you recognize this?"

Will shakes his head, staring at the drawing in Hopper's hand.

"Hey," Joyce whispers calmly, "we wanna help you. But to do that, we have to understand how to kill it."

"Why am I tied up," Will yells again, "why am I tied up? Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?"

Hopper and Joyce try to calm him down. His anger rises along with his voice. The lights in the room begin to flicker and Phina pulls Mike into her side, grabbing Jonathan's hand tightly in her own.

His yelling continues, "why am I tied up? Let me go! Let me go! let me go! Let me go!"

Jon's eyes begin to tear up as he watches his brother and Phina grips his hand tighter, her eyes burning as she tries not to cry as well.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" Hopper holds the struggling boy back as Joyce looks away from him. "Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go. Let me go. Let me... go."

He slowly calms down, his breathing heavy. Hopper pulls away from him as the boy stops fighting. Joyce stares at Will and he stares back, his eyes without emotion. Joyce sits in the chair across from her son, leaning on her knees to get closer to him.

"Do you know what March 22nd is," she asks him, "it's your birthday. Your birthday. When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. And all of your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn't from a movie it... it was your spaceship. A rainbow ship is what you called it. And you must have used every color in the box. I took that with me to Melvald's and I put it up, and I told everyone who came in, my son drew this. And you were so embarrassed. But I was so proud. I was so, so proud."

The room was silent, all of them staring down at Will, pleading for any sort of reaction. There was none. Will didn't show any sign that he had even heard what she said.

"Do you remember the day Dad left," Jonathan suddenly asks, letting go a Phina's hand to kneel next to Joyce, "we stayed up all night building Castle Byers... just the way you drew it. And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering... You'd miss the nail every time. And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway. We were both sick for like a week after that, Phina made us chicken noodle soup every time we asked for it even though she was a terrible cook then. But we just had to finish it, didn't we? We just had to."

"Do you remember the first day that we met," Mike asks, tears streaming down his cheeks, "it was... It was the first day of Kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends and... I just felt so alone and so scared, but... I saw you on the swings and you were alone, too. You were just swinging by yourself. And I just walked up to you and... I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend... And you said yes. You said yes... It was the best thing I've ever done."

"I remember the first time I showed you my drawings," Phina says, her voice breaking as tears streamed down her cheeks, "you were so excited and so awestruck at my stupid little doodles. You told me, when I grow up, I'm going to be an artist, just like you, Phina. You grabbed every single one of your drawings and showed them to me, even the ones off the fridge that you had shown me every single day, wanting me to see what you could do, wanting me to say your drawings were good because you thought I was the best artist there was. After that, we sat in your room and drew for hours. We didn't come out until our fingers were cramping and our hands were completely covered in crayon and graphite. I have all of those drawings from that day, all of the ones you've ever given me, all of them, tucked away in three different scrapbooks. Whenever I'm feeling sad, I look at those drawings, your drawings, and I can't help but smile because they bring me nothing but joy, Will."

"Will," Joyce says, leaning forward, "baby... if you're in there, just, please... please talk to us. Please, honey, please, can you do that for me? Please. I love you so much."

Will trembles, like he heard them like he was about to cry, "let me go."

Everyone's hearts break. It hadn't worked, they hadn't gotten Will back. Or did they? Hopper looks at the kid, his eyes going down to his hand which taps rhythmically on the bottom of the chair. His eyes narrow as he watches the taps. That's when it hits him, they had gotten to Will.

-1524 words-

I love this chapter. One because of that little Steve and Phina scene at the beginning ;) and two because of the story Phina told Will, I honestly began to tear up a little when I wrote it if I'm being one hundred percent honest. I love the relationship Phina has with the Byers, even though it hasn't been seen much this season, it's one of my favorite parts about Phina, she went from having nothing to having a big, loving family with the Wheelers, the Byers, and the kids in the Party. Anyway, enough rambling did you like this chapter, I hope you did!

-Morgan

#steve harrington #steve harrington x oc #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #strangerthingsfanfic #strangerthings #slow burn #one #romance

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hamilton-one-shots · 6 years

Text

Hamilton High School AU 52

Alexander sighed and plopped down beside John on the couch as they arrived at his apartment.

"Are you alright?"

"I don't want to deal with Thomas..."

"I'll be just in my room. I promise you'll be fine."

Alexander nodded and buried his face in his chest. "This week sucked.."

"Why don't we skip tomorrow? I'll treat you to another date, if you're up for it."

"... Last time we had a date, you almost broke up with me the next day."

"That's not going to happen, I promise." He kissed his head. "We can go to the movies and a museum and wherever else you want to go."

"Can we get our costumes for the dance?.."

"Yeah." He smiled.

Alexander sat up and kissed him. "Okay.."

John kissed back and held Alexander close, staying like that with him for the next hour and a half.

By then, Alexander grabbed his phone and checked the time. Did drama really take that long? He decided to text Thomas, just to be safe. [Dnt 4gt 2 cum 2 John's plas]

He got a reply almost immediately, but it wasn't one he expected. [... Do what at John's? xx]

[dnt b gros]

[I'm on my way, I'm just getting Lucy. xx]

Alexander sighed. "Jefferson's on his way.."

John nodded and kissed his head. "Let's go get Susan, then."

"You go.. I'll get ready to deal with him.."

"Okay." He got up and left, coming back with Susan in his arms a minute later.

She hopped to the ground and went over to Alexander, pulling herself up into the couch in front of him. "Hi."

"Hi." He smiled.

"Johnny says I'm meeting a new friend!"

"Yeah, you are.."

She smiled and ran off to John's room, Thomas buzzing in soon after.

John buzzed him in and opened the door for him, Lucy hugging his legs as tightly as ever.

"Hi, Johnny!"

"Hi Lucy." He picked her up and smiled.

"Do I really have to share you today?.."

He nodded.

"I don't want to.." She buried her face in his shoulder. "You're my friend..."

"I know, but I'm her friend too. Maybe you'll like her, okay?"

"No.."

John sighed. "Let's just try, okay?"

She didn't respond and John realized that this was not about to be easy.

Thomas rubbed her back. "Be nice for Johnny, okay? Otherwise, I won't bring you next time."

She pouted and nodded, John carrying her back to his room. "This is your house?.."

"It's my apartment, yeah."

"Where's the rest of it?"

"This is the whole apartment."

"That's it?"

He chuckled. "Well, it's just me here most of the time." He took her into his room and set her down beside Susan, who was coloring, and kissed her forehead. "I'll be back in a second. Be nice, okay?"

Lucy pouted, but nodded.

John went back to the living room just as Thomas sat down with Alexander. "I'll just be in the next room. I'd better not hear you two fighting. If either of you starts a fight, I won't hesitate to make you leave. Understood?"

They both nodded. John may have been treating them like kids, but maybe it was necessary.

"Good." He smiled and went back to his room just in time to hear Susan crying. He walked back faster and found Lucy coloring in her book. He picked up Susan and rocked her as he sat down beside Lucy. "Isn't that Susan's coloring book?.."

"I wanted to show her how to color right. She was coloring all wrong, see?" She flipped the page and showed John the fully colored picture that she'd scratched out.

He frowned. "That's not nice, Lucy. There's no one right way to color."

"But she's not doing it right!" she whined.

"She's coloring her way. She's only a baby, she's still learning."

Lucy pouted. She was definitely Thomas's sister. It was obvious that she had good, albeit self-serving, intentions, but she was going about it the wrong way.

"Did you ask to color?"

"I wanted to show her! She shouldn't be crying.."

"You took it from her and the picture she colored looked nice. Why don't you ask if you can use it and tell her why you want to?"

"But.. But... It's not fair! I wanted to help her!"

"I know that, but you have to tell Susan. She loves her coloring book because I made it for her."

She frowned. "Why don't I have one?!"

"Because I didn't know if I'd be able to give it to you. I'll make you one right now if you promise to play nice with Susan."

She pouted, but nodded. "Okay... Can I help you color, Susan?.."

She sniffled as she finished crying and looked at Lucy, nodding. "Okay..."

John smiled and cleaned her face, then put her down. "There. Isn't that better?"

Lucy nodded. "Yeah.."

He sat up on his bed and watched as they colored, sketching out a coloring book for Lucy as they played.

Thomas watched from the door from the second that he heard Lucy getting herself into trouble and smiled at the sight. John was one of the few people she'd actually listen to and it was nice to see him dealing with kids. It was sweet. He went back to the living room once John got them situated and sat with Alexander, both reluctantly working together.

They managed to get a few things done without arguing, but what would the pair be without bickering over a few petty points? The only things that was able to stop their bickering was when John came out from his room with two small children following him into the kitchen. Both boys felt their heart melt at the sweet sight and they were able to silence their arguing, resorting to just mouthing and typing insults to each other with only the occasional whispered curse.

John went into the kitchen and let the girls watch and help him cook lasagna, glad to see that they were starting to get along. While it cooked, they went back to John's room and colored again, John still drawing. When it was finished, John went back and pulled the dish out of the oven, letting it cool before serving it on plates. He even cut Thomas and Alexander a piece, taking their plates to them.

Thomas smiled. "You always were good at cooking, especially for someone so addicted to pizza."

John chuckled. "Thanks." He kissed Alexander's cheek before walking back to the kitchen and taking plates back to his room for himself and the girls.

Thomas picked up his plate and began eating, noticing that Alexander just picked at his own. "What's up with you?"

"Not hungry."

"You should eat. It's good."

"I'll eat when I'm ready."

"Well, we need to take a break, then just get back to it."

Alexander tutted.

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He kept eating. Arguing like that wasn't worth it.

After eating, John began watching movies with the girls on top of a few piled blankets and pillows on the floor, mainly Disney movies, and hardly even noticed that he'd fallen asleep until he woke up hours later to Lucy wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

He carefully pried her arms off and got up, taking their empty plates to the sink and making sure that World War III hadn't broken out in his living room. What he found was quite the opposite and made him smile. "Aww.."

Thomas and Alexander had fallen asleep as well and were leaning against each other, Thomas's arm around Alexander's shoulders and Alexander's head against his side. They were practically cuddling.

After putting the plates in the sink and going back for theirs, John draped a blanket over Thomas and Alexander before going back to his room and going back to sleep.

In the morning, he woke up to his phone blowing up with texts from Alexander.

[JON] [JHON] [FUCK] [HLEP] [SHIT] [IM W/ JEFRESON] [HES OHLDING ME] [WAT DO I DO]

John chuckled and got up, deciding to let this play out. It was funny. Alexander hadn't even tried to wake up Thomas, he just let him sleep at the time. So, he carefully picked up Susan and covered Lucy, taking her back to Maria for daycare.

Alexander perked up a bit when he heard John shifting around from the other room and smiled as he came into view... Before it dropped into shock as he just walked past him. "John! John!" he whispered as he walked out. He grumbled and waited for him to come back, leaning up as he came back.

John smiled. "You two are cute when you're not fighting." He walked back to his room with a grin.

That stupid grin. John knew what he was doing. "John!" Alexander whined, trying to escape Thomas's grip, only for him to hold him tighter. He tried texting John again. [cOME BAK] [WAT TH FUCKJOHN] [HELP ME I SWARE 2 GOD] [U R THE WORST PERSN] [UGGHHHHHH] There was no response, John just left him on 'read.' He groaned and accepted his fate, going back to sleep for a few minutes.

Thomas woke up then, tutting as he looked down at Alexander. "Ew," he muttered as he pushed him to the floor.

"Ow!" he complained as he was forced awake.

"Do I look like a bed to you?"

"I tried to wake you up earlier, but you couldn't hear me over your disgusting snoring."

"How dare you, you intolerable-"

"Hey!" John interrupted. "Both of you were cuddled up against each other, so cut the arguing."

"I'd never want to come near him," Alexander snapped.

John shook his head and pulled out his phone, showing them pictures that he'd taken of the two undoubtedly cuddling. "You two were just so adorable, I couldn't resist," he shrugged before heading to the kitchen, both boys in pursuit of the god awful pictures.

"Sunshine, honey, you don't want that silly picture... If you wanted a photo of me, all you'd need to do was ask."

Alexander rolled his eyes. "Nobody wants a photo of /your/ sorry ass." He turned to John. "John, if you love me, you'll get rid of that phot-"

"Oh, now you're going to play /that/ card?" Thomas snapped, leaning over Alexander. "How pathetic..."

"You really should stop talking to your reflection, Jeffershit."

"Jeffershit? Is that the best you can do, Hoemilton?"

John rolled his eyes. "I'd knock it off, if I were you. If you guys fight, I will post these pictures."

They both backed down a bit.

"Good. Lucy is just in the other room. You have to take her to school, Thomas."

Thomas tutted and nodded. "Okay.. Do you want to come along? I want to take you somewhere."

"You're not taking my boyfriend anywhere, especially not today."

Thomas rolled his eyes. "If he dumps your sorry ass, that won't be on me. If you're that insecure that you can't let him hang out with someone else, that's your problem."

Alexander glared after a few seconds, unable to think of a witty reply. Or any reply.

John sighed and frowned. "I'll just be a bit, okay?.. Then you and I can spend the rest of the day together, I promise.."

How could Alexander turn him down? He had to trust him more. And he had to stop hurting him. "Okay..."

"I guess he can come with. As long as he walks."

Alexander growled in response.

"Hey John, your dog needs training."

"Hey John, there's a rapist in your house."

"Well, aren't we learning things about you, Alex..."

"If I wanted my own comeback, I'd have wiped it off your mom's chin!"

Thomas looked like he was going to throttle Alexander and Alexander looked just as on edge. But with John in ownership of those photos, both knew it was an awful idea.

"Forget it. I'll just stay here.."

John kissed his cheek. "Thank you. You can choose what we do today."

He nodded.

Thomas headed to the bedroom and had Lucy get ready before taking her to school, John in the passenger's seat.

"Who was that other guy?"

"He's my boyfriend, Alexander."

After a few seconds, that information processed and she came to the first conclusion that came to mind. "He stole you from Tommy!"

"Lucy, he didn't steal me. He only became my boyfriend a bit ago."

She pouted. "He stole you..."

"I promise he didn't. Can you trust me on that?"

"... Okay.."

Thomas dropped her off at school before taking John to Mulligan's.

"What are we doing here?"

"I've got a surprise for you. Come on." He led him into the shop, holding the door open for him.

Sarah smiled as she saw John coming in and let it fall as Thomas followed him in. "Thomas."

"H-Hello Mrs Mulligan..."

"Just what do you think you're doing here?"

"Okay, I know a lot has happened, but-"

"Without giving me a hug?" She beamed once again before pulling him into a tight hug. "Oh, Tommy, it's been far too long! Hugh told me you were coming in with Johnny here!"

He caught his breath as she let him go. "It's nice to see you again too!"

She smiled and let him catch his breath, taking John away in the meantime. "So, did he tell you what we were doing today?"

"No, actually."

"I'll let him explain, then." She had him stand in front of a mirror and Thomas walked over, now recovered.

"What's going on?.." John asked him.

"Well.. I know I haven't been the best person to you these past couple of weeks and I want to make that up. I'm buying your costume for the dance next week. Custom made, whatever character you want, I'll pay for it."

John's eyes widened in shock. "Oh, you really didn't have to do that."

"I don't care. I want to. You deserve something special."

John's first thought? Alexander was not going to like this.

Sarah smiled and began taking his measurements, then asked what character he was thinking of.

Of course, he told her that he wanted to be Belle.

She nodded and wrote down the numbers when she finished. "I'll let you know when we have it done."

John nodded and followed Thomas out of the shop when everything was done, still trying to figure out what to say on the matter.

#hamilton #hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #john laurens #thomas jefferson #lucy jefferson #susan reynolds #lams #thaurens #52 #chapter 52

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optimisticcritique · 6 years

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Gotham 4x22 - Review

Better late than never? I had a fever when watching this so...we’ll see how this goes.

Intense scene. “Promise?” I doubt she will die but this breaks my heart. Poor Selina :(

I have a hunch Bruce won’t be able to keep that promise.

All the cops giving Jeremiah the death stare.

“We couldn’t talk with his girlfriend bleeding all over him” Hmm...well, maybe you shouldn’t have shot her then?

“I am a very good engineer” So modest. I’m curious how well he would get along with Ed :P

Jeremiah’s obsession with Bruce never seizes to amaze me. Such a contrast to Jerome. Jerome wanted Bruce to suffer and die, Jeremiah wants Bruce to suffer and then become dark as he joins him.

Hugo Strange! They skipped finding him and threatening him and went straight to this!

I’m surprised Hugo automatically knows how to cure him. Has this happened before? Is there another Grundy running around?

This is not going to work out well for them. No couple gets a happy ending in Gotham.

“What? No, she’s in surgery. I’m going to go kill Jeremiah!” Haha well, that figures. You go, Tabby! I do love how much she cares for Selina. She has such a heart for her.

I am suspicious of what Oswald will do when Tabitha leaves. He’s being too nice. I sense betrayal.

Well, hello Ra’s. That’s not creepy at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is how he meets his best friends.

And another mayor bites the dust. At what point will people refuse to become mayor and they’ll have to draw names out of a hat to make someone take the role?

The way violence seems to un-faze Jeremiah. It’s like a punch to the face or a push to the wall means nothing.

Arrest Jim? Well, that’s a little extreme for disagreeing.

“It’s polite to let people finish” Yeah Jim, he has barely gotten to give riddles this season. Don’t ruin it!

“RISE AND SHINE! Good morning sweetheart” First off, the sweetheart ;) Second, I will not be surprised if people start setting this as their ringtones.

“Remember when you punched me in the face?” *slaps him dramatically* Wow, even his slaps are extra.

“We are a little pressed for time” *laughs at his own joke* ...wow, this is probably the most relatable Ed has ever been.

Ed with his long and extreme ways of killing someone.

I hate the motive but I do love seeing Ed go full on like this :)

So...does Ra’s really turn out the lights for dramatic effect? Is there someone working for him that turns it off? Ra’s: ready? go! Man: *turns off light* Ra’s: *fights people* Man: *turns it back on* Me: Bet he’s fun at parties.

Some of his power is off? Hmm...I still don’t understand the whole point of this Babs and the painting of the look alike.

This all just points to Ra’s totally trying to use her for the power.

What? This guy doesn’t even care anything about Jim at all? I mean, I know he isn’t exactly priority but still...

“Closer Please. Closer” I just expect him to keep saying this until they are face to face.

Destined as best friends? Well, you’re destined as something alright...

The wink XD With his bad eye, no less

I sincerely doubt that was the only bomb that was planted.

The way Jeremiah talks about Selina. Savage!

Wow, Lee is acting so calm about this.

“I am going to decide who I am going to be. Not you, not Jim Gordon.” Yes! Love it.

Lee is totally manipulating Ed by pretending not to care if Ed kills him so that she saves Jim’s life. It’s too obvious.

“She chose me” Umm not exactly Ed.

“One question: who do I get to kill?” Oh, Oswald, strutting in and ready to fight. He just couldn’t stay away.

Alfred, Babs, Tabby, and Oswald all working together? I love it!

Better hope Ed isn’t secretly listening to all this.

Honestly, at this point, I want Lee to be done with these romances. I just want her to be happy and independent for awhile.

Basically, Ra’s and his plan is “meh” to Jeremiah. He’s just all in it for Bruce.

“The brother I never had” “...together” aww how twistedly sweet of you.

Oh, so now he cares what happened when Jim was taken?

Just listen to Jim!

I love seeing the GCPD being so loyal. They have come a long way.

The demon’s head not working I guess is the convenient way to explain how they all get the drop on him.

Ha! I love how Oswald is the only one screaming as he shoots the gun, while everyone else just runs in. Honestly, it wouldn’t be an episode of Gotham if he didn’t.

Wait, Oswald shot Jeremiah and saved Tabby? I’m just...that seems so weirdly nice. This is the same person that murdered his mother and yet he’s doing this. Not like they would let Tabby die though. Is that the surprising thing for RLT? Him saving her? My memory of the interview is so vague all of sudden. No...it has to be a bad thing. This can’t be it.

Are you kidding me? They stab and kill him again? I mean, I never LOVED Ra’s but he was barely even alive!

That grin on Jeremiah. I oddly love how devilish it looks.

*Lee stabs Ed* What?! Oh, I did not see this coming. *Ed stabs Lee* Double stabbing! That one I was expecting.

Seriously? A kiss now?

So, in 4x14, Ed almost killed himself so that he wouldn’t try to kill Lee...now here we have Lee and Ed trying to kill each other. How poetic.

Whoa! Butch is back! ...Is he about to die?

I’m kind of sad by how kind of shallow it is that Tabby doesn’t say “I love you” until he is back to being Butch. Also a bit sad by how confusing the relationship status is with Babs/Tabby too.

*Oswald shoots him* Wow, he actually did it!

“Did you think I forgot that you murdered my mother?” Oh my god... YES. I mean, it’s sad that Butch is dead and I love Drew but like...I was just thinking about how Tabby killed Gertrude ...And I love callbacks way too much.

Wow. So, he waited and planned to get her back for two seasons. This is some crazy stuff. Impressively ingenious.

Hey, when did Oswald get the new henchmen?

*pans on Butch’s dead body* :( So sad...is that a tear rolling down his cheek? Was Butch crying? (UPDATE: It is very possible that was Drew crying from it being his last scene and now if that is a tear, this scene is even sadder.)

So, Selina won’t be able to walk? Surely this won’t last...at least I wouldn’t think. Unless they are going for something different.

Yes! You go, Bruce! It’s sad that you are leaving Selina but I love this. Be the dark knight! I hope this means Bruce will be the one to fight Penguin, Riddler, Jeremiah, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, and other new rogues next season.

Oh yes!!! Love the new digs for Penguin.

All these rogues carving up their territory. The montage, the costumes, the music. I love this so much. Why must season 5 be so short and be in 2019?

Savage Jon! Scarecrow got a new hat! I like :)

“Penguin says fix ‘em” Wait...Ed and Lee? Did they die? First, the thought of Penguin going straight to Ed after all this mess and refusing to accept Ed’s death makes me very happy. Second, oh my god! What is that smirk, Strange? What are you going to do?

Is she about to blame Penguin for everything? Ah, men...I mean, she has had a rough go with men so I guess I can see where her understanding goes.

Yay! Harvey and Foxy are staying :)

I didn’t even realize Jeremiah got away. Sneaky!

The future bat signal! I love it.

“I stayed to fight for the city” ...Wow. I was half expecting Jim to disapprove. Guess he knows it’ll be pointless and Bruce would just do whatever he wants anyway.

Manbat! Sweet. Hello mother, how are you? Wow, brutal.

Part of me is excited, the other part is hoping all of this won’t be too much in the final season.

Season 1 callback to their first meeting. “There is light” Love it :’)

Overall: Wow! What an episode! I loved it. Crazy to think that this is the last one for about a year but it definitely left an exciting impression.

Jeremiah was fun and had some great interactions with Bruce. Really building up that relationship in the past few episodes, which was nice. Overall, he’s great. However, I do still wish they could have introduced him sooner. We didn’t get to see enough. My hope is that we see plenty more of him next season.

Not a lot of Selina in this episode. Nice homage though. I’m curious where this story will take her, now that she is currently paralyzed.

The Oswald/Butch thing was sad. I mean, I’m sad for Butch and I love Drew so it sucks. Drew is an amazing actor and I will miss his presence very much. Also, no Grundy :/ That being said, it was a surprise reveal and callback that I did not see coming. I’m so used to so many shows always forgetting plot points or being so serial. So, any time that a show does a callback, I love it. It reminds me that the writer's actually remembered their work and that the characters think about their past. And, for someone that murdered a man for insulting Gertrude’s singing in S1, it would be odd for Oswald to just forget about Tabby murdering Gertrude. The writers found a way to keep Oswald in character while also keeping Tabitha alive, only they had to sacrifice Butch and push the Butch/Tabby relationship a bit in order to do it. That kind of leaves me conflicted :/

The whole Lee/Ed thing is...well, I think it is over and they will now focus on their own separate stories, which I prefer at this point. I’m curious what Strange will do to them next season. Doubt it will be anything major physically though.

Looks like rogues are taking territory, which is awesome! I expect every rogue to go embrace their personas like never before and now fully go up against Bruce. There’s also a few other rogues they are going to slip in, which will be fun.

All around, there is a lot to look forward to. Wanted to make this review a bit extra long, since it was the final one of the season. I wanted to cover some of the main things that I enjoyed. There were a few things that left me conflicted, like Ed/Lee stuff, Butch dying, and Ra’s dying AGAIN, but I still really loved the episode. Can’t wait to see what is next!

Previous Review: 4x21

#gotham #gotham 4x22 #oswald cobblepot #jeremiah valeska #optimisticcritique gotham review

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lilbreck · 6 years

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AGoT Chapters 14 - 18

If you want to follow along, I'm tagging my ASoIaF reading as tonya rereads asoiaf.

Chapter 14: Catelyn III

Catelyn is cracking. Her world completely stopped. Thankfully Robb is there to try and pull her back.

Sobbing, she pulled her hand free of his and covered her ears against those terrible howls. “Make them stop!” she cried. “I can’t stand it, make them stop, make them stop, kill them all if you must, just make them stop!”

I think this really highlights that, although she’s married to a Stark and her children are Starks, there is a part of them that she will never share. Much like Tyrion and the others, she seems to regard the direwolves with… trepidation.

Looking on the scene where the man comes to the tower to kill Bran and I have to believe that it’s not a coincidence that he almost slits her throat but she stops it. I knew that Bran’s direwolf would save the day, but I’m so glad that we see her fighting hard to live. I’m also very glad that, after her rest, she’s back to being the woman that Winterfell and her children need her to be.

Yeah, I have my issues with her, but I can’t help but love her as well.

Catelyn gave her firstborn a challenging look. “If you are to rule in the north, you must think these things through, Robb. Answer your own question. Why would anyone want to kill a sleeping child?”

While I love that she’s teaching him this now, this is shit they should have been teaching him from a young age. He’s the heir to Winterfell, he should have been trained. Again, I love Ned at Cat, but they’ve coddled their children too much.

I fucking love that Catelyn is figuring this shit out, but why wasn’t someone figuring it out while she was in her grief fugue? Why do they not have a paranoid asshole always suspicious? Okay, I’m not sure if this really earns the “fucking northern fools” tag, but the fact that Robb wasn’t trained does, so we’ll wave this one in as well.

I’d like to mention that Catelyn riding off to take care of shit fills me with joy. We know it’s not going to work, but I still love it.

Chapter 15: Sansa I

Age 11

Not gonna lie, I’ve been waiting for this chapter. It’s going to hurt, because I know what’s in store for her, but she’s still my baby. Granted, she starts out as a prissy, entitled, stuck up baby, but the Oompa Loompas had a song about where that comes from.

The septa was not appeased. “You’re a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you’re as willful as your sister Arya.” She scowled. “And where is Arya this morning?”

“She wasn’t hungry,” Sansa said, knowing full well that her sister had probably stolen down to the kitchen hours ago and wheedled a breakfast out of some cook’s boy.

I’d like to point out two things here: It’s obvious that the septa uses Arya as an example of how “bad girls” act in order to make sure Sansa stays in line. It’s possible that her mother does the same thing. You know what this does? Pits sisters against each other. However, Sansa still covers for Arya here, knowing that her septa would probably not look favorably on Arya’s actions. If Sansa really was a nasty bully like people claim, she would have relished the chance here to get her sister in trouble.

Reading this chapter it just drives home both how young both Sansa and Arya are and how sheltered. Sansa was raised to be such a proper lady and all of her septa and mother’s teachings seemed to have made her look down on anyone who was below her in station. And Arya doesn’t seem to realize that she can’t just get away with anything and everything.

One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse.

This right there. They are traveling with the King and his family, but Ned doesn’t even try to reign in his daughter. This shit is part of what leads to everything going wrong, IIRC. Yet another subtle example of questionable parenting in the series. If you coddle your children, they’re headed for a world of pain.

This scene where Sansa is terrified by Ilyn Payne, notice that Lady reacts. This shows that Lady and Sansa were already bonded. Just imagine what that means for her losing Lady when they were already that close. I think, because Lady is lost so early in the series, people like to dismiss what that meant for Sansa. Of course, a lot of those people like to pretend that she’s not really a Stark at all.

I’m amused that Sandor was under the impression that he was the one who frightened Sansa. Did he not notice she was shaking and terrified before she turned around and saw him? Hell, he had to grab her shoulders before she turned around.

And then there comes Joffrey playing the part of the gallant prince. For a girl fed a steady diet of fairy tales and songs then told she would marry a wonderful prince, he had to have seemed like a dream. My poor baby. She does manage to find her feet, even feeling foolish, and pay a compliment to Cersei.

“I can answer,” Sansa said quickly, to quell her prince’s anger.

Even though she’s infatuated with Joffrey, she’s quick to want to head off his anger. Given that her father doesn’t seem one to fly off the handle, you have to wonder if she’s getting some sort of subconscious feeling that he’s temperamental and that’s not a good thing. Of course, this could just be a throw away line that means nothing.

He drew his sword and showed it to her; a longsword adroitly shrunken to suit a boy of twelve, gleaming blue steel, castle-forged and double-edged, with a leather grip and a lion’s-head pommel in gold.

I just wanted to put this here to compare it with how Robb was reprimanded the chapter before this:

“…Never draw your sword unless you mean to use it. How many times must I tell you, foolish boy?”

Yeah, I don’t think Joffrey was all that well trained either. When Sansa thinks to herself that “her prince would never love her if she seemed stupid” you really have to wonder this shit that everyone put into her mind when they were training her to be some lord’s trophy wife. Yeah, I’m bitter, what of it?

You remember when I said that Ned’s indulging of Arya helps lead to everything going wrong? The scene at the Trident is exactly what I’m talking about. Arya knows damn well they’ve been interrupted by the prince, but she yells at him like they were in the North and he was just another lord up there. Hell, she even starts throwing rocks at him. If Joffrey had killed Arya, I doubt a damn thing would have happened to him. And Sansa, who’s been fed on a steady stream of songs and fairy tales is no help as she yells at both of them that they’re spoiling everything.

I’m pretty sure that Nymeria saved Arya’s life here. I have no doubt that Joffrey would have killed her, and she was weaponless and backed against a tree. As soon as Arya attacked Joffrey, I’m sure Myca’s fate was sealed, and as soon as Nymeria attacked him, a direwolf was going to have to die.

When I finish this book, my wrap up post is going to talk about how this chapter shows the core of what character traits in both Stark girls that are going to be sharped, honed, and perfected for where I think their story will ultimately end up in the series.

Chapter 16: Eddard III

You know, all the people who claim that Sansa is the reason that Lady and Myca died…

What the fuck did you think her word would do?

Cersei was damn determined to have a pelt and Lady was the only direwolf around. Robert clearly didn’t give a fuck and, even if Sansa had sworn up and down that Arya was telling the truth, Cersei would have still demanded and Robert would have given in. And Myca was already dead.

Lady didn’t die as a punishment for Sansa’s imagined sins. She died because Joffrey was humiliated and Cersei couldn’t stand that. She died because Robert had no fucking backbone.

Man, I’m a fucking huge Sansa fan and even I don’t think she has as much power as some of her haters seem to think she has.

Chapter 17: Bran III

Okay, I’m a sucker for a good dream sequence and this opening one is fucking wonderful, IMO.

He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart.

Okay, I feel slow, but what secrets is he talking about here? Unless it’s about where she had Nymeria. If that’s not it, someone please let me know. I have more questions:

One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

These three are, I’m assuming Sandor, Jaime, and the third I’m guessing is Gregor. Am I right in that? I mean, he’s a giant of a man and the “darkness and thick black blood” would fit with his death via Oberyn’s poison and the removal of his head.

As we go through this dream and see Bran realize that the Night King is coming and he’s told that’s why he has to live, remember this is a SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD. Sorry, my babies suffer so much.

“Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.

And his father’s voice replied to him. “That is the only time a man can be brave.”

Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.

Death reached for him, screaming.

Bran spread his arms and flew.

Yeah, I’m gonna be over here crying for a bit. Okay, I’ve got a scary confession. I can see an endgame for Arya, Jon, and Sansa after the battle with the Night King is over. I can see the roles they could play in the world after. I don’t remember seeing what role Bran would play, and that scares me. Because, what if he ends up like the three eyed raven?

Chapter 18: Catelyn IV

“…I had to beg Brandon to spare Petyr’s life. He let him off with a scar.”

How much of these books would be different if Brandon had just went ahead and killed him. Seriously, just think about it. You know how I said I wanted all the men around Daenerys impaled like Vlad did to his enemies? Petyr should be right there beside them, suffering because the damn pike didn’t go through his brain. I’ve got some damn feelings on this.

That’s all I’m reading for tonight, but I’ll definitely be reading more tomorrow. Probably another ten chapters at least. A Jon chapter is next!

#asoiaf #asoiaf:agot #tonya reads books #tonya rereads asoiaf #questionable parenting skills in asoiaf #fucking northern fools #my baby starks deserve better

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