#Maybe it's good Jon never got a chance to heal because I think healing from those injuries would hurt more than sustaining them!

[the-magpie-archives]

Can you imagine how weird it'd feel to have a bone taken by Jared Hopworth? Jon says to remove "something I wont miss", but truth be told we're all a bit more aware of our skeletons than we'd like to think.

Putting your hands on your hips, smoothing out your shirt, laying down, bending over- all of these things change at the loss of two ribs.

Can you imagine the feeling of tight, suspended flesh where bone used to be? Running your fingers over the gap like you might poke at where a missing tooth used to be.

That's the thing; Jon didn't just go through pain to save Daisy, he sacrificed a part of who he was, tore up his form, dragging himself ever further away from what he was when he was human.

Every action Jon took to save somebody took a piece of him, and every person he saved reprimanded him for sacrificing his humanity. Little do they know he tore it apart to protect theirs. Becoming less than human isn't something you can really do without help.

It's often seen with dementia patients that when they're taken from a place where they have memory hooks their condition deteriorates faster; similarly, when the body that housed your soul becomes unrecognisable, it makes sense that your humanity would deteriorate along with it.

Jon suffered greatly in falling away from his humanity, and the punishment he received for it pushed him down further.

[grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks]

I’ve had this little oneshot in my drafts for ages, and I’ve been going back and forth about posting it, thinking “Oh, I’m not sure if this is complete enough for AO3 but maybe I could post it just to tumblr...” Anyway, now seems like a pretty good time to post a tumblr-only fic, so here you go: 

(CW: references to suicidal ideation)

Nights at the safehouse were the hardest. During the day, Jon and Martin had settled into an unspoken routine of simply not talking about it. They kept their conversations light,  traded jokes and kisses and good-natured arguments over whose turn it was to do the washing up, acted for all the world like a normal couple. But in the dark and silence of the safehouse’s sole bedroom, the facade of easy, uncomplicated domestic bliss fell away, and they were reminded of all that had brought them there.

That is to say, Jon had gotten used to their late-night conversations tending toward the weighty. Still, he wasn’t prepared for Martin to break a silence so long that Jon had half assumed he’d fallen asleep with,

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

Jon laughed and curled closer to Martin. “Thanks, I think.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s kind of a given, I just - I realized I never got the chance to tell you. After you woke up.” That froze Jon in place, hand stilled halfway up Martin’s chest. He knew how much he’d needed to hear those words six months ago, and he tried to savor them, let them soothe that old ache, but it was like putting a band-aid on a wound that had already healed and left a scar. “You don’t know how much I wanted to see you, when I found out you were awake. It took all my restraint not to sprint down to the hospital as soon as I heard.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jon didn’t mean it to be accusatory, but he couldn’t help it. Waking up to find that six months had passed, his friend was dead, and not a single person seemed to care that he wasn’t… it had hurt. It still hurt. 

He also didn’t mean to let the slightest thread of compulsion into his words, but he felt it as they left his lips. When Martin answered, his voice was not fully his own.

“Peter was the one who told me, you know. He was obviously testing my loyalty, waiting to see what I would do, I knew that, but I didn’t care. I didn’t say a word to him, I just grabbed my coat and walked out. I was going to go to the hospital, and I was going to see you, and talk to you, and you were going to respond, because you were awake! Honestly, I think I was going to tell you that I loved you right then and there, because fuck it! I got halfway out the building before I started thinking about what Peter would do.

“When I made the deal with Peter, I didn’t care about his end of the bargain. I didn’t care about anything, really. Tim was dead, and my mother was dead, and I didn’t think you were ever going to wake up, and I just couldn’t care about anything left in my life. I wanted to keep the others safe, I did, but I think mostly I just wanted an escape from it all. I figured either the Lonely would take me, or Peter’s plan would get me killed, and either way, I wouldn’t have to deal with all of that grief.

“And then suddenly, you were awake, and I cared so much, and I needed you to be safe. Peter had already vanished two people, I didn’t want to know what he would do if you ruined his plans. And to be honest? I didn't think you’d care. I mean, I knew you cared about me, at least a little bit, but I also knew you didn’t feel the way I did - or I thought you didn’t, at any rate - and it’s not like being apart was going to be as hard on you as it was for me. And if keeping my distance kept you safe? Then I’d do it. I just didn’t expect you to keep tracking me down.”

Like a string being cut, the compulsion that had held them both in place snapped, and the two of them set to frantic, overlapping apologies.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown all that at it you, it’s not like it was your fault-”

“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn't have- I shouldn’t have Asked, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright, it’s not like it was anything I was trying to hide, I just… I might not have gone into so much detail-”

“I’m glad you did,” Jon said, then corrected himself quickly, “No, I’m not glad I violated your privacy, I’m so sorry - And I’m sorry that you went through all that alone, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”

Martin huffed a wet, quiet laugh. Jon reached out instinctively and cupped Martin’s cheek in his hand, finding it damp with a few stray tears. “You apologize too much,” Martin laughed.

“I- What? No, I don’t.”

“I’m pretty sure you just apologized for being in a coma.”

“Well.” Jon didn’t have a good answer to that, so he just snuggled closer, burying his face in Martin’s chest as though he could communicate everything he wanted to say through sheer proximity. “I am sorry,” he whispered against the fabric of Martin’s shirt.

Martin pulled away just enough to press a kiss to Jon’s forehead. “I’m sorry, too.” Martin pulled Jon back into the embrace, holding his head against his chest. They lay in silence for a while, the steady, soothing rush of Martin’s breathing the only sound in Jon’s ears.

“For what it’s worth,” Martin said eventually, “I forgive you for everything.”

“Everything?” Jon whispered, “That’s… that’s quite a long list.”

“I know,” Martin replied, and that was that.

In the morning, they would fall back into their routine. They would talk about cows, and chores, and the weather, and whether or not it was time to return their library books, and neither of them would bring up the previous night’s conversation. Instead, they let their forgiveness hang in the air, another thing left unspoken.

[cuttoothed]

Day 7 of @jonmartinweek for the prompt "You are my reason". Still living in post-200 AU land.

*

There comes a day when Jon doesn’t wake up afraid.

His alarm goes off before the sun rises; he wakes tired, but feeling a little thrill of anticipation, because he and Martin have plans today. Nothing earth shattering, but they’re both off work, and the weather is due to be nice, so they’re going hiking up in the hills. Jon’s been looking forward to this all week; he's even okay with being up at dawn on his day off.

The hike is challenging, but the views are worth it, as the morning clouds part into sunshine and leave them gazing out across the craggy, verdant landscape. At the crest of the trail, they sit on a boulder to eat sandwiches and drink tea from a flask; Martin spots some cows on the hillside below and points them out with delight. By the time they get back to the car, they’re exhausted, and they agree that nobody’s going to be cooking tonight, so it’s takeaway from the Indian place near their flat.

That evening they eat too much curry, and drink red wine, and end up curled sleepy and sated on the sofa together, watching nonsense on telly.

“This was a good day,” Jon says; Martin only hums in agreement, so it’s probably time to get him to bed.

It’s only as he’s brushing his teeth that Jon realizes that he hasn’t thought about the end of the world all day. He usually wakes up from dreams of the ruined world; at the very least, it’s always in the back of his mind, guilt and fear and grief tapping at the windows of his consciousness through the day. He’s never had a day where he didn’t think at all about what happened—about what he did.

The realization jolts sharply through him, like a missed step in the dark; it makes something drop like a stone into his stomach, though he doesn't understand why.

He tells his therapist about it at their next session, couched in the careful untruths he’s crafted to convey the vast weight of it all without mentioning the literal apocalypse. Stuart listens, nodding, as he describes what happened, and then when Jon is finished he says:

“You know this is a good thing, right?”

“S-sorry?”

“Trauma plants its roots deep, Jon. It’s pervasive, like chronic pain. The days you have without pain in your leg or your hand, those are good, right? Even though they don’t mean that you’re permanently healed?”

“Yes,” Jon admits, flexing his fingers.

“This is the same. Your trauma isn’t gone, but the fact that you were able to enjoy a whole day without thinking about what happened—that’s really, really good.”

“But I can’t just forget—” Jon starts, and he’s not sure what he’s trying to say; I can’t forget what happened, I can’t forget that it was my fault, I can’t stop looking over my shoulder for what’s coming next.

“Of course not,” Stuart agrees. “But part of healing is letting what happened move into the past. Not forgetting it, but recognizing that it isn’t part of your present. That you can move on.”

Except it is the present, in the thousands of worlds he unleashed the Fears into. It isn’t something that can just be forgotten, that he can move on from. They’ve seen and felt no trace of the Fears in this world yet, but even that doesn’t mean they won’t come; it may just be a matter of time. Jon feels his chest tighten with that knowledge, that fear.

“The people I hurt,” he says carefully. “It’s not in the past for them—they’re still hurt by my actions today.”

“That might be true,” Stuart says. “But from what you’ve told me, you can’t change that. And your guilt doesn’t help them. All it does is punish you.”

“Maybe I deserve to be punished,” Jon snaps angrily, but Stuart only smiles, his face kind.

“Nobody deserves to be punished forever, Jon. Eventually, you have to forgive yourself.”

They’re nice words, but Stuart can’t possibly understand what he’s asking Jon to do. He’s been responsible for immeasurable pain and fear, the unchecked torture of billions of people; he will be responsible for so much more, across thousands of worlds. His whole life has been nothing but a means to a horrifying end. How can he just absolve himself of guilt, enjoy this charmed life he’s somehow gained while damning countless others?

(How can he believe that the consequences will not find him, someday.)

Martin must notice his mood when he gets back from therapy, because it’s not five minutes before a mug of tea and a packet of Jon’s favorite biscuits are placed on the coffee table in front of him.

“All right?” Martin asks, sitting down on the sofa with his own tea. He never asks Jon questions about his therapy —just as Jon respects the privacy of Martin’s sessions—but if he thinks Jon is upset, he’ll ask an open question like this, so Jon knows the offer is there to talk about it.

Jon considers. He hasn’t told Martin about what happened—or rather didn’t happen—the day they went hiking, not wanting to spoil it for him. But Martin’s the only person in this entire world who can possibly understand how Jon is feeling, and he’s the person Jon trusts most. Jon doesn’t want to hide things from him, not anymore. They’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.

So he tells Martin what happened, and how it made him feel, and what Stuart said, and how that made him feel. At the end of it, Martin gives him a fond, teasing smile.

“So what I’m hearing is that you’re feeling bad for not feeling bad,” he says. “That is...so incredibly you, honestly.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Jon protests.

“I know it is. And I’m not trying to dismiss how you feel. I promise. It’s just…” Martin pauses, his brow furrowing as he considers what to say. “Sometimes, when I feel sad for no reason—when parts of me go sort of...numb, I start looking around, expecting to see the fog curling in under the windows. But it isn’t, because the Lonely isn’t here, and I have to deal with the fact that there’s no—no fear monster making me feel that way. It’s just me.”

“Martin…” says Jon, his heart aching. Martin doesn’t often talk about the bad days, after they’ve passed; he prefers to save it for his therapist, since “that’s what I pay them for”. He reaches for Martin’s hand, and Martin laces their fingers together.

“I think you’re the same,” Martin says. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been waiting for something bad to happen. For all of it to—to catch up with you. But it hasn’t. There’s no Fears coming after you, and there’s no...universal justice, or whatever, to punish you. It’s just you, Jon.”

Jon feels a lump in his throat, his eyes stinging. Has he been waiting all this time for something bad to happen, for the other shoe to drop? Has he thought of this as only temporary—a longer respite than that three weeks in the cottage, but just as impermanent? He shakes his head.

“That doesn’t take away from what I did,” he says. Martin nods.

“It doesn’t,” he says. “And nothing takes from the fact that I didn’t kill Jonah Magnus when I had the chance, either. We can’t change the past. We just have to find reasons to live with it. To carry on living. Now, as we are.”

“You know what my reason is,” Jon tells him, his voice thick with emotion; he told Martin a long time ago. Martin ducks his head, smiling, and his fingers squeeze around Jon’s.

“I know,” he says. “But it’s okay to have other reasons too. A nice hike in the hills, or going to the pub with some friends, or petting the many cats you seem to have befriended in our neighborhood. It’s okay to just...be happy, Jon. I promise.”

“I-I’m not sure I can,” Jon tells him; he’s not sure he deserves the chance to be.

“I know,” Martin says. “I know it’s difficult. But you do deserve it. And I’ll be here to keep telling you that until you believe it. I’ll be here to help you keep getting better, like you help me. As long as it takes.”

Jon feels a sob rising in his chest, and dives in to stifle it against Martin’s shoulder, burying his face in the solid expanse. He can feel the tears wetting his cheeks, soaking into Martin’s jumper, but he knows Martin won’t mind. Martin’s arms go around him.

“I hope you’re okay with the long haul, then,” he mumbles against Martin’s shoulder. He’s not sure what he’s done to deserve this, probably nothing, but he has it, and he doesn’t want to let it go. Martin chuckles warmly, petting his hair.

“That’s what I’m here for, sweetheart,” he says. “I’ll be your reason, if you’ll be mine.”

“That’s the deal, then?” Jon says; he’s not sure if he’s laughing or sobbing, but he knows he loves this man with all his heart.

“That’s the deal,” Martin agrees. And Jon might not deserve a deal like that, but he’d be a fool not to take it.

[catxsnow]

THE BEST DAMN PARENTS D.G.

Summary: Dick loved how you took care of Damian, maybe he would love it with his own kid too

Warning: fluff, Damian being adorable, nightmare. 

A/N: “I’m too young for a child” ~ me to myself everytime I’m ever writing about having a baby

GIF not mine

Word count: 1.7k

Everyone knew that Dick was Damian's favorite brother.

He was the only one that Damian could tolerate for long periods of time and the only other person besides his father that he would trust with his life. Dick was the person that he could confide in when he felt like he could turn to no other.

So, when he got a girlfriend, Damian had gotten jealous. He was jealous that their time was being taken away for you and that Dick was cancelling plans because he wanted to spend time with you. Damian didn't like you before he even met you, you were an inconvenience to his life without even being a part of it.

You and Dick started dating shortly after you met. It was an instant click between the two of you and you felt like you could be yourself around him. He treated you well, gave you affection, and he genuinely cared for you. He made you realize how shitty all of your exes were to you. Things were going great.

Damian met you after nearly eight months of dating Dick. You met the rest of his family at one point or another but he was the last one. He was spiteful towards you, unwilling to meet because of simply existing in his mentor's life. However, as soon as he saw you in person? Damian wished that he met you earlier.

You were so kind to him. Full of real smiles, heart-filled laughs, you made him feel happy without even meaning to. Damian could see why Dick was so smitten with you, you were truly a good human-being. You weren't fake like many of the other people that he had met, you showed a real concern for people.

Damian found himself wanting to spend time with the both of you, tagging along whenever he got the chance. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he truly liked you. Dick had brought it up to you many times, specifically saying that Damian liked very few people, for you to be on that list was an honor.

You had taken Damian out to do normal things that kids his age would do, and sometimes he would invite his friend - Jon. Go get ice cream at the park, go to the mall, you even took him to the arcade. Damian felt like a regular kid when he was with you, he enjoyed the feeling as much as he wouldn't tell you.

Dick was working late that night. Damian had come over, unaware that it was just you at home. He didn't mind that it was just the two of you, he enjoyed those times. You had made him dinner, which had been nothing compared to the meals that Alfred cooks for him everyday.

The two of you settled on a movie. You were sitting up on the couch with your feet propped up on the coffee table. Damian had been the same way until half way through the movie. The popcorn was long finished and you were getting tired. Damian must have been exhausted, before the movie could even finish he had dozed off.

You were shocked when Damian fell asleep against you. At first it was just against your shoulder until he had fully fallen asleep and rested his head against your lap. He truly looked like his age when he was sleeping. Eyes sealed shut and stress free. His mop of thick black hair was sticking up everywhere and he was tightly curled up with a blanket over his shoulders.

Dick came home after the movie ended, the door creaked opened and closed with a thud. You shushed him when he came into the room and directed his attention to a sleeping Damian. Dick stood there in shock - this was completely not like Damian.

Quietly, Dick walked over to you so he could give you a kiss. Work was long and he wanted nothing more than to just have you in his arms - unfortunately, Damian ruined that for him. However, seeing you taking care of Damian like he was your own child? That was something that was worth not being able to be with you.

It had been three years since the two of you were dating. Three years of your fights, arguments, loving affection, and living together. In those three years, Dick didn't realize how badly he wanted to have a future family with you until now. He wanted to have kids with you, to marry you one day.

"Hey," you whispered. "There's left overs in the fridge, how was work?"

"Long," Dick sighed. He sat town in the chair beside the couch. His arms tucked behind his head and he stretched out enough to lift up the bottom of his shirt. No matter how many times you've seen him shirtless, you were always wanting to see him. "Tuckered Damian out, I see"

"Poor kid passed out during the movie," you chuckled. Your hands carefully brushed through his hair. Damian shuffled in his sleep but didn't seem to wake. "I'm starting to think that he likes me more than he likes you."

"Starting?" Dick scoffed. "I think he's liked you more since the day he met you. He's always trying to see you. I think you remind him of the mother that he wished he had."

"He deserved better than Talia," you sighed. Dick told you about Damian's past shortly after he told you that he was Nightwing. As far as you were aware, Damian came to you for comfort, and you didn't mind him doing so. The motherly instinct in you had always shone through at a young age, even more so when you got older.

"Have you ever thought about kids?" Dick suddenly asked.

"Everyday," you simply answered. Getting into your late twenties made you want to settle down even more and have the opportunity for kids. You knew that kids wasn't in Dick's lifestyle at the moment, but that didn't change your desire to have them. "I've always wanted kids, I guess just taking care of Damian sometimes fills that void a little. Have you?"

"One day, I would like to," Dick nodded. "With you."

"You want me to have your babies?" You raised an eyebrow. It had been years since the two of you got together but not once did you talk about the future. You never wanted to pressure Dick into something that would jeopardize his life as a hero - you knew that meant the most to him.

"Of course," Dick smiled. He reached over to grab your free hand and intertwined your fingers. "One day I'm going to put a ring on your finger and a baby in you. That sounds like a perfect future to me."

"Sounds perfect to me too," you tugged his hand so that he would give you another kiss. Dick obliged. As much as you would have loved to keep the kiss going, you suddenly felt Damian begin to twitch and shake against your leg. You knew this action from him: he was having a nightmare.

"Damian," you tried to wake him. Dick watched as you carefully shook him. You hands rubbed up and down his back to soothe him until he awoke. Damian's eyes popped open and a fearful gasp passed his lips. He sat upward with a terrified look on his face. You pulled him into your chest as he tried to hold back tears. "It's okay, Damian. You're safe, you're with me. You're okay... you're okay."

As much as Damian continuously tried to prove that he was older than he really was, he was still just a kid. The things he had seen at such a young age shouldn't have been what any adult - much less a twelve year old - should ever see. Nightmares got to him worse than the others, he was still so young.

Damian gripped onto you, grounding himself in reality and no longer within his horrid dream. You held him in your arms, worried for the younger child. Glancing over at Dick, he had both concern and admiration on his face. Taking care of Damian like that? It just proved how badly he wanted to have kids with you.

Damian looked up at you with wet eyes. You dragged your thumbs across his cheeks to wipe away the tears. He truly looked like just a young child, not a lethal assassin. "You're gonna be just fine, Dami," you promised. "Would you like to stay here tonight?" Damian nodded his head. He felt safe with you - a different kind of safe than he felt with his father.

After Damian had calmed down, you brought him to your spare guest room. Damian smiled as you kissed his forehead and wished him goodnight. He never showed this young side to anyone else but you - and you truly felt honored for that. You also promised never to tell anyone that he could be vulnerable like this, it would break his trust.

Dick was just getting out of the shower when you returned to your room. A towel was wrapped around his waist. You strolled up behind him, not caring that his skin was still wet as you embraced him from behind. You peaked around his broad shoulders to meet his eyes in the reflection of the mirror.

"You're going to be a great mother," Dick praised you. "Seeing you with Damian, like that... I can't wait to have a child with you."

"You're not ready, Dick," you grazed over his healing bruises with your hands, enticing a chill over his body. "You're not ready to give up this life. I know you're going to be a great father but right now, Nightwing is first. You've still got a lot of this fire left in you, why waste it?"

"With you, I wouldn't be wasting anything," Dick spun you around. He hoisted you up to sit on the bathroom counter "I love you, (Y/N). There's never a moment that I'm with you that feels like its been wasted."

"I love you, too, Dick," you smiled. "When we're married, ready to settle down, then I'll have your babies. A whole farm of them - I'm not setting on just one or two," you raised your eyebrows at him. If he wanted kids he needed to know what he was going to get himself into.

"Good, I wasn't planning on that either," Dick assured you. His beautiful smile lingered in his lips. "We're going to be the best damn parents that any child has ever had."

"The best damn parents."

[suttttton]

Growing Pains

Febuwhump Day 1: Mind Control

***

“You knew what you would find here, didn’t you?” Annabelle asks, leaning back against her kitchen counter, looking over Jon with eyes far too predatory for his liking.

“To be honest, I expected more spiders,” Jon says. He’s seated at Annabelle Cane’s table, in Annabelle Cane’s flat. Annabelle Cane is making him tea. He came here of his own accord, and even though he can feel his heart in his throat, he refuses to regret this decision. Hadn’t he long ago decided that answers were worth the fear? Isn’t that how he’s made every decision, since Jane Prentiss attacked the Archives? Since he read the wrong book and narrowly escaped being devoured by a monster?

Annabelle smiles, crosses her arms. “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t here, Jon.”

Jon swallows. “Right.” His voice is faint.

“And yet you came anyway,” Annabelle says. “Do you know why?”

“I, uh… I thought I’d ask you—something. For a statement. Maybe.”

“And you thought I was likely to give you one?”

“Well, you invited me here, didn’t you?” Jon snaps, stiff politeness finally giving way to trembling anger.

“I did,” Annabelle says. She comes closer to Jon, and it’s all he can do not to flinch away from her. “Give me your hand,” she says, holding out her own to take it.

“Why?” Jon manages, even as he’s already extending his bandaged hand toward her.

She gives him a flat look, closes her eyes, takes a breath. His hand is trembling slightly, caged between her two hands. She opens her eyes. “Because our patron is worried about you,” she says. And then, her voice low with anger. “You will not compel me again.”

“Our patron?” Jon says.

Annabelle nods, her attention occupied examining the bandages on his hand. He tries to pull away, but he can’t. He can’t move his hand at all. She runs three fingers over the surface of his palm, and Jon holds back a squeak of pain at the gentle contact. “Jude did a wonderful job,” she murmurs, more to herself than to Jon. Then she looks at him, smiling. “And Martin did a wonderful job with the bandages.”

She releases him, and Jon jerks his hand back, cradling it to his chest. She steps even closer, and he’s frozen in place as one of her hands goes to his throat. Even over the bandages, she traces a line exactly where Daisy’s knife punctured his flesh. “Daisy’s is more impressive, though.”

The kettle screams, and she steps away to finish preparing the tea. Jon can suddenly move again, and he curls his arms around himself. This isn’t like meeting Jude Perry or Mike Crew. He wasn’t on even footing with them, either, but with Annabelle, it isn’t even close. He considers running, but he’s terrified that he’ll find himself unable to move if he tries to act on that thought.  

“Why am I here?” he asks. He’d grown used to the small sliver of power his questions gave him. It’s terrifying to lose that.

Annabelle sets a mug of tea in front of him. He picks it up, takes a sip. He didn’t decide to do that, but it’s happening anyway. She sits down across from him, takes a sip from her own mug. “The Mother of Puppets is fond of you,” she says. Like that explains anything.

“You mean, the—spiders?” Jon asks, dread growing in his stomach.

“Knock, knock,” Annabelle says, smiling at him over her mug.

A jolt of fear rushes through Jon, and he takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “But that isn’t—I belong to the Institute, the, the Eye.” Jon still has so many questions about the Entities, so many things that he doesn’t know, puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together. But he knows that he doesn’t belong to the spiders. He escaped them. 

“Sure,” Annabelle says. “But the Web claimed you first. You’ve been running around, collecting your marks like a good little Archivist, all inspired by your desperate curiosity, your gnawing fear that you won’t be able to put all the pieces together in time. It’s all very Beholding-flavored.” She wrinkles her nose, and looks at Jon, still with that sly smile. “Much better for you to strengthen your connection to the Web. Your fear will feed us. You’ll have our gifts.”

“So this is, what, an invitation?”

“Sure,” Annabelle says. “If you want to think of it that way.” She pauses. “Of course, invitations presume that you can deny them, and free will isn’t exactly the Web’s strong suit. The Mother of Puppets wants you to be ours, so you will be.”

Jon opens his mouth, to ask what the hell that means, but Annabelle cuts him off. “You should probably be going now.”

Jon stands up, not of his own accord, and starts toward the door. Annabelle follows. Before he leaves, she plants a hand on his shoulder, and he just barely manages to not flinch away. “Jon,” she says, and there’s something different in her eyes now, replacing the sly teasing tone she’d taken before. She looks… concerned. Sad, even. “There will be some growing pains,” she says. “Just do what the Mother wants. It’ll be alright.” She squeezes his wrist, and then shuts the door.

He doesn’t decide to go back to the Archives. The Web decides for him.

***

“Good morning,” Martin says, bringing in tea, as he does every morning.

Jon smiles at him. “Good morning, Martin.”

Martin looks at him for long enough that Jon starts to frown. “Martin? Did you need something?”

“What?” Martin blinks. “No, sorry, I—You just look… really good. Better than you have since—Well, since you got back from your… vacation, I guess.”

“I suppose there’s no snappy way to say, ‘time when you weren’t coming into work because your boss framed you for murder and the cops wanted to kill you,’” Jon quips. “But yes. I feel better.” He lifts the statement on his desk. “Feels like we’re finally making progress towards something.”

“And your hand, and—It’s all healing well?” Martin asks.

Jon nods, flexing his hand slightly beneath the bandages. “I think I’m starting to get a bit of feeling back? Which is probably a good sign.”

“Probably,” Martin agrees. “I still think you should’ve gone to A&E.”

Jon nods, a little embarrassed. “Yes, well… if it gets worse, I’ll take your advice.”

“Alright,” Martin says. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.” And then he leaves, smiling because, for the first time in recent memory, Jon actually seems as fine as he claims to be.

Jon wants to scream. He wants to curl up beneath his desk, arms wrapped around himself in some semblance of comfort. He wants to be held—Martin or Georgie or Tim, or someone. He wants the release of it, warm arms grounding him as he shakes apart entirely. He wants to beg the others to please, please help him.

Instead, he smiles at them when he sees them in the break room, when he asks them to look into certain details for him. He sits in his office, calmly reading statement after statement, finding as much information about the Unknowing as possible. He goes home and watches movies with Georgie, and laughs at all the right parts. None of it is his choice, and he is so, so scared. Scared of what the Web is planning. Scared that he will be nothing but a puppet for the rest of his life.

It’s strange, being so constantly terrified, but showing no physical symptoms of fear. His heart rate is normal. His hands and voice are steady.

It doesn’t escape his notice that they all like him better, like this. Unburdened by the weight he carries with him. He desperately wishes for one of them to notice that it’s wrong, that he’s wrong, but he knows they won’t. Even if they did notice, he isn’t certain they would want him to go back to what he was before.

It’s almost a relief when Breekon and Hope grab him. He chooses to fight them, kick out his legs uselessly as they tie him up and toss him in the back of their van. His heart is hammering, adrenaline firing. It’s exhilarating, but there’s no room to rejoice in his newfound freedom. He has to find a way out of this, but—

There is no way out. Nikola delights in reminding him of this, whenever she comes to see him. They tie him up in a dimly lit room, surrounded by horrifying mannequins that sometimes move. His binds are tight, as is the gag in his mouth, and though he can struggle against them, it’s clear he’ll never manage to wriggle out of them.

For a while, he expects someone to come rescue him. Maybe Annabelle, although if he really thinks about it, it’s more likely that the Web would simply manipulate someone else into coming. Maybe his assistants would come, if they can find him. (If they decide he’s worth rescuing.) He’s wanted by the Eye and the Web, and clearly that counts for something. Surely they wouldn’t just abandon him to be skinned alive by the Stranger.

But no one comes. It’s hard to keep track of time, but Jon knows it’s been a few weeks, at least. Long enough by far for a rescue party to come, if they ever planned on coming. He wonders if the Web is enjoying this, if this fear is Web-flavored enough for it. Maybe it set him up for this. Maybe it’s actively preventing him from escaping.

He’s allowed to cry now. He can even scream, if he wanted to, although the gag makes it kind of pointless. Nikola enjoys when he cries.

Michael comes, and then Helen replaces him, and Jon can see the spidercracks of the Web behind it. Helen opens her door to him, and even if he wanted to take his chances with the Stranger, the webs in his mind give him no choice but to accept her offer.

At least Helen only toys with him a little bit before depositing him back in his office.

He lays on the floor for a long time, staring at the ceiling, expecting at any moment for the vise-like grip of the Web to take hold of him once more. It keeps not happening. His breath starts to come faster and faster, so he forces himself to take deep breaths, but that only makes his shaky breathing sound louder in his ears. It’s all so loud, his breathing, his heartbeat. Even the electricity humming in the walls, the soft rattle of the air conditioner.

He brings a hand to his face, and his eyes are filled with tears that immediately start tumbling over his cheeks. A sob hitches in his chest, and he almost smiles. He’s wanted to have a breakdown for so long, and now—it’s almost pleasant, losing control of his emotions in the safety of his office. No one around to jeer and laugh at him. No spiderwebs forcing him to keep smiling.

Another sob hitches, and he suddenly feels much too exposed. He pulls himself under his desk, relishing the darkness, the smallness. He brings his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself. Lets himself cry, burying the sound as much as he can. He doesn’t want the others to hear.

The door opens, and he lets out a soft gasp, biting down on his sobs. He holds his breath, willing himself to be quiet, to not be heard, not be found. He’s petrified that being found will mean his break is over, will mean the Web comes back, invading his mind.

It’s Martin. He comes in, humming quietly, and sets something on Jon’s desk. He starts to leave, and then—

Jon suddenly takes a sharp inhale, unable to hold his breath any longer.

Martin’s footsteps pause, hesitantly.

Something in Jon’s brain—the spiderwebs, he knows—pulls at him to be quiet, to let Martin leave, to not bother him with this. But it’s been so long since Jon’s seen Martin, and he just—He just wants to see him. Even if it means he has to smile. Surely, surely Martin will see that something is wrong, won’t he? The thought brings fresh tears to his eyes, and he says, “Martin?” His voice is thick with tears and rough from disuse. 

“Wha—Jon?” Martin says. His footsteps move quickly to the other side of the desk, and he crouches down. “Oh my god, Jon! What happened? Where have you been?”

“Circus got me,” Jon says with a watery smile. The Web hasn’t taken hold yet. And it’s so nice to see Martin, soft and warm and safe.

“This—this whole time, you’ve been with the Circus?” Martin says, sounding horrified.

Jon nods. “How long have I been gone?”

“A month,” Martin says. “Christ, are you alright?”

The spiderwebs tell Jon to send Martin away, to claim that he’s fine. But the compulsion isn’t as strong as it was before. It’s a request, not an order. And Jon is… He isn’t fine. He hasn’t been fine in a long time.

Besides, it’s not like Martin somehow missed the dirty tear tracks on his face.

“No,” he whispers, curling up tighter into himself. The shaking is back now. A month. A month of intruding hands rubbing lotion into his skin, constantly reminding him of their plans for him, telling him how much it would hurt, letting him hear the horrible screams of their other victims.

“Can I touch you?” Martin asks, and Jon nods.

Martin pulls Jon into his arms, both of them still partially under the desk. He’s warm, and his words are soft as he runs a soothing hand up and down Jon’s back. Jon buries his head in his chest, crying until he’s all wrung out, until nothing remains inside of him.

“Sorry,” Jon says, still sniffling slightly, his voice thick. There’s a damp patch on Martin’s shirt now, and Jon flushes a bit, looking at it.

“It’s alright, Jon,” Martin says, still holding on to him. He isn’t shifting impatiently, or acting like Jon should move away, so Jon doesn’t. He rests his head on Martin’s shoulder, exhausted, and Martin continues rubbing soothing circles into his back.

***

Jon wakes up on the cot in document storage, tucked in under several blankets. He spends a hazy moment wishing Martin were there with him, and then the spiderwebs re-exert themselves in full force and he is getting out of bed. Well. He hardly expected the break to last forever. He was lucky to get this much, really. The terror has lessened, and it feels like he can think in a straight line for once.

He heads out of document storage and towards the break room. It’s dark in the Archives. Everyone has left for the day, except for Martin, who didn’t want to leave Jon alone. He’s run out to fetch them both dinner, and will be back shortly.

The Web steers him to the utensil drawer, which is a disorganized mess, as always. He thinks about his feelings for Martin as he digs through it, the deep fondness he feels for him. He’s still holding on to a bit of hope that Martin will save him from this, he realizes.

He finds a knife, and pulls it from the drawer, and suddenly he is very focused on what the Web wants from him. He sets the knife on the counter, and then rolls up his left shirt sleeve. With horror sinking into his gut, he sets his arm on the edge of the sink, picks up the knife again in his right hand. He holds it firmly, tight enough that it makes his newly-healed scar ache.

He knows what’s about to happen. He tries to stop it, but it’s like trying to stop gravity. His hand doesn’t so much as tremble as he slices into the soft skin just below his elbow.

He lets out a cry of pain, or fear, but continues to carve into his arm with the tip of the knife. He’s cutting deep into his flesh, and he doesn’t want to look as blood pours out of him. But he can’t look away.

After an eternity, Jon is finally allowed to drop the knife. It clatters into the sink, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind it. He stares at the wound for a second. Even obscured as it is by blood, he can tell it’s a spiderweb. A message. A punishment.

He feels suddenly nauseous, salt flooding his mouth, and he sinks to the floor, breathing deeply, trying not to be sick. There is so much blood.

A soft pull at his mind, almost gentle. Don’t let Martin see.

He doesn’t want to know what the Web will do to him, if he refuses. There isn’t much time before Martin gets back, so he has to hurry.

He’s still dripping blood everywhere, so that’s the first step. Stop the bleeding. The first aid kit is nearby, well-stocked as always. He grabs it down from the shelf, and then wets a few napkins, which he uses to clean off as much of the blood as possible. It hurts, and he has to sit down before he finishes. It’s a bit tricky, wrapping his own arm in gauze, especially with his right hand injured as well, but he manages, adding layer after layer until he can no longer see the blood soaking through.

He rolls his sleeve down. The bulk of the gauze is visible through his shirt, but hopefully Martin won’t notice something he isn’t looking for.

Jon wipes down the table, the floor, the sink, until he can no longer see any blood anywhere. He washes the knife and drops it back in the drawer. And then he sits down, taking deep, even breaths. He should probably go lay down again, but he doesn’t think he can make it all the way back there. Not on his own.

He puts his head down, and a few minutes later, he hears the stairs creaking with Martin’s return. He hears his footsteps receding as he heads towards document storage, hears the soft creak of the door. And then the steps get louder, until Martin pokes his head into the break room.

“Oh, there you are,” he says, a relieved smile on his face. “Sorry for leaving you. I didn’t think you would wake up. I brought dinner,” he says, holding up the bag of takeout clutched in his hands.

Jon smiles in return. “The Eye told me,” he says.

“Oh, that’s—creepy,” Martin says.

“Sorry,” Jon says, his eyes flicking back to the table.

“It’s fine,” Martin says, sitting down across from him. “How are you feeling?”

The Web isn’t controlling him, but it hardly matters. “I’m fine,” he says. “Feeling better.”

***

They finish eating, and Martin insists on staying the night with Jon in the Archives. He insists that Jon sleep on the cot, even though the break room couch is much too small for Martin to sleep on comfortably.

Jon wakes up, and the fresh wound on his forearm has bled through the gauze, staining not only his shirt sleeve, but also the rest of his shirt. He’s covered in blood, so much that he can’t possibly hide it.

And he can hear Martin, already awake and moving around in the Archive.

Jon stands up, trying to decide what to do. If Martin sees the blood, he will ask questions, and there is no good way to explain the design so intricately carved into Jon’s arm. He needs fresh gauze, and a fresh shirt, but his extra clothes are in his office, and the first aid kit is in the break room.

He decides to make a break for his office, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders to hide any blood Martin might spot. Before he can move, however, the door to document storage opens, and Jon freezes.

“Hey Jon, I wanted to ask—” Martin stops, and for a moment they’re just staring at each other. Martin opens his mouth again, panic writ large on his face. “Jon, is that blood? What happened?”

“I—um—”

“Was it the Circus?” Martin asks, stepping closer. Jon flinches away from him, and he stops. “Okay, just—Jon, that looks really bad.”

“Yeah,” Jon manages, his voice coming out in an almost-laugh. Martin’s look of concern only grows deeper.

There’s no way for Jon to salvage this, no explanation that Martin will accept. Martin can’t know about this, can’t know about any of this. The Web might hurt him, if he becomes a danger to it.

And then—

He suddenly can see the exact strings he needs to pull in Martin’s mind, to make him ignore this. It’ll be easy. Martin won’t even know he’s done anything.

It’s the only option.

For the first time, Jon uses the spiderwebs. Martin’s eyes go blank and glassy for a single horrifying moment. And then he blinks, and looks at Jon. Jon is still covered with his own blood, but Martin doesn’t notice it at all. He looks vaguely confused for a second, before he gathers himself. “Sorry, lost my train of thought,” he says with a small laugh. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go get something for breakfast. I know you usually just skip it, but there’s a nice cafe not to far from here, and I thought it would be… good.”

Jon wants to cry. He wants to tell Martin everything, ask for his help. But Martin can’t help him. Asking will do nothing but hurt both of them.

Instead, Jon smiles. “Sounds wonderful,” he says.

[ieattaperecorders]

Tendon, Heel

Considerations of injury, and the possibility of death. Discussion between the Archivist and Martin Blackwood, in situ.

(Because sometimes fanfiction is for making characters talk more explicitly about their thoughts and fears than you expect or even want them to in canon.)

Read on Ao3

They'd watched Basira walk towards the tower until she'd disappeared.

Martin had asked, because he was a glutton for punishment, how it was possible that they were headed towards the same tower from the same place but going two different directions. Jon had replied that she was on a different path now. When Martin asked what that even meant, he'd only said it "meant what it meant." Literally, symbolically, they were one and the same.

It really wasn't fair to be mad at Jon for giving him frustrating answers when frustrating answers were all that there were. Martin knew that.

They moved on. With each step, the heat of the furnace faded from the air and the sounds of metal grew distant. Jon had let his hand slip back into Martin's and his pace was slower, eyes fixed on the tower. For his own part, Martin tried not to look at it - it had a habit of holding his gaze in a way that felt non-metaphorical.

They'd walked in silence for a while when Jon abruptly cried out, his bandaged leg folding in on him. Luckily Martin had enough foresight to walk on the side of Jon's injury, so when he stumbled Jon leaned hard into him rather than falling flat on his face.

"Easy! Easy," he said, "here, sit down - -"

Jon grunted what might have been a response, teeth grit, face tight with pain. He took long, slow breaths as Martin eased him to the ground.

"S'alright," he finally managed. "Just took an odd step."

"Let me see your leg. I knew you shouldn't be walking yet." Martin sighed. "Just ‘have to stretch it out' like hell."

"That's not - - I thought it was healing." Jon reluctantly peeled up the tattered fabric of his pant leg. "It was healing, it has been. You saw the state that it was in before."

Martin didn't respond beyond a quiet hmm noise. Carefully, he pulled the blood-soaked bandages back, exposing the wound to the air.

Jon wasn't wrong, really. The mess that . . . that the thing that used to be Daisy had made of him was healing, far faster than would have been possible if natural laws meant anything. It was worlds better than what he had first bandaged up. But there was now scarring that was painful to look at, and the central spot where her teeth had dug in was still a deep, inflamed red.

"I think . . ." Jon's eyes got a distant look to them, one Martin recognized by now. "I think . . . it might not ever heal. Not completely, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"She was able to hurt me. Harm me. Something lasting," he sighed. "Something I can't easily recover from."

Martin frowned, looking at the center of his wound. He felt a twist in his chest. "It's . . . just going to stay like this?"

"Probably? It isn't - - I can walk on it fine. It hurts, but nothing serious. Just stepped at an odd angle and got caught by surprise."

"Well. I don't know how nightmare-magic healing works." Martin said, tossing the old bandages aside. "But I don't imagine a fresh bandage would hurt. And there are probably things out here that can smell blood or something, so . . . hold still for a moment, yeah?"

Jon nodded, and Martin pulled what he needed out of the pack, settling into the acts of first aid. He cleaned the area around the wound and taped down some fresh gauze. He'd just about finished his work when he felt something - a hand moving gently though his hair - and glanced up. Jon was looking at him with affection, reaching over to pet his head. Martin smiled back, brought Jon's hand down to his face and kissed it.

"I don't know if first aid makes any difference anymore," he said. "But it's something, right?"

"It does make a difference, I think. Not the physical bandaging, but the fact that you wanted to help me. That you tried," Jon looked at Martin intently. "I think it would be far worse now if you hadn't."

You tried. It makes a difference. Martin swallowed and let out a soft laugh.

"This is how it is now, huh? Dream logic. Putting a metaphorical bandage on a metaphorical injury on a metaphorical leg."

Jon smiled wryly. "I can assure you that the pain is very real."

Martin's expression must have changed, because Jon frowned and shook his head.

"It's not bad, though," he said, beginning to stand. "It'll feel better once I've had more chance to walk it off, and I think I'm ready to move on."

Oh, definitely not, no chance that he was going to allow that. Martin crossed his legs. "Well, I'm not. So how about you try resting it off for a bit instead, hmm?"

". . . Fine."

Jon sounded immensely put-upon as he sat back down. But the tension in his face lessened as he took weight off his leg, and he released a long, slow breath. Martin felt quietly vindicated.

"I really did get used to the idea that nothing here could hurt you," he said after a pause. "Not like this, anyway."

"Mmm." Jon traced his fingers over the edge of the bandage.

"Was it just Daisy?" Martin glanced uneasily around them, looking for signs of movement. "I mean . . . are there other things out here that could do that?"

"I'm not sure. Mostly not, I think. I don't know what will happen when we reach Elias, so it's possible he can. The Powers are infinitely greater, of course, but they have me where they want me already." Jon's eyes went glassy again, and Martin felt the hair on his neck stand up. "When Basira asked if - if she could kill me, I Knew the answer was no. But in hindsight I'm sort of glad she didn't try? It wouldn't have been fatal, but it might have been enough to hurt. Coming from her."

"Is there - - " Martin wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer, but he had to ask. "Anything that can kill you? I mean . . . permanently?"

Jon blinked at him. It was a deliberate act, a gesture of surprise, as Jon never blinked anymore unless he was thinking about it.

Martin blinked back. "What?"

". . . You don't know?" Jon asked.

Martin should have been more annoyed by the question, really, but he was so sincere. There was a look of innocent bafflement on his face, ridiculous against the backdrop of darkened skies and scorched earth and a face that always seemed set in shadow regardless of the lighting.

"No, Jon," he let out a small huff, fondly nudging his arm. "There's a great number of things I don't know, as you seem to keep forgetting."

"Ah. Right."

"Look . . . I'm trying to keep a stiff upper lip and all, but it really, really wasn't fun seeing that back there," Martin said, "and I'm not sure how many more surprises like that I can take. So if there's something dangerous that I don't know about, something that could really, permanently kill you, I want to know before it's coming up behind us and - -"

"It's not - I mean - -" Jon let out a small breath of laughter, "I think I'm looking at him."

Martin stopped mid-sentence. Even realizing how absurd it looked, he couldn't keep himself from turning around - as if there would be something behind him, something else for Jon to be talking about. He turned back. Jon was still looking at him.

"What - - you mean me?" he sputtered.

Jon nodded.

"How? How is that even possible?"

"Same reason Daisy could hurt me." Jon shrugged, mildly. "Same reason Basira could kill Daisy. Maybe even the reason your bandage helped as much as it did."

"I . . . ." Martin tried to process what he was hearing. He felt lightheaded. "Oh, Jon . . . ."

Jon held out a hand and Martin took it, squeezing as tightly as he could.

"Because I love you." Jon clarified, unnecessarily.

"God . . . yeah, okay." Martin took a deep breath. "Well, uh, geez. I won't. In case that needs to be said!"

"I'm not worried about that."

"Okay, good!" Martin's laugh was anxious and too loud, his head was still spinning. "Wait . . . why - why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"I didn't really Know until recently." Jon shrugged again. "I've been trying to, ah, give you privacy? . . . Not Look too hard. It wasn't until all this happened that I put it together."

Martin furrowed his brow. "But you thought I knew?"

"On some level, Basira knew she could kill Daisy before I told her. I thought this might be the same," he picked at the tattered edge of his pant leg. "I assumed you hadn't wanted to bring it up. Or you thought I knew already, since . . . ." he made a vague gesture with his free hand.

"Right . . . ."

"It wouldn't fix things." Jon said softly. "I was telling Basira the truth when I said that," he frowned in that intent way he did when he was trying hard to be clear. "I can't Know the future. But you don't need precognition to know what will happen if a glass vase is dropped from a ten story building. You just need to know how fragile the vase is, and how hard the concrete is.

"I - I'm not quite sure what my death would do," he continued. "Maybe it would be no different than the death of any other avatar. Either way, the entities would remain here. . ." he looked up at Martin, something searching in his face, desperate to be believed. "I would tell you if it would fix things, I wouldn't hide that from you. I know I've changed but I'm not a - - that is, i-if I knew a way back I would take it, even if - -"

"Hey. Hey. . . I know." Martin reached with his other hand, brushing it over Jon's shoulder. Quiet and careful. "I know."

Jon pressed himself into Martin, spindly arms clinging, head tucked under his chin. One of Martin's hands ended up crossing Jon's back, the other went on the back of his head, soft hair under his palm. He closed his eyes and breathed. Allowed the feeling of Jon shifting gently in his arms to block out everything else.

"I know you want to fix this as much as I do," he said when he was ready to speak again. "That's why we're both out here. And even if I can harm you, I never would. You know that, right?"

"Mmm." Jon held him close. There was no hint of hesitation or wariness in him, but his response still felt troublingly uncertain.

 "Jon. You do know that, don't you?" He pressed. "I mean . . . lower-case ‘know,' yeah, but I'd hope you wouldn't need mind reading to figure that one out."

"I do know," Jon said. "But . . . what if I was like Daisy?"

Martin's grip on Jon tightened, he felt his stomach twist. "Oh, God," he said. "We're doing this, huh?

"We don't have to." Jon's voice was soft.

"No, no . . . let's . . . God, let's talk about it." Martin took a heavy breath. "Fuck. Would you - would you want me to? Do you want me to -" he winced, afraid of the answer "-make a promise like Basira did?"

He kept a hand on the back of Jon's head, it allowed him hold him close without looking him in the face. While he talked, Jon reached a hand across Martin's arm and gently stroked down it. The gesture was jarringly comforting against the content of the conversation.

"Honestly . . . I don't know." Jon sighed. "I should say yes. That's what I should want, but truly I don't know what I want anymore. I - I think -" his thumb drew thoughtful circles across Martin's bicep. "If it came to that, if I was that far gone, I'd wish for you to decide. Do what you think is right."

"No. Jon, no." Martin shook his head, "you can't put that on me. Not that."

"I think I might have to?" Jon pulled back, meeting Martin's gaze. "I don't understand my feelings lately. There are times I'll look around at everything, all the horror and nightmares and pain, and - -" he swallowed, but didn't look away, "and it will seem so right and so perfect. Then I'll see you, and - and I'll see the terror and sorrow in your face. And I'll remember, and come back to myself - -"

"Jon . . . ."

"I trust you," Jon's voice cracked on trust. "In a way that I can't trust myself. I can't trust my own mind. But I trust you. I - I need this to be your decision."

Martin looked at Jon for a long time, silently, until a gossamer-silk certainty rang in him. His mouth formed a hard line. When he spoke his voice was tight, calm, and iron-edged.

"Fine," he said. "If it's my decision, then I decide not to. You said yourself it wouldn't fix anything, wouldn't - wouldn't make anything better, so I can't see the point. And I don't - I don't want to."

Jon nodded and sagged back into him, resumed petting his arm. He couldn't tell if Jon was relieved or resigned. Maybe he was just glad to have the choice made, the uncertainty removed.

"We've got a plan, one that will fix things," Martin said firmly. "Go to the tower, kill Elias. Settle it all that way."

"Right. . . ."

The tone was familar. Filled with doubt he wasn't speaking of, but couldn't quite keep to himself.

"You don't need to say it." Martin sighed. "I know you don't think it'll fix things, killing Elias. But . . . you don't Know it won't, right? So it might work."

". . . Right." Agreement without conviction, more damning than an argument.

"If it doesn't, we'll figure something else out," he said firmly. "If he can dream-logic his way into this situation, we can dream logic our way out. We just have to not give up."

"Maybe." It wasn't full agreement, but the concession sounded earnest and that was something. "It's clear by now even if I could theoretically Know anything, there's a great deal I manage to miss."

Martin didn't even try to keep the sardonic lilt from his voice. "Like assuming that nothing can hurt you up until you find out the hard way?"

"Like that." Jon's hands kneaded the fabric of Martin's shirt. He smirked without humor. "It's . . . strange, you know. In a sense I'm so powerful, but I don't feel it. Not in the places that matter. I can Know the most intimate horrors of this world, but not a way to repair it. I can destroy whomever I please, but I can't . . . can't save a - a - single person who's trapped here. . . ." he trailed off, voice shaking.

Martin squeezed Jon a notch tighter. "You can protect me. You've been doing that."

"That's true . . . I'm glad of that, at least." Jon took a deep breath and pulled back, keeping their hands linked. "You're still vulnerable in many ways, Martin. But you're quite possibly the only thing in this world that could end me. And I include myself in that."

"Yourse - - wait, you don't mean - "

"No one gets that escape in this place," he said grimly. "Not unless it's part of some nightmare tableau, and then not permanently. You and I are no different there. No . . . my fate is in your hands. From a certain perspective, you might be the most powerful being in this world."

"Hmm."

"How does it feel?" Jon asked. "Being powerful?"

Martin considered for a moment.

 ". . . Bad," he said decisively. Jon squeezed his hands, a sad smile on his face.

"Yes," he sighed. "Yes, it does."

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

For the Flame Always So Loved the Stars - fic

Characters: Damian Wayne, Jon Kent, Tim Drake, Conner Kent, Kara Kent, Clark Kent, Lois Lane Pairing: jondami Summary: Nothing stays the same forever. But fairytales always end the same way. A/N: This is just a whole fucking lot of self-indulgent garbage. Takes place over 5 years, Damian is 18-23, and Jon is 15-20. The last section is just their superhero way of saying ‘I love you and always will.’ but like. Subtly. I wrote this for myself, but I’m pleased with how it came out, so I hope you like it too. Sorry not sorry for literally the first line of this fic haha. The legend was googled so I took the most similar parts in all the wikis I read. I ignored the part where they all said ‘their story always ends in tragedy and betrayal’ but I’m going for happy endings dammit.

~~

Dick Grayson died when Damian was eighteen.

He wasn’t there. No one from the family was. It was a simple carjacking gone wrong. A single bullet, straight to the chest, from a scared kid who thought completing the initiation to the local gang was his only option to survive in this life.

It was almost funny. A single bullet. No poison, no torture. No evil mastermind, or world-ending apocalypse. No battles against armies, or lives and loves at stake. Not anything they dealt with daily.

Just an old car with a purse left on the passenger seat that someone saw. Just a weak spot in aged armour that was going to be replaced in the next year or so.

Just a single bullet.

Damian doesn’t remember much from after he was told, after he came home from class and found his siblings and Stephanie waiting for him in the parlor. He remembered knowing it must have been bad; Tim’s face was blotchy, his eyes red-rimmed and he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

Stephanie was the one who told him. Cassandra held his hand. But that was about it. That was all his mind supplied.

That, and the fact that his first thought after being told was: ‘But that’s not fair.’

Not fair because Dick was the best of them, in every way. Because he was funny, smart, kind, and every single thing a hero should be. A good person.

Not fair because Damian only got eight years with him, his closest confidante, one of his only friends. Because Damian decided at age ten that a world without Dick Grayson was not one he wanted to live in, and yet here he was, in the worst reality he could think of.

He doesn’t remember much from after he was told. He remembers Stephanie saying: “Dick died, Damian.” He remembers thinking: ‘But that’s not fair.’

Then...he remembers a pain in his knees. Remembers blinking and finding himself staring at the floor, which was much closer than it should have been. He remembers his sister kneeling in front of him, allowing him to press his  forehead into her shoulder. Remembers Jason next to him, rubbing his back, asking if they should get him water, or take him upstairs.

He remembers hearing Tim sob, and that might be the most memorable thing of the moment, because his body registered that that’s what he wanted to do too, he wanted to cry.

But he couldn’t, because you don’t cry over things that weren’t real. And that’s obviously why he collapsed, why he couldn’t form words to come out of his mouth, why his mind was refusing to remember this moment.

Because it wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

~~

Jon was antsy. Nervous.

Alfred had called days ago to inform him and his parents what had happened. And Jon had already been halfway out the door when the butler interjected to request that none of them visit, not right now. The Waynes and their closest companions were grieving, and needed to be alone.

And he hated that – he hated being away from Damian on a good day, but now, when Damian was going to need him? It was pure agony.

So two weeks later, when Clark gave him the okay, he took off to Gotham faster than he ever had before, and bypassed every bit of security measures that Bruce asked him to complete upon arriving.

He found Damian in the cemetery, and he had a feeling it was a place Damian didn’t often leave anymore.

Jon said nothing as he approached. Just plopped next to Damian and silently wrapped his arms around the other’s neck. Damian didn’t say anything either, but he leaned gratefully into the embrace, reaching up to cling to Jon’s forearm.

“I’m so sorry.” Jon whispered, leaning back. He didn’t leave Damian’s personal space, though. Kept their shoulders touching, knees keeping each other warm. “I…I don’t know what else to say. To think.”

“Me neither.” Damian murmured. His voice sounded dry, and Jon wondered when he last drank anything, or ate. “But…I’m glad you’re here.”

Jon let himself smile a little bit, and reached out to hold Damian’s hand. Damian didn’t refute the gesture, and even squeezed Jon’s fingers between his. “I wish I’d had been allowed to come sooner.”

Damian shrugged. “It was better you didn’t see any of us as we…were.”

“Were, huh?” Jon asked dubiously. He glanced forward towards Dick’s grave. Flowers and statues covered it as a makeshift memorial, and the flowers were starting to wilt. “…How are you doing with all this?”

Damian absently shook his head. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

Jon waited, sensing there was more. Had a feeling that in their grief-induced isolation, not many feelings were shared amongst the Wayne family. That they probably all suffered in silence, despite being together.

“I…I didn’t get enough time with him.” Damian continued, just like Jon knew he would. Because Damian didn’t trust easily, but when he did, he trusted you with everything. And Jon knew he was one of the few Damian trusted. Maybe the only one, now. “Eight years. That’s it.”

He squeezed Jon’s hand again.

“If I’d had known that’s all we would have gotten, I…I wouldn’t have wasted it. There was so much I wanted to do with him. Learn from him.” Damian sniffed, and Jon looked up at his eyes. But he didn’t see a hint of tears. In fact, he saw nothing. Damian’s eyes were empty. “But now I’ll never get the chance. I’ll never get to ask how he escaped Father and Gotham. How he survived on his own, and found himself, or how can I do that too. How I can leave Robin, and start over somewhere else like he did. How he rebuilt his life, how he became and remained kind. Did he think it was possible I can remain kind too? Did he…did he believe in me? Or what about how…”

Damian trailed off, and Jon was almost glad he did. Because in his ramblings, Jon heard something, and he wasn’t so sure Damian meant to let it slip.

“You want to leave Robin?” Jon asked softly. Damian’s mouth clamped shut. “Since when?”

Damian stared at the stone in front of him for a moment, before sighing and looking at the ground.

“A few months.” Damian admitted. “I…just don’t fit in it anymore, I don’t think. Or it doesn’t fit me. And I can’t stay in Batman’s shadow forever, no matter who is wearing the mantle. Besides, Grayson left it when he was around my age. As did Drake, even if it wasn’t by his choice. I might as well follow the tradition as well.”

“…Does your dad know?”

“…No. No one does.” Damian frowned. “I was going to speak with Grayson about it next time I saw him, but now…now you’re the only one who knows by default, I suppose.”

“Well, thanks for telling me.” Jon smiled. He waited a moment, then looked up at the sky. “So…what do you want to do after you leave Robin? Find a new name? Quit and go on the straight and narrow?”

“I don’t know. That’s…what I was going to speak to Grayson about.” Damian admitted softly. “I want to still help, of course. But…is behind a mask the best way? Is Gotham where I’m best utilized?” He sighed, and curled his knees to his chest. Though he never let go of Jon’s hand. “But now…now I am even more confused.”

“Why?”

“Because Batman needs a Robin, and I can’t leave my father now, Jon.” Damian almost snapped, like it was obvious. “He’s grieving, and he’s lost. He shouldn’t be alone. He shouldn’t be left alone.”

“Absolutely not. I agree.” Jon nodded. “But…it can’t all fall on you, D. Just like it can’t fall on Alfred or Tim. He has his family, no matter where in the world they – you – are, and he has his friends. He has my dad, and Diana.”

“This is different. This is the loss of Richard. And not even Superman can heal that wound.” Damian shook his head. “Not to mention…if I left now, would my father see it as a betrayal? Abandonment? Would the family?”

“They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.” Jon argued. “You’re growing up, and they all know how it is. You can’t be stuck as the Boy Wonder forever, that’s not fair to you. Does the timing kind of suck? Maybe. But also…maybe this is the best time.” He hesitated, but squeezed Damian’s hand and said his thoughts anyway. “Maybe this is exactly what Dick would want you to do. Spread your wings and fly, so to speak.”

Damian stared at the ground. “…I don’t know what I’m going to do without him, Jon. I truly don’t. What if, without his guidance, I’m tempted by my mother again, and actually consider any offer she makes? What if I stray, and Batman cuts me loose, like I was burden in the first place? What if-”

“Hey, hey – stop. Don’t talk like that.” Jon shook their clasped hands. “None of that is going to happen, okay? Despite the fact that it won’t ever happen at all in the first place, I won’t let it. I promise. Alright?”

Damian didn’t look at him. But after a moment, he let himself tilt to the side, and lean his head on Jon’s shoulder.

“…Thanks for being here, Kent.” Damian whispered. “It means a lot.”

Jon let go of Damian’s hand, only to wrap his arm around his shoulders instead. He looked at the tombstone at their feet, sent a silent prayer up to Dick himself. “Don’t even mention it, D.”

~~

A few months later, Robin had all but disappeared off the streets. It prompted news articles and primetime specials. Conspiracy theory websites and Twitter hashtags.

Jon liked to print them out and bring them to Damian every time he visited.

He was still in Gotham, and even still going out on patrol with Batman and the rest. But now his uniform was all black, and he stayed in the background as much as he could. This new shadow of Batman’s was never mentioned in the papers, never caught in a photo. A ghost, almost.

That wasn’t Damian’s new moniker, though. He still hadn’t chosen one.

“Not even a general idea?” Jon asked one day, as he and Conner visited. Tim had taken the newly printed article and was reading it over with an amused smirk, Conner cackling behind him. “Or like, a motif?”

“Not a priority.” Damian had shrugged. “Maybe I’ll never pick one.”

“Now you’re just being stubborn.” Jon pouted. “…How’s Bruce doing?”

Damian shrugged again. “Same as always. Attempts to lock himself in the cave, or in his office with work from Wayne Enterprises. I drag him out of the house at least every other day.”

Jon pursed his lips.

“But he’s been smiling lately. Like real smiles. So, it’s a start.” Damian promised. He knew Jon didn’t like this, Damian caring for Bruce. Because he knew that same care was not being reciprocated in the way it should.

“How long are you going to stay?” Jon asked, as he did every visit. “In Gotham, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Also not a priority.” Damian sighed. “I’m needed here, both in uniform and at home. When I feel I’m not necessarily needed, then I’ll start considering my options elsewhere.”

~~

Something felt different when Jon was nineteen.

Clark and Conner found him sitting in the kitchen, staring fiercely into a soda can when they arrived home one afternoon.

“Hey, champ.” Clark hummed, leaning down to kiss Jon’s temple.

“Hey, Dad. Hey Kon” Jon sighed. “How was Gotham?”

“Gloomy, like always.” Conner chuckled, plopping down across from him. “Damian said hello, by the way.”

Jon felt himself blush a little bit. And he shouldn’t have, he’s known Damian forever. But lately, it felt like the two of them were growing closer, in a way he never expected when they were just teenagers trying to live up to their fathers’ legacies.

In a way that included flirting, holding hands in a park, in front of paparazzi. A way that included what may have been a date, since it ended in a quick, barely there kiss.

“He said he was going to give an answer to a question he knows you’d ask.” Clark continued, drawing Jon out of his reverie. “No, he has not decided on a new codename yet.”

Jon groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “He knows this isn’t like a blood contract or something, right? It doesn’t have to be permanent! It’s not that big of a choice!”

Clark held his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger, son.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Jon sighed. He sat back up and watched his father grab a glass and start to fill it in the sink. “Speaking of codenames and all that…”

Clark tilted his head as Conner sat up.

“I don’t…when do you think…” Jon huffed. “Conner, when did you realize you didn’t want to…be called Superboy anymore?”

Conner pursed his lips, looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Guess I never really thought about it. Just…stopped using it. And eventually everyone else did too.”

“I don’t think I knew that.” Clark mumbled sheepishly. “What do you go by now, may I ask?”

“Nothing, really. And not like Damian where I’m still deciding something. But just…Kon, usually. Different enough from Conner, honestly.” Conner grinned. “A lot of people also seem to think it’s Con – as in Pros and Cons? Works real well for the taunting wordplay and all that too.”

Clark snorted. “I’m sure your friends love the puns.”

“Bart does. Cassie, depends on the day. Tim is like a disappointed dad all the time anyway, so he doesn’t count.” Conner waved off. He returned his attention to Jon, whose attention seemed to be drifting off again. “Why do you ask, squirt?”

Jon frowned at the name, and that was new. Normally he didn’t mind the random nicknames his older brother gave him. “Because…I don’t…I don’t know. I don’t think…I want to be called Superboy anymore.”

Clark joined them at the table, sitting down carefully. “Why not?”

“Because, I’m not a boy anymore. I’m a teenager. I mean, I’m…I’m practically an adult!” Jon sounded exasperated already, like he’d had this conversation a million times. “It’s…it’s demeaning, and childish, and…and…”

He trailed off into a huff, slumping in his chair.

“I don’t even know if I want to keep the Super part, honestly.” Jon glanced at Clark. “Sorry, Dad.”

Clark shook his head, raising his hand. “None taken, Jonno.”

“Especially since I don’t feel all that super most of the time anyway.” He sighed.

“…If you want out of the life, Jon, I wouldn’t blame you.” Clark offered. “I’d love it, honestly. It’d just mean you’d be safer.”

“No, no. I want to be a hero. I want to help. I just.” Jon leaned back forward, hiding his face in his hands. “This is stupid. I feel stupid.”

Conner smiled and leaned forward, slapping his hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Not stupid. Pretty sure every hero has gone through it at least once in their tenure. Even Batman.”

“And he settled on Bat. Man.” Clark winked. “So obviously not all names are winners.”

Jon looked over to Clark. “…You’re not disappointed?”

“That you want a new codename? Not at all.” Clark grinned. “My only request is…don’t take over four years to decide something like Damian is.”

Jon smiled. “I’ll try.”

~~

“Maybe I’ll just go by Krypto.” Jon lamented from the bed. “He’s a dog, so I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“If you started going by Krypto.” Damian countered from the bathroom doorway. “I’m disowning you as my friend.”

Jon rolled to his side, deeper into the blankets. “What about as your potential bedmate?”

Damian’s face twisted, even as he came forward. “Christ, Jon. We haven’t even done anything, how do you still make that sound so dirty?”

“Because I know what annoys you. And if you’d just let me say boyfriend-”

“Which we are not officially.” Damian countered. “…Yet.”

“-Then I wouldn’t have to say things like bedmate, or friend with benefits.”

“We haven’t done anything, there is no benefit for either of us at this point.” Damian reiterated, even as Jon tugged at his arm when he got close enough. Damian sat on the edge of the bed, and almost smiled when Jon shimmied over to place his head in his lap. “Though I am finding your company less beneficial by the minute…”

Jon cackled, even as he felt Damian’s fingers twist into his hair. “Hey, if nothing else, I’m a good cuddle buddy, right?”

“My cat is better.” Damian shrugged. “Probably.”

“I’ll take the probably as a win.” Jon grinned. “…But hey, think about it this way.”

“Hm?”

“Even if I went by something dumb like Krypto, at least I picked a new codename.”

Damian frowned, and pulled his hand back. “For as charming as your parents are, neither of them taught you how to flirt properly, did they?”

Jon immediately pulled his arms out of the blanket, latching on to Damian’s waist. “You hate when I sidetrack a conversation. I was getting back on point.”

“…Fair.” Damian sighed. “I’ll allow it.”

“…Are you any closer to picking anything?” Jon asked. “According to Barry, you’re throwing off everyone’s betting pools.”

“I...have an idea.” Damian murmured, keeping his gaze away from Jon’s. “But I still need to think of a backup.”

“What? Why?” Jon asked.

“…Personal reasons.” Damian murmured. “And I don’t wish to get my hopes up.”

Jon watched him silently.

“But we aren’t talking about me.” Damian countered. “Have you thought of any other suggestions for yourself?”

“I don’t know. Something related to my dad, like Krypton? Or even like your dad – he named himself after what he was scared of, right? Or weakness. So, Kryptonite.” Jon listed. “Or maybe I should just be lazy and follow everyone else’s lead. Starman, or Sunguy or something stupid like that.”

“Hm. Well. Those are certainly…options.” Damian tilted his head apologetically. “I’d offer assistance, but…well…”

Jon laughed.

“Be my distraction instead, how about that?” Jon suggested instead. Without warning, he used his momentum to throw Damian back onto the bed, cocoon him in the blankets as he loomed overhead. “Because there’s totally a lot of other things I’d like to be doing than thinking of new codenames.”

Damian smiled as Jon leaned in for a kiss.

~~

He didn’t know how Damian had lasted four years without a name. It’d only been a few months for himself, a few months of not using any name, and he felt like he was going crazy.

He also felt like he was a total letdown.

He was a Kent, for crying out loud. Son of Superman and one of the world’s greatest journalists. And here, he couldn’t choose a name, couldn’t pick a damn word.

Not to mention, it was detrimental in the field. When he didn’t notice an enemy coming behind him, or someone needed his help – he had no name to be called. And they couldn’t just shout Jon.

How did Damian make it look so easy? Because Damian and his family were freaks. They all moved too in-sync, too well trained. They were like animals themselves – they didn’t need to speak, movement was like instinct. Communication could be silent, because all of them were always three steps ahead of each other.

He let out a guttural groan as he entered the apartment, slammed the door behind him a little too hard. Heard the squeak of the chair in his mother’s office as she stood to greet him.

“Hi honey.” She called, walking into the room. She took in the annoyance on his face and gave him a sympathetic, knowing grin. “It’s not the end of the world, Jon. Names aren’t that big of a deal. So long as you’re helping, who cares what your name is?”

“I know, I know.” Jon mumbled, kicking off his shoes. “I’m just frustrated. It shouldn’t be this hard! Why doesn’t anything feel right?”

“Because it’s not.” Lois shrugged simply, leading the way into the kitchen. She motioned for Jon to sit, and got out a mug for him. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. It might take a while, but – when you know, you know.”

Jon groaned again. “Mom, I love you – but that was literally no help whatsoever.”

“Sometimes, the truth isn’t helpful.” She laughed, pouring him a glass of ice tea. She set it in front of him, and kissed his head. “But if you’re really struggling with this…talk to your father. He’s helped a young hero or two discover a new path before. You’re no different just because you’re his son.” She paused. “In fact, I’m a little surprised Damian hadn’t told you.”

“Told me what?” Jon stomach nearly dropped. “Dad finally helped him decide on a name too?!”

“Of course not. Damian is as stubborn and tight-lipped as his own idiot of a father.” Lois rolled her eyes, but it was fond. “No, his brother – Dick.”

Jon blinked.

“Nightwing was a Kryptonian name. From the Kryptonian legend of Nightwing and Flamebird.” She hummed thoughtfully. “Even if you don’t want you father’s help on a name, ask him about the story. It’s very good.”

~~

Tim found Damian in the cave alone, and his gut immediately told him that something was off. Not wrong, but…not necessarily good.

“Hey.” He offered. “What’s up?”

Damian didn’t move from the computer chair. He looked too much like Bruce in that moment – slouched, hands steepled in front of his face, looking too thoughtful for someone so young.

“I’d like to talk to you.” Damian returned, just as vaguely.

“I’m all ears.”

Damian hesitated a moment. Dragged it to two. Tim was about to speak, to push the conversation along, when Damian sighed. “I…we didn’t do it right last time. And I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Not here. Not with you.”

“…Damian?” Tim asked, moving towards him. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“No, no. I just.” He sighed. “I wanted to ask your…opinion.”

“On?”

“I think I’ve chosen a new moniker to go by.” Damian murmured. “But I want to make sure I had permission first.”

“Permission?” Tim repeated, bewildered. “I mean…as long it’s not like Red Robin or Red Hood or something, I think you can go by whatever you wa-”

“Nightwing.”

Damian’s voice was so quiet when he said it, Tim almost thought he’d misheard, or that maybe Damian didn’t actually speak at all. That it was maybe a breeze, or a ghost.

But when Damian said nothing else, eyes still not on him, Tim realized he said exactly as he’d heard. “…Really?”

Damian nodded, but seemed to swallow a lump in his throat.

“I mean, those are quite some shoes to fill, especially after all these years, but…” Then Tim paused, replayed what Damian already said. “…Wait, why would you need my permission to use Dick’s old name?”

Damian still didn’t look at him. “Because last time I changed names, I took yours.” He frowned. “I stole yours.”

Tim shrugged. “It was over a decade ago. I know you and I have held a lot of grudges in our lives, but trust me. I’m over that one.”

“And I know Todd would never want Nightwing.” Damian continued as if Tim never spoke. “But…you were next in line. You loved Grayson like I did.” Finally, he looked up, eyes boring into Tim’s. “And you’d deserve it.”

Tim stepped back like someone had punched him in the chest. “Damian…”

“You do, and you know it.” Damian continued. “You’ve fought tooth and nail for respect in this family, for every title you’ve ever carried. You fought for your independence, and have thrived as Red Robin. In a way, you are everything Nightwing embodies, and you deserve the title most.” Damian’s gaze dropped once more. “And I don’t want to take that opportunity from you. Not like I’ve taken everything else from you too.”

Tim just stared.

“He would have chosen you himself. I know it. If he were…” Damian trailed off. Seemed to have to take a moment to compose himself. “…If he were still here.”

Tim lowered his own eyes at the thought. It’d been five years since their beloved older brother died. Despite what the world tried to say, time didn’t heal all wounds, and the loss of Dick Grayson was a wound that seemed almost infected now, especially for Damian.

The world was less without him. Less bright, less kind, less happy – less everything.

Just…less.

After a moment Tim smiled. Picked his head up and moved forward so he could crouch next to the chair, leaning his arms on it. Despite being twenty-three years old, Damian turned his head away so he didn’t have to look at Tim, just like a child.

“I don’t want Nightwing.” Tim said honestly. “I’m happy with where I am and what I’m doing. But I appreciate you asking. I’m…honored, in fact.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. I guess.” Damian mumbled.

“But I have to say I disagree with you.” Tim leaned his chin on his arms. “Dick wouldn’t have picked me to succeed him. He wouldn’t have picked anyone. But he would have been so proud to see you take it on after him.”

Damian closed his eyes, sucked his lips between his teeth.

“Because, for once, I’ll toot my own horn a little bit. I won’t disagree with you on this one. Maybe I do deserve the Nightwing name.” Tim admitted. “But I’m not the only one.”

Damian didn’t answer, but shook his head.

“You do too, Damian.” Tim reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. “You’ve overcome so much. You’ve done so much. And Dick was proud of you for it until the day he died. I know he was.”

Damian opened his eyes and looked at Tim. The tears immediately fell down his cheeks.

“And he’d be honored, knowing you wanted to follow in his footsteps, and carry on his legacy, for a second time.” Tim chuckled. “Especially after your first words to us when you were a kid was how badly you wanted to be Batman.”

“One day I still will be.” Damian blubbered with a laugh. Tim laughed too.

“I know.” He hummed warmly. “But that was all a long, surprisingly emotionally-charged way to say: while it’s not mine to give, yes you have my permission to become Nightwing.”

Even as his tears continued to fall, Damian stared at Tim for a few more seconds, before leaning forward and, once again to Tim’s surprise, enveloped his older brother in a hug.

“Thank you, Drake.” He whispered. Tim just let his smile widen as he held Damian just as tightly back. “Thank you so much.”

~~

“Tim told me Damian finally picked a new name.” Conner said one morning, as the two of them sat on a rooftop overlooking Metropolis. “…He also mentioned you two might be dating?”

Jon’s eyes widened slightly as he tried to keep his heart rate in check. Damian had told Tim?

“He hasn’t told me about choosing a name.” Jon said instead. “When did this supposedly happen?”

“The other day. Maybe he hasn’t made it official yet.” Conner shrugged. Then he grinned. “Though you’d think he’d tell his boyfriend about it anyway.”

Jon frowned. “We’re not dating.” A hesitation. “Officially.”

“Ooooh.” Conner mocked, scooting closer. “Tell me everything.”

Jon rolled his eyes, but laughed as he pushed Conner’s shoulder. “First off, not your business. And second, there’s nothing to tell? We hang out. We hold hands. We…do things.”

Conner wiggled his eyebrows.

“Stop.” Jon chuckled. “I just…like being with him. Being close to him makes me feel happy. Safe. All that cliché stuff.”

“Has he reciprocated?” Jon nodded. “Then why not official?”

“His choice. I think he feels like he’d be judged for having actual emotions or something.” Jon shrugged. “I also think he feels like he’s…not good enough? Or a bad person, or something, and is hoping I might find someone else before we’re legit.”

“Ouch.”

“It sucks, but…I get it.” Jon sighed. “And he just…has stuff going on. Mentally, I think.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we started flirting a little bit right before Dick died. So our whole relationship so far, romantically, he’s trying to deal with the loss, with the vacuum that loss created in his family, and growing in his role as a hero.” Jon listed. “He’s stuck in his own head so much that honestly I’m just happy when I can get him to smile some days.”

“That’s sweet.” Conner grinned. “And proof you’re head over heels.”

“I mean…did I ever deny that?” Jon grinned back, but it was sad. Conner’s own smile fell slightly.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Jon exhaled a bitter laugh. “That obvious?”

“Does he know?”

“I think so?” Jon thought out loud. “And I think that’s why he thinks himself such a terrible person.”

“Because he doesn’t love you back?”

“No, no. I think he absolutely does.” Jon said confidently. “It’s just like I said – he thinks himself as a bad person, and that I deserve better.”

“That’s…” Conner pursed his lips. “…quite the conundrum.”

“Yeah.” Jon smiled wistfully. “But anyway, the name. Did Tim say what name he chose?”

“Nope.” Conner kicked his feet against the building. “Tim said it was incredibly personal, and he wasn’t the one to share it.”

“Interesting.” Jon muttered. “Wonder what it could be?”

~~

He was twenty, very much an adult, but oh boy, did he feel like a rebellious teenager right now.

After all, how else were you supposed to feel when you and your not-quite-boyfriend were lying almost naked, cuddled up in your parents’ bed?

Somewhere in his mind he was panicking. If – when – they found out, he was doomed. He’d never live it down.

(But at the same time, it was also totally not his fault. Their apartment was closer to downtown than his was, and the room he still had here only had a single bed. There was no way they’d fit. And since his father was in space and his mother in the Philippines, the bed would have just gone to waste being empty, so…)

Though, simultaneously, any fear of repercussions was drowned out by the utter bliss he felt at being cocooned in Damian’s arms, and using his collarbone as a pillow while they watched the nightly news.

Under his ear, he felt Damian’s heartbeat slowing, a clear sign he was falling asleep. So it was the perfect time to ask:

“I hear you picked a new codename.”

Damian stirred a little and hummed, “Yeah.”

“What name did you pick, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Damian hesitated a moment, then whispered, “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“Never.”

“…Nightwing.” Damian answered sheepishly. Quietly, like he wasn’t allowed to say it. “I…decided to carry on Grayson’s legacy.”

Jon turned and looked up at him. Without thinking he cupped Damian’s cheek in his hand. “Oh, Damian, that’s wonderful.” Damian kept his gaze over Jon’s shoulder, face heating up in an embarrassed flush. “He’d love it, he’d be so happy.” He stroked his thumb across Damian’s skin. “I’m so proud of you.”

Damian snorted. “Nothing to be proud of. It took me five years to pick a name someone had already used.”

“For good reason.” Jon countered. “And an homage to a great man.”

Damian allowed himself to look at Jon now. He stared at him for a moment, taking in his face, then carefully took hold of Jon’s wrist, and leaned in for a kiss, which Jon ate up greedily.

After a moment, they separated, and Jon twisted back to stare at the TV, Damian’s arms still tight around him.

“…What about you?” Damian asked softly. “Any ideas?”

“I don’t know. Superdude is sounding better and better every day.” Jon said dryly. “But I guess I haven’t really been thinking about it either. Been focused on some other more important things lately.”

“Oh? Like what? School?”

Jon grinned, kept his eyes on the weather report now lighting up the room.

“You.”

Damian didn’t answer, but Jon felt him gently kiss his temple, and lean their heads together.

~~

“Mom said I should ask my dad.” Jon hummed as he paid for their coffee. “But we haven’t seen each other in a while, and you know more about Krypton and all that stuff than he does, you know?”

“Sure.” Kara smiled, taking her cup from his hand. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re so interested in some old Kryptonian legend?”

“Just curiosity, mostly.” Jon shrugged. “Dad helped Dick Grayson become Nightwing back in the day, and now that Damian is taking the title on, I figured I should learn a little bit about it myself.”

“To support your future husband?” Kara smirked.

“Stop.” Jon groaned. “I should have never told Conner the truth.”

“I’m just glad to know you’re happy.” Kara squeezed his hand as they walked outside. “And also that I now have a viable reason to beat Damian up.”

“And that reason would be?”

“For the honor of my littlest cousin.” She winked. Jon found himself laughing. “Thanks for walking me back to the office, by the way. I’m sorry we couldn’t have lunch today.”

“I totally understand. I have to get back to campus for class soon anyway.” Jon waved off. “Rain check for a movie night, though?”

“Absolutely. Go buy a lot of tissues, wine and chocolate, because I am in the mood for some tearjerkers.” Kara demanded. “And…Damian is more than welcome to join us, if he’d like.”

“He’d never.” Jon promised as they jogged across a crosswalk. “But he’ll appreciate the invite.”

“Are you just saying that, or would he really?”

“Honestly, he really would.” Jon swore. “He’s trying not to take little things like that for granted anymore. Not since…well. You know.”

Kara frowned. “…I miss him too.”

“Everyone does.” Jon murmured as they stopped outside a building. Some people waved to Kara as they exited and jumped into a taxi nearby. “He was the best of all of us.”

“Give Damian my regards, and a hug for me. Tell him I’m sorry about Dick, if you think it’s appropriate.” Kara murmured as she turned to her purse, and began digging in it. After a moment, she held out a book. It looked old, and pages were misshaped, almost like they’d been gnawed on, or burned. “First, last and only edition.”

Jon took the tome, marveling at the etched green cover, and symbols seemingly floating around the image. But then he frowned. “Kara.” He sighed. “You know my Kryptonian isn’t that good.”

“Well then this will be a great tool to learn.” She smiled, squeezing his bicep. Someone suddenly called Kara from the door. She smiled and waved back before glancing to Jon. “Gotta go, kiddo. It was great seeing you! Tell your pops hi for me!”

She turned, and began to jog away, when Jon called after her. “Kara, wait!”

She did, glancing over her shoulder.

“Give me a quick summary?” He tried with a lopsided grin. “You know, to keep me interested?”

Kara twisted her lips in thought, then smiled. “Nightwing and Flamebird always find each other in the end.”

She took a sip of her coffee and disappeared into her office.

~~

By two o’clock in the morning that very night, Jon sat at the desk in his apartment, tears pouring down his face.

The legend was magical, breathtaking, awe-inspiring…but heartbreaking. The most heartbreaking thing he’d ever read.

But it also made him realize exactly what he needed to do. Exactly what his future was.

Exactly who his future was.

Without thinking, he wiped the tears from his eyes, and laughed as he stood, turning towards his window.

It would be a quick flight to Gotham, and surely Alfred was still awake at this hour.

~~

Damian stood on the top of Wayne Tower, staring at the city below him. The city he’d come to think of as home. The city that was…his.

He felt weird without the cape, without the hood. Was still getting used to the tight, plain bodysuit. The lighter armour. The dip of red across his chest.

He could take Grayson’s name, but he could never take his colors. That blue was too pure. Damian refused to taint it.

He inhaled and held his breath, then exhaled slowly. It was his first night in his new gear – would the villains know who he was? Would they mock him? Could he live up to his brother’s standards? Would he honor his memory?

“Damn.” He heard off to his side. “You look good.”

Damian glanced over, and found himself at a loss for words. The other man was in a similarly simple bodysuit, though instead of black, it was a deep blue. Opposite of the downward red arrow on Damian’s chest, the bright, near-blinding golden arrow on the other pointed upwards, almost looking like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Damian stared for a moment, taking it in, before meeting Jon’s eyes. “This is new.”

“You like?” Jon asked, practically shy. “Alfred helped me make it.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm.” Jon stepped forwards. His boots, which matched the shimmering yellow on his chest, seemed to flicker as he walked, like fire. “I mean, he helped make yours, and it’s only natural our designs match a little bit.”

“Why would they need to match?” Damian asked. Then he squinted. “Jonathan Kent, have you chosen a new moniker?”

“I did indeed.” Jon grinned. “Surely Dick told you how he got his name.”

“He did.”

“Did he tell you the story behind it?”

“He did not. But I’ve heard of it.” Damian found his voice going quieter, his throat drying up. “Your father told me, I believe.”

“Mhm.” Jon reached out, gently taking Damian’s hand in his, raising it between them. “And do you remember how it goes?”

Damian blinked, then smiled. “Refresh my memory.”

“Nightwing can’t exist without Flamebird.” Jon smirked. He pressed his lips to Damian’s knuckles. “And no matter the universe, no matter the situation, they always find each other in the end.”

“…Well, Flamebird.” Damian whispered softly. “I’m glad you found me.”

“I’m glad you found me too.” Jon stood back up. “Ready for our first official patrol in the new digs? Say goodbye to Robin and Superboy forever?”

“Do you want to call it our first official patrol?” Damian let his grin widen. “Or perhaps our first official date?”

Jon gaped at him, eyes wide and hopeful. “For real?”

“For real.” Damian promised. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting-”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Jon surged forward, wrapping him in his arms and lifting him off the tower’s ledge as he smashed their mouths together. Damian let his surprise linger for only a second, before grabbing both sides of Jon’s head and returning the gesture.

The moment felt like it lasted both an eternity and no longer than a blink. When they parted, they were both out of breath, and trembling from the emotional adrenaline.

“Flamebird.” Damian breathed as Jon lowered him, his hands still on Jon’s face. “I think I like it.”

“Good. Because I didn’t have any backups.” Jon chuckled.

“It suits you, I think.” Damian smiled.

“Nightwing suits you just as well.” Jon countered. “…Dick would be so proud.”

Damian just lowered his gaze, but allowed himself to keep smiling.

“…Well.” Damian exhaled, looking out into the city. “Shall we?”

Jon bowed, holding his arm out. “After you, ‘Wing.”

Damian laughed and turned, stepping off the building and allowing himself to freefall. “Follow me, ‘Bird.”

Jon smiled, and jumped right after him.

[eldritchteaparty]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter summary: Martin and Jon go "home" to clean up, recover, and decide what to do next.

Read on AO3 above or read here below!

Tumblr master post with links to previous chapters here

***

They made it to the flat without much trouble. It was within easy walking distance, an unimpressive one-bedroom, virtually interchangeable with anywhere Jon had ever lived. It was also just as stark, but they didn’t waste time looking around. Instead, they headed straight to the bathroom. Being clean was the only thing Martin wanted more than sleep.

He got a look at himself in the mirror for the first time. Beneath the layer of dirt and blood and whatever else that he’d expected, he noticed a dark red mark on his skin, peeking just above the neck of his jumper. He pulled down at the collar, trying to get a better look at the apparent injury, but the full line of it extended well below where he could reach without taking it off. He recalled how the shirt he’d removed earlier had been torn and bloody around the shoulder, but at the time he’d just assumed that was from Jon.

He turned on the water in the shower to let it get hot, and left Jon to undress on his own as he steeled himself for whatever he was about to find. He pulled the jumper up over his head and was finally able to view the whole thing. It was completely healed, of course, but it ran from the top of his chest back over his collar bone and partway down the right side of his back. Parts of it were smooth and barely noticeable, but there were a few parts where it looked like the skin had been torn wide open—jagged edges that had healed poorly, like they had been stitched back together without being lined up properly.

He was so engrossed in it that he startled when Jon touched his shoulder.

“Hey.” He started to turn toward him, but Jon stopped him.

“You should—here.” Jon ran a hand down Martin’s arm to a spot on his forearm, just below his elbow, where he felt around for a moment. “Right there.”

Martin touched the spot, and found a small, hard ridge that stood out from the bone. He didn’t remember that, and it didn’t match the same place on his other arm.

“What—what is that?”

“It… broke.” Jon met his eyes in the mirror. “Before we came here. I’m sorry. It was a clean break, though. Also… here.”

He touched another spot on Martin’s back, which he turned to see, craning his neck to get a good look at it in his reflection. It was another scar, left over from what would have been a very large, deep gash, about halfway down his spine.

“Wait.” Martin took Jon by the shoulders; there was no way Jon had escaped undamaged if he looked that bad. He inspected his chest, his neck, then turned him firmly to look at his back, which Jon tolerated reasonably well—better than Martin would have given him credit for, anyway. Beyond the scars he already knew about, he only found evidence of a few smaller scratches, and wasn’t sure he believed it. He kept searching.

“Martin, I’m fine,” Jon sighed.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Martin pressed his hand pointedly to the stab wound on Jon’s chest.

“I meant”—Jon finally moved Martin’s hands away—“that I didn’t get hit when the tower went down.”

“How?” Martin asked. “I mean, look at me. How is it even possible that you—”

“Because you wouldn’t let go.”

Oh.

Martin wasn’t used to finding out he’d done something right. Once he unfroze, he was so grateful that he ended up pulling Jon into him, which he almost never did when Jon wasn't dressed. Thankfully Jon welcomed it, and allowed himself to be held, even leaned into it. It felt nice to be so close, to feel Jon’s skin on his, to be relaxed and warm from the steam of the shower that had finally heated up. He could have stayed there like that for a long while, and under normal circumstances he would have insisted on it; this time, though, the need to wash up won out.

“You go first,” he told Jon as he pulled away. “I can wait.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t think we’ll stay awake long enough for that.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Oh, for god’s sake. It’s soap and water. No, I don’t mind.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to shower with Jon. He supposed part of him still wasn’t sure where the lines were, what would make Jon uncomfortable, although they had taken a bath together at Upton. Several, actually, just because they could. That had been a little different, though; they’d had a large garden tub and plenty of room. Plus, although he’d seemed happy enough about it at the time, he wasn’t sure Jon even remembered it.

If he’d understood what taking a functional shower together was going to be like, though, he wouldn’t have bothered worrying about it. First, there wasn’t enough room for two people to stand under the water at the same time; second, if the shower was at the right height and angle for him, it definitely wasn’t right for Jon, and vice versa. They only had one bar of soap between them, and there was a lot to scrub off. The water at the bottom of the tub ran almost black for the first few minutes. He was grateful to find that Jon was at least well enough to wash himself. Martin only helped a little with his hair because, well, he wanted to—plus it sped up his turn with the shampoo.

Martin would have been happy to go straight to sleep when they were done, but as soon as Jon sat on the bed his stomach interrupted with a noise that went well beyond a growl. “Right,” Martin said, pressing a hand to his forehead. He was still pretty hungry himself, and Jon hadn’t even finished the peaches. “You stay. I’ll go see what there is to eat.”

There wasn’t much in the cupboards, and Martin didn’t think it was possible to be hungry enough to try the fridge after two months, but he did find a couple of ready meals in the freezer that didn’t look too bad. He heated them up and returned to the bedroom to find Jon face down with his legs tucked up beneath him, head toward the foot of the bed, in what he assumed was a failed attempt to stay awake.

He did have to keep an eye on Jon while they ate, as he kept closing his eyes with the fork halfway up to his mouth, but was glad to see that his appetite was good. Finally, when they had eaten what they could, he set the trays aside and wrapped his arms tightly around Jon as they lay down. At least he didn’t have to worry about keeping him up.

The next few days were like a long fever dream. They did wake up occasionally, sometimes apart, sometimes together, for maybe an hour at a time. When they did, their top priority was more food. Martin managed to have groceries delivered, which he was quite proud of.

When they were able to accomplish anything, they left scrawled notes for each other on the single pad of paper they found on Jon’s desk. At one point, Jon completely emptied their bags of clothes again and came out with a second phone that had apparently belonged to Martin. That’s useful, Martin thought when he saw that particular note. There was another little scribble off to the side that looked like it read “wallet.” Probably also useful, Martin thought, shoveling another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

Mostly, though, they slept. The best was when they didn’t dream. When Martin closed his eyes and he woke up and time had passed and he felt a little bit less tired, and he could look at Jon breathing deeply or even snoring a little and he could close his eyes again—that was ideal.

When he dreamed, it was usually not too bad. It was different than it had been. He knew he’d had nightmares during the apocalypse, but he never remembered them; it was always Jon who told him about them later. Here, at least, the dreams were his, and he did remember them, sometimes. Sometimes they were the same ones he’d always had, meaningless, dreams about building things or walking aimlessly through empty hallways or even the one where he forgot to show up for an exam. Those were fine.

His bad dreams, though, were bad. He relived things he hadn’t wanted to live the first time. Endless webs he couldn’t escape, filthy with spiders, while Jon read statements he couldn’t understand; there was only that voice that had never quite belonged to him and never seemed right. Then they were back in Jude Perry’s domain and Jon was burning, Jon was literally on fire and he wouldn’t save himself and Martin was too terrified to go in and drag him out. He didn’t need an interpreter for that one.

Then there was the dream where he killed Jon again, only in the dream there was no here, no somewhere else; there was no together. There was only Jon bleeding out in his arms after his flesh and muscle gave way and the knife went in. There were only his dead eyes and hands that went cold so fast, and Martin screaming for him to come back, begging him, telling him how sorry he was. He screamed until he couldn’t anymore and there were only tears left, silent gasps for air, and he was clutching at the back of a corpse that used to be Jon and he was alone; all he could feel was dead hands on his body, and when he woke, he was pushing Jon aggressively away from himself. Even when he realized he’d been dreaming, all he could see was the mark on Jon’s chest that he’d put there and he couldn’t take it, he couldn’t breathe and he had to get out, he had to do anything but stay in that room and suffocate.

Just minutes later Jon, now in a t-shirt, came in to find him on the couch with his face in his hands. Softly, so he didn’t notice at first, Jon’s hands started at his waist and made their way up his back, to his shoulders and around his neck. The weight of Jon’s body on him was enough to stop the shaking after a few minutes, and get him to where he could lift his head and speak without his voice breaking.

“Go back to bed, Jon.”

“When you do.”

He stayed a little longer, trying to slow down and match his breathing to Jon’s, until Jon began to fall asleep on his shoulder.

“Jon. Go to bed.”

“No.”

He gave up and they went back to the bedroom together. He fought to stay awake at first, but when Jon crawled to him under the covers to rest against his chest, groggy, familiar, warm, he couldn’t help himself. He slept again.

That still wasn’t the worst, though—not for Martin. The worst was when Jon dreamed. When Jon woke up it was like Martin wasn’t there. He sat and stared and waited, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for minutes, before he finally saw Martin or felt his touch—and sometimes he simply went back to sleep, and it was like Martin was never there at all.

They were awake; they were looking at each other. Jon reached for Martin’s face. He didn’t exactly seem happy, but his expression held maybe a broken kind of gratitude.

It was enough.

Sometime later, still in bed, Martin asked Jon what they were going to do.

“I don’t know,” Jon answered.

“Well… what do you want to do?”

“I still don’t know,” Jon said, this time with a wry smile.

“Fine, I get it. Can I ask you something, then? About—where we are?”

Jon’s smile faded a little. “I probably won’t know that either.”

Martin sighed. “Look Jon, I’m sorry I used you like—like post-apocalyptic Google. You don’t have to know everything, all right? Sometimes it’s ok just to talk. Figure things out instead of—”

“It didn’t bother me. I liked knowing things.”

“You miss it.”

It wasn’t a question, but Jon answered nonetheless. “Yes.”

“All right. You said once that you—that you liked feeling people’s fear, too. Do you miss that also?”

Jon paused. “Was that what you were going to ask me?”

“No.”

“Then I think I won’t answer.”

“Fair enough.” Martin didn’t know why he’d asked, because he really didn’t want to know. “Here’s what I was going to ask. You said you thought that Elias was in charge of the Magnus Institute here because—well, because he was in our world. And also just the Institute itself, and Tim, and Sasha, and… why?”

Jon screwed up his face.

“And I get that you don’t know, I just want to hear your thoughts,” Martin added.

“All right,” Jon started. “It was more a feeling—”

“That’s fine.”

Jon gave him a look and Martin held up his hands in apology. “It was more a feeling, but… when we were pulled through, the web connected the dimensions, but they weren’t… open.”

“Like… knocking on locked doors.”

“Yes? Actually?”

Martin ignored the implications of Jon’s surprise at his understanding. “And this dimension?”

“I think they got desperate. They were running out of… strength? Energy? They were dying. They couldn’t go back, and this dimension was—adjacent to ours, maybe. Nearby. Not physically, obviously, that doesn’t mean anything—”

“Ok—”

“—_but _there were other connections, older ones, different from the web, the tape. And this dimension was connected to ours. They’ve probably pulled on each other, influenced each other, maybe from the beginning. Ours may have been especially strong because of—well, never mind, I don’t know. But it was easier for them, to come here. A refuge, I suppose.”

“That—that actually makes sense,” Martin said.

“Does it?”

“I mean, as much as anything. Let’s just say I’m willing to accept it?”

“As a theory,” Jon said firmly.

“Fine, as a theory.” Martin looked at Jon. “Did you really feel all that? I didn’t—I didn’t feel anything.”

“Who knows. Maybe it was all in my head.”

“I doubt it. I just feel bad I wasn’t really there with you.”

“You were, though.”

Martin let the silence linger for a few minutes before he pressed on.

“Jon, what… what do you think happened to the_ _Jon and Martin that were here before? Are they dead?”

“No idea.”

“I mean… it had to be because of us, right? It probably wasn’t a coincidence.”

“Probably not.”

Martin took a deep breath. “Do you think we—did we Helen them?”

“What?”

“You know—do you think we—did we trap them inside us somehow?”

“Like the distortion?”

“Yeah.”

“No. No, that’s something different. Something like that—that could only be done deliberately. And it would be awful. At any rate, we would feel it.” Jon seemed convinced of his answer, and it made Martin feel a little bit better. “But I do think… I do think we intersected with them, somehow.”

“Do you think… Is there any chance that they could come back?"

“Doubtful.” Jon shook his head. “But I—I don’t know.”

Martin accepted this, but wasn’t any closer to knowing how to feel about it. All he knew was it still made him extremely uncomfortable. It had been one thing to talk about theoretical Archivists and Martins and whatever else might exist in another dimension, but now…

“Can I ask something else?”

Jon shrugged.

“How did I get here?”

“What? You know how we got here, as much as I do.”

“I know how you got here. I’ve been thinking, and I know Annabelle”—he found he really disliked saying her name, even more than he thought he would—"said there was a chance she might be pulled along with the entities, if they left. Because—because she was—well, all web. Nothing else left.”

Martin paused, and Jon waited.

“So I don’t really want to think too much about what that means for you—I don’t—but I _get _it. But—how did I get here?”

Jon turned it over for a moment. “I took you with me.”

That answer was much too brief for Martin, so he pushed. “Ok, but—how? Could you have brought anyone? Like… could you have brought Basira?”

Jon laughed sharply, clearly not having anticipated the question. “No. No, just you.”

Martin sighed. “Ok, look, that’s real… _romantic _and all, but—how?”

Jon took so long to answer Martin thought maybe he wasn’t going to, but he finally did.

“Remember you told me that Annabelle said our bond was… complicated?”

“Yes?” Martin wondered immediately what Jon knew that he didn’t. This had I didn’t know how to tell you written all over it.

“And she talked about the Lonely.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize it at first, but when I… when I came after you, it… Look, Martin, the Lonely—it’s not—people aren’t supposed to be together there. That’s the whole point of it.”

“Sure.”

“Well, it did something. To us, I mean.”

“Like…?” Martin was trying his best to be patient, but he could tell that Jon was reading his irritation and starting to get flustered.

“To the entities we’re—we’re sort of—we’re the same.”

Martin saw through that explanation right away. “What you mean is that I’m an extension of you. A part of the all-mighty Archivist.”

“Well… yes. To them.”

“Great.” It made sense, though—how Martin had been able to go with Jon through all the domains, why the former archivists guarding the tower and the tunnels had left him alone, and of course, how he’d been able to come here. He turned on his back, crossing his arms over his chest, and allowed the smallest grumble to escape him.

“Martin, you know _I _don’t—”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Well, like I_ _said I didn’t realize it at first, and then—”

Martin turned his head toward Jon but kept his arms crossed, specifically to demonstrate how unimpressed he was.

“All right. All right, fine. I didn’t want you to think that was when I fell in love with you. Happy?”

Martin forgot to be annoyed. “What?”

“I didn’t want you to think—”

“No, I heard_ _you. Why would I have thought that?”

“Because we never—I never told you before the Lonely. I didn’t really—”

“Ok, Jon? I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m aware we’re a bit… messed up, but I know that you love me. Like, really love me. And I love you too.”

“I know, but… don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said, crises and trauma and all that.”

“Jon. I said that made us compatible. I didn’t say we don’t actually love each other, or that it was some kind of weird fear reflex.”

Jon opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again.

“Jesus.” Martin moved toward Jon, touching a hand to his shoulder. When Jon didn’t pull away, he moved closer again, taking him properly in his arms until he knew what he wanted to say.

“Jon—you asked me once if—well, no other way to say it—if I would gouge my eyes out and run away with you.”

“Oh, I remember.” Jon’s voice was muffled against Martin’s shoulder. “Although technically _you _were the one who said ‘gouge your eyes out,’ I would have settled for—”

“Yes, yes, all right—well, I would do it now.”

Jon stiffened.

“Or I mean, we could try it without blinding ourselves too, you know, test it out first? But the point is—we could leave. We could just go. Jon, you’ve—you’ve suffered enough. We don’t have to stay here. We can tell them whatever you want. Or we can tell them nothing. They’re smart, though, they’ll figure it out if it comes to it, and maybe—maybe nothing will happen, maybe there won’t be an apocalypse, maybe never. Maybe they’ll even figure out something we didn’t, some way to destroy—"

“Where would we go?” Jon interrupted softly.

“Anywhere. Back to Scotland, maybe. I could work in that little country store, and you could—I don’t know, you could do nothing if you didn’t want to, you could read all those books you told me you never got around to, there’s time now—”

“Martin—”

“Or we don’t have to go there! We could go—well we don’t have to decide right away, we could just travel for a bit—”

“Martin.”

Martin stopped.

“It sounds… lovely.”

“But you won’t do it.”

“No.”

He held Jon just a little tighter before letting him go. “I figured you’d say that. Thought it was worth a try, though.”

“It was worth a try.”

“So back to my original question—I guess we do know what comes next, then. Back to the Institute.”

“You don’t have to,” Jon said. “You could work somewhere else. Or not work. Or you could leave, I’d find a way to—”

Martin shook his head, then pressed his forehead against Jon’s. “You know the deal, and that’s not part of it.”

“I do,” Jon sighed.

They fell into silence again, this time for a long while.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Who you should fight: Game of Thrones Edition

Your wish is my command, Anon.

JON: Damn, you really do aim high. If you want to fight Jon Snow, there's nothing really stopping you. He wouldn't want to fight you, but he would accept your challenge honorably. Perhaps you would win, perhaps you wouldn't. Jon doesn't really like violence. He was victorious in the battle of the bastards, but only with the Knights of the Vale showing up at the eleventh hour. And he would have given his life to the Army of the Dead if Benjen hadn't shown up to save him. So you might win, it's possible. Just be prepared for the Starks to send their regards if you do. With Bran's visions, there would be nowhere you could hide. With Arya's faces, you'd never know she was coming.

SANSA: Look, it's not exactly wise to fight a Queen. Something to keep in mind going forward. You would almost certainly defeat Sansa, since she has almost no experience in actual fighting, but that doesn't mean your troubles would be over. Expect the Starks, the Northerners, the Knights of the Vale, and Brienne to rise up and hunt you down. So if you want to fight her, be prepared to run for the rest of your life. But really, why would you ever want to fight her in the first place? Between Cersei, Joffrey, Ramsay, and Littlefinger, hasn't the poor woman been through enough? If you go through with this, you'll be fighting a sexual assault survivor. Think about that for a second. And then don't fight Sansa. 

BRAN: Okay, okay, how about you just don't? This isn't about whether or not you should fight Bran, because to be honest - you can't. Bran is gone. Everybody forgets this but Bran is effectively dead by Season 7. So no, you couldn't fight Bran if you tried. All you could do is fight the Three Eyed Raven, and seven hells, why would you ever want to do that? Could you kill him? Maybe. He can always see you coming, but he doesn't carry weapons and he's paralyzed from the waist down. But who are you, the Night King? If you kill Bran, the world ends and the long night begins. Don't be The Night King. Don't fight Bran. 

ARYA: Ahahaha...sure, go ahead. If you've got some sort of death wish, feel free to try and fight Arya Stark. I'd give some line about how the Starks would come after you but frankly, it wouldn't come to that. Arya wouldn't be in any danger and they'd be well aware. You do know this is the girl who slayed the Night King, right? The one who single-handedly wiped out House Frey? Realistically, the fight isn't even going to happen unless she's in the mood. If she is, expect her to toy with you for about ten minutes before running you through with Needle. If she isn't, then you won't ever even see her. You'll just get a knife in the back from whatever face she's wearing.

DAVOS: Seriously? You're going to fight an innocent old man who doesn't even have all his fingers? What are you hoping to gain from doing so? Does beating up old men give you satisfaction? Well, it shouldn't - unless we're talking about Pycelle. But we're not, so put those weapons away! Look, if you choose to fight Davos, you're very likely to win the fight. And in doing so, I suppose you could reunite him with his son and his surrogate daughter in the afterlife. But just do not fight Davos under any circumstances. For goodness' sake, what did he ever do to you? 

THEON: In terms of physical combat, you could probably win this fight. Theon isn't shown to be nearly as strong as his sister, and he's also suffering from PTSD. So there's a very good chance that you could defeat him. But Yara is going to literally cut you into pieces if you do. With everything Theon has been through, don't you think he's suffered enough for his actions? Ramsay tortured him so much that he forgot who he was for a while. He castrated and flayed Theon. Kept him as a slave for three years. And even now, Theon is still recovering from what he went through. He still hates himself for betraying Robb. Just let the poor man heal in peace, won't you? 

YARA: Go ahead, fight Yara. She's not exactly the nicest person, so she could use a good wake-up call or two. Her only real redeeming quality is that she loves her brother. On the other hand, she's Ironborn so she might just enjoy the fight. There's also the question of whether or not you would win, or even escape with your life. To which I say - don't expect anything. Yara is ruthless, and she doesn't play fair. She commands the Iron Fleet and they're loyal to her. This woman was her Uncle's prisoner. I think it goes without saying that she's tough. I doubt you could win the fight, but feel free to try.

SANDOR: This is the only character that would probably enjoy the fight, so go ahead and spar a little with Sandor Clegane. Don't actually hurt him, because he's obviously been through enough. But enjoy a nice, friendly bout with the guy and let him get off some steam. Of course, I say that under the assumption that you COULD harm Sandor. The guy came close to beating Brienne, and his final Clegane Bowl with Gregor ended in a draw. Plus he's like...huge. So not a good chance at winning. Even if you use his weakness, fire...well, he's won a trial by combat where fire was involved. Don't be a jerk, don't kill Sandor. You'll wind up on Arya's list for sure. 

BRIENNE: To be honest, you aren't going to defeat Brienne unless you have exceptional skill and training in combat, and even then. The odds aren't in your favor. She's packing Valyrian Steel, and some heavy armor as well. Has Brienne ever lost a fight onscreen? I don't believe she has. Her weaknesses are emotional, not physical. In a fight, you don't stand much of a chance. Especially if she's trying to protect someone she cares about or honor a vow. That's her berserk button, so don't mention oaths. Or Jaime. Or Sansa. Really, Brienne is one of the most wonderful people in this entire series so why would you want to? Hang out with her instead. 

GENDRY: This one is just a bad idea overall. The dude has all the skills of Sandor, without any of the discipline that Brienne has. Remember how the Rebellion was what Robert referred to as his glory days? How he ousted an entire dynasty because they had offended him? The Baratheons are known for their uncontrollable tempers, and we haven't seen much of this in Gendry, but it's there. Put a war-hammer in his hands, and you will never be safe. Just look at the guy. Have you seen how buff he is? Besides, Arya would definitely kill you, even if Gendry doesn't. He's such a sweet, upstanding guy to begin with. I don't understand why you would even want to. Don't fight Gendry.

JAIME: I suppose you could. The guy only has one hand now, so in terms of combat prowess, you would probably win the fight itself. Assuming Brienne doesn't get to you first. Either way, expect to deal with Brienne, and that's not someone you want coming after you with a vengeance. Even if you defeat Brienne, you still aren't in the clear. Tyrion may not be one for physical fights, but rest assured the man will make you pay for harming his brother. Someday, when you least expect it, you will pay. To be fair, Jaime does have some crimes he needs to answer for, but he also saved King's Landing. Really, just don't fight him. He already feels badly enough about his past.

CERSEI: Always fight Cersei. Always fight Cersei.  This shouldn't need to be explained. Think about everything that she's done. All the people whose lives she ruined. Whatever terrible fate you can inflict is one that she deserves. Yes, she's pregnant, but don't forget - the witch in Season 5 warned her that she would only ever have three children. That baby isn't going to live no matter what happens. I suppose you'd have to get rid of Gregor Clegane first, so bring Sandor with you for a double knock-out. Other than that, I don't see anyone coming to Cersei's defense. That's just how awful she is. Jaime might try, but I think Brienne and Tyrion would be able to restrain him. Yeah, just. Just fight Cersei. 

TYRION: Damn, why would you want to fight Tyrion? So he made a few judgment calls that turned out poorly. He was always trying to do the right thing, and all of his decisions were well-reasoned. His entire life has been constant suffering. Do you really want to add onto that? Well, if you insist, you'll almost certainly win the fight. Being half the size of the average man and consuming alcohol on a daily basis would render Tyrion one of the physically weakest characters on the show. You could probably get away with it as well. I mean, Jaime would come after you, and hell hath no fury like a Lannister scorned. But like I said, he's not the strongest either. Just watch out for that golden hand.

DAENERYS: Should you fight Dany? I suppose it depends on your point of view. She's definitely committed monumental crimes, but she's also saved countless people. You have to ask yourself if such a divisive person deserves to live or not. Really, we could argue that point until the cows come home. The real question is - could you fight her? Ultimately, the answer is yes...if you get close enough. You'd have to get past her armies first, but once you do, she has no experience in direct combat whatsoever. An easy kill. That you could celebrate for ten seconds before Grey Worm or Drogon rip you apart. You can only ever tie with Daenerys, there's no winning.

MISSANDEI: Stop, stop right there. What are you thinking? You know this is how we got S8E5, right? This is what pushed Dany over the edge, so, just consider that for a moment. What would possess you to ever wish pain on such an innocent soul? Missandei deserves the world. She deserves to be free and happy. And you want to fight her? Go ahead. If you could actually land a blow or two, you might win rather quickly. But Grey Worm will rip you limb from limb before that happens, if Dany doesn't issue an angry "Dracarys" first. Actually, if they don't get there, then I will personally climb through the screen myself and fight you for threatening her. She is the purest of cinnamon rolls.

EURON: I will literally pay you to fight him. The man is begging for a punch in the face.

[lymazhu]

Unsteady Hands

Rating: PG ( mild description of canon injuries)

Pairing: Jon/Martin 

Alludes to events through the end of Season Four

Written for  #TMAHCweek Day 1, because the moment I saw the prompts I knew I had to do something with them. Jon’s tremor is based off my own experiences, because why not write what you know? 

(edit: AO3 link https://archiveofourown.org/works/26096521 )

It wasn’t difficult to hide, most of the time. All he had to do was not push himself too hard physically, and, well...there was a reason he stuck to academia and desk work. If he got in before everyone else, he could be settled at his desk and busy with research or note-taking by the time the others filed in, and if he forgot to eat or only realized it was the end of the day when Tim tapped him on the shoulder to break him out of whatever he was caught up in, then didn’t that just make him look better? Harder working? And if sometimes his hands shook a little as he gathered his things, or he occasionally dropped something, it was just assumed to be a case of low blood sugar. 

Things changed when Elias promoted him. It had been a relief at first to have an office all to himself, even as he was terrified of trying to live up to standards he didn’t so much as have a guide for. The tremor being more pronounced in general wasn’t a problem if nobody could simply glance over to see it, and Tim and Sasha were fine. They always had been. But he hadn’t agreed to someone else. Much less someone like Martin. Tim and Sasha knew how to do their jobs, and only came to him if they actually needed something. Martin Blackwood, on the other hand, didn’t seem to understand anything and was always making tea for everyone and dropping it off on his desk at all hours and Jon hated him for it. It had taken the man a week simply to learn to announce his presence before setting a mug of hot liquid onto his desk. 

Even after that, Martin always hovered just a little too long after setting down his tea. Waiting to see him drink it, Jon assumed. His suspicion was confirmed when Martin finally broke the silence one morning to ask if he was doing something wrong, because “Tim said this was how you liked your tea, but if it’s not right I can fix it?” He’d assured Martin that it was fine, perhaps a little more curtly than he should have, and spent some time wondering how and when Tim had figured out how he liked his tea. Jon had always hated being watched when he ate or drank, even on days when his hands were steady, so when had he learned? Trying to puzzle that out set him behind schedule, and maybe it wasn’t entirely fair to blame Martin for that but if the man hadn’t been doing so much fussing all the time Jon wouldn’t have gotten sidetracked. 

As far as Jon knew, the first time any of his assistants actually saw his hands shake was the day Martin came into his office after two weeks of ‘sick leave’ with the...the worms. That was fair, though; even if he disguised his horror at Martin’s statement as simple disgust he could hardly be blamed for being a little bit shaken. Offering Martin his- the room he sometimes used- had been out of his mouth before he could take it back, and the poor man was rattled enough himself that Jon doubted Martin would have even noticed the way his hand was trembling as he took notes. 

It got bad after Prentiss attacked in earnest. He’d been useless at trying to get the worms out of his body, between dropping the corkscrew and shaking so badly that he stabbed himself in the wrong part of the arm when he finally steeled himself to try. God knows what he would have done if it weren’t for Tim and Martin, and later the ECDC. At least Sasha had been safe. After that, there’d at least been an excuse he could point to for his unsteady hands. Something that wasn’t just an inherent flaw. If Tim’s coordination wasn’t affected nearly as much as his was, well, nobody wants to talk about the worms and what damage they’d done under all those scars. Of course, it didn’t really matter when he couldn’t trust any of them. There wasn’t exactly time for idle chatter when he could never take one moment to let his guard down. 

A lot didn’t matter anymore by the time he had no hopes of hiding it anymore. Even after his burn healed he didn’t have full function in that hand anymore. Anything that required precision was a lost cause. Georgie pretended she didn’t see it, just as Jon had asked her to back in uni. She was angry with him for a lot of things, and didn’t understand that he wasn’t just being stubborn when he told her he needed the statements, but she never commented when she saw him wiping down the counter after trying to drink something on a particularly bad day. 

Every so often, when he was actually in his office, Martin would still bring him tea. Once he even cleared a space on his desk that would allow him to pick it up while the man was still in the room. It was painstakingly careful, the way he slid it over to the edge of his desk before he tried to pick it up. Knowing that if he’d tried to lift and keep it held up as he moved it towards himself over the desk he would have splattered tea on at least one statement. He still shook as he brought the tea to his lips, of course, but he managed to drink and meet Martin’s eyes, if only for a moment. He’d never been the best at smiling even before the worms had burrowed into his face, and it was all the more crooked now, but he tried as he thanked Martin. The look on the other man’s face hurt so much that he didn’t try again. 

He dropped the tapes several times as he went through them, the tremor getting more pronounced as he listened to what he was pretty sure would be the last statements he’d ever hear. It would only be in hindsight, as the pain gripped him, that Jon would realize that the difficulty he had lighting Gerry’s page on fire wasn’t just an effect of unsteady hands. 

It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that choosing to become something...else wouldn’t have fixed anything that came before. That even his good hand wouldn’t go back to normal, or at least back to what it had been before all of this started. Why, after all, would the Eye give up a chance to watch him suffer with the shame of being seen fumbling uselessly with delicate tasks? Why shouldn’t the Archivist provide it low-level feeding just by going about his daily life? 

He never bothered to make himself tea after returning to the Archives. It just wasn’t a good idea anymore to fuss with the kettle, and even if he bothered it would just bring back waves of painful memories. Even seeing the breakroom would take the breath from his lungs some days, the ghosts of days gone by haunting his thoughts long after he’d closed himself back safely behind his office door. He’d wanted so badly for nobody to bother him and see the way he shook, and now that he had it he wanted anything else. 

Thinking back on it, as he so often did on the trip to Scotland, Jon would remember that when Martin had finally taken his hand he’d felt the shaking stop, if only for a moment. They never spoke about so many things in that short reprieve. The first few days were spent constantly on edge. Struggling to learn how to sleep in the presence of another person, flinching at every sound, the crushing moment of fear when the mist slowly rolled in before they both remembered that when you aren’t surrounded by the Fears, fog was just something that happened sometimes...one night, though, as they both lay awake on pillows that never stopped smelling of dust, Jon had admitted to the man he loved that he’d always liked when Martin brought him tea, even in the early days. That it had been shame and fear of judgement that made him snippy, and that the shaky hands were never the fault of damage he’d suffered at something supernatural. Martin had looked at him so gently then, lifted Jon’s good hand to his lips before scolding him for ever thinking that something like that was something to be ashamed of. The way he leaned into Jon’s touch afterward, even though he knew perfectly well how unpleasant the feeling of his burnt palm was, was enough to actually make Jon believe him.

[devertigozation]

My matryoshka theory

about this post - https://devertigozation.tumblr.com/post/189485408602/kuma-la-la-i-couldnt-decide-which-version-i and my tags under it.

So. I’ll start right from the top, so as not to miss anything, and will pull this theory forward by strings, so hold on with me, seeing as I don’t know how much of the knowledge on which this theory is based is considered to be common knowledge.

So, let’s start from the beginning. Grrm is fairly well-known for his kill-the-main-character kind of trope (yes, I’m going to take this from beginning-beginning, but this is important so bear with me). He’s been famously criticized for this choice, and to the critics, he has said that even though he kills the main characters, their lines/narratives/arcs don’t just randomly disappear with those murders (so, the deconstruction of the most well-known trope is deserved, grrm argues) - those lines are being inherited or being passed to another character who absorbs the narrative of his predecessor.

Let’s look at this through the narrative of the character who has been first victim of this trope, and who’s death (arguably) is one of the most important/purest in establishing the rules by which grrm deconstructs the trope. Ned Stark.

-I’ll hide the rest bc this is growing to be a monster -

Ahead I present you a matryoshka narrative theory.

So Ned’s line - he goes to the South in order to uncover the plot of Arryn’s murder. He uncovers that Robert’s children are not his legitimate heirs, but Jaime’s, which’s why Jon Arryn’s been murdered, and same happens to Ned Stark. So even though (famously) Ned Stark is the reason why the rebellion for Northern independency has begun, Ned himself never wished to set that particular line in motion, never had that goal in himself. But - his work undermined the power of the person who sits on the Iron Throne after Robert’s death. So Ned discovered that the “official” heir to Robert isn’t an actual heir.

This is also grrm and so there are actually some pretty cool moments in which the continuation is foreshadowed - Robert mentions that Ned should’ve sat on the throne, the rebellion against the crowd itself ended well for Baratheons who got the throne, but Starks got nothing (redistribution towards fairness is something that grrm surprisingly tries to do in his story).

Robb Stark who has begun his rebellion, first in the name of his father/demanding freedom to his father+sisters, after Ned’s death has inherited Ned’s line, and continued it - saying that Joffrey isn’t the King for the North. And now, comes the most important part of my matryoshka theory. Even though the real matryoshka dolls get smaller with their uncovering, it is grrm and so the narrative doesn’t get smaller, but each new doll as it opens up gets bigger. Robb Stark, quite naturally, grows that narrative out - and Northern Independence gets added to the line. (So if it isn’t Joffrey, who is the King for the North? Answer gets clear, Northerns can’t support neither Renly, nor Stannis, it must be a Stark).

Next, Robb’s clear heir is Jon, we know it - the books had Robb officially establishing Jon as his heir, and TV-series already hailed Jon as KITN.

How much can we trust the TV-show? Well, obviously lots of changes, but I think some big plotlines were given by grrm and had to be hit - Bran will be King, North will get independence and Sansa will be the Queen in the North. And Jon will be, for a time, a King in the North. (I don’t, by the way, believe how Battle for the Dawn was depicted - like I don’t necessarily believe that this is the way in which it will go, and Arya might not be Azor Ahai, though I’d really like that, I rather really like the idea that Bran is the Night King, y’kno, but that’s not for here…)

So, Jon is Robb’s heir, and he will inherit also Robb’s line, which at this moment is Northern Independence.

This kind of narrative line, which will get with every heir more complicated, and in which every heir will add something to the line, I think will continue with Jon, and subsequently with Sansa (considering the she ends being QITN, she is the natural heir to the Northern Independency narrative). My prediction is that Jon will add another thing to the ~Stark against the Throne/North line~ - he will add the wildings line. (TV-series definitely didn’t explore that, but I think grrm will explore something through wildings - Jon who’s lived with them, Jon who fell for one of them and could even become their king, those things aren’t some empty promises, they lead somewhere). Perhaps Jon will establish North as even greater region (esp. considering that the wall will fall) - it will be North all the way through the wild region.

And now - I consider Sansa to be the true/last heir to that narrative (established and cannoned in TV-series), so what will she add? In my opinion she will be a needed/healing link for North - she will be the person who will at long last establish good relationships with Six Kingdoms (basically established in TV-series), she will end the war between two regions through her connection to both of them. While her predecessors have ripped North away from 7K, she will heal the relationship between the torn regions - while recognizing the need for Independence, she will also recognize the need to stop the war, this is why she is the most ~Southern~ of Starks, her Southerness is important for the North. (Appearance wise, it is a bit interesting, too. In this line we have Ned, first, who looks Northern - and he begins by undermining Southern King in the South; second Robb, who looks Southern - who will start Northern Independence; and the two last ones will flip out the established routine, Jon, who looks most Northern, will add further North to the North line, and Sansa, who looks most Southern, will establish good relationship with the South).

But what is truly cool about this narrative, I write it as I realize it, is that it isn’t some thing that has only the big line in it - Northern Independence, but it has some consequences to the characters themselves and the way in which their lines will progress. And what I mean by that, is that Jon, for example, has struggled to identify himself - he feels a bastard, he tries to establish himself as a brother of the Night’s Watch, becomes a wildings, a lord, he has a chance to become a King of free folk, he declines the chance to be Lord Stark, he will become Targaryen and through it a Southerner, and heir to the Iron Throne, it is a big theme for Jon, the person, - the self-search. The fact that he will be an heir to this line, will either form another question which he will have to resolve for himself - is he the true Stark? Is he the King in the North, after all, or will this become yet another identity which he will try, but that won’t fit him either. I still don’t know what the show’s finale actually meant for Jon - he won’t be, after all, a King in the North, no more than he will be King of Six Kingdoms. Maybe it will be a modern way of grrm establishing that after all, we aren’t meant to be heirs to our identity, getting them from our parents or our guardians, but are meant to establish them ourselves, and this is why, after all searches, he will be a brother of night’s watch. So this self-search will end in realization that we can’t search for who we are, but we have to make choices as to who we will be. Jon’s first choice is the one most important in establishing him as a person. It of course, will require another choice for Jon - he will have to choose Night’s Watch again in the end. It will also be important because for Jon it was actually a very important dream of his - to be his father’s true son, to be Robb’s true brother, to be real protector of Sansa, because she, too, is his sister. For him to be in this line, will be healing for him, and maybe, even more important, is that he will also be able to leave that dream behind him, to have a chance at becoming a true Stark, but choosing to be Jon.

But what is also cool is that to the second most important question of the show (after - who is the best ruler? the answer’s Bran and everything he symbolizes), the - who is the true Stark? (and everything that symbolizes), the answer is - Sansa. And it means a lot to Sansa, the character - who, too, struggled with self-identity (Joffrey’s bride, little bird, Lannister, Alayne, that grey girl?). She will remember that she is a true Stark (ahh let’s imagine a Lion King moment - Remember who you are! will tell her Ned Stark reminding her to kill Littlefinger), but it is even more important to the readers, who fell for Starks above all else, and everything Starks are meant to be - the good family, good morals, perseverance, connection to the nature and culture (First People), inner strength in the face of hardships, survival, etc, for all of the readers who fell for Starks, the answer as to who is the grandest of Starks, who is the true Stark, the answer is - the little girl who dreams, who falls in love and cares for songs and chivalry.

So, not only this narrative explores the grand theme of the plot - North region, it also explores the identities of the characters, but also through that quest establishes some important answers for the readers - that we choose our identities, that there is a great source of strength in dreaming and being kind, through the fact that the heir to the harshest/strongest line is a kind, sensitive girl.

So this is what my tag has been about - “A pretty cool matryoshka-type of narrative in which literally Ned and Robb are literally pulled apart to give way to their heirs”. This is the narrative. And they are literally pulled apart and from it springs their heir.

What I meant by other tags is that similar narrative lines have concluded in some other surviving Starks. For example, the most important question of the show is - who is the best ruler?, explored through Ned Stark, Tyrion, Robert, Stannis, Daenerys, Robb, Jon, Renly, Tywin and the answer to it turned out to be Bran. (!)

I think that Caitlyn’s line is the another important theme for the show/book. It is well known for it’s cruelty, for it’s savageness, explored through (long before Caitlyn) Joffrey, Ramsay and his father, Cersei, Tywin, Mountain, Daenerys will fall here. Caitlyn’s line will establish her as another terror of war - that sometimes the most savage/terrible of the characters are not necessarily bad (like Joffrey and Ramsay). I do think that Caitlyn’s consequent murders will become so graphic and terrible that they will be comparable to Joffrey and Ramsay’s. Plus - a lot of crimes do get committed for the religion and Arya from her little (cult) trip will be an answer to that, too. Arya will inherit and be the last in the line of cruel people, the little girl who’s seen terrors of war, and we will be forced to question just where exactly does the line of good and bad people lie (tv were too cowardly to explore that). Plus - Arya is probably the younger, more beautiful queen from Cersei’s prophecy (Cersei will grow uglier bc of something, this how Arya will be more beautiful, or Arya will pull the face of Lyanna or some other face), she’s been near enough in the show, too, during Cersei’s death, so she is also the heir to Cersei’s line - the cruelty and madness, where it begins and what can we do with it? And I think (though this is one of the under-developed thoughts) that the answer to the theme of cruelty and madness and crimes of war will not only become an answer to that plot, but to Arya herself, and through her - an answer to the readers.

Anyhow, I think, that’s enough, it is already a monster, but please go on asking me about my theories, because this’s been f.u.n.! (ask me about Weasley twins if you’re hp fan)

[miss-choco-chips]

Soul Shards part 4

I have nothing to say for myself. Don’t kill me? I tried to edit this, but it’s longer than what I’m used to, so I probably fucked up somewhere along the way.

This... will probably need another part. Or should I leave it like this? I dunno.

Enjoy!

~~~.~~~.~~~

Timothy’s eyes shone hatefully. It was the most beautiful shade of icy blue he had ever seen. Even if the emotion was such a dark one, they weren’t empty anymore.

-It’ll be over soon -he shushed, slowly sinking to his knees and bringing the man into his lap, almost engulfing him between arms and firm chest, as if to protect him from the pain that was coming from deep inside; distantly, he heard Kon and Jon’s voices as they approached, their concern obvious but unimportant at the moment-, you just have… a lot of emotional catching up to do.

~~~.~~~.~~~

16   -   21

The young man raised his eyes from the documents he was revising, merely glancing over Damian’s case files.

-Zsasz -was all he said, before going back to his own thing. 

Damian a year ago might have gotten mad, thinking Timothy was sprouting spur of the moment lies to get him to stop nagging him. He knew better now, that the man didn’t need more than a second of looking at his carefully collected evidence to make a verdict.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t curious, though.

-How? -was all he asked, giving the file a closer look, trying and failing to see what the other could- He was at Arkham at the time of the crimes, there’s witnesses and video evidence. 

Timothy didn’t seem to be paying attention to him any longer, answering by rote but not taking his empty eyes from his own work.

-Not Zsasz himself, but not a copycat either. This is the work of a lover, or someone romantically interested in the bastard. Could be a courting gift, a mean to attract his attention, or both. Look deeply into any woman…

-Or man, or both, or neither -he felt compelled to add. Timothy shrugged, but his soul gave an approving humm.

-... or man, or both, or neither -the detective conceded, dropping his papers in favor of his coffee cup and tablet-, visiting him this last few months, or that could have benefited from any of Zsasz murders; maybe he unknowingly saved someone by killing their abuser or something like that, and they fell for him. Think Misa Amane from Death Note.

As he did any time Drake dropped a reference, Damian made a mental note to check this out. At least, “Death note” sounded more his style than the time he had to watch both Mean Girls movies.

-How do you know it’s a love interest and not, say, an apprentice?

Without dropping his cup, and balancing the tablet against his legs where he was sitting on the couch, Timothy raised his other hand and pushed one of Damian’s papers across the coffee table towards him. One of the autopsy’s photos.

-The cuts. Zsasz usually makes them all across the body, picking certain places that would make his victims bleed to death as slowly and painfully as he feels like. These, instead, are focused on the chest area, almost circling the person’s heart. In this one, a victim that was murdered specifically on Valentine's day, the cuts are even closer to it, almost framing the heart. 

-...I can see it -he muttered, eyes widening. After two weeks of useless tumbling around this case, it was only when he caved and went to Timothy for help that he finally had some possible lead on it. And, as every time he did this before, a few minutes was all he needed to figure it out and to point him in the right direction.

-I’d hurry, if I were you. The least thing Gotham needs is a new villian power couple, a “Harley and Joker” take two. It was just too good when she left him for Ivy, so don’t allow anyone else to take their places as the criminal lovers of the city.

Damian nodded and went back to his files on Zsasz, energies and will renewed. Timothy ignored him once again in favor of his own things, and silence enveloped them. He didn’t mind; the icy blue soul’s warm encouragement was all he needed.

----.----

-It has grown -commented the older of the two, watching from the corner of his eye the souls on Damian’s lap. They had to fight some sea monsters at the beach, and sand had gotten into his pouch, so he stopped at the earliest chance to clean it up.

It was the first time Timothy saw his soul in years. Damian had being careful to not take it out around him, scared it might spook the man into leaving.

If anything, he seemed curious.

-It has? -he asked, dropping his own back on its hiding place and rising the other to eye level- It still fits in my palm the same way it always did.

Timothy rolled his eyes.

-Yeah, and your hand is the exact size it was when you were twelve? Brat, you are already taller than me -wipe that smile off your face, we both knew this day would come. You grew, and if it still fits the same, it’s only logical that it did as well. You probably didn’t notice because you see it all the time, and since your soul has also grown, there’s no sure way for you to compare them and realize it.

Amazed, and more than a little happy, Damian examined it closer. He was right, of course; now that it was brought to his attention, he couldn’t unsee it.

-A soul grows and thrives on multiple things -kept going the other, shaking his head to get as much sand as possible off his hair-, both positive or negative.

Damian knew this, has seen the sheer size of the Joker’s rotten soul, doubled after his latest killing spree: it fed on the pain of his victims. It was a disgusting sight, but one that proved just how different the psychopaths they fought saw life, and how unlikely it was they’d ever stop.

-And in this case? -he asked, refraining himself from saying ‘your’ instead of ‘this’.

A shrug- If I had to guess, love, like most people’s. It was what always healed me, time and time again, growing up; love for my friends, parents, family, people I liked… It started to shrunk when half the people I cared for died, and the other half didn’t seem to want my feelings nor return them. Poor, past-me’s soul was starved to death. You seem to have it well fed, tough. 

It was said tonelessly, but Damian felt two sizes taller all the same. The soul at hand seemed to shine in front of his eyes (although it was probably just the sun’s reflection), and a quick succession of images flashed across his eyes.

Kon El, Bart Allen, Cassie Sandsmark and a few other heroes he recognized from Drake’s old Young Justice photos, going out of their way to seek him out and keep him company in his self imposed soulless exile.

Grayson, Father and Todd sitting quietly at the Cave’s Red Robin memorial (with cracked glass; The Red Hood hadn’t reacted well the first time he saw it), sharing stories of the man as they knew him: brother, son, childhood friend.

Cain and Brown, sitting back to back, holding the other’s soul shard; Brown delightedly absorbing the love Timothy had put in Cain’s icy blue compass, and the other carefully caressing the almost black locket, cocooning it in her hands, as if trying to breath emotions back into the almost empty thing.

Himself, tirelessly looking for information on the man years ago, following him around more recently. Taking hits for him during the times they worked together, doing his best to keep Grandfather away, sneakily replacing his coffee for decaf.

(taking care of his body)

Holding the precious icy blue orb in his palms, cradling it against his chest when sleeping or fondling with it between his fingers when troubled or distracted. Constant, tender touch. Never damaging it. Never leaving it alone. Never ignoring the feelings it sent his way.

(taking care of his soul)

Timothy looks indifferent, typing away at his new phone (he changed them almost every day, no doubt to keep Oracle or Father from finding him), but his soul reacts beautifully to Damian’s thoughts.

Fed by love, indeed.

-----.----

17  -  22

After he saved some children and comforted them during patrol, when he had (briefly) the upper hand against Cain in a spar, when he successfully talked Todd down from blowing up a building, when he stood firm against father in order to protect Jon, Colin and the rest of his friends from a scolding, when he tried (and failed) to help Alfred bake Grayson a cake for his birthday… each time, he would feel a tug from the not-so-little-anymore orb, and when he took it out of his pouch to inspect it, he’d always see a new, beautiful green and gold spot slowly dying the area surrounding the core. 

Little specks of his colours, appearing here and there at times that seemed random to him, but evidently were appreciated by Drake’s soul. 

It scared him so badly he could barely sleep without nightmares. Because, even if it meant tentatively good things (he was leaving a mark on Timothy where not even Todd had reached, was securing himself a way into his heart), it also meant a change. 

What if, after all his efforts, this made impossible for Drake's soul to fit into his body after all?

After the soulless man had pointed it out for him, he begun to notice things. Not only the suddenly appearing, breathtaking looking spots on the icy blue sea of his soul, but how it seemed to shine more with each passing moment, how the feelings it gave off were more intense (it had come as a surprise; he would never had guessed they were muted before, until he was almost blown away by the soul’s rage after an encounter with Deathstroke left Nightwing at death’s doors), how the small little bumps and dents in it were filled out as the soul grew, healthier and prettier. 

It had grown so full of feelings, so strong, he feared. What if, even if he got Timothy to take it back, his body couldn't accept it due to its changes? Or what if the accumulated feelings were too much for him to take, to process? He certainly had some emotional baggage to catch up to, and he had little to no information on soulless people accepting their core back to properly  predict what outcome they might face.

He was scared by the changes. He was excited about his colours slowly taking space into Timothy’s soul. He couldn’t rest properly anymore.

The soul was a faithful companion on his long, sleepless nights. It spoke to him, in a language of feelings and abstract-like images he had come to learn with the years. It returned his love and care tenfold, in a way he knew only Drake, with his seemingly unending flow of emotions, could do.

A part of him (Wayne, hero, martyr) didn’t believe himself deserving of it. None on his family, with maybe Cain and Pennyworth as the exceptions, were worth the unconditional trust and loyalty Timothy bestowed upon them.

The part that was purely Al Ghul (proud, selfish, greedy) asked for moremoremore, and only himhimhim.

That didn’t help his insomnia.

Neither did Timothy’s warm comfort.

The feelings, on both ends, only grew.

-------.-------

When he finally gathered courage and went to the source, Timothy himself, to show him the changes on the orb, the man only hummed, undeterred in his task of cleaning the kitchennet of this small place he was using for the week. They were somewhere in Singapore, and Damian could see the sea from the living room window.

-It’s such a shame, really -he spoke, as his hands worked steadily and with the ease of familiarity on making both coffee and Damian’s favorite tea. Never let it be said he didn’t know how to host. Another muscle memory skill, no doubt.

-What is it?

-You fell victim to Robin’s Third Law. I thought you might have been excepted from it, but obviously not. So sad. If I had an Alexa, I’d have her play sad violin tunes.

Ignoring the last bit, he took his eyes from where he was comparing the blue and green souls (his and Drake’s), and glanced in his direction.

-Third Law?

He never heard of it before. He would remember if Father or Grayson told him about it.

-Hmm -he nodded, brining a tray with the beverages and cookies to the low table, taking his seat in front of Damian, back to the window (whether this was trust in him to watch out for him in case they were attacked, or he simply didn’t care, he didn’t know)-. It’s a theory I developed while Stephanie was Robin, and you only confirmed it for me. First Law: Each Robin shall have his or her Batgirl. Dick and Jason had Barbara, me and Steph (though very briefly on her case) had Cass, and you currently have Steph. Second Law: Each Robin will have either a Super, a Speedster, or both, as his or her friend and teammate. Dick had Wally, Jason Bizzarro, I had both Kon and Bart, Steph teamed up with Kara for a while there, and you have Jon.

Blinking rapidly, he nodded. It- it was too much of a coincidence. Timothy’s claims, as always, had their merit, no matter how far fetched it seemed to have three unescapable facts following the wearer of the Robin mantle.

-And the Third Law?

-Each Robin will fall in love with their predecessor, without a happy ending.

That stopped him cold, tea cup halfway to his mouth.

He knew?

It must have shown on his face, because the man rolled his eyes.

-Just because I don’t have feelings of my own any longer doesn’t mean I can’t recognize them on someone else. I told you, the soul that belonged to me -he nods in the direction of Damian’s lap, where he had placed the soul while they eat- thrived in love. It’s almost the size it was back then, when I was young, idealistic and stupid.

A sip of coffee. Timothy’s soul reached out tentatively, it’s metaphorical touch brushing Damian’s own, a wave of lamenting and corresponding. He didn’t want to focus on what it meant.

-Dick loved the boy he was, the little Robin his parents raised, that flew on the trapeze without a care on the world. That kid died the night his parents fell. Jason most likely had a crush on Dick back when he was Robin, though the way he was treated by him back then killed that tentative love. I know, because I studied him for years, until I learned everything there was to learn about my predecessor and friend.

Damian listened, but half his mind was on the unrelenting wave of feelings Timothy’s soul was sending his. There was a message there, but he was way too overwhelmed to understand it.

-Myself, well, since you have that thing -he pointed to Damian’s lap, then shrugged-, you must know about my hopeless, tortuous love for the bastard. You know, even though past me trained himself with a flight or fight response to him, it still took me some battle time to go for the fight one? My body couldn’t seem to settle into the idea of hurting him -he sighed, shaking his head- Stupid little brat.

-Th-then… What about… Brown did have you. Her... her love didn’t have a tragedy following.

TImothy merely raised an eyebrow.

-Even before she faked her death, I was kind of an asshole with her, always demanding she hang up the cape. Then, when she came back, I was so pissed and betrayed, I couldn’t even look in her direction as much as I couldn’t take my eyes away; from what I remember, it was hell. I’m pretty sure a part of her will always love past me, just like him would always love her a bit, but they’re never getting back to what they were. There’s just too much polluted water under the bridge.

-Her shard is almost completely black and empty -he muttered, eyes dragged against his will to the Icy blue (and green and gold, now) soul.

Timothy laded his head- Doesn’t surprise me. Kon, Bart and Cassie all have theirs in almost perfect shape, though some spots here and there are losing their colours. They were absolutely freaked out when it started to happen, came straight to me to yell about friendship, bonds and  shit like that. I’m guessing both Cass and Alfred’s pieces are the same -at Damian’s reluctant nod, he smirked- about time, too. 

Damian didn’t comment on it, because he was well aware of how much Drake wished for all his soul shards to go completely null. When that happened, his soul would have definitely died, no take backs. 

There was also the matter of the soul core, in Damian’s possession, that kept on thriving and growing, but Drake didn’t seem too worried about it, which scared Damian in turn. 

-And, lastly, young current Robin. In love -he smirked-, ah, no, corresponded love, judging by the green spots, with his predecessor. Tough luck. The soul might have feelings for you, but the body certainly doesn’t (muscle memory from back then is a bitch, isn’t it?), and those by themselves are not enough, are they? Such a tragedy.

He smirked while talking, empty eyes not really caring about Damian’s crushed heart. 

He hated him, a little, just then. Not nearly as much as he loved him, sadly.

-------.-------

Watching him through the monitors of the cave was such a normal thing for him to do, it no longer called to the attention of his family members. They just accepted it as one more of Damian’s oddities and moved on. 

Sometimes, Grayson or Todd would stop by. They would comment on some sparring mistake he made, or marvel at the mission report when Drake’s explanation on the thought process that drove him to solve it was beyond amazing, longing and pain lacing their words. 

Cain and Brown rarely accompanied him, but when they did, it was their choice on what to watch, and more often than not it was some funny, endearing thing, like Drake’s comm quips, or mask recordings on the cheesy puns he threw to his enemies.

Father never stayed, once Damian took a seat by the Batcomputer. It was beyond frustrating, his decision to pretend his son was dead, from the memorial to avoiding all talk of him unless forced. Timothy was out there, and Damian held in his pouch the answer to his predicament, but no, Father would sooner think him dead than deal with the emotional rollercoaster Damian was currently riding.

Timothy defied death itself when everyone else thought Father dead. He went toe to toe with  a devil like his Grandfather, and came out on top, for him. It angered him, not seeing such devotion returned. Todd’s death and later criminal career had undoubtedly messed with his emotional bonds with all his children, but this was just ridiculous. They fought over it, often. They fought a lot, these days; his older siblings said it was a rite of passage, to reach that moment when Robin was just done with Batman’s shit.

-Master Damian, you never showed up for supper. I took the liberty of bringing some leftovers for you to snack on here.

Lost as he was, both in thought and in footage of Timothy reaching a compromise with Poison Ivy, he had to repress a startled jump; it would be unbecoming of him, with all his training. Though, Pennyworth probably knew anyway. He always did.

-Thank you -he nodded, accepting the plate stacked with sandwiches. The old butler left a cool glass of water by the computer’s keyboard, and his eyes went up to the image of Timothy returning home after another successful mission. His tired eyes seemed to soften.

-How is Master Timothy fearing, young sir?

As sure as he was that everyone suspected him, only Alfred directly addressed the fact that Damian went to his old charge, time and time again. Even so, when he asked for “Master Timothy”, he always referred to the same.

Wordlessly, one hand holding a sandwich, he retrieved the soul next to his from the pouch. The spots weren’t bigger than last time, but more numerous.

One finger softly caressed the orb. He wouldn’t feel it, but Damian could, and it always warmed him the way Timothy’s soul reacted to the old butler’s touch.

-To think I let a young man under my care to go starved... -muttered the man. He hadn’t taken well when Damian confied on him the reason why the blue orb used to be so little.

-It was a shared mistake, Pennyworth. If anything -he nodded towards the man’s bowtie, where the small icy blue shard still shone- it’s evident how you -and Cain- were far from the worst perpetrators. The fault lies on the rest of us.

The man sighed- It’s such a shame, truly. Master Timothy was such a bright, full of life young man… his heart might have been naive, but it rarely steered him wrong.

While he spoke, the man went around Damian, reaching for the keyboard. A few clicks later, and a video file he never saw before was brought forth. Timothy’s young face appeared on the screen, and Damian paused, softly putting his glass back down.

On screen, his predecessor, down to his old Robin pants and no shirt, was finishing a training routine on the mats.This one, he didn’t recognize.

-I searched every bit of information on Drake, how…? 

As he asked, another figure appeared on screen, this time… an odd version of Nightwing. He started needling Timothy (the file lacked audio), seemingly asking for something the other kid wasn’t willing to provide. He kept shaking his head.

-I have every bit of photographic evidence of Master Richard’s… most questionable clothing choices password protected, least he finds a way to get rid of all of it. It’s for posterity’s sake, you understand? And to maybe help refrain him from trying his hand at “improvising a new suit” ever again.

Looking at his mentor’s mullet hair and deep v-neck, he can’t exactly bedrugde Alfred his counter measures. He’s feeling shame just by looking at a video, can’t even imagine what living through that must have been for the poor butler.

-Grayson’s fashion sense is sadly lacking, isn’t it?

-I wouldn’t call that fashion, Master Damian, nor sense. One could forgive and forget the first Robin suit, a circus child in need of colour and reminders of home. But this? -a stiff nod to the screen- This makes me worry for any children he might have. 

-I’ve been keeping him away from orphanages -he assures the old man, because at this point, it was a two on two battle, him and Pennyworth against Father and Grayson and their inability to keep their greedy paternal paws off of possible new family members.

-Good lad.

In silence, they watch as Nightwing goes off screen, returning later in civies. One would think anything would have been less of an eye sore, but the bright green pants, red sneakers and yellow shirt aren’t so much better than glitter and feathers in a skintight suit.

Shockingly, though, Timothy-on-screen seems to disagree. Graysons’ renewed efforts at convincing him of whatever he wanted bore fruits, and soon enough, both vigilantes left the scene. Automatically, the video started to reproduce again, on a loop.

Alfred hummed, taking back the empty tray- I would highly recommend you went upstairs to try and sleep, young Master. Your eyebags are two thirds the size Master Tim’s used to be, and that’s worrying on its own.

He wanted to protest, but the look on the old man’s face made him reconsider. There was very little any of them could do to repay Alfred for everything he did for the family. Easing his concern was just a start.

Silently, he closed the files he was revising and walked side by side with the butler. 

-I wonder what was what Grayson said, to make Timothy concede -he commented, while they slowly hailed back to the Manor.

-Nothing of great importance -was his answer-. Master Timothy’s will is a force to reckon, but he always found Robin to be his Achilles’ heel. The moment Master Dick changed into civies the colour of his first suit, poor lad had lost the battle.

The words kept spinning in his head, even after he went to bed.

It wasn’t a plan, not even the beginnings of one, and it lacked all the finesse and detail attention one of Timothy’s would have, but it was more than he had yesterday. 

A start.

------.------

He went to Kent with his idea. Conner. Kon El.

(Not Superboy. Not his Superboy, at least; just like he wasn’t his Robin)

He choose him, because he could fly them somewhere away from his Grandfather's ears. Because he was better at lying than the Impulse, and less noble and forthcoming than Wonder Girl. He trusted him more than he did Timothy’s other Young Justice old teammates.

But, more importantly, he knew Kent would be ready and willing to do whatever it took to get Drake back.

-You know it’s gonna hurt him -the clone pointed out, face serious and stony. He was already preparing himself mentally for the backslash of what they were going to do. His hand had raised up to the Icy blue earring. Out of everyone else, Cain and Pennyworth included, his soul shard was the brightest; his love and loyalty to Timothy never once wavered.

The soul in his pouch gave a warm wave of fondness. He suspects that, during Drake’s darkest hours, his best friend’s love was what kept the little orb fed. Even now, he felt it strengthen under Kent’s undying devotion.

-I know.

There was no question it would. If they succeeded, the onslaught of feelings would be far too much for anyone to handle. Timothy, awesome as he was in every other field, would not be the exception.

-He’s probably gonna hate me.

-No -he shakes his head, echoing on Timothy’s soul sentiments- He never could. You and the others… he’s weak to you. That’s why I’m asking for your help. I need you there first, to soften him up to the idea. Make him more… receptive.

A pause. Then:

-It’s me he’s going to hate.

-At first, for sure- the easy admission, from the mouth of someone as well (or better) versed in the mysteries and wonders of one Timothy Drake, hurt; then, the man continued- but I can promise you, it won’t stay in the way of your little love story for long. He will cave soon enough.

Startled, he looked into the meta’s eyes; mischief, but a shade of seriousness. He wasn’t lying.

-There is no love story. Only redemption for me, and a chance at happiness for him.

-Yeah, yeah, I know, you bats are all for ‘what’s right’ and ‘emotions and personal life are for the weak’. I’m just calling it like I see it, dude, and anyone can see how you look when you talk about him. And, honestly? It’s a little creepy, Edward Cullen style, the way you spent your entire teenagedhood pining after someone without actually interacting with him for almost half of it.

Multiple reactions raced through his mind. Embarrassment, denial, rage…

...resignation.

-I’m not worthy of his affections, not after everything. And even if I was, who’s to say the feelings his soul has now will be the same once it’s back with its rightful owner?

Kon El just sighed, something that sounded like ‘emotionally stunted bats’, and carefully placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder. It was striking, realizing they were not so far in height now. He would never bulk up the way Superman’s clone had, but his body was closer to it than Timothy’s, or Grayson’s.

-I’ll let you in a secret. There’s one easy shortcut, straight to Tim’s heart. Though, maybe ‘straight’ isn’t the right word in this case.

-Shut up.

A smile- Trust me on this one. You’re already using that way, even if you don’t realize it -he clasped his hand tighter, and then released him- Well, gotta go. Showtime is in two days, right? Have to be ready. 

He was already taking off, when Damian’s brain to mouth filter seemed to break and he blurted out.

-What is this shortcut?

Still flying, the meta spin in place to face him, moving backwards. His smile was one part wistful, two parts sad.

-The fastest way for Tim to love you? Love him back. He’s a sucker for people giving him the barest scraps of affection, it would be impossible for him to resist someone wholeheartedly loving him.

-----.-----

18  -  23

All fell into place on Damian’s birthday.

The morning, he couldn’t escape his family. Grayson cried, of course, and  Father had his constipated-emotionally confused face on. Todd and Brown promised to take him to a bar, careful to make that claim where Pennyworth couldn’t hear them. Him and Cain were in charge of the cake (Cassandra’s latest focus of attention had been bakery, and she wanted to participate), and Damian spent half the day surrounded by their love and support. 

As promised, Jon came by mid afternoon to take him to ‘celebrate together’. He asked his family to wait for him awake, even if he came past the time patrol usually started. An odd request, but since he had asked for so little for his birthday, they couldn’t help but agree, Barbara going so far as to have The Birds of Prey ready to cover for them.

It was a long flight to Uruguay, but it was needed. He had taken note on how Drake was, more often than not, found on some seaside location. According to Grayson (and the multiple mission reports he had read on the subject), the tiniest Robin always seemed to like  and take comfort on the beach. It had become a small compulsion, probably one he wasn’t even aware of, to stray to places surrounded by water.

The only stop they made, was for Damian to change civies for his suit. The Robin suit.

They found him sitting on the sand overlooking the calm afternoon waters, at La Pedrera Beach. Just where Damian asked him to met, where Kon had undoubtedly brought him a few minutes before. 

No one was around, thankfully. The less witnesses, the better.

Jon touched ground softly, smiling at Damian and taking off again, to wait with the older Superboy as planned. His friend’s eyes betrayed no nervousness, but he didn’t need to; Damian was nervous enough for both of them.

Steeling himself, he walked towards the smaller man and stood by his side. Silently, they both watched as the sun slowly sunk into the horizon. In ten more minutes, it’d be completely hidden. Damian wanted for everything to be done before then, as if the beauty of the sunset would counter the pain of what was to follow.

-Okay, Baby Bat, lay it on me. Why ask me to come here, all the way from Italy? I was having a blast, you know, catching those mafias one by one.

Even as he spoke, he didn’t look particularly bothered. Soulless as he was, he had no qualms on showing his displeasure. Right now, though, he looked as satisfied as he ever did since losing his soul. The morning catching criminals, noon with his best friend and afternoon at the beach seemed to have worked like a charm. He was at ease, no longer waiting for Damian to attack him, and when he looked up at him and saw him wearing his colors (for once his more muted pants having a green tint to it, resembling more his predecessor's old costume), surprise gave quick way to trust.

Alfred was right, as always. Robin seemed to be the key past Timothy’s defenses.

-It’s my birthday today -he informed the man, doing his best to not be so stiff- And I want my gift.

A sharp laugh, devoid of feeling but humorous all the same, and Timothy stood, face to face with him, tilting his head to look him into the eye.

-My, my, what a spoiled prince. But whatever, I’m here already, and I already indulged you these last two years, letting you stay around and helping you with cases. What’s one more? I won’t take the soul back, though.

Damian shook his head.

-I don’t intend to return something of yours. I want to give something mine, for you to carry with yourself.

The smirk on his face turned utterly devious, and Timothy’s pale hands found perch on his shoulders.

-Such a daring man you have turned into -slowly, he leaned closer, standing on his tiptoes to reach Damian’s ear- What do you want to give me, baby bat? -his warm breath caressed his face, and he had to shut his eyes tightly when he felt Timothy’s face getting even closer- Maybe a kiss? It’ll be free of charge, even, just because I’m in such a good mood. I’ll still let you have the gift you had in mind, too.

Startled, he held the other man’s hips. The want that pushed viciously against his restrain left him dizzy, but his heart twisted and the pain brought him back to his senses, just before his lips -that he hadn’t even be aware he was parting- touched the other’s. 

Carefully, because he didn’t mean any harm and because of how hard it was, he pushed the man away.

-No.

-No? Despite how desperately you clearly want it?

He clenched his fists, before slowly opening his hands and dragging them away from Timothy’s body. He opened his eyes again, looking down at the beautiful face, at those empty eyes. That sealed his decision.

-Not like this. Never like this.

He both regreted and was relieved by his words the moment he had uttered them.

A huff, and slim arms crossed over his chest. It helped a little, once the temptation was over. 

-Okay then, boring. What’s this gift you want? Wanna give me a necklace or something? You seem the possessive type.

Damian breathed in, deeply. This was the moment.

-Open your hand, please.

Eyes rolling over the drama, one hand on his hip, he stretched out the other one, palm up.

Bracing himself, Damian retrieved something from his pouch. Before he could second guess himself, he softly placed it on Timothy’s hand.

Deep, rich green. Shinning gold. A sea of those colors, with specks of icy blue floating around.

His own soul.

Timothy’s eyes went to the soul, the one that wasn’t his, and widened a little. Reflexively, he closed his fingers around the orb as much as he could. He was still being moved by the muscle memory, the compulsion of pleasing Robin.

A second later, tears started to endlessly flow, and he was screaming in pain. 

-----.----

For months, years, Damian had looked over him and saw two separate pieces of the same puzzle. Soul and body, beautiful on their own, but absolutely breathtaking if he only could put them together.

Now, the full picture stood in front of him. Despite its beauty, there were visible cracks where Damian had forced their ragged ends together, where he had to put his own soul as a filler between them.

Effective as it was, meshing two pieces, despite they belonging to the same puzzle, wasn’t the most gentle way to mend them.

They were bound to break a little, in order to fit.

-What have you done to me?! -demanded Timothy, hand clutching desperately at his chest (the other one still holding the gifted soul core), knees failing him. He would have crashed into the ground, if not for Damian’s firm arm around his waist.

He looked completely miserable, scared and shocked, which sent waves of both guilt and elation through him, because his Beloved was hurting because of him, but he was feeling.

Timothy’s eyes shone hatefully. It was the most beautiful shade of icy blue he had ever seen. Even if the emotion was such a dark one, they weren’t empty anymore. 

-It’ll be over soon -he shushed, slowly sinking to his knees and bringing the man into his lap, almost engulfing him between arms and firm chest, as if to protect him from the pain that was coming from deep inside; distantly, he heard Kon and Jon’s voices as they approached, their concern obvious but unimportant at the moment-, you just have… a lot of emotional catching up to do.

-What is happening to me?! How?! This isn’t my soul! I shouldn’t be feeling my own emotions! -he shrieked, his entire body shaking, and it was obvious he would have attacked Damian if not so focused on his own pain. Tears fell seemingly without his notice, and flickers of different emotions crossed his face. Guilt, anger, joy, sadness, rage, fondness, pain, guilt, anger, joy… Too quick to properly categorize, too sudden for Timothy to process them. Those were the emotions his soul had been storing this past few years, and it was all crashing down around him.

-I’m well connected to the soul you gave me. As thus, by using my own as a conduit and bonding us together, yours finally has a way to reach out to you, to do its job and make you feel. It’s muted, not as strong as it’d be if you had accepted your own soul back in the first place. I’m afraid that would have killed you.

-I feel like I’m dying now.

There was screaming. Then laughter. Panic and crying. Puking. Timothy’s hand left his chest to tug at his hair, plucking off strand, then going to his naked arms and leaving red indents with his nails. Softly, he took his fingers between his,  Timothy’s back to his chest, if only to keep him from hurting himself any longer.

-I can’t breath. I can’t think. Why did you do this to me? I love you. No, I don’t. Fuck, I’m going crazy -Daman tightened his arms around the man, shushing him, rocking back and forth on the ground, wishing desperately he could sooth his pain.

-It’ll pass.

Timothy whined, and cried, and smiled, and puked on the sand.  

-I hate you right now. I love you. I’m scared. I hate you again. I/

-I know, love. I know.

When he passed out, still caught between tears and smiles, Damian couldn’t help but feel relief.

[aerialflight]

Fic Recs

I haven’t done this in a while, recommending fics. But there were some fics these past couple of months that put a smile on my face, so I want to spread that joy to others. Seriously, they’re so good and I want to shove all these recs at people and have them appreciate them as much as I do. Everyone stay safe and I hope these recs make staying home easier for everyone!

-

[Fullmetal Alchemist]

maestoso by novalotypo

Edward Elric is about eleven when he stands up, makes an extended effort to knock as many books off the old bastard’s shelves as he can, and says, “Fuck the military. Al, you interested in music at all?”

Everybody's got their own ideas of retirement.

The Elrics don't even do retirement, what with the world trying to blow itself up every other month, but this shit has got to take the fucking cake.

(You want a fic that’ll make you cry tears of uncontrollable laughter? I point you to this fic. The shenanigans, the fact this is a time travel fic, the fucking headaches the Elrics cause, the I-Have-No-Fucks-To-Give attitude. Legend.)

-

[The Magnus Archives]

we raise it up by savrenim

Jonathan Sims reads a book and saves the world; although maybe the real salvation is the friends he makes along the way.

OR: in which Jon is not the only Archival monster for very long, Sasha James is competent, Tim Stoker finds some catharsis, Helen Richardson is sexy, Melanie makes a very successful youtube channel revamp, and Martin Blackwood gets to brew a lot of new friends tea.

(This is literally the most creative, fucking inspired tma fic I’ve ever read. You literally will never be able to guess what happens next and it’s just so much fun.)(Kinda Time Travel, you’ll understand what I mean if you read it, it’s so well done and amazing.)(The characterization for Sasha makes me want to weep, I’ve never seen her characterized this way before and it makes SO MUCH SENSE.)(@savrenim you are a QUEEN and you inspire me to be a better writer.)

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[Marvel]

Crash Landing by Nyxelestia

"You could've left me there," Adrian murmured, jerking his head back towards the burning beach in the distance. "For Stark and his DODC people to find me. Liz and Doris' lives would've actually fallen apart with my arrest, and all my work to take care of them would've gone to waste. You could've just left me there...but you didn't. So I'll make you another deal."

Peter clenched his hands, fists shaking hard. "I'm giving you a second chance - but if you go back to what you were doing...I can't make any promises."

"It would be stupid of me to expect you to, after all this," Adrian said. He looked at Peter, at the hints of bruises and all the blood. He had trouble reconciling this fragile-looking kid with the superhuman who's been destroying his business, his daughter's homecoming date with the boy he'd nearly killed. "That's not my deal. My deal is, we both walk away, and neither of us say a word about any of this to Liz. Anything else - we'll cross those bridges as we come to them."

Swallowing, the boy nodded.

Instead of gift-wrapping the Vulture for Happy to find, Peter lets Mr. Toomes go.

(Honestly, I’m disappointed in the fact there’s not many Vulture-centric fics out there. This was so great and Peter was wonderfully characterized here along with Ned.)(I have a deep craving now for more Adrian Toomes fics and I blame this fic for that. I don’t regret it one bit.)

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[The Witcher]

all some children do is work by some_stars

It's two children, he realizes as they slowly sit up. They look about eight or nine, not that he's much judge of children's ages. One is a girl, dark-haired, in a shabby dress. The other is a boy. His clothes aren't much better, and his hair isn't much lighter than the girl's, but his eyes—

His eyes, Jaskier realizes with a distant sense of horror, are gold like a cat's. His mind makes one more valiant effort to keep from connecting the obvious dots and recognizing them, and then it finally does.

"How in the unholy fuck," Jaskier says to no one, "did this shit happen?"

(So sweet it’ll give you cavities. Break your own heart reading this, I dare you.)

of music and motion and love by WriteThroughTheNight

When Jaskier was four, he slipped his mother’s watch and went to the field to gather a bouquet of dandelions. He climbed back into the yard, as stealthy as a child really cared to be, and crept over to the barn. In the barn, lived a secret. (The man he thought his father said the secret was a monster, a plague. His mother said the secret was his sister.)

OR

Jaskier comes from a far humbler background, and would really like to know why Yennefer never came back for her youngest brother.

(YENNEFER AND JASKIER AS SIBLINGS ENOUGH SAID. FIENOWPAFE)

to render it transparent by theundiagnosable

Geralt wakes up warm, peaceful, and utterly content, which is how he knows that something is severely wrong.

(Where Geralt wakes up in the future and Jaskier and Geralt live at the Coast.)(They are Disasters. What else is new.)(Everything’s lovely and emotionally repressed.)

-

[Game of Thrones]

if I give you my heart, will you promise not to break it? by janie_tangerine

Ship: Brienne/Jaime

“It’s not broken,” she protests.

“Please,” Ronnet goes on, “it’s all red. Red hearts like that are broken and their owners are either useless or more effort than they’re worth. ‘Course you would get a broken one, who else would want you?”

“It’s not,” Brienne hisses, and at that he stops talking. She realizes her voice had turned cold. Very cold. A coldness that doesn’t belong to her, she’s never sounded like that, but it seems to come from the pulsing warmth in her hands, again - “and the day I find him you’ll see he’s not broken or damaged or unworthy. And I sure as the seven hells hope no one got saddled with yours.

in which soulmates find each other through one of them having the other's heart.

or, in which Brienne gets a mostly broken one the day Jaime Lannister kills Aerys Targaryen.

(So this is a series, just want to put that out there. And I read through all of them cause I just couldn’t do otherwise. Brienne is obviously the bravest, most noble, most amazing of course. And Jaime makes me want to punch a wall because feels.)(This soulmate idea is so creatively and well done, has become one of my favorite soulmate tropes.)(There are a lot of interesting pairings in this series and the way the author went about the relationships and this expanding world has me giving all the yeses.)(Please read!!!)

-

[Gilmore Girls]

Weather Me by missgoalie75

Ship: Paris Geller/Jess Mariano

A year in the life of Paris and Jess.

(PARIS GELLER AND JESS MARIANO AT THEIR VERY BEST HOLY SHIT!!! I can hear their voices in every line, every thought, every damn interaction and I am so in love it's ridiculous. Paris in particular won me over, I have become incredibly fond of her and it's honestly brilliant! And Jess has a beautiful mind and I love him, I do. God, do I.)(missgoalie75 did it again.)

Living With It by thesaltyavocado

Ship: Lindsay Lister/Jess Mariano

#Future Fic, #Post-Season/Series Finale, #So Your Ex is Now Your Step-Cousin, #And You're Dating Her Ex's Ex!, #A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Over It

(There’s no summary, it’s a series, and I’m in LOVE. I am a sucker for really, really well done rare pairs, and this is the rarest of them all. Go for it. It’s beautiful.)(Also, the author is literally the BEST, the VERY BEST at making me want to ship people I never even thought of. They’re awesome.)(check out all their fics, I went on a spree and you should too.)

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[The Hunger Games]

Speechless by thesaltyavocado

Ship: Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket

Effie was kind, she was warm, she offered comfort to anyone who needed it, microphones be damned. She had a reputation for generosity amongst the Victors that Haymitch hadn't paid any attention to, because he was so paranoid about showing his hand that he barely even said her name around other people, barely even acknowledged her existence. Everyone thought he hated her, Beetee had explained. Everyone knew the stories about how he'd made her cry in the sponsor's lounge at the opening of the 61st Games, how he'd blown up at Cecelia that time when she'd asked him to pass a message onto Effie for her. Is that why none of you assholes ever liked me? Haymitch had asked. No, we didn't like you because you were a prick, Beetee told him, which was fair enough.

(The best, and I mean the best fic I’ve ever read regarding this pairing. Nothing is ever going to top this. Nothing.)(The WORLDBUILDING. FUCK.)(Literally everyone is perfectly characterized in new, heartbreaking ways and I just, fuck. Fuck.)(I don’t care if you’re not into the fandom, this will make you fall in love and see the characters with new eyes and it’s absolutely stellar.)(I want to cry.)(You don’t even have to be here for the ship, just be here for the writing, characterization, the WORLDBUILDING, fucking everything.)(Please.)(This fic NEEDS more love.)(I have fallen in love with Effie Trinket.)(This is my life now.)

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[Harry Potter]

Walkabout by thesaltyavocado for teethandstars

Ship: Hermione Granger/Sirius Black

"You are always far too handsome for your own good," Hermione says, "in any timeline."

(The author strikes again when it comes to shipping people I don’t expect to love, yet here it is. Such an interesting fic where the time travel already happened and it’s the aftermath that the fic covers.)(Again, characterization off the fucking charts and I just want to wrap myself up in their words and live there.)(A story about broken people trying to find peace within themselves.)

-

[Stranger Things]

and you hunger for the time by missgoalie75

Ship: Steve Harrington/Kali Prasad

after the battle of starcourt, steve figured the rest of the summer would involve not working, waiting for his busted ribs and face to heal, hanging out with robin and the party, and trying to ignore the panic he feels whenever he thinks about his future. All that does happen, but other unexpected things happen too.

(Bet you didn’t see this ship coming, did you? Neither did I, yet here we are.)(missgoalie75 is the gift that keeps on giving.)(But in all seriousness this is my favorite characterization of Steve, hands down.)(This fic needs more kudos and comments and basically all the love it deserves.)(God tier characterization and relationship development.)

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[Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas]

nfwmb by perennial

Ship: Eris/Proteus

The goddess of discord isn't careless enough to fall in love with a do-gooder mortal prince—unless, of course, she doesn't know it's happening.

(Okay, hear me out. I know it’s weird, I can feel the judgement coming from my screen. But I am weak in the face of rare pairings that actually work and the fact I fucking loved this movie ever since I was a kid, okay? So if anybody else loves this fandom as much as I do, stand up and take notice of this. I am here to tell you there are worthwhile fics to be read in this very, very small fandom.)

I'll keep turning down the hands that beckon me to come by deavors

Ship: Marina/Proteus/Sinbad

“Jealous?” Sinbad says, voice easily and casually mocking, but there’s something else under there, an undertone that speaks of so many things Marina isn’t even close to understanding.

“Extremely,” says Proteus, cracking a half-smile, but Marina feels like he’s not joking.

They stare at each other for a few moments. Marina’s gaze flickers between them. Sun and moon. She wishes—she doesn’t know what she wishes. Her heart is twisting again, but in a different way from before: as though it’s half-empty and longs to be full.

(You have no idea how in love I am with the idea of these three being in a poly relationship. No idea.)(I’ve been shipping all of them the moment I was introduced to the idea of polyamory relationships.)(This is THE poly ship for me.)(Nothing’s ever gonna come close. Nothing.)

-

[Crossovers]

Trust Me, I'm an Alchemist by metisket

Fandoms: Yuri!!! on Ice, Fullmetal Alchemist

In which Yuri Plisetsky began life with the name Edward Elric, and this has made the world of figure skating a significantly stranger and more alarming place.

“Are you saying you lived a life of crime before you began skating?” “I’m gonna have to check the statute of limitations on a couple things and get back to you on that.”

(Meme Alien Edward, Ninja Alphonse who’ll smile at you as you Perish, Disaster Gay Victor, Disaster Gay Maniac Yuuri.)(If this isn’t incentive enough, the Elrics traumatizing and delighting social media with their Life Stories and their Life of Crime.)(Feral Elrics being Feral Elrics.)(It’s the kind of fic that gets better with every chapter, cause the shenanigans just keep ESCALATING.)

[bubonickitten]

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: tumblr // AO3

Chapter 5 full text & content warnings below the cut:

CWs for Chapter 5: flashbacks re: canon-typical trauma (each of Jon's encounters with the Fears is mentioned, some more detailed than others - worms and Circus-related horror in particular); brief mentions of eye horror/gouging. SPOILERS through S5.

   Chapter 5: Second Chance

   “Hi, Georgie,” Jon says meekly. There’s a raw quality to his tone that he didn’t anticipate. Don’t cry, he warns himself. Don’t you dare cry.   

  Georgie surveys him – not with fear, of course, but with a combination of caution and interest.

  “My eyes are up here,” Jon says with a small, hesitant smile.

  “Jonathan Sims, was that a joke?”

  “People might assume otherwise, but I do have a sense of humor.”

  “Not like that you don’t.”

  “It’s Martin’s,” Jon admits. When he feels himself start to flush, he averts his human eyes. Useless, really, considering how most of the others are still concentrated on Georgie, but it’s just force of habit at this point.

  Georgie grins for a brief moment. Jon is suddenly struck with the magnitude of how long it’s been since he’s seen her smile, and then it fades.

  “You’ve picked up quite a few more…” Georgie raises an eyebrow and motions vaguely at Jon and his general vicinity.

  “Yes.” Jon shifts his weight from one foot to the other, embarrassed. “They aren’t, ah… manifesting in my hospital room, are they?”

  Georgie looks at him like he’s grown an extra head. Though, that may have less to do with his question and more with yet another eye that just emerged unsolicited on his left cheekbone. Great timing.    

  “Uh… no?”

  “Oh, good.” He doesn’t bother to understate his relief. Everyone already saw him as a monster last time; retaining his post-apocalyptic nightmare ‘he’s-all-eyes’ look would make an already difficult challenge nearly impossible.

  “So you… you know where you are, then?”

  “Yes.” 

  When he doesn’t elaborate, Georgie’s eyes sweep up and down his figure again, and Jon feels exposed. Seen. She folds her arms and jerks her chin in his direction.  

  “You’ve got mud all over you.”

  “I… had to help someone climb out of a grave earlier.” In an attempt to distract himself from his own self-consciousness, he begins playing with a lock of hair at the nape of his neck.

  “And the blood?”

  “Dream pica,” Jon says guardedly. “And a dissection lab.” He looks around the pristine room they’re standing in. “A – a different one. With more… blood.”

  “Right.”

  The awkward silence drags on a bit too long.

  “It’s… it’s good to see you, Georgie,” he ventures.

  “Jon, is it really you?”

  “Yes.” Georgie doesn’t respond, and her expression is unreadable. “I – I don’t have any way to make you believe me, but… listen, Georgie, I – there are some important things I have to tell you before you wake up.”

  Before Georgie can stop him, he plunges into the first bullet point on his agenda.

  “First, Melanie. I don’t know how much she told you about her trip to India, but she still has a bullet in her leg, and it’s poisoning her. It didn’t show up on any scans then, and it probably still won’t, but it needs to come out. I know she’s been hurting, growing angrier –”

  “How do you –”

  “Please trust me, Georgie. I don’t know whether Melanie will listen to you, especially when you tell her the information came from me, but – but I think she already knows about the bullet, knows what it’s doing to her. She might not want to give it up, and – and it’s not my place to make that decision for her, but – the Slaughter wants to claim her, and I don’t think any good can come from becoming an Avatar.” He laughs bitterly. “Maybe – maybe that would be enough to convince her. Just tell her she could end up a monster like me.”   

  “Jon –”

  “I just wanted to let you know,” he interrupts again. “You know her better than I do, and she can trust you more than she can trust anyone at the Institute. I don’t know what your relationship is like right now, if she would listen to you, and – and you don’t have to tell me. But you both deserve to know about it. And she… she deserves a chance to heal. She deserves to know that she has a choice.”

  “Okay. That’s... a lot to unpack.” Then, businesslike: “What else?”

  “Martin. He needs to know that I’m coming back. It – it might take another month or two, but I’m going to wake up.”

  “Jon, I’ve never even spoken to him.”

  “I know, and – and right now, he’s distancing himself from the others, too. But he’s in danger.” Georgie raises her eyebrows. “A new kind of danger. If you could ask Melanie to get a message to him, to just – tell him that I’m asking him to wait a few more months before giving up on me.”

  “I’ll pass the message on to Melanie,” Georgie says evenly, “but I’m not going to pressure her about it.”

  “I understand.”

  “You… you think you can wake up, then?”

  “Yes. And I will.” He pauses. “Soon, I hope.”

  “You going to explain, or keep being mysterious?”

  “I… listen, Georgie, I want to tell you, I do –”

  “But you can’t, because as usual, you think you know what you’re doing and you’re going to rush ahead and throw yourself at –”

  “No,” he says firmly. “I know it seems like I’m falling into a – a familiar pattern, but that’s not what this is. I want to tell you, and I will tell you, it just – it can’t be here.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because Elias is probably watching us right now.”

  “Your boss Elias?" Georgie gives him a blank look. "Your boss Elias who is in prison right now for the murders he framed you for? That Elias?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think he can, what, snoop on your coma dreams?”

  “And most places in the physical world aren’t safe from him, either.”

  “Right,” Georgie sighs. She’s known Jon long enough to tell when he isn’t going to budge. “Where, then?”

  “The tunnels under the Institute. It’s a universal blind spot, he can’t See there.”

  “And you aren’t worried about him overhearing that?”

  “No. He’s likely aware that we know about the properties of the tunnels. Besides, this isn’t some secret battle we’re all fighting. Everything is out in the open. I don’t have to hide my suspicions, and he’s stopped pretending not to be evil. He can safely assume that I’m keeping secrets and plotting behind his back just the same as he is.” Jon glares up at the ceiling and the Watcher beyond it. “I just don’t want him to know the details.” 

  “Can’t he read minds?��� Georgie looks away. “It’s just – Melanie mentioned –”

  “It’s… complicated.” Jon folds his arms and starts pacing slowly, retracing the same six-foot space back and forth as he pieces together an explanation. “Elias can See things that happen almost anywhere, but he has to concentrate in order to do it. He can Know a person’s secrets and details about their past, but I don’t think it’s mind-reading, per se, it’s just… Knowing, and – and there are limits on it. And he can implant images and knowledge into a person’s mind, but I think he has to actually be within eyesight in order to do it.”

  Jon abruptly stops pacing and stares transfixed at his feet.

  “It sounds like there’s a ‘but.’”

  “But… I don’t think he can actually read a person’s thoughts in real time. Sometimes it seems like it – he has a gift for reading people, and he always seems to know how best to manipulate or… or break a person. But I think… I think it’s an entirely non-supernatural gift.” Jon hugs his sides and draws his shoulders in, suddenly feeling both too small and too noticeable. “It’s monstrosity, but of a very human sort,” he murmurs softly. 

  “You’re sure?”

  “Fairly sure, yes, though it doesn’t hurt to take as many precautions as possible. I do plan on explaining things after I wake up, but only in the tunnels.” He gives Georgie a pleading look. “I wouldn’t ask you to come to the Institute if there was another option, but it… it has to be there. And I – I get it if you don’t want to see me in person, I can tell Melanie and then she can tell you, but it just – it still has to be in the tunnels.”

  “Jon, it isn’t that I don’t want to see you. I’ve been visiting you in hospital –”

  “I know.”

  “You could hear me?”

  “Not – not quite. I only just started being able to hear what goes on out there. But I… I know you’ve been visiting. Thank you.” Jon pauses, biting his lower lip. “Though I know that you… weren’t expecting me to recover.”

  “It’s been four months, Jon. You have no heartbeat, you’re not breathing –”

  “I know. And you’re thinking I’ve passed a point of no return and that you should cut ties with me before I drag you down with me.”

  “Well, have you?”

  “Passed a point of no return?” He looks up at the ceiling and closes his human eyes. “Yeah. A few of them, actually. I’m not fully human anymore, and I don’t think there’s a way to reverse it. But I – I’m still me, and I want to stay that way. You told me once – not long ago, I suppose – you said that if I was becoming something inhuman, I needed people in my life. To remind me of my humanity. You were right. There are more points of no return I could stumble into, I could get worse, and I don’t…” He swallows hard, fighting back the threat of tears. “I want to get better.”

  “Do you, though?” Georgie’s voice is gentle, but firm. “Actually?”

  “Yes,” Jon says without hesitation. “I really, really do. I can’t escape from the Institute, or from the Beholding. Not any time soon, anyway. Even when I was staying with you, I was physically dependent on reading statements – I just didn’t realize it yet. Running away and staying out of danger isn’t really an option for me anymore. It… hasn’t been for a long time. Maybe ever since I took the job.”

  Georgie presses her lips into a thin line, and Jon can tell he’s losing her.

  “But I’m not – I know you don’t believe me, but I’m not seeking out danger or heroics. I’m not… I’m not playing the martyr, or – or trying to court tragedy. I would love to go a month – hell, a week without the threat of death or worse hanging over me,” he says with a short, humorless laugh, “but that won’t happen as long as I’m the Archivist. So I – I don’t know what ‘better’ looks like for me now that I’m like this, but I want to try. I think this is a second chance, and I… I want to take it.”

  “I want to believe you, Jon. It’s just…”

  “You’ll believe it when you see it.” One corner of his mouth twitches up in a rueful smile.

  “Yeah.” Georgie’s answering smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  He can’t really blame her for being skeptical. They’d had a conversation remarkably similar to this one before, shortly before their breakup – minus the supernatural elements, of course. He’d had a breakdown, finally admitted that he needed help, agreed to go to counseling – and then quit after two sessions. She’s seen his obsessiveness, his refusal to take care of himself, the self-destructive patterns he falls into, his apparent allergy to emotional vulnerability. He’s never shown her any other side of him. Come to think of it, he didn’t know he had another side until… all of this.

  “Look,” Georgie says after a moment and a sigh, “I – I’m not going to cut you out, not completely. But I may need some distance, you understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I can’t be your only support.”

  “I wouldn’t want that.”

  “And I have to decide how much I’m willing to get involved in… all of this.” Georgie frowns. “It’s just complicated, what with…”

  “Melanie.”

  “Yeah. I mean, I don’t want you trapped there, either – I think all of you should quit, actually. If you ever figure out how. Maybe even burn the place down just to be safe.” If she’s joking about the latter, Jon can’t tell. He doesn’t disagree with her, per se, but he does take a moment to wonder, not for the first time, how he’s managed to surround himself with so many people who see arson as a first resort. “It’s just –”

  “Listen, that’s actually the last thing I wanted to mention – I might have a way for Melanie to quit.”

  “What?”

  “I – I think the only reason she hasn’t been completely taken over by the Slaughter is because of her connection to the Eye, so it would be safest to remove the bullet first, if she decides that's what she wants, but – yes, there’s a way for her to quit.” He runs one hand through his hair and grimaces. “It’s drastic, but everyone needs to know they have the option. I can’t talk about the details here, though, and I – I’d rather everyone hear everything I have to say before making any decisions.”

  “You get more and more cryptic every time I see you, you know that?” 

  “Trust me, this is an improvement on…” Being the voice of the Archive, he does not say. “It could be worse.”

  “See? Cryptic.”

  “That can’t be the most off-putting thing about me.” As if on cue, another eye opens on his throat, centered on the scar that Daisy left him, and he cringes. More impeccable timing. 

  “Nah,” Georgie says after a contemplative hum. “I think the weirdest thing is how you just had an entire conversation about your feelings and didn’t once try to change the subject. Who are you, and what did you do with Jonathan Sims?”

  Jon laughs. “I guess I’ve… grown, a bit.”

  “Yeah, but when? Since you’ve been in a coma? This place doesn’t exactly seem ripe with opportunities for personal growth.”

  “I…”

  “Let me guess: you can’t talk about it.”

  “Not here.” Jon gives her an apologetic smile.   

  “Right.”

  Jon looks down again, scuffing one foot against the floor to fill the quiet.

  “So when can we expect you back in the world of the living?”

  “No more than a few months, I think. Hopefully sooner. It depends on how long it takes me to figure it out.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to?”

  “If I can’t do it on my own, someone else will do it for me. This in-between state doesn’t suit the Beholding, and there are at least a few interested parties who will force me to make a choice if I take too long. The Archivist has a role to perform, and right now, I’ve removed myself from the game board. Either I submit to the hand that moves me, or I die and make room for the next unsuspecting pawn in line.” Jon looks up. “Sorry, that came out more dramatic than I intended.”

  “A bit,” Georgie says, not unkindly.  

  “What I mean is, the coma has a time limit no matter what I do or don’t do. I’m not human enough to die, but I’m too human to live, so I have two choices: I accept what I’ve become and I wake up. I’ll still be me, but I’ll be even less human than I was before, and I’ll have to… make the best of that. Or, I sever my connection with the power that’s keeping me alive, and I die – not quite human, but not a monster, either. A slow death, though,” he adds bitterly. “To make sure I have plenty of time to change my mind.”    

  “Sounds to me like you haven’t made up your mind.”

  “I have, actually. It’s just… I don’t know how to finalize my choice, I suppose?”

  “You can’t just ask to speak to a manager?” One look at Georgie’s playful grin, and Jon feels himself smiling in return.

  “I wish. No, I – it’s… hm. Like I need to find my way to a crossroads, but I don’t have directions or a map.”

  “Maybe you just need a chaperon.” When Jon gives her a serious look, her teasing smirk fades. “What, seriously?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t given up on finding my own way, but if I take too long, a guide will pass this way and… encourage me to choose a path and follow it to the end.”

  “I’d ask you how you know all this, but I doubt you'll tell me.”

  “I Know it because of the Eye, broadly speaking, but there’s a more specific answer I want to give you. Just… not here.”

  “Fine," Georgie says, but she doesn't sound upset, much to Jon's relief. "Anything else?”

  Jon almost says no, but…

  “Maybe… maybe one more thing,” he says, lowering his gaze, suddenly very interested in the floor. “I’ve never had any control in these dreams, and I’m terrified that I’ll lose it again. If I do, just… behind all the eyes, it’s still me. I can see you, and hear you, and I was wondering if… I know it’s stupid, but if it’s alright with you – and I completely understand if it’s not, I don’t want you to feel obligated –”

  “What, Jon?”

  “I… could you still talk to me, maybe?” Jon says it so quickly that it comes out all as one word. “I won’t be able to answer, but it would still be nice to hear your voice. Tell me about the Admiral, or your current knitting project – or the newest What the Ghost, and the weirdest listener feedback it got, or… or the latest dick move your landlord pulled. Anything.”

  When Georgie doesn’t reply right away, Jon keeps his head down and braces himself for disappointment. He didn’t mean to sound so desperate, and now he’s made things weird. He probably shouldn’t have –

  “Huh,” Georgie says finally. “Are you sure you haven’t been able to hear me talking to you out there?”

  “Not… not that I know of?” Jon cautiously looks up at her. “Not consciously, at least.”

  “Hmm. Well, next time I see you, if you’re as unresponsive in here as you are out there, I’ll just do what I usually do when I visit you in hospital, which is natter on about my personal life and tell you all about the Admiral’s latest adventures in protecting the flat from spiders.”

  “Brave boy,” Jon says fondly, and Georgie snorts.

  They spend some time talking about the Admiral and his newfound obsession with bread ties until, mid-sentence, Georgie wakes. Jon is left alone in a sterile dissection lab, the harsh fluorescent light underscoring the emptiness of the place.

  The conversation went… better than he had dared to hope, really. He’s both stunned and relieved that Georgie hasn’t written him off yet, but also terrified of messing things up again, of squandering his second chance. He can’t count on getting a third. This is his one opportunity to fix things, to do better, to be better, and he needs to make it count.

  No pressure, he thinks to himself grimly, and he heads for the door.

   Time is difficult here.

  Well, it was difficult at the end of the world, too. Towards the end, Jon didn’t even bother to keep track of it, but he could have Known, if he had wanted. Here, though, he can’t seem to Know anything about what’s happening outside of the dream.

  Jon relies on his conversations with his fellow dreamers to gauge the time and date in the outside world, and it doesn’t take long for him to realize that his perception of time is wildly inconsistent. Sometimes what feels like hours to him translates to a week on the outside; sometimes a single night in the real world is stretched into days for Jon. There are indeterminate stretches of time in which he drifts in that directionless void again – times when, he assumes, all of the other dreamers are awake, leaving no nightmare settings for him to occupy.

  At least the passage of time seems to be progressive. Time travel is difficult enough without hopping around to different points on the timeline. He’s glad to see that, his initial leap backwards notwithstanding, time still seems to be moving in one direction.

  It took a long time for Jon to stop waiting for the moment when he would lose his agency and become the Watcher again. A small part of him is still waiting for the rug to be ripped out from under him again, but for the most part, he’s allowed himself to relax into it and silence his customary pessimism. He still isn’t sure exactly why he has so much control now. It’s a… well, not best-case scenario – that would be freedom from the dreams altogether, for himself and for the others – but it’s still an unexpected boon that he never would have even imagined. Every time he searches for an answer, though, he gets nothing but noise and a blinding headache.

  The best theory he can come up with is that he’s simply stronger now, after completing his metamorphosis into the Archive. If so, it’s somewhat worrisome. It would mean that coming back in time rewound most of the timeline, but he remains a product of its original trajectory. He is an artifact of a cascade of disasters that never happened – that will never happen, if he manages to foil Jonah’s plans. There’s no way of telling how the world might react to his presence in it. Is he an allergen of sorts, a paradox that cannot be reconciled? Is he something akin to the rift itself? God, he hopes not – it will be difficult to convince anyone of his humanity if he radiates the same sort of wrongness as the crack in the foundation at Hill Top Road.

  Most of all, though, he wonders what it means for the Archivist’s progress.

  At this point in his original timeline, he had been marked by the Web, the Eye, the Corruption, the Spiral, the Desolation, the Vast, the Hunt, and the Stranger. If he isn’t already marked by the End, he will be by the time he wakes up. That leaves the Slaughter, the Buried, the Dark, the Flesh, and the Lonely. He still has to rescue Daisy, so receiving a mark from the Buried is a given. Avoiding the Slaughter and the Lonely may be difficult, considering they’ve both already taken up residence in the Archives. He can try to avoid Jared Hopworth and Ny-Ålesund, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t stumble across the Flesh and the Dark some other way, and Jonah Magnus is nothing if not resourceful. He won’t give up just because Jon happens to evade two of his traps.

  Not to mention, Jon has an unfortunate tendency to serve himself up to the Fears on a silver platter. He’s gotten better at tempering his recklessness, at trusting others, at not going it alone, but still – in the past, he’s had an almost supernatural ability to make Jonah’s job easy. It’s possible – probable – that the Web was – is – pulling strings, but trying to account for the Web is like searching a beach for a single grain of sand.

  Then there’s Jonah Magnus’ suggestion that Jon’s life amounts to a truly unfortunate streak of bad luck, but luck is a nebulous concept, and a lot of Jon’s so-called chronic “bad luck” could be a direct result of the manipulations of – speak of the devil – the Web and Jonah Magnus. At this point, Jon suspects his misfortune probably has more to do with his being easily manipulated than it does with any sort of intrinsic unluckiness or tragic destiny.

  Jon’s initial encounter with the Web may or may not have been chance, but becoming the Archivist had nothing to do with luck. Jonah chose him because he knew that Jon would be easy to isolate, terrorize, and control. It was a deliberate action, not some passive twist of fate. Everything that unfolded from that point onward was carefully orchestrated and monitored by Jonah, and he always had contingency plans to keep Jon on the intended path. Yes, Jon made it easy for him in many ways, and he’s still responsible for his choices – but he’s also had to acknowledge that regardless of what choices he made, Jonah likely would have been ready with an equally effective backup plan to counter any move Jon did or did not make.

  Which is exactly why even now, with the advantage of foreknowledge, Jon is still absolutely terrified of Jonah Magnus.     

  But the more Jon thinks about it – and the more his attempts to Know yield nothing – the more he worries that all of that is moot. He recalls Jonah Magnus' statement with a full-body shudder.

  …if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this nightmare kingdom. Do you see where I’m going with this, Jon?  

  It wasn’t enough to have the Entities cause him bodily harm. The scars are just physical reminders of the encounter. Some of the Fears didn’t even leave him with visible scars. No, the real mark always depended on Jon’s lived experience of the confrontation: the terror, the pain, the confusion, the desperation, the alienation from himself, and the lingering, compounding trauma.  

  Knocking on Mr. Spider’s door, looking on as the monster took its substitute victim and saddled him with lifelong survivor's guilt. The worms gnawing and tunneling through his skin, wriggling against bone, lavishing praise on the give of his flesh, crooning that he will be cherished, he will be perfect, he will be a home. The pandemonium of the Distortion’s corridors; the razor edge of the bones in its hands. The white-hot agony of melting flesh; the terror of terminal velocity without an end; the inexorable press of a knife against his throat.

  An entire month of nothing but raw sensory input, disjointed and unfathomable: chittering, faceless things; ropes chafing and eroding furrows into skin; the ache of a jaw forced open by a length of cloth; cramping muscles and screaming joints; chill air and tailor’s tape on bare skin; layer after slimy layer of lotion; the scent of lavender cut through with the metallic tang of blood; so many hands, hands, hands, ever-present and unyielding. Nikola would mark dotted lines onto his skin with a felt-tip marker, providing a cheerful running commentary as she worked – the sorry state of his skin and her promise to get it into proper shape; vivid descriptions of how it would feel to be flensed alive, exquisitely painful yet so very liberating; how grateful he should be that he will get to be part of something so much greater than himself – all of it overlaid with Jon's unquestioning conviction that no one was coming to help him. 

  And encore after encore: an explosion, an endless nightmare, an impossible choice; the aching strain of bones bending, the agonizing snap of bones breaking, the unsettling vacancy left behind; the damp, earthy press of the coffin; the terrible beauty of unknowable darkness burning holes in his Sight.      

  Martin paling, fading, vanishing –

  “Are you scared, Jon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perfect.”  

  – almost disappeared, almost lost, almost alone. 

  Jon remembers it all in perfect, visceral detail, every sensation and panic-stricken thought seared into him and easily accessible at the merest twitch of an overactive imagination. He witnessed and experienced worse during the apocalypse, but still those tired old flashbacks would overtake him and bring him to his knees without warning as he passed between domains.

  The question of mind-body dualism is well-settled at this point, at least as far as Avatars are concerned. Jonah Magnus has been body-hopping for centuries, discarding vessels and possessing new ones on a whim; Jon himself is currently a living mind tethered to a body that is in most other respects clinically dead. What if the body is irrelevant, and what really matters is the conscious mind?

  It might not matter whether Jon’s body encounters those final five marks. As long as he remembers receiving them, his consciousness is still scarred by all Fourteen of the Dread Powers. What’s more, traversing the ruined earth retraced those marks several times over, branding him more deeply with every passage through an Entity’s domain. That might be more than enough to initiate the Watcher’s Crown Ritual.

  If so, Jon is still a living chronicle of terror, fully prepared and ready and marked, and he’s delivered himself to Jonah Magnus months ahead of schedule.

  And if that’s the case, Jon has once again played right into Jonah’s hands.

  He can only hope that Jonah doesn’t Know it – and even if he doesn’t, it seems foolish to hope that he won’t find out eventually.

   “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”

  “Absolutely not,” Naomi wheezes, doubled over with laughter.

  Jon groans and covers his face with his forearms, still lying on his back in the mud. He had been helping Naomi out of her grave, as had become the routine, but she had lost her footing just as she reached the top. In his scramble to catch her, he had lost balance and toppled in after her, and now they’re both stuck down here. Jon sits up and half-heartedly wipes the dirt off his hands, to little effect.

  “Break any bones, old man?”

  “It’s a dream, Naomi. Also, I’m only thirty.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  He glares at her, but it’s tempered by an amused twist of the lips that he can’t quite suppress – which just makes Naomi snicker again.  

  “So,” she says after a moment, “still haven’t woken up?”

  “Still trapped,” Jon says, all the levity bleeding out of him in an instant.  

  “No luck with the anchor?”

  “No luck.” Jon leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. “Not for lack of trying – or practice. Just the thought of him has saved me more than once. But I guess it’s… different, when it involves trying to manipulate the hour of your own death.”    

  He should have suspected as much, really. Escaping a pocket dimension is different from trying to meddle with the End’s sphere of influence. In all the statements he’s consumed regarding Terminus, no one has ever been able to truly hold sway over it in any direction. It does not want anything, because everyone and everything succumbs to it eventually, given enough time. It doesn’t answer to summons or worship or pleas. Sometimes it elects to play games, but it engages only on its own terms, and no one ever wins – they simply accrue enough debt to delay the inevitable for as long as it takes to repay their dues.   

  “You’re being spooky again,” Naomi says brightly.

  “At this point, I think it’s my default setting,” Jon deadpans back. “More importantly – did you end up going to meet the distinguished Duchess Jellybean Toes?”

  “Yes!” Naomi leans forward with her hands on her knees, practically buzzing with excitement. “She’s gorgeous. A bit rude, though – she climbed up under my shirt, stuck her head out though my collar, and refused to budge for the entire visit.”

  “Are you going to adopt her?”

  “Mhm. I still need to buy some things and get the flat ready for her, but I already paid the adoption fee. Her name is a bit of a mouthful, though. Might have to change it.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Jon says, giving her a severe look. He meant it as a joke, but when his voice dips lower than intended and too many eyes join in on the staring, he winces.

  Naomi doesn’t react, though; she’s well past the point of finding him intimidating. “Hm. Well, I’ll have to shorten it, at least.”

  “Could just call her the Duchess,” Jon says, regulating his tone more carefully this time.

  “It doesn’t sound too… I don’t know, pretentious?”

  “Not at all. It sounds regal,” Jon insists. “I’ve told you about the Admiral, and he carries his title admirably.”

  “If that was a joke, it was terrible.”

  “That one was unintentional, actually.”

  “Good. I almost had to reevaluate my opinion of you.”

  “Can’t have that,” Jon says drily, and then his expression softens. “Seriously though, I’m glad the adoption worked out for you.”

  “Yeah. I think it’ll be good for me. Less lonely, you know,” she says, voice growing so faint that Jon can only barely hear her. Then, in a louder, more conversational tone: “Besides, I’ve always wanted a cat.”

  “Me too,” Jon admits. “By the time I finally got a flat that allowed pets, I was… well, always at work. It didn’t feel right, adopting a cat and then leaving it alone all the time.”

  “Well, you’re not dead yet. Not too late to develop a better work-life balance, even if you are…” Naomi wiggles her fingers. “You know, spooky.”

  “Maybe,” Jon says, pointedly ignoring the jape.  

  “Oh.” Naomi sits up straighter and looks at him. “I just realized – are you going to be able to get out of here once I wake up?”

  “That… is a very good question.” Jon smirks at her alarm. “I’m kidding. It’ll fade out when you do. Then it’s either back to the void, or on to the next nightmare.”

  “Spooky.”

  “That’s your third strike. Quota met for the day.”

  “You really are a buzzkill.”

  “So I’m told,” Jon says. “Now, if you’re finished harassing me, tell me more about the Duchess.”

  “Well, she’s a calico – unbelievably fluffy – and she’s only a year old…”

   Jon has never been the most social person. He doesn’t go out of his way to make friends, conversations typically feel like minefields, and he has a propensity for going off on informational digressions that most people find annoying. He asks too many questions, frequently misses social cues, and has always had difficulty modulating his tone of voice. Becoming the Archivist only made things more complicated, since now a conversational misstep can easily mean unintentional compulsion or Knowing (and sharing) something that he shouldn’t.

  But in recent years, he’s nonetheless become more dependent on human interaction and less tolerant of being alone. He knew he had been starved for companionship since he lost Martin, but he didn’t realize the extent of it until he started talking again, and in his own voice. So, when the voyeuristic nightmare sessions turn into social calls, he finds himself thriving on it in a way that he never expected.   

  There’s his budding friendship with Naomi – unexpected, but far from unwelcome.

  He still finds Dr. Elliott a bit insufferable, but Jon finds himself insufferable as well, so he can’t judge too harshly. He always peeks into the anatomy lab to check that Elliott isn’t in the throes of the nightmare. Sometimes they find some shared academic interest to discuss; other times, Elliott dismisses him, citing a disinterest in conversation at that moment. Jon never asks him to elaborate.

  Tessa usually declines his company, but occasionally she’ll wave him over and immediately launch into a discussion about neural networks or machine learning or some other tech-related subject that’s been on her waking mind. Well, it’s usually more of a one-sided lecture than anything else, but Jon always finds himself riveted, listening hungrily as Tessa shines light on an unfamiliar subject. The first few times he asked follow-up questions, she took it as feigned interest or ridicule, but once she realized that he was actually interested and not just humoring her out of guilt, she began to brighten every time he offered a new tangent for her to explore. He wouldn’t call them friends by any stretch of the imagination, but she seems to enjoy talking to someone who doesn’t tune her out when she begins to ramble. If nothing else, it’s better than devouring a computer.

  Jon doesn’t have much in common with Jordan, to be honest. It doesn’t take long for them to exhaust all avenues of conversation and lapse into an awkward silence. Jordan is skittish, though; he finds Jon’s less-than-human appearance perpetually unsettling, but apparently prefers it to being left alone in this place. Eventually they settle on an unspoken arrangement of just staying within eyeshot of one another for the duration of the dream, even when the conversation runs dry.

  In the silence, it’s more difficult to stave off the Knowing, though, which means Jon gets treated to ceaseless updates on Jordan’s mental state – and Jordan is more repulsed by all those eyes than he is by even the worst infestations he’s encountered on the job. By the time Jordan wakes up, Jon usually feels like an insect half-dead and twitching in the aftermath of an insecticide assault. He can’t blame Jordan, but it does still take its toll on Jon’s already abysmal self-esteem.

  Karolina remains largely unresponsive. Jon sits with her, talks to her – at her, really – and hopes that he isn’t just annoying her. Her eyes follow his movements, and sometimes she smiles, but otherwise, she’s uncommunicative – whether by force or by choice, Jon doesn’t know, and the Beholding doesn’t seem inclined to tell him. Although he has yet to completely interrupt the dream sequence, there have been a few instances where the train car didn’t collapse. He can’t say conclusively whether that indicates progress, but at least it’s evidence that the script can change. 

  On the one hand, it’s probably a good sign that Jon doesn’t have as much control over the Knowing as he did in the future. On the other hand, it’s like having his wings clipped after learning to fly, and he hates it. The Beholding did withhold some things from him during the apocalypse, but for the most part, he had unfettered access to an ocean of knowledge – and it’s maddening to have it restricted once again.

  Even before becoming the Archivist, he always hated unanswered questions; it may as well have been a core facet of his personality. But after so much time with the Archive at the forefront, to not Know is wholly incompatible with his nature in a deeper, existential sense. For the human part of him, it’s like having an itch that can’t be scratched; for the Archivist, it’s excruciating; for the Archive, it’s utterly incomprehensible.

  The balance he’d found in the future is shifting, and he isn’t sure what that means for him just yet, or how he feels about it.

   “How is Melanie?”

  “Struggling,” Georgie says, “but hopeful, I think. It’s really not my place to say much more than that.”

  “Yes, of – of course. I’m… glad to hear that she’s recovering.”

  “She’s still angry that you won’t tell me how she can quit.”

  “I will, I promise, I just… I need to explain everything first.”

  “She said to tell you that it’s patronizing to assume she can’t make her own decision without you holding her hand.”

  “I’m not – I just want it to be an informed decision.” Jon frowns. “That sounded condescending, didn’t it?”

  “A bit, yeah.”

  Jon looks down and rubs his temples. There’s a likelihood that if he tells Georgie right now, Melanie will blind herself before he even wakes up. It’s her choice, of course, but a choice never really feels like a choice when it’s presented as the only option, when vital information is being withheld that might affect your decision.

  There’s also the fact that his death would free all of them without a need for eye-gouging. He’s going to tell them – it doesn’t feel right to keep it to himself – but that’s something that he would rather Jonah not overhear. Jonah might be willing to lose Melanie if she takes an awl to her eyes, but if he thinks there’s a chance that she or any of the others would kill his Archivist just when he’s starting to show some promise, well… there’s no telling whether or how Jonah would choose to intervene. 

  “It’s not just that.” Jon glances up at the ceiling and the Eye just beyond it.

  “Tunnels-only information?”

  “Yeah,” Jon says, contrite. “She might not want to hear it, but please tell Melanie that I’m sorry. I’m hoping – what’s the date right now?”

  “First of February.”

  “She shouldn’t have to wait too much longer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just… do.” Jon winces at his weak delivery. He hates being so cagey, but he really has no other option.

  “Right.”  

  “How is… how is Martin?” Jon asks tentatively, perking up ever so slightly. Georgie’s expression turns sympathetic.

  “Melanie says they haven’t seen him,” she says gently.  

  “Oh.” Jon deflates, his cautious hope abruptly snuffed out.

  “I’m sorry, Jon. Melanie did send a few emails, and when that didn’t get a response, she slipped a note under his door. But it’s been radio silence.”

  “Oh,” he says again, almost a whisper this time. He covers his face with both hands and takes a minute to collect himself. “Um, c-can you tell Melanie I said thank you for trying? I –”

  Georgie is gone before Jon can finish his sentence. The Admiral must have woken her for breakfast. He always has been a natural alarm clock.

  Left alone with his own thoughts again, Jon immerses himself in worrying about Martin and a rotating litany of what-ifs. 

   End Notes:

Sorry this chapter isn't very plot-heavy!! It was getting really long and I had to split it into two chapters. Things will move along at the beginning of Chapter 6. It should be ready before the weekend. (Probably by tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm almost done with it.)

There are two excerpts from the show in this one. The clip of Jonah's statement is from MAG 160; the brief "Are you scared?" interaction is from MAG 158. 

[writingthrones]

the northern dragon- part 6.

PART 6: REVELATION.

TAGS: @psychosupernatural , @xleviiiix , @ashtronomyyyy , @starkbelova,@5aftermidnight , @makapaka11 , @mxxkscreate-write , @scorpiosmalfoy,@harrison-shot-first , @art-flirt , @jessyballet , @vaexvictis ,@callmeconceited , @cassiopeia-barrow , @the-three-eyed-ravenclaw (feel free to shoot me a message if you’d also like to be tagged!)

DESCRIPTION: the world thought that just 2 dragons survived, that house targaryen was missing its third head. but there was another– the youngest, the final child of the mad king and queen rhaella. of course, she was almost part of the near extermination of her house. but the honorable ned stark, unable to watch a babe be murdered for crimes she did not commit, rescued her from an awful fate. instead, she grew up amongst wolves within the walls of winterfell.

NOTES: what you’ve all been waiting for!

WARNINGS: lots of violence and, of course, angst.

After the attack, it was made clear that a weapon must be carried at all times. You decided on a nicely sized dagger that you wore strapped to your calf under your dress. It was easily concealed and fairly easy to pull out quickly. It’s probably something that you should’ve always had but it was “unladylike,” but you’ve proven yourself to be no lady. From then on out, you were wary. You couldn’t look upon the faces of the men in the same way. It made you more jumpy. You told yourself, though, that it made you more vigilant. It’s just unfortunate that it had to come out of this.

When Robb returned, he made a point to visit that night. You were just about to lay down to sleep when he walked in. “Y/N...” his voice was low. You met his eyes, still sitting down on your bed and offered him a smirk. “Didn’t worry too much, did you?” He sighed, though he smirked as well as he sauntered towards you. The young wolf then crouched in front of you, gently taking your injured hands, “Stop.. tell me, how are you feeling? Really?” The seriousness in his voice caught you off guard, though it did make sense. This wasn’t nothing. That man could’ve killed your or did unspeakable things.. or both. Every ounce of your being wanted to lean forward and close the gap between you two. It was a feeling you’d had many, many times over the years but especially now. In fact, it took all the self control in your little body not to do so. “I’m fine,” you insisted.

Robb sighed and stood up then sat down next to you. “I didn’t think any of my men would do something like that...” he said. It felt like the two of you were kids again and so, acting on that feeling, you leaned your head on his shoulder for comfort. Luckily, he didn’t move yet it still made you nervous. “I’ll see to it that someone gets punished. I--” You stopped him there. Lifting your head, you looked over at him. “Please don’t. I’m fine, I promise. I’ll be more careful, I know how to defend myself. There’s too much going on for you to punish anyone because one man crossed a line.” He looked to you, looking as if he wanted to say something more but instead settled on, “Fine. Just...” Another sigh. “Talisa will be around tomorrow with supplies to properly clean these up, okay?” With that, he headed out.

Of course she was. Sure, you were grateful that someone who was clearly talented in their craft had the supplies necessary to keep the army in the best condition. All you could think about, though, was the time the two of them got to spend alone. Why else would he have brought her along to such an important meeting? Catelyn was right, he fancied her. You wished desperately not to care but you did-- by the Gods, you did. Throwing yourself onto the bed, you eventually dozed off. It wasn’t a restful slumber though, no, you couldn’t stop imagining the things that must’ve happened on that little trip. The images haunted your dreams.

Shortly after you awoke, Talisa walked in, just as Robb promised. The immediate reaction was that of anger and you hated it. She was a kind woman, someone who was helping you greatly and yet you couldn’t help but to feel anger, hate, jealousy. That familiar Targaryen fire burned within your chest. “Here, this should really help,” the dark-haired woman said with a warm, genuine smile. It made you hate yourself for the contempt you felt towards her. She was good and yet you were filled with pitiful jealousy. “Thank you, really.” The words were forced but you did your best to sound truly thankful. It’s not that you weren’t but... still. “I would say they should be fairly healed within a fortnight, just try not to be too rough on your hands until then.” Did this mean Robb would try to keep you out of whatever conflicts that would come about between now and then? You hoped not but deep down you knew these two were.. close and she would surely tell him. Indigo eyes fell upon the fresh wound dressings on your hands before looking back up at her with a smile. “I take it you’re with us for the long haul, then?” She seemed caught off by your tone, as were you. You hadn’t meant for it to come off the way it did you just couldn’t help yourself. “I just mean... you’ve decided to stay with us? We could use someone with real skills,” you quickly added, chuckling to make the air less tense. “Oh.. yes! This war is getting ugly and... I just want to help those getting caught in the middle while the high lords sit in their castles plotting away not giving a second thought to the men who will die for them.” As she went on, she sounded more and more passionate. She truly did care for the people.. it made you feel even worse about disliking her. “You’re doing good work,” you said softly before standing. “Sorry, I have some things I need to tend to. Thank you again,” you added, hurrying out of the tent to find something else to keep you busy. 

Later, you ended up sitting with Catelyn, who seemed even more troubled than usual as of late. “Lady Catelyn, is there something--” She took hold of your arm, “I must speak to you. But not here, somewhere private.” So the two of you ventured into her tent where no one would dare to disturb you. You sat while she paced, not saying a word. “He’s gone mad, Y/N! He loves this woman and you know I want nothing more than for my children to be happy but..” The shock was written all over your face. Sure, you suspected it but you absolutely dreaded being right. “I fear what this will bring. He wishes to marry her. I reminded him that he made an oath to Lord Frey but he insisted that he’d understand and respect his rule, so long as he offered him another deal. But I don’t trust it. He never truly respected Ned, I don’t believe he would respect Robb just because they call him a king now.” She was right. If this went through, this could change everything. This could spell disaster for their cause.

“Do you think he’ll truly go through with this?” you questioned softly. “Yes, he intends to do so as soon as possible and tell him only after the fact. I believe he plans to offer my brother in his place but I just...” You can see that her thoughts are racing. “I guess all we can do is hope that Lord Frey will accept his offer, then. We both know just how stubborn Robb is. If he loves this woman...” You have to swallow the lump in your throat and pray that Catelyn cannot see the devastation written on your face. “Then I hope she is a good queen and that she is worth all of this.” The older woman sat down next to you, letting out a defeated sigh. “I suppose so.”

The next thing you knew, it was revealed that Robb has made a queen of a Volantian woman named Talisa. In his place, Edmure Tully would marry a daughter of Lord Frey’s. He was a lord of a great house, yes, but he was no king. Walder had agreed to the new deal but Catelyn still felt uneasy and confided in you with her feelings.

That night, though, you buried yourself in the furs and used them to muffle your cries. You always knew that he’d marry some beautiful lady one day but it broke your heart nonetheless. When you cried the very last of your tears, you rolled over to reveal red, puffy eyes, feeling totally exhausted. The encampment was making another move tomorrow, and a risky one at that, so you quickly went to sleep. It was important to stay on alert. You weren’t really supposed to be involved in any conflict with your injuries but when did you let anything stop you?

Another memory replayed itself in your dream that night. It wasn’t long after your fourteenth name day. “I can see it, you know,” Jon spoke up from behind you and you jumped. Turning quickly, your brow furrowed. “And just what are you talking about?” you questioned. “I’ve always been able to read you like a book,” he chuckled, walking up to stand beside you. “Are you going to tell me what you’re on about, Snow?” you sighed. His voice suddenly became more serious, “You love him.” He looked out at Robb training in the courtyard just as you had been. Your face felt hot-- even more so than usual-- and your face went red. 

“Wh--What are you talking about?!” The stutter certainly didn’t help your case. “I’ve known it for years. And maybe you’ve fooled them but you can’t fool me,” his tone was lighthearted again. “He could love you, too.” You scoffed, there was not a chance. Robb Stark loving a plain and honestly unappealing no name girl? Wasn’t that a laugh. “Have you gone mad?” You tore your eyes away from the courtyard to face him. “I’m serious. The way you look at him, that’s how he used to look at you when we were younger.” There is no way that was true. Even if it was, it didn’t matter. “Shut up,” you huffed, shoving him lightly.

Early that morning, just as the sun was peaking out from behind the mountains, you rode next to Catelyn as the northern forces advanced. Half-listening to her, your eyes never left Robb as you watched him ride alongside his queen. They radiated happiness and it made your heart ache. It would make sense to just be happy that he was so happy but you couldn’t force it. All you wanted was to pour your heart out and hope that it would change things. “Y/N?” Then Catelyn snapped you out of your thoughts. “Oh! My apologies, I’m just.. tired,” you said while laughing nervously. “I understand.” The older woman offered you a kind smile, giving you some relief. You had to remind yourself that without her kindness, you would’ve been slain in the arms of your mother and that making yourself heart sick over a man who was now called king was foolish.

Once everyone was settled in, you somehow convinced yourself to go and find Robb. You caught him just before he retired to his tent. “Your Grace,” you said, playfully curtseying. He rolled his eyes and you honestly couldn’t tell if it was a joke or if he was genuinely bothered. “I just wanted to let you know I’m happy for you. Your queen.. she’s beautiful and kind.. and much better than a Frey girl, I suppose,” you chuckled. “She is, isn’t she?” There was this look of wonder in his eyes. He really loved her. And you really loved him. How tragic. You can tell he wanted to return to her but you couldn’t let him go just yet. “So what is going to happen with that, then? I imagine Lord Frey isn’t very happy.” It felt like it was the most you’ve spoken in ages. “We sent a raven as soon as everything was official explaining everything. I proposed my uncle Edmure stand in my place. We were nervous but he sent one back saying he agreed. That’s where we’re headed, didn’t you know? We should reach the twins in a week, I’d expect. Less if we pick up the pace.” It was surprising, learning that Walder Frey had actually agreed to give up the betrothal to a king and settled for someone of, frankly, much lower status. “No, uh, I didn’t,” you replied. “Well find your best dress for the wedding,” he said with a grin that made you melt. “Sleep well,” he added, brushing softly past you and into his quarters.

All the news still had your head spinning and the racing thoughts kept you awake for most of the night. You hardly got any sleep before you were forced to keep moving. That day you couldn’t help but to notice the happy couple being extra smiley. It made you wonder what that was all about, but you couldn’t let this consume your thoughts. It was always possible that Lannister forces could stage a surprise attack, much like they had on them. There were much bigger things to worry about.

Just before the week was up, you all managed to arrive at your destination. The northern forces set up camp outside of the Frey stronghold. Just as Robb had said, you were searching your trunk for your best dress and head wrap. You’d forgotten that you had thrown in one of the ones that Sansa had sewn for you: a grey color with white detailing-- Stark colors. It made your eyes tear up, wondering where she was and how she was now. You would wear it tomorrow, you’d decide, knowing that she would like that. It’d go fine with a plain, light dress that was navy blue in color.

Finally, the occasion was here. You sat there, next to Catelyn, watching the ceremony. Everyone in the northern army seemed shocked to find that the Frey girl was actually quite beautiful but no one more than Edmure himself. His nervous expression quickly transitioned into a smile, causing you to smirk to yourself. She was still a Frey, though, so it’s not like everything was suddenly all better. But everything went to plan, a cheerful feast starting up just after. The hall was bustling with conversation and music but there was still just that bit of tension in the air. You just couldn’t shake the slightly uneasy feeling in your stomach.

The happy couple were rushed off to the “bedding ceremony,” something you found ridiculous, though not surprising that this family seemed so excited for it. Catelyn placed her hand on yours as if she somehow knew that you wanted nothing more than to stand up and leave. You looked up and met her eyes, head tilting with confusion. “I don’t like that look on his face,” she whispered to you, looking directly as Walder. “I think that’s just what he looks like, my lady,” you replied with a chuckle. She sighed as she looked back at you, “I suppose.” 

It was then that he spoke up and the both of you quickly turned your attention to the old man. When you looked closer, you didn’t feel very good about the look on his face either. It was then that you noticed the change in the music to something that sounded quite odd for an occasion like this. He addressed Robb and his queen, saying that he hadn’t given a gift as a congratulations for their marriage. Furrowing your brow, you looked to Catelyn who had lifted the sleeve of Lord Bolton, who was seated next to her, revealing chainmail beneath. Something was terribly wrong and things escalated when she stood and slapped him, the sound nearly echoing throughout the room. Rising to your feet, you looked around and noticed that the doors to the hall had been shut and that’s when all hell broke loose.

It started with a Frey boy relentlessly stabbing the queen in her torso. You sucked in a breath with pure shock, then a crossbow bolt ended up in Robb’s shoulder and you shrieked, as did Catelyn. Startled by the noise, you looked back at her then back to him. Everything was moving so fast, it felt impossible to even move. Another bolt was shot into his shoulder, just missing his neck. Finally, you managed to step back from the table and look around. This was a slaughter. They had rounded everyone up, made sure they were vulnerable and killed every Northman they saw. But that’s when you spotted Lord Bolton take out a dagger and while you expected he would march to the head table to defend his king, you saw him clearly ready himself to attack him instead. 

There was only seconds to act and even in your panicked state, you remembered the dagger you kept strapped to your leg. Weapons obviously weren’t welcome at a wedding but putting it on had become such a routine, you didn’t even think of it and thank the Gods you didn’t. Hurriedly grabbing it out from under your dress, you took off running. It was all a blur as your legs carried you along without any thinking involved. When you finally brought yourself back into the moment, your dagger was buried in Roose Bolton’s chest. 

You gasped as you stared into his wide eyes, then quickly pulled back only to bump into something. Turning quickly, you were met with the sight of a badly injured but very much alive Robb Stark. Y/N had saved the King in the North-- a no name peasant had saved a king. The loud cry of Catelyn pulled your attention away only for you to see that a Frey held a knife to her neck from behind. “Please, Y/N! GO!” she yelled just before the man finished the deed. Without a second thought, you looped your arm around Robb’s and began running. He seemed to move only out of reflex and you briefly turned your gaze to him. “What are you doing?! We need to move!” you screamed over all the noise but he said nothing, not even looking into your eyes. There was no time to argue, though, so you conjured up every bit of strength in your body and made your way to the door, busting it open but not without getting an arrow through your shoulder-- a lucky shot. The adrenaline made it nearly impossible to feel, though. Of course, there was more men and more chaos outside but you somehow managed to fight your way through. All the bloodshed and craziness was a good distraction-- it seemed that no one really noticed that the Young Wolf had escaped.

It was a miracle. Despite the ongoing massacre, you somehow managed to free Robb’s direwolf and get the two of you up onto a horse to ride away from the insanity. You rode until all of you were exhausted, going deep into the nearest wood and collapsed against a tree. It seemed to be not long before noon the next day. He still never said a word and Grey Wind whimpered as he nudged at him. His eyes were completely empty, it was almost as if he had been killed. But your number one focus was tending to his injuries. Speaking of which, you had left the arrows lodged into him, not wanting to rip them out and cause more bleeding when you had no time to patch it up.

“Are you ready? This is going to hurt..” you said as you gripped the first bolt. His eyes met yours but still he said nothing. Taking a deep breath, you pulled it quickly as to not prolong the pain. He grunted but never said a word. Wait, you didn’t have any kind of plan. This is why you were a shit medic. Panicking, you pulled at the bottom of your dress and ripped away a piece of the cloth, wrapping it around the injury. Moving onto the next time, this time prepared with the cloth. Still, he didn’t say a single word. “Robb?” you whispered, getting close to try to get some kind of response. There was nothing, though. He was broken, seemingly beyond repair. Sighing, you leaned back against the tree and did the same to your own wound-- receiving no support from him-- before passing out from exhaustion.

When you awoke, it seemed to be the middle of the night. Grey Wind laid at your feet but woke up as soon as you stirred. He immediately growled, though calmed once he realized it was just you. Looking over, there laid the defeated king. It killed you to see him this way, feeling the defeat as well. But it was important to keep moving, it was the only hope of survival, so you shook him until he finally woke. “We need to go. If I’m correct, we keep heading this way and we should be able to reach Seagard.” Robb seemed to look right through you. The frustration was beginning to boil over. “I won’t just watch you lay down and die. Now let’s go.” Still nothing as you pulled him up onto the horse, calling for Grey Wind to follow.

It continued like this for the next few days. He never said a word. You rode to the point of exhaustion and survived off nothing but water and whatever you could find that was edible. It wasn’t possible to find an inn to stay in or a shop to buy from. You didn’t know who could and couldn’t be trusted-- even seeking refuge at Seagard was a risk, maybe they had chosen to betray him as well. Hope was beginning to dwindle, as was your strength, when you finally spotted a castle in the distance. You had found it. It was a shot in the dark but you made it. You chuckled, though tears spilled down your cheeks when you saw it. Gods, please let them remain loyal. After a deep breath, you rode up to the gates where men barked out orders for you to identify yourself.

“I am Y/N and I have with me the King in the North!” There was a lot out of shouting followed by the gates opening and you took the opportunity to ride in, Grey Wind following close behind. The both of you were quickly surrounded. “My king,” they declared in unison, each one falling onto one knee. Releasing the breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding, you broke into a weak smile. All of this wasn’t for nothing. You had made it.

The Mallisters saw to it that you two were properly cared for. Each of you was given a bath, fresh clothes, a meal and a warm bed. Even after everything, you found yourself unable to sleep that night. It was late and the castle was quiet as you snuck down the hall and into Robb’s room after knocking and not hearing any protest.

“Can you speak to me already?” Your tone was harsh, finally fed up with the silent treatment especially considering that he’d managed to work up the strength to speak to everyone else. He turned around slowly to look at you, “What do you want?” His voice was raspy and he sounded as tired as he looked. “I want you to say something! We made it somewhere safe because of me! I fought our way through everything to get here and you’ve barely even looked at me!” Frustrated tears spilled down your cheeks. “Do you want a thank you?” The anger in his tone never wavered as he came closer to you. “Did you ever stop to think why I never said anything? I didn’t care to make it out of there, Y/N! My wife is dead, my child is dead.” A child? You had no idea. “And my mother. What else do I have?!” His gradual raise in tone caused you to jump back, head tilted with confusion as the tears continued to flow. “You have people who are counting on you. What happened was... terrible but these people named you their king and you promised their freedom. You promised to bring your sisters home! All of that is hopeless without you. I did what I did for your mother!” And because I love you. “So you can’t just lay down and die. I won’t let you. You have me, Robb.” He seemed surprised to see you fight back so hard. There was a long silence. “Get out,” he practically growled. “Robb--” you went to protest. “I said get out,” he raised his volume slightly. Giving him one last look, you turned and walked out.

Doing your best to remain quiet as the continuous stream of tears spilled down your cheeks, you hurried to your room. This was it. The final straw. You did everything you possibly could, brought him somewhere safe. Now it was up to him now to do what was right. It was becoming quite clear what your next move should be.

CUT TO THIRD PERSON.

Sleep continued to evade him as the sky began to light up. Robb felt sick, his mind replaying all that had happened and racing with all the ways he should’ve been able to stop it. Then he felt an intense guilt. She saved him. She fought like a true warrior to save him. All the times she could’ve given up along the way, she didn’t. All of this effort and he repaid her by screaming in her face telling her that he didn’t want any of it. His grief was no excuse to treat a woman who had been there for him his whole life like that. A woman who threw her own safety to the wayside just to save him. He knew that he needed to apologize and that it couldn’t wait.

He made his way down the hall, thinking of what he could possibly say to make things better. “I’m sorry” would be first, obviously, but that certainly wasn’t enough. After hearing no protest and assuming she must’ve been asleep or in the same position he had been, he pushed the door open. As his eyes scanned the room, there was no sign of her. Her trunk still sat at the foot of the bed but she was no where to be found. Confused, he walked to a desk in the corner of the room where a candle was still burning. There sat a letter, addressed to him with ink that was still wet.

Robb,

First, I must tell you why I need to leave. I should have long before this and I suspect you will agree. My name, my true name, is Visenya II Targaryen and I am the youngest child of the Mad King.

Those first lines made him fall down into the chair, feeling weak from the shock.

...

To

Be

Continued.

[ladyamber]

Sirenade: Chapter Sixteen

Good evening everyone and welcome to Sirenade once again. I hope you’ve all had an eventful week I know I have I’ve been super busy this week, but that won’t stop me from posting chapters. I know I always say this, however, I do mean it. Thank you so much for reading and enjoy Sirenade and as always Stay Tuned!

Start: Prologue

Previous: Letter One

Next: Chapter 17

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter 16

The beach remains peaceful, no hunters or unknown threats in the area either

Ryan thought to himself as he walked down the shoreline. Even though it’s been weeks since the so-called “Cutter Boys” were arrested for abducting three adults and severely wounding one of them. Ryan hadn’t stopped scouting for any potential threats that had made its way into their little town. Granted he easily erased their existence from their memories leaving them clueless as to why the police had taken them in. Plus he hadn’t seen or heard of them since then, but it still didn’t take the tension off his shoulders that there were hundreds just like them waiting to get their greedy human hands on them. He couldn’t afford to almost lose someone, siren or not. Brock continues to feel guilty about the whole ordeal, Craig refuses to the cavern after sunset, and Smitty’s attitude changed ever since. He and John have been avoiding each other, while Brock and Brian have been getting closer and closer. Everyone has been walking on eggshells since then, not wanting to bring up the incident at all costs.

Ohm continued to walk on the warm sand, creating a path of footprints only to be washed away by the cool tide. The crispy breeze that playfully blew through the beach and into the forest sent a small chill throughout Ryan’s body. It had been 2 hours since the sun barely peaked above the horizon, and with the warm sun rays beaming down mixed with the refreshing breeze. Ryan felt himself relax as he aimlessly continued his walk. The relaxation drifted out of his body when he saw a familiar roof, eventually, the small home came into view and he stopped in front of it.

Delirious is out of town, but maybe Cartoonz’s home?

Days turned into weeks since he and Luke had spoken about them. Ohm always changed the subject averting getting into details or using the excuse of “I need more time” and Cartoonz had gotten the hint immediately dropping that side of the conversation. Truth be told, Ryan had been thinking about them more than he wanted to. It’s not that he didn’t want to be with Luke, to touch him, to love him… he was afraid of the consequences of falling too deep. Ryan kept telling himself to keep walking, to move away from the home and avoid talking. However, the urge to knock on the door keeps him standing there right by the front door. He wasn’t even thinking about what he’d say to him once Luke opened the door.

I’ll just knock, if he’s not home then it’s a sign that I don’t need to do this.

Ryan hovered his fist over the wooden door, before knocking three times. Nothing. Another three knocks, and still nothing. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d held in. Was he hoping Luke would be there? Yes, but maybe this was a sign from the gods telling him to stay away from human romance. For once, a decent amount of foreshadowing from them. Ryan chuckled to himself as he backed away from the door, turning around glancing once more at the small home, and walk passed the small front garden. “Jon sure does have a lot of plants.”

“Indeed he does.” Ryan yelped at the southern voice that scared him. Throwing a glare at the older male, fighting the shivers that creep down his spine at the deep laughter. He turned away to hide his glow, “What brings you to my humble oasis?”

Luke flashed a smile, readjusting his grocery bags, as he walked around Ryan to open the door leading to his so-called “oasis”. Ohm watched him carefully, unconsciously following through the purposely open door. “Like I said what brings you to my paradise?”

“I wanted...I wanted to talk. About us?” Ohm flinched as Cartoonz stiffened for a moment at the counter before resuming with his groceries. The only sound that could be heard was the crinkling of the reusable produce bag Delirious forced Cartoonz to use. It was too much for Ryan to bear, “Well say something. Anything.”

“Anything.”

‘Luke please.” Ryan watched his movements. The shifting of his shoulders, the change in his posture, his breathing. Watching him place the last fruit on the counter and fold up the bag, he turned to Ryan studying him as well.

“It’s not about what I want Ohm. You already know what I want, the question is what’d you want?”

“Y-you.” Ryan could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“But?” Luke’s eyes softened.

“I’m s-scared of what he might do to me. T-to you.” Tears swelled up in his eyes threatening to spill if Ryan continued to talk, but this whole scenario was abnormal for him. He never wanted to appear weak in front of anyone, especially his friends. Luke changed that though as if his mind and body were reacting to the long-awaited comfort he’d always wanted to receive. It was almost like Luke had control over him, and Ryan wasn’t sure how to counter that emotion. “What are you doing to me?!”

“Ohm…”

“Why do I feel different?! I’d never felt like this until you came along. So what is it, a spell, a wish, a curse?” The tears grew larger and larger with every word that poured out of his mouth.

“Ohm…”

“No, really I’d love to know. You have to be the reason why I feel this way.”

“Ryan.” Luke held his hands pressing them against his chest. The action alone made the tears he’d detained for so long finally fell. Following the path down his face they marked his grey shirt, Luke let go of Ryan’s hands to wrap him into that comforting embrace. He couldn’t control how his body so easily relaxes, letting its guard down around Luke. The thought had him cry harder, the sobs begin silenced by the red shirt he cried into. “I know it’s scary to feel somethin’ you can’t explain, but you are the only one who knows what you want.”

“B-but b-ut I-”

“What’s holding you back?”

“I was made to protect...someone. Someone who means a great deal to Poseidon. You wouldn’t understand…” Ryan so desperately wanted to tell Luke everything, but he couldn’t not because he didn’t want to. It was because he simply couldn’t.

“Then help me understand. I wanna help you, I love you, and not even Poseidon can change that.” That was the final seal Ohm couldn’t control his emotions. He’d made up his mind, there was no turning back without any hesitation Ryan looked at Luke and closed the space between them. Fire exploded within them causing an ignition with each touch, clashing lips and teeth. Too caught up in the heat both ignoring the long-forgotten groceries sitting patiently on the counter top. Never breaking the space between them afraid the other would be lost to the void of emotions they stumbled onto the spare bed in Delirious home. Finally breaking away to admire their work of swollen lips and lustful looks.

“I love you too. I want to tell you everything, but there are some things that I can’t. Not yet.”

“Is this what you want?” Those cooper eyes would be the death of him. The flush and dilated eyes told Ryan that Luke wanted this as much as he did, but behind that look was a pool of concern and love. Not lust as it was perfectly displayed right now, however, it was the same look he’d seen on Luke since they’d first met. Love, real love for him. Not showing any doubt about who or what Ryan was, only caring for the man under Luke. Him.

“Yes, Toonzy.” Just like that, they both gave in to the desire they’d been missing their whole life. This would be a day to remember.

~*~

“Stop messin’ with the bandages. You’ll mess ‘em up.” Brian warned the figure that fidgeted with his bandages.

“Sorry.” He chuckled.

“Tyler did a good job patchin’ me up though, I’ll heal in no time ‘specially with you motherin’ me.” He moved closer to the warm body that wrapped itself around him.

“You could’ve lost your arm Bri.” He rolled his eyes as he snuggled into his boyfriend’s hair. “Don’t roll your eyes at me I’m serious. You know I can heal, but I can’t regenerate limbs.”

“I know, I know but it’s better for me to lose an arm then to lose you Brocky.” Those warm cinnamon eyes shifted away from him, so he redirected them back his own sea-colored eyes. “You know it wasn’t your fault, you’re safe and so is everyone else.”

“You don’t know that.” Brock adjusted his position to hold Brian’s arm against his chest without hurting him. He shrugged.

“No, I don’t but I’d rather look at the good rather than try and anticipate the bad.” He smiled sweetly at him. “I’ll be more careful next time, I wanna keep my arms so I can hold ya properly.”

Brian lifted Brock's chin, looking down at his lips before locking onto them. Move together with warmth and love, Brock laughed into the kiss as Brian’s hands roamed around him finding places to tease. “Attention whore.”

“You love it though.” He lifted the hem of Brock’s shirt to reveal the lovely scar he’d created a month ago when Brock fulfilled his promise of a night he’d never forget. He traced it along the shoulder blade, kissing around it receiving shivers from above.

“You know i-it’s sensitive.” Brock's face flushed as Brian continued his actions.

“Want me to stop?” Teasing the question with light brushes on the skin.

“Gods no.” Brock sat up and moved to where Brian sat, placing himself on his lap.

“Who’s the attention whore now?” He spoke into Brock’s ear gaining the response he wanted more shivers traveling throughout his body.

“It’s still one hundred percent you.” Brian kissed along his jawline continuing his journey of teasingly nips and kisses every chance he got. Get the reaction he wanted. Hands stopping at Brock’s sweats and lips hovering over his.

“Wanna find out?”