#Judy: is utterly mortified

[zootopiathingz]

Nick, interrogating a suspect: talk right now or else I will go to your house and eat your shower curtain.

Suspect: my shower curtain is made of glass..

Nick: well crunchity munchity then, you think that’ll stop me?

[wendynerdwrites]

Recovered Jonsa Fic #7: Steampunk/Gaslamp Fantasy AU

Another repost.

She stares out the window, over the immense landscapes of Northern France when he enters the overlook deck. It’s early morning, and aside from a few pilots at the helm and control board, there’s no one else around. The rising sun is behind them as they head west, the French sky a mass of purple this early in the morning.

Despite the hour being so early, his cousin is fully dressed: her leggings, corset, and half-skirt a stormy grey, her square-necked tunic white silk. Her half-skirt, which falls just to her knee, shimmers with the mass of steel tools fastened to it. Even her goggles are perfectly fastened above her brow, almost resembling a tiara. She’s dressed for practicality, but for her hair, loose-hanging, blood-colored river that falls almost to her waist.

Jon feels awkward. On his trips with Sansa, he generally tried to be as put-together and well-dressed as possible. Normally, he opted for simple trousers, tunics, and vests in which to store excess tools. More than once while traveling, he was mistaken for a laborer. It was hardly something he minded.

But Sansa had a way of increasing his standards. It used to simply be so he didn’t have to hear her whine, as she was wont to do back in the days when their relationship was more akin to that of siblings. Now it was because he wanted to please her. So, on this trip, there were more frock coats, ties, cufflinks, and shiny buttons.

He’d not expected to see her here this early, though. He’d worked so late in his lab that he’d ended up camping out in the bunk he had there. So when he’d rolled out of bed, he’d just thrown on the first thing he could grab off of his floor: the wrinkled remains of yesterday’s tunic and  a pair of brown trousers with scorch marks.

He almost ducks out to change, but she turns and catches him too quickly. “Jon?”

Jon crosses the deck, blushing a bit. But if his disheveled appearance bothers her, she gives no sign. Indeed, she grabs his hand the second he’s in reaching distance and pulls him to her. Jon stands close behind her, wrapping his arms about her shoulders and chest. He leans in and smells her hair--- there are the fashionable, rosy perfumes from Paris, but with the slightest undercurrent of oil and brass that she always tries so desperate to scrub away.

Sansa had been the only person he’d ever met who seemed utterly disinterested in being a Spark. Unlike her siblings, she did not wait eagerly for the day she broke through. The day she did, it came as an even bigger shock than normal. Even as she desperately, hurriedly assembled her hastily-designed decorating clank, yanking everything within arm’s reach off the shelves of Robb’s lab, she was crying out “I don’t want to be a Madgirl!”

But that was seven years ago. Sansa was a Spark, and a strong one, and she’d more or less embraced it. Every skirt, half or full, had pockets for her tools. And while her labs were tidier and prettier than most, she certainly spent many hours in them. She still played the perfect lady perfect socialite at every opportunity--- to the point where many didn’t even realize she was a Spark at all--- but she was still always ready with a wrench, hammer, or wires.

Jon loved smelling it on her. He loved watching her at work--- an activity which often led to either one of them clearing a counter of all instruments and shoving the other person onto it.

Now, though, his mind wasn’t on that manner of activity. He’d woken up this morning with the insatiable urge to look out over the countryside and watch for the first sight of Winterfell in the distance. Logically, he knew that was silly: they weren’t due to arrive until that evening. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help himself. They’d been away for so, so long.

“What are you doing up?” He asks her, settling his chin on her shoulder.

She sighs. “I couldn’t sleep. We’re so close, Jon. And I wanted to see home the first chance I got.”

“You too, eh?” He almost laughed. It still floored him how much he and Sansa had in common. Two and a half years ago, when he and Sansa set off on this trip, he’d wondered what they’d even talk about when they weren’t working. Out of all the Stark siblings, she was the one he was least close to growing up. But at this point, he now knew, to his amazement, that their differences had been almost entirely superficial. She was like a part of him.

“I was thinking… Do you think that maybe… Maybe Ghost and Lady will act differently, now that we---?”

Jon’s eyes widened. Since their relationship altered, they’d spoken at length over the reactions they’d face upon their return home. Everyone would be shocked, no doubt. Arya and the Duchess would likely be furious, albeit for very different reasons. Bran and Rickon would probably be confused, possibly grossed out. Robb might want to strangle him. The Duke would most likely act calm, but be internally mortified--- or worse, disappointed. The Winterfell Household would most likely be walking on eggshells. Some of those people had helped raise them, after all. And even though Jon had never technically been a Stark (at least, not in name), he’d still been with his mother’s family since early childhood.

But they’d never discussed this. Jon might have been raised with the name “Targaryen”, but never once was he made to feel different from the others. To the point that he’d been given a direwolf construct along with the other Stark kids.

Every Stark descendent got a wolf, a genetically-engineered direwolf construct imbued with some of its intended owner’s DNA and brainwave patterns. It was a tradition going back six centuries to Duke Brandon “The Bio-Builder” Stark, who first engineered a litter for himself and his children. It was something that was usually kept only to the immediate relatives of the main family--- cousins usually didn’t get one. But Jon had. The wolves were a part of their owners, and vice-versa. Leaving them behind at Winterfell had been painful, but Jon’s absurd father had refused to permit them in his court. As a result, Jon hadn’t seen Ghost in thirty months, just as Sansa hadn’t seen Lady.

It was perhaps their longing for their wolves that first brought them together, that made them realize that they were as connected to each other as they were to their wolves. It was certainly true that when they were together, he didn’t feel as incomplete.

Usually, when he thought of Ghost, it was in context of memories or longing. But now that he thought of it, Sansa’s question was a good one. How would Ghost and Lady react? The behavior of the wolves was designed to compliment and work with the mental state and lives of their owners. That’s how they were designed. A thought occurs to him.

“What if they’ve…. Connected?” He asks her. He wasn’t sure how long the range on the wolves’ instinct were in regards to their masters, but it was sizeable.

Sansa turns to him, wide-eyed. “I hadn’t thought of that. Constructs can’t procreate---”

“---Unless Wulfenbach gets his hands on them, apparently,” Jon cuts in, thinking of the miraculous alterations the heir to the Wulfenbach Empire had made to the famous Punch and Judy. He still couldn’t believe it, or half of the other things he’d seen and heard while on this trip.

“Well, I doubt he has, but even though Lady and Ghost won’t have a litter of puppies waiting for us at home, constructs can, um, feel the urge.”

“Are there any stories of this happening before?” Jon asks. Sansa would know. She loved history and legends. Sansa blushes.

“Well, there’s never been two owners that have, well…”

Jon pauses. “Oh. Oh, right.”

“But if they have… connected… then that might be good. It might give the family a clue. So maybe when we arrive, it won’t be too shocking when they find out about us.” She lays a gentle hand on his cheek.

Jon leans into her hand and smiles. “That would definitely be a relief.” He takes a deep breath. “Gods, that only makes me even more excited to see them.”

She leans into his chest. “Just imagine our first night home together, all four of us piled up in my bed… Nice and warm…”

He grins. “Well, hopefully, they won’t make too much of a habit of joining us there.”

She swats him on the chest genially. “Don’t be wicked.”

“Until I get to make an honest woman of you, I can be as wicked as I wish.”

“Oh, stop!” She sighs and rests her head against his chest again. “Oh, it’ll be so sweet, seeing them again.”