#red-archivist scribbles

[red-archivist]

TMAGP 23 SPOILERS!

i heard those lines and was immediately inspired to make something sad lol

~

Twenty years ago, Jonathan Sims quits smoking.

Twenty years ago, Martin Blackwood’s mother survives her second stroke.

Twenty years ago, Jonathan Sims quits smoking.

It’s not enough to just stop, the shakes and the headaches nip at him constantly, and he reluctantly concludes that bad habits need to replaced by better ones.

That’s where the cycling comes in, to start with.

It’s exercise, it’s eco-friendly, and he can pretend he is literally leaving his cravings behind him as he pushes hard on the pedals.

He does his homework first, researching what is the best option for city cycling, for his budget, for someone that hasn’t ridden a bike since they were nine.

He plots out his paths to the office, the shops, and the nearest puncture repair centre, just in case. He even makes a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

He is sure Tim would poke fun at him for it, if they were still talking, but the organisation keeps his twitching fingers busy and his roaming mind away from the half-finished box of cigarettes in his desk drawer that he promises he will throw away any day now.

What all that planning fails to account for, as soon as he actually gets onto the road, is the rest of the world moving around him.

Every stereotype he has heard about antagonistic drivers is proven ten-fold as he dodges swerving cars and gets sworn at for whizzing past stalled traffic. He soon learns to sneer through tinted windows.

Pedestrians are almost worse. They seem blind to him, stepping out directly in front of his wheels and making him wobble as he overcorrects. As if a bike can’t still do some damage if he were to actually hit someone. Once, he clips the edge of a pram and stops in the street to shout some sense into the careless father pushing it.

He bitches openly about this during his lunches and his coworkers only roll their eyes at him sometimes.

The cycling becomes a bit of running joke in the office when they spot him coming in with his bike shorts and change of outfit, but he ignores them. The shorts are practical. For some reason, telling them that only makes them laugh harder.

He takes the fastest route into the office and a scenic one home. It winds through quiet well-off estates, before opening out to one of the less well-known urban parks. It’s calming, almost meditative, to roll through the cool shade the cluttered trees offer after another meaningless day of data entry.

In those times, he doesn’t think of his empty flat or his dead-end job, he forgets his sniggering coworkers and his ever-dwindling contact list. It’s just him and the wind.

The only thing that could make those moments better, he admits to himself, is a smoke.

The problem with this particular path is how hard it is to see around corners in the park. There is some national re-wilding initiative in the works and the foliage looms over the roads in a way that block his line of sight.

He checks every turn, even though it is rare to encounter a car in this area. Better safe than sorry.

The night he dies is warm but overcast.

He follows his usual route and cranes his neck to see around the overgrown corner he is approaching. A drooping branch grazes his head and something falls from the tree onto his neck.

It could be a leaf, or a twig, or a ladybird, but Jon feels the whisper-touch of something small at his throat and his only thought is: spider.

He has been afraid of them since he was very young and terrified instinct immediately beats any reason. One hand flies up from the handlebars to bat away at his collar. He swerves. Fear makes him pedal faster and the bike speeds onto the junction.

He is so scared of the potential at his throat that he never even sees the delivery truck.

The bike is sent flying from the impact, Jon falls under the wheels.

The driver, to his credit, calls emergency services immediately, distraught.

The ambulance is there within five minutes, but they needn’t have bothered. Jon is declared dead at the scene with a broken neck.

What few friends he has left comfort each other with that fact.

At least it was quick.

~

Twenty years ago, Martin Blackwood’s mother survives her second stroke.

This is a good thing, Martin reminds himself, more than once. It is Good that his mother is alive.

It doesn’t matter that the nurses need to attend to her around-the-clock now. It doesn’t matter that the care home bills have skyrocketed. He is grateful that she is still with him.

He starts looking for a third job. The admin work during the day and the shelf-stocking at night barely covered his previous bills. He’ll have to look for some flexible positions to cram into his schedule.

In the meantime, he cuts back. Eats cheaply, eats less. Cancels overdue check-ups and doesn’t touch the heating.

His days are a current of constant worry, occasionally breached by a wave of panic that he tries to quell by hiding in the office bathroom and digging his nails into his legs.

Panic won’t pay the rent or keep the lights on or remember to call Mum every Sunday. He smothers it deep in his chest and ignores the spasm of pain he gets whenever he forces it down.

He has been getting those more often; sharp, sudden chest pains, numb fingers, dizzy spells, an aching back, shortness of breath.

He had been going to ask the doctor about it all before he cancelled the appointment but. Well. Needs must.

He has his first heart attack on the evening shift.

Pulling a box of washing up tablets from the top shelf in Aisle 4 causes such a rush of agony in his chest that he dares to ask the manager to take his 15-minute break early.

He doesn’t make it to the back room before he collapses.

In the hospital, after he wakes, the doctors ask if there is a family history of heart problems.

If he didn’t feel so weak he would laugh.

He has more in common with his mother then he likes to admit. Of course they share a bad heart.

Or maybe it came from his father. Mum always said he was heartless. Maybe there’s a hole where Dad’s DNA should be.

When the medical team leaves him to rest, all he can think is how much this will cost him.

The NHS is no charity no matter what their marketing says, not to mention how much money he will lose by recovering. He can’t afford six weeks of not working. His first job doesn’t have that much sick leave and his second doesn’t have any.

He runs the numbers in his head, tries to find what else he can hack out of his life to keep his head above water. Occasionally his thoughts swerve, self-recriminating and barbed. He is so stupid for letting this happen at all.

It’s all his fault.

Mum is going to be so angry with him.

His heart pulses in keen pain, bitter and broken.

Somehow, he drifts off, counting figures instead of sheep.

The second heart attack kills him in his sleep.

~

They die on the same day, at nearly the same time (Jon rushes ahead, always too eager, Martin follows inevitably after him).

Their death certificates are filed away alphabetically by a bored clerk in the dusty management system of the General Register Office.

Twenty years later, Samama Khalid exhumes them and examines them, with more curiosity than sense, only to be disappointed by the mundanity of their ends.

He returns them together, heedless of any organisation.

Jon and Martin meet, in the quiet and the dark.

The filing cabinet is a shared headstone, their names rest side-by-side.

~

Also on AO3

[yourstruly9489]

Distortion Fanart (michael centered)

(saturated version on the left, og on right)

This is long, so a break before closeups start!

Closeups:

Text reads "The Distortion" (the o has a spiral inside of it)

More closeups but the doors on the left page are open, left to right, top to bottom:

Text reads: That was very stupid

Text reads: I am the throat of delusion incarnate

Text reads: There has never been a door there, Archivist

Text reads: How would a melody describe itself, when asked?

Text reads: "MICHAEL" That is a real name

Text reads: Does your hand in any way own your stomach?

Text reads: My very existence, tied to my pointlessness

Text reads: Did you notice which door she left through?

Text reads: I am not a "who," Archivist. I am a "what"

And that's the end of the closeups :D

All the text inside the doors are quotes from Michael Distortion btw. The only exception being "MICHAEL" bc Jon says that, but Michael does respond by saying "That is a real name" so I think it counts as a Michael quote. At least enough to be included.

I'd also like to thank a couple members of the "michael enjoyers" community for helping me come up with enough quotes. I do not remember your names, but thank you :D

The decision to make this spread was fairly impulsive. It started by me doodling spirals on a scrap piece of paper while trying to design a birthday card for a family member. While doing so, I thought, "why not fill a full page in my sketchbook with spirals?" And that turned into "I could make it into a Distortion spread."

And so, we have ended up here with a full Michael Distortion spread.

It was lots of fun to do, and has possibly gotten me out of artblock. Although, trying to come up with 9 unique doors that weren't yellow was quite the pain. Alongside the 9 different spiral patterns inside said doors. (although a couple of the spirals are copies of another)

And now a couple fun facts.

I am currently listening to "More Doors For Me" by elybeatmaker. I thought the song would be fitting.

I have only watched the first 14 episodes of TMA, and none of the TMAGP episodes. Everything I know about TMA is from my sister and Tumblr. For this reason I did only Michael, bc I know him far better than Helen. (she appears less in fanworks)

This spread took me five days. This is because I was either busy, or didn't have the motivation to work on it. The doors took the longest.

There is so much tape. The black background on the left page is black construction paper taped in, the spiral patterns underneath the doors were taped in, the doors themselves were taped on, the yellow door was also taped in, along with the hand and the wrist, both separately taped. It's a good thing I want a thick sketchbook.

My sketchbook's paper is a bit thin, so you can see the spiral behind the yellow door on the back of the next page. (I have since drawn over it, so I don't have a pic)

Each door has a separate color chosen to be the main color of said door. The colors include: Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, Lime, Green, Light Blue, Blue, Purple, and Brown. The only one that is a normal door color (brown) has Michael inside it.

If you look closely at the right page, you can see where the lines start to get uneven in the background spiral.

I really like the idea of showing someone this spread and have them randomly open the doors, just to see a surprise Michael. :)

Materials used: generic pencil (for the initial sketch) 05 Micron pen random Prismacolors a cool multicolored lead pencil I don't know the brand of kingart twin-tipped brush pens Sipa fineliner pens scotch tape X-acto knife kid scissors black construction paper yellow cardstock A5 Fabriano sketchbook that I hate with a burning passion

Since you read this far, have some bonus Michael doodles!

^This one was variations of a scene from a dream.

^This one is from a doodle page I have laying on my desk, hence the scribbles nearby. I did not color in the lines (yes, that is nendou from TDLOSK to his left) This was also the first time I ever drew him.

I love giving him spiral cheeks :)

[cartoonbah]

HUEY ; CHANNEL 1

Name(s): huey, hailey, penny, jenny, hadley

Gender(s): transfemme, genderfleur, butterflygender, forestcoric

Pronoun(s): she/hers, leaf/leafs, moss/moss, note/notes, write/writes, scribble/scribbles, petal/petals, clover/clovers, red/reds, ruby/rubys

Orientation(s): lesbian, ace, sapphic, demiromantic

Age: 12 - 14

Role(s): organizer, archivist, journal keeper, census taker, scout, receptionist

Emoji / signoffs: ☘️,🍂,🌳,🍀,🪙,❤️

Brief description: huey always lives by the junior woodchuck and mcduck values, always being the first to help, working hard regardless of what obstacles are in her way and giving it her best no matter what. she can be a bit bossy, demanding and nerdy, but her heart is in the right place. an avid reader, she can easily finish any book in 1 - 2 weeks, though with her tendency to take detailed notes, it usually takes a few more.

[dedicatedesire]

open to: f muse: paul terrior, 34. archivist, translator, collector and serial killer. generally quite kind and relatively friendly, but something is off plot: paul is drinking at his local bar and your muse strolls up and asks him to buy her a drink

"I—,' Paul hesitated, taken aback for the first time in what felt like a long time. He was usually so calculated. Everything was precise in his life. He couldn't imagine an interruption, and thus, he misfired.

"I can buy you a drink, sure,' he wasn't sure why she chose him, but she had. "Are you— I'm sorry. Are you joining my tab or should I give you the money? I— no one has ever done this,' he was growing red.

A few shots of whiskey in, he was scribbling on a notepad, pictures of to-be-made fortresses and financial plans. She had intruded entirely, asking — almost demanding — he pay for her drink. Of course, this was his perception, perhaps she was friendly, perhaps she was flirting, perhaps she was used to getting what she wanted, but he wasn't sober, and he wasn't used to being approached in his corner of the restaurant turned nighttime bar by anybody other than his server, Greg. Pot-bellied, greasy shirt, occasionally tipsy Greg who stalked over with a thumbs up wavering to a thumbs down every ten-odd minutes to determine if Paul wanted another drink. The latter could usually hang around seven or eight pours before he became chatty. The desire to socialize forewarned him that it was time to go home.

Talking while inebriated meant confessing, and confessing meant... everything. Still, he needed some relief occasionally, so he frequented the bar once or twice a week. A regular.

"I— I'll pay it,' he pushed his notebook aside. "Do you just want a shot or a drink or,' Paul was sure he had some spare change in his pocket.

[orderforbrian]

a collection of very serious lonelyeyes comics 😌 the last one is forever my favorite tma thing of all time

[Start ID: Three comics of Elias and Peter from the Magnus Archives. Elias has slicked back hair and wears dangly earrings with a closed eye at the end. He also wears a suit with a vest and tie. Peter has short hair pulled back into a ponytail and wears a sea captain's coat along with a turtleneck sweater. He has a full beard.

1st comic: Peter looks at Elias with a serious expression and says, "Elias, I'm not budging on this. You can't claim CO2 canisters as work expenses.". In the next panel, Elias hums, clearly displeased. In the next panel, Elias takes out a planner and a pen, and says "Pardon me one moment.". In the next panel he looks up at Peter with disdain and scribbles into the planner. In the last panel, Peter looks on in worry with a small blush and asks, "Wh - What are you crossing out? Elias...". We can view Elias' schedule within his planner that is as follows:

0900: Behold

1030: Meeting with Peter

1100: Lunch with Peter

The times are cut off the rest but the next line states "Give Peter a blowjob" and this is actively being crossed out. The next line says "Behold" which is what he intended to do after the previous line.

2nd comic: In the first panel, Elias is handing a document envelope to Jon's hand, stating "Here are those new statements, Archivist.". Jon accepts them and says "Yes, thank you.". In the next panel, Jon begins to take out the statements from the envelope, saying "Huh - lighter than usual...". Jon has short curly hair and wears rectangular glasses. In the next panel, Jon looks down in horror as what he pulls out is a photograph addressed "To Elias" with a heart next to it. Jon stutters "I-". In the next panel, Elias looks at the photo with comically large eyes that have red in the pupils and an even more horrified expression than Jon's. From the view of the photograph, it appears to be Peter in nothing but a hat. In the next panel, Elias dramatically snatches the photograph out of Jon's hands with an angry expression. In the next panel, Elias holds up a different document envelope with an embarrassed expression, sweating and shaking profusely, he says "Apologies. It seems I mislabeled some files. This one is correct.". In the final panel, there is a box with the word "Later" in it. Next to it, Elias' face is blurred from motion and his hands are outstretched towards Peter ready to strangle him. Elias has a red slit for an eye and has a few disembodied red eyes behind him. Peter stands in front of him blissfully unaware and asks with a blush, "Hey, did you like those pictures-?".

3rd comic: In the first panel, Elias is frothing mad, his teeth sharp and grey steam coming off him. He angrily demands, "Peter. Give me the alimony check now." In the next panel, Peter's disembodied hand holds up a check that Elias looks at furiously in the background. Peter asks, "Oh, this check?". Elias is growling in the background. In the next panel, Peter waves the check with an amuses expression, saying "You have to be quicker than that, Elias". His sentence is punctuated with a heart. In the next panel, Peter holds the check out to the side at an arm's length with a smile. He thinks to himself, "Oh man. Heh, heh. He looks furious.". Elias is not in the panel but his gradual scream is represented by several lowercase a's followed by several uppercase A's. At the rightmost side of the panel, there is a large dialogue bubble where Elias screams, "Peter!!!". In the last panel, Peter has turned semi-transparent with clouds of fog around him. There is a loud crash and an Elias shaped hole is in the wall behind his arm, several cracks are coming off the hole as well. Peter laughs, "Holy shit, haha." in all caps.

End ID.]

[avataroffearzine]

Hey everyone! The Avatar Of Fear: A Magnus Archive Zine finally here!

[ID: A cover image for the Avatar of Fear Zine of a desk. There are three documents, a tape recorder, a cassette tape, a photo, and a folder. The topmost paper reads ‘Avatar of Fear’ in big letters with the paper having a few coffee stains to the left. The next paper is a case statement for case #9780606 and it reads “Statement of (redacted) you are not safe. It will get you. My only hope is that my story gets to you before it does.” and then there is more text that is cut off by the tape recorder. A few notes from the archivist are scribbled on the paper in red and they read “I’ll be fine thank you” and “hm” by a word unseen that is circled, a final one is at the bottom reading “it could have been the wind.” The right edge of the paper has been burnt off leaving black scorch marks on the statement. To the left is a blue fountain pen laid across the papers near the tape recorder. In the middle of the image is a green-ish tape recorder with a tape already in it. There are three thin scratch marks across the recorder. On the labels for the buttons there is a symbol of an eye. There is a web attached to the left of the tape recorder. Left of the recorder is a tape labelled ‘property of the Magnus Institute.” On top of a folder is a yellow sticky note with ‘to record’ written on it and underlined. Also on the folder is a case label and underneath is a bloody handprint. In the folder peeking out is a dirty paper with the word ‘help’ repeating over and over. Finally to the right is a bloody old photo of a dark creature rising out of the water and it is labelled with the date “1/1/21.” /end ID]

We are extremely excited for you all to view this project finally as there was a lot of love put into it by the contributors!!

If you weren’t already aware this was a collaborative project to highlight fanworks depicting both artist’s and writer’s own avatar OCs and sonas from The Magnus Archives!

We have a fantastic collection of works from 29 different creators from all 14 entities!

You can download or view the whole zine here for free!

Image descriptions are provided for each image in alt text in the PDF.

Thank you to everyone for their support and interest in this zine! We hope you enjoy it!

Our wonderful cover at was done by @archivebottles!

[punemy-spotted]

Of Blackbirds and Barons: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: You Make The Rain Fall Harder

Relationships: Mob!Helmut Zemo x Reader; CEO!Billy Russo x Reader; Mob!Helmut Zemo x Reader x CEO!Billy Russo

Warnings: Non-con/Dub-con; Dark!Fic; Mob and Mafia Elements; Character Death (Minor and Major); Threesome; Possessive/Obsessive Characters; Blackmail/Coercion; Kidnapping; Mentions of War; Human Rights Violations; Contract Killing; Mafia AU; Possible Dead Dove: Would Not Eat; Complete Disregard for Actual Rules of Journalism and Style Guides; Other Chapter-Specific Warnings May Apply

Chapter Specific Warnings: Non-con; Drugging/Date-Rape; Fingering (F-Receiving); Vaginal Sex; Unprotected Sex; Possible Breeding Kink; Kidnapping; Obsessive/Possessive Zemo; Dark!Zemo; Human Rights Violations; Discussion of Destruction of Novi Grad and Sokovia; Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Chapter Summary: The problem with having sympathy for the Devil is that he will drag you down to Hell regardless.

Author’s Notes: Another series! Because I can’t get enough of Mob!AUs! Zemo makes his dark entrance. And this IS dark, so read at your own discretion. As always, all of my work is 18+ ONLY, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

Masterlist

The long tradition of the Duchy of Sokovia, that which once stood the test of time against the Tsars of Russia, began to crumble long before its borders did, its sweeping architecture and decadent mystery giving way to the sharp lines of Brutalism and the characteristic industrialism of the Eastern Bloc. Still, the Sokovian people managed to maintain their identity in the face of a new kind of empire, bringing greenery and art to a brisk, concrete world.

There is no Sokovia now, not the way one would think, but there are still Sokovians scattered around the world, clinging to the traditions of their once-home and searching for a banner to be united under.

A banner carried by a man like Helmut Zemo.

The caret blinks back at you with a mocking sort of finality, a metronome counting down the seconds to your ultimate frustration. Once. Twice. Thrice — you lose count, staring at the screen until your vision crosses and the words blur together, until only his name remains.

Zemo.

Baron Helmut Zemo.

Your notes are expansive, excessive, papers strewn about you and you look at each scribbled anecdote, each carefully dictated word, each photograph you have annotated until it is more red marker than actual picture and you are… frustrated.

Where do you put all that passion? He asked you over champagne and charcuterie.

You know this man.

You know this man like you know your own soul. You know this man who has bared his soul to you in turn and how are you supposed to impress upon the world that he has shown you the broken heart beating slow and painful in his chest in just a thousand words?

There is nothing. Nothing you can do, nothing you can saywhich could even begin to encompass the horrors which he has experienced and now as you painstakingly tap out word after word describing the grand beauty of his apartment, you wonder if this really was what your life was meant to be.

These are… fluff.

This is a man who has managed to unite an entire fractured country under his royal banner and yet the project wants to know about the indoor garden of his apartment, wants to photograph him in fine suits and know his haircare routine and this can’t be it. This can’t be the face of the man you see everywhere now, moreso since you picked up the assignment, purple-masked and surrounded by brass wings, over the homes of Sokovians all over New York.

And not just there.

I am a man, he told you with his hand on your thigh, But I can become an idea. And an idea is immortal.

You let your eyes skim over the photographs you took, a collection of banners and graffiti and billboards all proclaiming the need for the Sokovian people to come together and heal. To show that their small country — broken and divided in the wake of an attack by a rich megalomaniac’s private military — could not be taken down simply because its borders had been erased and its capitol turned to rubble.

We live in an age of information, and through information we are boundless.

It should terrify you.

It does terrify you.

But inside of that terror is a sick fascination with the man, isn’t there? That’s the trouble with you investigative types — peel back the layers enough and you find yourself capable of feeling sympathy for anyone.

He flaunts his power, and yet it’s innocent. Is it so wrong, then, to want to bring my country back to its glory?

No, you remember answering shakily, but not as well as you remember the pinpricks of heat his fingers left on your skin when that gloved hand brushed over you arm.

Breathe deep, hover fingers over your keyboard and try not to feel like you owe him the weight of the world. He approved of this, even suggested a word count and a topic of conversation — any chance to put his name out into the consciousness of the public, it seemed, to raise interest for the gallery by raising interest for the cause. Make it indulgent. My people, they enjoy art. They enjoy knowing that their leaders have preserved the past for them.

So do it.

… Baron Zemo’s New York penthouse is its own garden amongst a sea of steel and stone, a veritable museum of priceless artworks rescued from what remained of Sokovian museums and ministry buildings. It is, in its own way, an ode to the spirit of Sokovia, which lives on in the hearts and minds of its people around the world. He displays artworks of the many displaced Sokovians, gesturing broadly to a 3D model of an art gallery he intends to have built near the memorial at Novi Grad — with the consent of the Slovakian government — and speaking fondly of his intention to showcase the lost art of Sokovia as a reminder that loss of land cannot be the loss of an identity…

The artworks, they will be painful at first. But the gallery will showcase more and more, and eventually we will have hope.

He waves a gloved hand over the pieces he has preserved. Sokovian history. Scenic expanses, fields and flowers, a city skyline dotted with domed cathedrals. Each painting marred some way too, you can see when you look close. Patched canvas, the dusting of ash and rubble in the corner of an ornate frame, a trick of the light revealing repainting to cover up damage.

A stone hoof sits on a bookshelf, The attached horse and rider blown to rubble in the attack. I’m told it was of Emperor Ferdinand, but my archivists have not been able to confirm, he tells you as he stands behind you, his hand resting soft on the small of your back.

Come. There is more to be seen.

More to be experienced.

His living room is a garden.

It smells like fresh jasmine the moment you walk in, ivy climbing the walls and you swear you can hear birdsong from more than the pigeons cooing outside. Flower arrangement is an often looked down upon art, but the gardens in Sokovia were impeccable. My father won several awards for his pieces before his…

He trails off and you watch him, seeing the pain paint his face as openly as if he meant for you to watch the facade crack and then back to that placid, pleasant calm, a serpentine smile on his face as he extends to you a hand and guides you to the open air of his balcony and bids you Sitbids you Enjoy bids you I have looked forward to his meeting.

It is a pleasure to meet you, Baron Zemo, you begin politely, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear and trying to avoid the way his eyes follow your fingers, feeling seen, We’re grateful for the honor of your patronage for this piece, we know you could have —

Nonsense, he cuts you off with a wave of his hand, gesturing to his butler and then leaning back comfortably in his seat as champagne and various cheeses are brought forth, You are my guest, and I am grateful you agreed to come meet me here, to assist with my… project. Now. Please, enjoy, I do not want to treat this as strictly business.

Is that why he had you come alone?

Don’t.

Don’t dwell on it.

It happens all the time, right? It has to.

A somewhat reclusive man, not keen to be in the limelight, in need of public attention to achieve his goals — you are a means to an end and he is your means to an end, surely you can understand.

Is that why he wipes the honey from your lips and kisses it off his fingers?

This is going to be a difficult conversation and you know it. You can only gush over houseplants and rose décor for so long before it becomes… trite, before you’re a part of the problem, painting a shining veneer over a half-decade old injustice

But he is warm, warm and friendly and you cannot help but laugh to his response when you draw attention to the architecture to draw attention from your blush — Very modern, yes. We are in New York, after all, and the old ways are fine for country houses but not so fine, for sunny penthouse apartments —not noticing the way he looks like he’s just smelled blood at the sound of it, the narrowing of his eyes and the hiding of his inscrutable expression behind a sip of champagne.

Well then. Shall we get started?

Of course.

Why don’t we start with your plans for opening night?Your notepad is out, the recorder sitting in front of you to pick up the sound of your voice and his, ready to commit everything to memory.

Of course. We cannot deny the… elephant in the room, I think you Americans call it. There are many who took pictures of the aftermath of the attack, and not enough who have seen it immortalized…

… The tragedy of Novi Grad and the consequential absorption of Sokovia into its surrounding countries weighs heavy in the Baron’s living room, draped in ivy and jasmine and hanging vines but also in photographs of what was left after a private military corporation chose to turn human lives into a war game.

No one knows who Ultron is, only that he is dangerous, that his technology rivals that of the SHIELD Syndicate’s Tony Stark, that he is willing to ally himself to the highest bidder, and that he is fully capable of unleashing endless destruction upon the world…

You will never forget the photographs he shows you, all that death and destruction in the golden light of his balcony, all that warmth and all you can see is cold bodies bathed in concrete dust.

They call to you, when you close your eyes — answer for our crimes — and you remember the way his voice changes too, so soft and solemn, the brush of fingers against yours when you touch the bombed out shell of a country mansion My home, in Sokovia, to the gray-and-blood horror which forms the centerpiece of his display, and you remember your research too, that the Baron is a widow, that his title is inherited from the most tragic of circumstances, that his son was an innocent lost in the attack and you are furious too, at the senselessness of it all.

It is a tragedy yet unanswered for, more than half a decade since the dust settled.

That quote sits front and center on your mock-up, wondering if you could make whatever editor who would inevitably rip this piece to shreds — just before publishing its corpse alongside some glamour picture of the Baron his coat — finally see the error of ignoring the tragedy. You won’t, but it’s worth a shot, as you lean back in your chair and stare at the screen again.

Sometimes you think about it.

Watching Novi Grad happen from the comfort and safety of your living room, wrapped in blankets as open war broke out in the capital city of what had once been a crown jewel in an ancient dynasty. A playground, a show of force.

Sometimes you hear the screams.

The blinking carat waits for you to add more to this story, to decide where you want to go.

… The Baron plays a game with his interview, insists on knowing his guests just as we insist on getting to know the enigmatic leader who has risen up a beacon for the displaced people of his homeland. We will not be recreating our answers in this article, as they were of course of a personal nature, but we do thank the Baron for taking the time to get to know us just as he bared his soul, his sorrows, and his hopes to a gaggle of strangers seeking to make him known to the world…

Tell me of you, sweetling.

Me? This interview is about you.

And so I must tell all my secrets for free? No, I insist. A secret for a secret.

He watches you with a hunger, coal-black eyes an invitation. Slide your gaze away or fall and who knows what depths he will drag you into and what you will find there?

No.

Don’t look, don’t look as you sip the tea Oeznik brought when you politely declined the champagne — Another time, probably — and let it brace you with its bitterness, let it clear your head.

Breathe.

You’re in too deep now, trapped in this cave of wonders… and wouldn’t it be worth it? Know him as he knows you, follow the trajectory of the smiling man before you.

What would you like to know?

Tell me how you taste his eyes whisper.

Tell me what it would take says the curve of his fingers over your hand.

Let me put you on display hums the razor-blade of his smile.

Tell me what drives a woman to take on such a … dangerous line of work, is the final inquiry, innocent and curious and gentle and you sip your tea and smile.

Is it dangerous?

You must know how many secrets you uncover — and the lengths the keepers will go to in order to hide them.

If people get hurt, shouldn’t I bring that to light?

How noble of you, he tells you with another hum, with his fingers squeezing yours, with his eyes fixed on the gaze you refuse to send his way, It must be quite thrilling.

Let me thrill you too, sweetling.

Pull away.

Do it.

Pull your hand away, make an act of it, pick up a candied strawberry and press it past your lips, let the sweetness soak your tongue and wash away the bitter thoughts, let yourself be bright and chipper and pretend you are not afraid.

Because you’re not.

Of course you’re not.

You are in control here, you must be in control here.

This is nothing. This is a casual interview with a handsome man in his handsome penthouse, an interview about architecture and art galleries and you were a correspondent once and you are meant to be friendly here, not afraid, so what are you afraid of?

What is it about his coal-dark eyes and too-sharp smile that turns your blood, that sends you back into your hutch, little rabbit, what is it about the way he prowls at the corner of your thoughts that makes you shudder so?

What are you running from?

Who are you running from?

Your turn, sweetling.

Mmh?

Our deal, or have you forgotten already?

Yes. You have.

It’s his eyes, you keep insisting to yourself. They drag you in, so dark it feels like you’re drowning in the void of them, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s a chase.

It’s what you’re good at.

Right — I’m sorry, I’m…

You blink.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

The fog in your thoughts doesn’t fade, confusion crossing over your features and ill delight crossing over his. All you had was tea, tea and some of the candied fruit his butler brought for your enjoyment, how can you feel so…

Hazy?

So…

Upturned?

Something clatters behind you and you realize it’s the chair you were sitting on as you stand, unsteady and abrupt, lost in the moors of your own frantic thoughts and there is his hand on your elbow, so careful and soft and there are his lips before yours, so…

Tempting.

Somewhere, a woman croons to you of falling rain and rushing blood and the room does spin round as you stand still in the open air of a desire that is yours and not your own all at once. Shhh, shhh, let me help you whispered in your ear, a hand to your cheek and you…

You blink.

Reality flows into view like a sudden bath of ice water. Jerk away from his iron grip, raise your hands and try to resist, shake your head and N-no, I think. I think I need to go, I’ll just call a cab —

I cannot let you do that, sweetling. Not when you are finally within my reach.

His hold is steady. Unbreakable, even, as he pulls you close and you might even be dancing with the way his arm wraps around your waist the moment you fall into his chest, Don’t look so afraid, sweetling. No one will hurt you, here.

I will protect you like a jewel.

Your mind is still yours — the dose was just enough — but your limbs? Your limbs are tied to his strings, lost as he guides you right back inside, lost as he gestures for Oeznik to close off the balcony.

Your place is somewhere else now.

You belong underneath me.

He guides you inside, jasmine intoxicating your senses and wisps of smoke seeming to float past your eyes. Reality blends into the fantasy, the Baron and his prize, the gentle touch against your soft cheek, the cradling against his form and he is…

Determined.

A door opens. A portal into another kind of decadence, with soft sheets and softer touches, the sliding of a mouth over yours as your escape clicks shut behind you and you are pressed between wall and man and you are consumed.

Curl your fingers into the lapel of his coat, lose yourself to the pressure of his lips, the sharp nip of teeth against soft flesh. He tastes of champagne and honeycomb and you are saccharine on the tongue, a mess of sighs and admonitions left unsaid.

My precious thing, whispered into your unfocused sighs, I will take such fine care of you.

And you want to protest, want to insist you are free you are uninterested you do not want this man and his hands under the cotton of your blouse but the words tangle on your tongue and instead all you can do is whimper.

Whimper, and hear him chuckle against your skin, a line of kisses drawn from your parted lips along your jaw until he’s found the thrum of your pulsebeat to draw a gasp the moment his teeth scrape against the delicate skin. He must mark you his, after all, and this he will gladly renew, over and over.

Over and over as he draws you to bed, lays you amongst soft cushions and softer sheets, indulges in the soft curves of you in the golden glow of the room. Your clothes — so conservative, so professional, so unnecessary — he makes short work of even with what mild resistance you manage, Shh, shh, do not fight me.

The heat is yours and not yours all at once, warming your skin and leaving you flushed, leaving a trail of burning want along your skin where his fingers trace over you and centering in your core You need this, sweetling, look at you…

Do you?

Is it you who needs this or he, he who has begun to kiss along your skin, he who presses himself between your legs so impatiently? The accusation lives in your thoughts and passes past your lips as a strangled Nnh-no, ignored without ceremony or appeal.

Protests are useless when your tongue can form no words and your limbs can do nothing but writhe, seeking structure in the grip of his sheets as he unravels you with a press of his lips to that soft center of yours, slick with a need you cannot own and yet all yours.

He maps you with a hungry gaze, fingers already tracing the plushness of your folds, gathering slick like he might have been collecting nectar and you watch him pull back, watch him bring his hand to his mouth, watch him wrap lips around his fingertip and drag the taste of you onto his tongue, One day I shall make you taste how sweet you are…

One day, after he has savored you so deeply.

You are so full of words they burst out of you on a normal day and yet nothing you say comes to light, just the bare whimpers and anxious mewls of your needy self as he returns to inspecting, to enjoying, to savoring the reactiveness of your body.

He touches. He touches as if he has owned your body a thousand times, he touches as if you are delicate, as if you are breakable, as if his fingers might lead you to shattering around him here and now and you…

Are so close, already.

So close, trying to find the strength in your muscles to pull away, to speak something beyond desperation with every curl of fingers against your cunt, with every pleased hum he utters in response to the flex of your sex. Shh… no more fighting, sweetling, I know you can be good.

He knows you can be good, he says, with all the innocence of a man trying to convince his cat to stop clawing the couch, not a man presently holding your legs open with one hand at your thigh and the other curling against your walls while you arch your back. It builds, the pressure, it builds and builds and builds and — Let go, sweetling. Let me see your ecstasy.

Is that what this is?

You keen. You keen softly, desperately, brokenly, as skilled fingers find the spot which makes you, which leaves you breathless and flushed and sobbing, a trickle of tears making their path down your cheeks as you bite your own lip to muffle the sounds you did not know you could make. Wordless and pleading and he notices with a cold smile the way you seem to succumb, hips no longer desperate to escape the curling, stretching assault of two — no, three — fingers preparing you for him.

Hips pressing back towards him now, a betrayal of your conscious-yet-barely-focused mind, that lustful sweetness in you taking over and he can only watch in awe. Awe not at your surrender but at your perfection, muttering in a language you do not understand and yet you understand perfectly what he means — he will have you, all of you.

Ah, I shall so enjoy playing with you more, sweetling.

But not now.

Now his impatience outpaces your need and both outpace his cruelty, his desire to see you beg and so instead he pulls back his hand — and hears the desperate N-no, please don’t — to bring a cruel gleam to his dark eyes and even barely conscious as you are you know he is beautiful.

Beautiful and cruel, as he frees himself and curls fingers around his cock, rubs your own slick onto that soft skin, hisses at the very feel of you like it must be a preview to how you will make him throb, and presses himself over you. Presses himself over you, absorbs the cry of pain or anguish or relief which pours from your plush lips with the punishment of a kiss just as he sinks, hips pressing against yours, stretching you with his full length and Now we are one, my sweet.

Now we are one.

He will take fine care of you but you, you take finer care of him, so plush and tight around his senses, so desperate as you cling, so lost and wanton and he kisses away the tears which continue to sting your cheeks and hisses half-sensible promises into your ear — You will always be mine — as he ruts his hips and practically shoves you forward with every thrust, dragging you back with a snarl and the pressure builds.

Builds and you moan, builds and you sob into his hungry mouth, builds and you hold to him as if he were the last thing which made sensein the world builds and you are consumed and he is consuming, and the release is both of yours, spilling deep inside of you and that too is the final shackle upon your soul.

You sit. In the darkness of your office and you remember, worrying the cuticle of your thumb and staring at the words you have typed while your memory drifts back to that hazy reminder.

… A discussion with the Baron about Sokovia reveals a country rich with history. Once a Duchy of the Hapsburgs during the era of the Holy Roman Empire, the deeply Catholic country clings to the Austrian and Italian tradition of ceremony and indulgence. Baron Zemo plays an example of the hymns sung in the many cathedrals which once filled the country, a mixture of Sokovian and Latin to raise the soul to divine heights.

The Baron speaks of the country’s culture with a warm fondness, of how even during Soviet occupation, the people managed to enjoy games like ice hockey, and football (the European, variant, the Baron would like to emphasize), and even spent time indulging in horse racing. Surrounded by Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it keeps a similar tradition, with a twist…

No, that cannot encompass all that you discussed, and yet that is what the recording shows, words traded back and forth which you do not remember, a conversation of laughter and warmth and none of it slots into what your mind tells you occurred.

You erase. You rewrite. It is the same passage, over and over, fingers acting unbidden of your frantic will and eventually you give in, demand to be done with these words and this screen, eventually you desire peace.

… Baron Helmut Zemo is many things. A historian, an ambassador, a politician, an activist. He is a widower, a man trapped in the past, a man with lofty dreams for the future. He wears his sorrow as well as he wears his happiness, and for those who still call themselves Sokovian, he is their shepherd into a new age.

And as the door to your office opens, your keeper.

[poop-flying]

FR Username/Numbers: shanncrafter #84422 on FR!

Basic Clan Lore: I’m planning for Tooth, fresh out of the Gaplands and starting to make a name for herself, to be targetted by The Sentinels of the Sun. They’re an organisation dedicated to hunting down malevolent spirits/dragons, and they tend to keep an eye on powerful individuals. They don’t know what her motivations are and until they do, they’ll see her as a threat.

Plans For Dragon: That’s where the Realmwalkers step in. Where the Sentinels work in the light, the Realmwalkers keep to the shadows. They’re larger and older than the Sentinels with the same goals; they may be much more disorganised but they’re willing to recruit those with useful talents.

Tooth will be a catalyst for the growing tension between its leaders (as well as between the two organisations). One of them, a young Fathom named Morien who leads the corp’s elite division, is at the centre of it all. Tooth, however, will be recruited by Udyr, who manages the unsavoury business of the Corps and whom Morien respects.

Tooth…will hate this. In the course of her relatively short life she has been many things: a daughter, fighter, a necromancer. The last thing she wants to become is a pawn, trapped in a series of events beyond her understanding.

She’s never been underestimated before. She’ll have to get used to the feeling before she can use it to her advantage.

Intended Payment: combination treasure and gem payment + some extra items!

Some other stuff below the cut!

Extra thing I wrote re: the discussion between the Corps' leaders on whether or not to recruit Tooth.

Here’s her outfit at the beginning, mostly inspired by the original! I’m thinking she has to find more of herself first before I make major changes to it. I’ll probably tweak a few things but this is it for now. The accent is Battlefield Spoils.

I was also reminded of that ‘Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw’ line from this poem.

Adding on to the trivia:

Her need for approval will result in her falling very quickly for certain lies. Udyr keeps her secrets but she’ll position herself as Tooth’s only hope. She’ll find a way to turn Tooth’s hunger to her advantage.

I really really love the teeth-as-daggers thing and I’m still thinking of a way to incorporate that!

I’m a little conflicted re: her charge. On one hand, I want it to be Morien just to make things messy for everyone. On the other, I want to leave it a little open. In my lore, since the Tidelord disappeared, the pull of a guardian’s Charge has gotten weaker with every new generation hatched.

There are necromancers in my lore but there’s also Camphor, a reanimated corpse shuffling around. Camphor would seek her assistance because he’s in bad shape. There are also some eldritch horrors I think Tooth would get along with (or at least try to kill. For fun. For fun!), one of whom being Innsmouth.

Two of the Realmwalker leaders will not like this at all: Verbena, in charge of general operations, and Voltimand, who oversees the mages and archivists. They’ll do anything short of sabotage/murder to see that Udyr doesn’t get what she wants.

Tooth will keep in contact with her family as much as possible. Though there is a risk of her mail being read...

Her signature is her name + a scribble of a tooth. If she's in a hurry it'll just be the scribble.

Good luck to everyone else applying! There are so many cool ideas :O

PIGLET APPLICATION #01 TOOTH THE RESSURECTIONIST.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT:

These Piglets are for lore clans with a tumblr presence (sideblog, FR posting on mainblogs, etc you simply have to be a lore clan who engages with the community here on tumblr.)

Other players with their siblings (and myself with their parents) will be not only welcome to but encouraged to write interclan letters/in character messages to their siblings, and you'll have to be okay with everything that comes with that (On-Site DMs, the potential of a message going unanswered/etc) I would also appreciate if you ping me for the stuff you do with them because I want to see what they get up to <3

If you win one of the siblings, please refrain from applying for another, this is so everyone interested gets an opportunity and a fair shake at taking one of the girls home!

If you're the selected winner, the dragon is yours to do what you please with! (Regene, change species, rename, change gender identities/pronoun preferences, etc) I ask only that you have a lore/character reason for breed or name changes, as they'll be connected to a wider group of dragons that would need to know these things (What kind of dragon their sibling has become, What to call them in letters, etc) and if you can keep them a modern breed so they can keep their cleavers, well that'd just be nice for their old man Pig.

Please honor the basic lore of the dragon you win, you're welcome to rewrite/reinterpret the lore they arrive with, but please don't eliminate that history entirely, since they'll be interwoven with other clans/players!

[and a big thank you to Khadjin for reminding me I never mentioned this yet!] my lore deviates pretty substantially from site lore. however every aspect can be explained within the context of the site, please don't feel like you have to adopt my headcanons to participate in these!- my "Lesser Gods" are nothing more than magically afflicted/overcharged spirits or magically mutated dragons created in a reactor explosion somewhere in Lightning and some timeloop silliness, and the 'Gaps' are highly concentrated leylines caused by this incident. the eleven gods of sornieth remain the only true gods in my lore much like the site on the whole!- the Piglets and their parents simply lived under the affliction of spirits, cults, and mutated dragons and contextualized them as "Gods" the very same way we create urban myth/legends. While they would know of The Host and the Gaps because of the direct effect both have had on their parents, they are not required to have continued to believe in them as "Higher beings" and can have learned in their time away from their family that these things are likely, little more than the arcane gone haywire.

BLANK APPLICATION

Please copy/paste and fill this out in a Reblog here on tumblr or send it to me through my submit box here so I can keep track of things on a per-dragon basis for the course of the 48-hours each application will be active!

FR Username/Numbers: Basic Clan Lore: (just a general description of the lore/area of your clan you intend to place this hatchling in!) Plans For Dragon: (A little description of any of your ideas, headcanons, story beats, etc you're thinking of for the dragon you're applying for! This can be anything you've got in mind, scries, outfits, etc, feel free to go as big or as little as you want, I wanna see what's going on in your head!) Intended Payment: (These dragons will be PWYW, but I need everyone to acknowledge they're not free, so whatever you're planning on paying/trading for them, even if you change your mind when the time comes, stick something here.)

RINGLEADER'S HEADCANONS

These are just some smaller lore bits and pieces you're welcome to use or disregard for each child, things that I couldn't fit into the bios in a way that made sense. much like the example outfit photo up-top, this is for fun or stuff to help get ideas flowing, if you're stuck!

Tooth has horrible first-child syndrome despite being the third-born, she wants her parents' (and others, really) approval in any way she can get it, which has led to a deathly competitive streak- dangerous in a dragon closer to a horror slasher than anything else.

Tooth is the child with the most heavy proclivity toward plague's flesh and bone sensibilities, and while this is fitting for a necromancer, it makes her look odd when engaging with hobbies that aren't hunting, killing, or doing strange magic- she's mildly self conscious about this.

Her tendency to pull her own teeth to create resurrection daggers has led to her using her mouth as an odd accessory, adorned with teeth carved from precious stones, metals, and various other souvenirs she's chosen.

She's one of the few members of the Piglets who actually has an innate sense of magic, as her talent with resurrection does not require any outside intervention beyond a focus for her powers!

THIS APPLICATION IS OPEN FROM 3 PM DECEMBER 2ND, 2024, TO 3 PM DECEMBER 4TH, 2024. REBLOGS AFTER THIS TIME WILL BE DISQUALIFIED FROM THE RUNNING.

Annnnd the auction pings for my tumblr lovelies!~:

@hor-wod-flir @harpyartisan @fuiran @terra-tortoise @bawkrya @pocketmouse-fr @spongyspingy-rising @avalonianrising @clansunsharp

[eldritchqueerture]

Hello! This is a project for @summer-in-the-archives-event that I worked on with @horizonindigo! We came up with the idea together and based our individual works around the poem I wrote, included in the fic. You can find their absolutely amazing art here!!

I freaking loved working on this one and I got more and more excited as we progressed. I also surprised myself with the poem itself a bit, definitely didn’t expect it to end up quite as cool, if I may say so myself. It was incredibly fun to write.

Big shoutout to @sunflowers-and-frogs for beta reading, I love you bestie <3

I would like to thank all the mods that made this event possible! It’s my first time taking part in anything like this and it was really, really fun, so THANK YOU <3 Love you guys :3 Anyways, enough of my rambling kdfjgkjsdfg

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: M/M Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Relationship: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives), Kissing, Excessive Tea-Making, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Poetry, Love Confessions Warnings: self-esteem issues, typical Lonely content, discussions of free-will and determinism, graphic kiss

Summary: As Martin fights the remnants of the Lonely's influence on their ride to Daisy's safehouse in Scotland, he focuses on his feelings for Jon to keep him tethered to reality. He watches Jon be himself in the safety of the cottage, share these small intimacies of domesticity and the words come to him as a poem weaves itself into the pages of his notebook...

He feels the taste of salt in his mouth, as he looks out of the car window at the rapidly falling away landscape, covered in the darkness of the night. He feels Jon’s presence next to him, focused on driving but glancing every so often at him with concern. Martin feels like he should say something, somehow fill the silence that has befallen them, but no words ever find their way to his mouth. He stays quiet, watching the trees pass them by, trying to ignore the anxious churning in his stomach. He’s always been pretty good at filling awkward silences with chatter; at least before the Lonely. Now… he can’t help but feel bothered by Jon’s presence, even though he did all of this for him, even though this is what he’s wanted all this time; it’s like a splinter, prickling at his mind, almost causing him physical discomfort. He swallows and feels the salty taste on his tongue; he discards the thoughts and tries his best to breathe through the discomfort, instead focusing on the sensation of Jon’s warm hand on his.

Martin used to be the warm one; he’d always been generating heat and his mind goes back to the early days in the Archives when the basement was cold in the winter and both Tim and Sasha used to gravitate towards him with their respective cups of tea during breaks. Now his whole body is cold, the chill of the ocean breeze and fog having settled in his bones so deep he thinks he’ll never feel warm again. The thought isn’t sparking any emotions in him though. It’s just a thing that he’s learned to accept, just as the fact that he’ll always be alo—

“Do you want me to put on some music?” Jon asks with another one of his glances. Every time, he raises his eyebrows a bit, and tilts his head to the side; Martin expects the concern in his eyes, but he sees something else there as well. He’s been afraid to put a label to the expression for the fear he’s reading him wrong, but the bolder part of his mind tells him it’s fondness.

Jon’s hand is warm, and his thumb grazes the skin of his palm just a little, as if not sure he’s allowed to. Martin looks down at their hands and feels warmth spark in his stomach; he smiles.

“I’m sorry I’m—I’m not really good at the whole, uh… small talk thing,” Jon adds with a flush, turning his head back to the road. “I should probably be talking about something, though, to, uh… to keep you here. I suppose.” He visibly cringes at his words.

“It’s—It’s fine, Jon,” Martin chuckles, and Jon relaxes, fixing him with a quick smile of his own. “I’m just… you know.” He looks down at their hands again and has a brief feeling they belong to someone else. Not him. Never him. “I’m not quite… out of that. Yet.”

Another look of concern. Martin feels heat prickling at his cheeks and he’s a little bit glad, because at least it’s a feeling. He interlaces their fingers and looks out the front window.

They spend the ride in relative silence. Jon tries a couple more times to start small talk and fails; they stop at a gas station at one point and Martin takes out his notebook when Jon disappears inside the station to pay for gas. He flicks through it and his eyes stop at an unfinished draft; he started writing it shortly before Peter took him down to the Panopticon, but he’d only managed to get a few first lines down. Despite still feeling the cold in his bones and his mind being clouded by the remains of the fog, words come to him, and he starts scribbling. He continues to do so even when Jon comes back with tea and an assortment of snacks, blushing just a little bit when Jon shoots a curious look at the notebook. He doesn’t ask and Martin is thankful for it. He’s not the sort to show his drafts to anyone, especially to the subject he’s writing about.

It’s 1am when they arrive at the cottage; they’re both exhausted and they quickly take their bags inside and lock the door. The cottage is small and practical, just Daisy’s style; it’s also quite dusty from months of abandonment. Martin yawns as he opens one of the bags to get the essentials. They should leave unpacking and cleaning for the next day.

He hears Jon’s footsteps on the wooden floor coming back from the initial run of the house and he turns to tell him that, but the somewhat sheepish look on his face stops him in his tracks. Has he ever seen Jon look sheepish before?

“So, uh, obviously this was Daisy’s safehouse when she was, well… Avoiding people,” he says, not meeting Martin’s eyes.

“I hope ‘avoiding people’ doesn’t mean killing them in this context,” Martin snorts, not sure if he’s entirely joking. The humour is lost on Jon, however, as he looks at him confused for a moment before he processes Martin’s words.

“Oh, no, no, I-I don’t believe she, uh… She just slept here.” Jon shifts awkwardly. “And that means there’s uh, there’s only one bed.”

Martin’s eyes widen and his lips form a little “Oh”.

“Of course, if you’re not comfortable with sharing, I can just take the couch, you need some proper rest and I’m used to running on low sleep” —Jon averts his gaze as he speaks. He grabs his bag and walks over to the couch, and Martin wants to stop him talking and just say that they should share the bed, but his voice seems to have left him at this crucial moment. He just stares as Jon places the bag on the couch and looks back at him, aware of the silence. “Martin?”

Martin swallows, a familiar cold freezing his toes. He feels the damp sand underneath his bare feet and a chill runs down his spine. He blinks and tightens his grip on the bag he’s been holding. This is real, he is real, Jon is real.

“You need good rest too,” he finally manages to say, and he’s surprised by how clear and normal his voice sounds; it makes Jon relax a bit. “We should share the bed, if-if you are comfortable with that.”

A small smile appears on Jon’s lips and a warm feeling fills Martin’s stomach again; he knows the smile is for him.

“Okay,” he says softly and picks the bag up.

They manage to keep the awkwardness of it to the minimum; they’re both very tired and at one point it just doesn’t matter anymore. Jon hands Martin a separate blanket and he pushes the disappointment down into a void inside him where he keeps feelings to come back to when he’s alone. It would be foolish of him to hope for cuddling since they haven’t talked about anything yet.

He expects to fall asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow, but he finds himself awake in the darkness after goodnights are said (Jon’s voice sounds so soft and tender Martin has forgotten all about his earlier disappointment). He’s laying on his back, eyes closed, and he feels Jon’s presence on his right. His breathing is steady, not yet slow enough to indicate sleep, but calm and relaxed. Martin peeks out through half-lidded eyes – he hasn’t gotten used to the darkness as much yet, but he can see Jon laying on his side, facing him, his eyes closed and his hair loosely framing his face. One of his hands rests close to his head on the pillow. Martin blinks, fully opening his eyes now and smiling softly. As his vision clears, Martin notices Jon frowning ever so slightly, and he wonders if the faint lines between his eyebrows smoothen when he’s asleep.

“Is watching people sleep a usual activity for you?” Jon whispers with amusement as he opens his eyes and Martin gasps with surprise and looks away, feeling heat prickle at his cheeks.

“Wha—uh, no! No, of course no—Sorry, I—” He rambles, and he thinks he might just die from embarrassment when he hears Jon laugh quietly.

“It’s fine, Martin.” He shakes his head with a sigh. “Really. I-- Sorry, I thought a joke would, um… lighten the mood somewhat.”

Martin risks a look at him and wonders if the red on his cheeks is visible through the darkness. Jon looks at him with that expression again, something Martin would very much want to classify as fondness if it didn’t feel so impossible. But now that he thinks about it… Would it really be thatfar-fetched? Jon had gone into the Lonely just to get him out. Would he have done that for anyone else? Martin rolls his eyes at himself in his mind, of course he would. He did go into the Buried, and it was for Daisy, a person who has threatened him multiple times, kidnapped and almost killed him. If Jon was ready to lay down his life for her, out of all of them, it shouldn’t be surprising he would do the same for his assistant; it says nothing about his feelings on the matter.

Martin’s memories of the Lonely are hazy. He remembers the cold, the dampness, and the loneliness. He remembers his thoughts, the lonely ones, and how they felt both alien and familiar at the same time. He remembers the comfort, the feeling of fitting in, but also the pain and the fear, just before they were numbed by the cold and the fog that made him forget. And then suddenly, Jon was in front of him, looking at him with desperation on his face, tears in his eyes glowing with a green light. Was it Jon calling for him, or just the Beholding?

“What are you thinking about?” comes Jon’s voice and Martin realizes he’s been staring into the air for a while. He blinks and looks back at Jon.

“Uh…” He searches for words before he gives up on trying to come up with an excuse. His voice is quiet when he speaks. “Why did you do it?”

Jon blinks at him a couple times and rises to lean on his elbow, to better look at Martin.

“What do you mean?”

“The Lonely,” Martin says, not meeting his eyes. Jon is wearing a blue t-shirt with a logo of a band Martin doesn’t recognize; the shirt is loose and it uncovers one of Jon's shoulders which would probably be distracting if Martin’s mind wasn't chilled by the remnants of the fog. “Why did you come for me?”

Even without looking at him, Martin sees Jon’s forehead ripple. A while passes as Jon searches his face and the thought that he shouldn’t have asked starts creeping up to Martin’s head. Shouldn’t have brought any attention to the subject, he should just be glad, he should—

“I care about you, Martin,” Jon says in a very gentle and quiet voice, like he’s afraid anything louder would take away the meaning of his words. Martin looks up at Jon and the hint of that intense blush from before makes it back to his face. “You’re… You matter to me. You will always matter to me.”

Martin can’t stop a small smile appearing on his face and Jon mirrors it.

“Thank you,” Martin whispers, feeling a warmth settle in his chest, finally driving the cold away.

“Anytime.” Jon lays his head back down and settles back with the right hand near his face. “Sleep well, Martin.”

Martin closes his eyes contentedly and he curls up on his right side, facing Jon, as if trying to keep this warm feeling from escaping his chest too soon.

“You too, Jon.”

---

Martin wakes up alone in an unfamiliar bed, the smell of foreign covers filling his nostrils and for a second he panics. He opens his eyes and the memories come back to him; their late arrival at the safehouse and laying down to sleep next to Jon.

He sits up, looking at the space Jon had occupied. It’s vacant now, just the curled up covers he left behind, but it manages to bring a blush to Martin’s cheeks, nonetheless. It feels so… intimate to know that they slept next to each other. It makes him feel warm and cosy.

Martin gets up and goes to the bathroom before he finds Jon in the kitchen. He’s humming quietly as he finishes cleaning the table and he looks up when Martin enters.

“Good morning, Martin.” He smiles and Martin’s afraid he’s going to melt. He takes a quick look around and notices that their sparse kitchen supplies are mostly unpacked, and the kettle is already on the stove.

“How long have you been awake?” He asks; some of the shock must have made it to his voice because Jon looks amused.

“Two hours or so. I’ve always been a morning person.” He shrugs and finishes cleaning the table. “Tea?”

A smile lights up Martin’s face and he gets swept up by the familiarity of the activity, while Jon busies himself with fixing up some breakfast. As both of them work in the kitchen, Martin notices the casual brushes of their skin and touches of the shoulders. He doesn’t know if he’s doing it consciously or if it just happens naturally, but he knows that Jon’s open demeanour is drawing him closer than before. He wonders if he’s been like this ever since he woke up from the coma, and there was just no one to appreciate it.

The morning is relaxed, the casual conversation flowing a lot smoother than the day before, and after breakfast they set out to clean the whole cottage and go down to the village to buy some actual supplies. The village is small, but the local shop provides all the essentials they need; for a moment Martin forgets about everything outside of that village and shopping for groceries with Jon, as if this is their life now, in the Scottish Highlands, living together in a cottage. They talk about cooking dinner, and the cows they passed on the way, and Martin thinks he could get used to that.

The bubble bursts when they finish up and Jon decides to call Basira. She picks up after a while and updates them on the absence of both Jonah Magnus and Daisy. Basira says she’ll send some statements up to them when the Institute stops being an active crime scene, and a shadow passes over Jon’s face. Wrapped up in a conversation about their taste in dinner dishes, it was almost too easy for Martin to forget food isn’t the only sustenance Jon needs. He finds it easier to forget things ever since the Lonely. They walk back to their cottage in silence, Martin grabbing Jon’s hand as soon as he lets go of the phone.

When they get back, Jon declares he’s going to take care of unpacking and cooking, and even though Martin knows Jon to be stupidly stubborn, he’s surprised by the strictness with which Jon insists he sit back and relax. Martin doesn’t really complain; he’s spent his entire life caring for others and, to be honest, it does feel rather good to be on the receiving end for once. He watches Jon from the couch for a while, before he takes out his notebook and looks over the poem he wrote in the car.

Wisps of mist conceal my eyes

A lone indulgence to lose one's face

And soothing a part inside that cries

With chilling sadness and numbing grace

The steadfast rhythm of waves ashore

As ocean breeze leaves a taste of salt

The words forgotten, erase what I swore

Until I hear your voice once more

I wondered many times what it might be

That we finally took to calling "us"

What would be left if we broke free

Of dread and horror's eternal grasp

The Eye looms aloft, ever-present dread

Watching all, eternal lids apart

You made your choice unaware you were led

By strings of web, against your heart

Jon starts humming under his nose in the kitchen as he cuts something on the board; the water in the kettle boils slowly and fills the air with a quiet whistle. Martin smiles while shooting a subtle glance at Jon; he seems to notice his gaze and falls quiet, but a smile lights up his face when he sees the fondness on Martin’s face. For all this talk about Jon “losing himself” in the role of the Archivist, this seems as human as you can get. Martin never favoured the approach the other archival staff took to the knowledge of the significance of Jon’s position, and he often wondered how they could look at him and see a monster. Of course he made bad decisions, but so did everyone. They’ve seen or read about so many avatars giving into the powers that fed them and yes, maybe Martin is biased, but Jon was nothing like them. They’ve all been caught in this huge web of statements that turned real; the more they struggled to break free the more tangled up they became, and it wasn’t Jon’s fault that he ended up in the centre of it. He knows Jon tried to make right choices every step of the way. Can you really blame a human being for failing to completely resist something that’s beyond mortality and human reality? One way or another they ended up here, together, and yes, maybe the Eye and the Lonely are still looming as very tangible threats, and Jonah Magnus is nowhere near being stopped, but at least they’re together now. Martin remembers thinking the Unknowing was the endgame, the last chapter of this horror for them, and he remembers the hopelessness of their story getting a bad ending that essentially pushed him into the Lonely; now he feels a different kind of an end approaching – he dares to be hopeful. Maybe everything works out in the end? Maybe, if they were safe and happy, it wouldn’t actually be the end of the world.

Martin looks down at his notebook and starts writing, sticking the tip of his tongue out in concentration.

What is a monster? Where is the line

That would separate us from the world

All I know is our paths align

And we together can battle the cold

You cut through the curtains of mist and See

The green glow fades when our eyes meet

My lips form a soft and quiet plea

To be loved has never felt so sweet

To be loved is a new feeling for me

I only know how to love from one side

But with you I hope we can once be free

Maybe ignore the whims of the tide

Although I know we're not nearly through

I taste and savour your voice, your breath

If only for a moment, we can start anew

And I will follow you even to death

As he stares at the last word of the finished poem, his hand with the pen hovering over it, he registers that his eyes have watered a bit. He blinks the tears away quickly as Jon sits down on the couch next to him, looking at him with a gentle worry. Martin looks up at the two mugs of tea he’d placed on the table.

“Did you make tea?” He asks with mock bewilderment, and Jon scoffs at him.

“I know how to make tea, Martin.” He nudges him with amusement, that gentle worry not quite gone from his eyes. “What are you writing about?”

Martin falls quiet, pressing the notebook to his chest in a knee-jerk reaction.

“Thought you didn’t like poetry,” he huffs out a laugh that’s only a little bit self-conscious. Jon shrugs, reaching out for his mug and taking a sip.

“I don’t understand it. And yes, I have been known to dislike it at times, but… Maybe I could be swayed to give it another shot.” Jon rolls his eyes fondly and looks at Martin out of the corner of his eye, a look that says ‘for you’. Martin grins, heat pricking at his cheeks once again.

“You see, i-it’s all about emotion.” He places the notebook gently on his lap face down and reaches for his own mug. “You w-want to put all of your emotions into words in a-an artistic way, that has a rhythm and, uh, and feels alive. And you want your, uh, your readers to feel that, that emotion through your words.”

Jon listens attentively and his eyes aren’t leaving Martin’s face; at one point Martin gets distracted by it and forgets where his explanation was going. Jon’s gaze has always been intense, in different ways throughout the time they’ve known each other. At first it was judgemental, the gaze of his boss, full of unmet expectations; then it was piercing, watchful and suspicious; as time passed, it seemed to gain more and more weight of the Beholding, something Tim always complained about. After Martin had joined Peter Lukas, the rare glances he got from Jon were full of yearning that Martin didn’t understand at the time; didn’t want to understand. Now, it’s that gentle fondness, interweaved with something intangibly sad and Martin feels an urge to hug him, to bring him close to his chest and never let go; to bury his face in Jon’s hair and protect him.

They move to place their mugs at the table at the same time and snort, amusement quickly turning into a fit of laughter. Jon throws his head back a little with it and Martin wonders if he has ever seen him laugh so openly before. He didn’t think it was possible for him to fall in love with the man even more, but once again, his heart proves him wrong. He stares at him with a lovestruck expression and thinks they should really talk about it. Martin doesn’t know where to start though and Jon seems to be thinking in a similar direction because his expression shifts into gentle seriousness.

“Martin, I…” He starts and bites his lip. “I need to apologize.”

Martin straightens a little; it’s not exactly what he expects.

“I—The way I used to treat you…” Pain and guilt flash through Jon’s face as he looks away for a moment to gather his thoughts. “It was not okay. None of it was okay. And I’m—I’m really sorry for that. It doesn’t—I know it doesn’t change anything that happened, but I” —he sighs. “I really am sorry. I hope I can, somehow, uh… somehow make it up to you.”

Martin reaches for Jon’s hand, and he looks down in surprise; Martin sees his eyes start glistening.

“I’m sorry for everything that happened to you.” He continues in a whisper and his eyes are locked on their touching hands. “I’m so sorry about the Lonely. I’m sorry that you’re trapped in all of this with me, and I would understand if you decided to leave—”

“Jon.” Martin squeezes his hand and Jon’s eyes shoot up to look at him.

“I’m sorry, that’s not an apology,” he sighs again. “I just… I’m sorry, Martin. About everything.” His other hand grips Martin’s. “I’m glad you are still here. I’m—I’m so glad, you d-don’t even know,” he laughs.

“I think I do.” Martin smiles gently. “Thank you for saying that. I’ve—I've forgiven you for a lot of it a long time ago. A-And the rest just isn’t your fault.”

Jon frowns.

“The Lonely was always there,” Martin shrugs. “Peter Lukas was just… a catalyst, I think. But now I have you.” His finger grazes the outside of Jon’s palm and his heart flutters in his chest when he sees that small smile appear on Jon’s face. “And you can’t be blamed for Elia—Jonah’s games. We’re all just… a bunch of people who didn’t know what was going on until it was too late.”

Jon’s eyes fall as he nods slightly.

“He’s still up to something,” he says quietly.

“Figures,” Martin laughs bitterly. “But we’re here now. And frankly, I don’t really want to think about him when we’re finally…” The word ‘together’ gets stuck in his throat, as if it would breach this fine line of ambiguity they’ve drawn between themselves. Jon seems to fill it in and his eyes land back on Martin.

He’s never wanted to kiss him more than he does right now. Jon's eyes are wide and glistening with something that looks suspiciously like hope, and his fingers gently graze the outside of Martin's palm. Warmth spreads in his chest and his eyes flutter a little, not breaking the eye contact. He wants to pull Jon close to his chest, to run his fingers through his hair and feel his breath on his own skin. To really feel like he's there, next to him, with him.

Before he can follow through with any of that, something sizzles in the kitchen, loud in the silence, startling them both.

“Food!” Jon chuckles slightly before he jumps to his feet and rushes to the kitchen, while Martin snorts and follows him. Jon stirs the pan with curry and sighs with relief when he sees it's not burned. He turns down the heat anyway and checks on the rice.

“Jon, this smells amazing,” Martin says, peeking into the pan with cheese and spinach. “I didn't know you could cook.”

“Well, contrary to the popular belief I was a functional human being. For a while,” Jon snorts and leans against the counter to look back at Martin. “It's Palak Paneer, my grandma taught me when I was a child.”

“It looks fantastic,” Martin grins, and Jon rolls his eyes in mock exasperation.

Even though the moment's lost, the remains of the feeling can be felt between them as they prepare the plates and take the food to the table. They easily fall back into usual chatter and, as soon as they’re finished, Martin jumps to wash the dishes. Jon relents after extensive affirmations from Martin that he's alright and he can definitely take care of a couple dishes in the sink, and he drops onto the couch with a content sigh instead.

Martin finishes up with the dishes and dries his hands on a towel.

“Do you want some tea?” He asks and hangs the towel back on the rack. When there's no response, he turns to the couch. “Jon?”

Something sinks in his stomach when he sees that the object that consumes Jon’s attention is the poem he’s finished; he scratches his neck, as his cheeks take on a pink tinge. “Oh…”

He walks up to the couch, unsure, trying to gauge Jon's reaction. His face seems tense, he squeezes the notebook in his hand so hard his knuckles go white, and his eyes are focused at one point on the page.

“Um... Jon?” Martin asks weakly, his heart drumming in his chest so loud he's sure both of them can hear it.

Jon jumps to his feet, startled, and looks up at him with eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights. Martin instinctively raises his hands in a placating gesture, as Jon registers his presence, looks down on the notebook in his hands, and quickly puts it on the table as if it stung him.

“Martin, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to look, it was just there and—”

“Hey, Jon, it’s alright!” It’s maybe a little not alright, since the poem is nothing short of a love confession and a wish Martin had no right to assume would ever be true, so Jon reading it is less than ideal. Martin rushes to gently place a hand on Jon’s shoulder but when he recoils from the touch, Martin withdraws his hand, cursing everything about himself.

“No, I, uh…” Jon runs his hand through his hair, eyes darting between Martin, his hand, and the notebook frantically. “I shouldn’t have— uh, it’s—it’s your private business, what you write about, so—”

Martin is sure he’s tomato red on the face by this point and hopes against hope that the afternoon light filtering through the curtains obscures it just a little. Jon, on the other hand, doesn’t have the embarrassed blush that usually darkens his cheeks; instead he breathes fast, his hands shaking ever so slightly. Martin sees him hunch just a little, making himself smaller.

“Um, yeah, I, uh—” He starts fidgeting with his fingers. Did the idea of—of love frighten Jon so much? He was stupid to leave it out in the open and now Jon knows, and it’s not how he feels, so he hates him… “I’m sorry.”

Jon’s eyes snap to him, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“For what?”

Martin huffs out something like a pained laugh.

“Th-That’s not exactly how- how I wanted to tell you.” He wrings out his hands and shoots Jon a pleading look. What’s done is done and the only thing he can hope for is for Jon to let him down easy and never speak of this again.

“Tell me?” Jon looks down at the notebook again and there’s the worry again, stark on his face. He breathes out, slowly, and looks at the floor. “I don’t—I don’t even want to think this is a possibility…”

Martin doesn’t need to imagine what it would be like to be stabbed, if he wanted to - he’s pretty sure the acute pain of his heart shattering in his chest is close enough. His mind tries to catch up to the emotions, slow them down just a bit, because something seems off, and isn’t this a weird way to reject someone you must have known had a crush on you? But his throat tightens with the swell of pain and shame and Martin blinks away the tears welling up in his eyes.

Jon sighs and plops down on the couch, hiding his face in his hands and pushing his glasses up to his forehead.

“We d-don’t have to talk about it, if—if you don’t want to,” Martin says quietly. He sits down next to Jon, careful not to touch him in any way, and puts his hands between his knees.

Jon lets out a bitter laugh.

“Isn’t that what they—the Web would want? Just… mindlessly follow, go with the flow until something… irreversibly bad happens?”

Martin turns to Jon with a frown.

“Wh—What?”

Jon looks at him with something glistening in his eyes and Martin can see the lines of pain and misery written on his face like they belong there.

“The web,” he says faintly. “Strings of fate. I—” He lets out a breath. “Was I just being manipulated this whole time? Was I ever really—Did I ever have a choice?”

“Jon... what are you talking about?”

“You—You said I was...” He reaches for the notebook and points at a verse with his finger. “’Made your choice unaware you were led by strings of web against your heart.’ How—W-Why did you say this?”

Martin stares into Jon's green eyes with concern, yet parts of his heart start to weave themselves back together. However confused and worried Jon seems to be, none of it is directed at Martin; he looks at him with desperation, almost pleading, and he realizes they’ve been having two different conversations at the same time.

“Oh-Oh, God, Jon, I-I didn't mean—I just, it's a-a metaphor, just that, you know,” he takes a breath. “It does remind me of a web, the-the way we got caught up in Elias' plans.” He looks down, his cheeks burning as he remembers why Jon would get caught at this specific phrase. “I'm sorry for, uh, using that, it was just the first thing that came to my mind and—”

Jon exhales next to him and Martin risks a look up. The uneasiness isn't gone from his face but he relaxes just a little bit, enough to stabilize his breathing.

“I'm sorry for this… this whole thing, Martin.” He gestures at nothing in particular and it's his turn to look at the floor, as if it's all of a sudden the most interesting thing he's ever seen. He starts fidgeting with the notebook. “I'm just—What if it’s true?” His voice goes higher at the question and he closes his eyes. Martin squeezes his arm. “What if I am just... Just a puppet? An inhuman, helpless puppet in the hands of—Of some spider pulling the strings?”

A tear rolls down Jon's cheek and Martin grabs one of his hands. It’s small and still shakes a little; he tries to put all the protectiveness he feels into this small gesture. Jon doesn’t recoil this time, instead taking a moment to watch Martin’s hand clasp around his.

“Jon,” Martin starts softly. “You're still you. You're not some—Some spider puppet that can't make choices.”

“But what if—”

“You've made a choice to go into the Lonely for me.” Martin bumps their knees together lightly and Jon looks up at him. “I don't suspect any webs would need me alive to push you into it. It was You.”

Jon looks him in the eyes and Martin barely stops himself from reaching up to his face to wipe away his tears.

“Or it just makes us think that we have a choice but are ultimately helpless against fate and everything we do is determined by intricately crafted circumstances,” Jon whispers. “Maybe free will is a lie.”

Martin blinks.

“Jon...”

“Maybe I was never able to stop it. Any of it.” Jon’s voice grows more horrified and even though his eyes are directed at Martin's face, he seems to be looking somewhere past him. “Maybe nothing we try to do really matters.”

“Jon.” Martin’s voice gains a bit of force, even though he feels all but sure. “What do you see?”

Jon frowns. “What?”

“Look at me and tell me what you see?” The force is gone; the sentence sounds more like a feeble suggestion than a request, but Jon's eyes refocus on Martin's in a frown of confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“We're here now,” Martin says quietly. “And yeah, maybe our decisions are all predetermined or whatever. I still think it matters that we try. I think our experience matters. And you're not a-a monster without free will, Jon. You care about people, and you’ve sacrificed a lot for other people. You've made your own choices and, no matter if they were good or bad, they were still yours. And I think that matters.”

Jon blinks at him for a moment, then his shoulders slump with a sigh and he interlaces their fingers. Martin doesn’t miss it and he feels warmth in his chest.

“I've always been afraid of—of my will not being my own anymore,” he confesses quietly. “Of, uh... of not knowing the difference.”

“I get it,” Martin nods. “If it’s any consolation, I see a lot of Jon in you still.” Jon looks up at him with surprise and Martin gives him a half smile. “I see a very changed Jon but it's still Jon.” He strokes Jon's palm as his heart picks up the pace. “The same Jon I've first fallen in love with.”

Jon exhales softly, his face caught in a soft surprise, and Martin smiles around the dull ache in his chest.

“You don't have to say anything. I'm sure you've known for a while, but I just... I wanted to say it.”

With every second that passes in silence, however, Martin's cheeks grow hotter, and he concludes that this might have been a mistake.

“I-I'm sorry. M-Maybe I shouldn't have said that, I… I don't want things to get weird or anything, so, uh, we can, we can just forget—”

“Martin.” Jon says his name in a soft and kind of inquisitive way that makes his heart bounce around and transforms the ache in his chest into swirling butterflies again. Martin looks up and Jon’s head is tilted to the side, his face still wet with tears, but he notices something hopeful glitter in his eyes. “I love you too.”

Martin frowns, suddenly wondering if he isn't dreaming. Is Jon really saying what he thinks he is? Did he hear correctly? Maybe he misheard—

“I have for a while,” Jon's voice is still quiet and soft. “I didn't want to say anything because I thought it was too early after the Lonely and you might not feel this way anymore, but...”

Martin swallows, acutely aware of how loud his heartbeat is. He squeezes Jon’s hand and smiles slightly.

“I... I didn't know,” he whispers, not trusting his voice to cooperate.

“As soon as I woke up from the coma, I wanted to tell you,” Jon says. “I thought I was too late; that it took me too long to stop denying the feelings I had because I didn’t know how to deal with them, and I'd missed my chance.” He laughs bitterly.

“So that’s what it was about,” Martin whispers, as Jon's actions towards him throughout his time as Peter Lukas’ assistant start falling into place. Jon looks at him with a frown, so he adds, “The ‘let's gouge out our eyes and escape'.”

Jon scrunches up his nose and clears his throat.

“Yes, well. Yeah.”

Martin chuckles quietly.

“I don't think I would have lasted in the Lonely if I understood then. But then again. It didn't really matter in the end. It didn't help.”

“But it was your choice,” Jon echoes Martin's words from before and their eyes meet again.

“Yeah. It was my choice.”

They stare into each other's eyes for a moment, losing track of time, before Jon smiles slightly and looks back at the notebook.

“I really am sorry for not asking your permission, though,” he says. “I got so caught up in the metaphor I didn’t even finish it.”

Martin blinks, the warmth from his chest spreading to his cheeks again.

“D-Do you want to?”

Jon smiles softly, this new smile that Martin has only seen in the past couple of days, always directed at him.

“If you’d let me.”

Martin needs to look away, unable to handle the affection in Jon’s eyes. He mumbles an ‘okay’ with a smile that’s not entirely under his control and gets up.

“But I am making that tea whether you want it or not, waiting for someone to finish reading something is a torture.”

He hears Jon laugh as he heads back to the kitchen.

When he comes back with two steaming mugs, Jon is waiting for him with a smile and his nervousness dissipates with his next words.

“I like it,” Jon says. “Apart from the, uh, web metaphor, obviously. It's hopeful.”

“Y-You do?”

Martin swallows; the pleasant tingling in his stomach is back. He places their mugs on the table and reaches out to join their hands again. Jon intertwines their fingers immediately and caresses the outside of Martin’s palm with his thumb.

Jon looks down at the verses again and smiles softly, almost sheepishly, a familiar blush darkening his cheeks.

“I—I don't know if there would be anything for us outside of. You know. The fears and all that,” he grimaces. “At least, for me. But, uh…” He looks at Martin again with a hopeful expression that makes Martin melt a little, and he gently caresses Martin's cheek with his free hand. “I really like the thought of it.”

Martin's brain might be short-circuiting at this moment and all of his thoughts take form of fuzzy static.

“Me too,” he says, suddenly breathless. Jon's hand rests cupping his cheek and, are they a bit closer than they were a second ago? Jon's gaze slides down Martin's face to his lips and he feels he might faint right there and then. He doesn't, instead gathering up his courage to take a breath.

“Can I kiss you?” Jon asks first and Martin feels his lips form a grin.

“Please,” he breathes out; the next second their lips meet, soft but urgent, desperate and sick of waiting. Martin's hand dives into Jon's soft hair, fingers scraping the delicate skin of his head and earning him a low sound from Jon's throat. They pull each other closer and find a rhythm to lose themselves in for just a moment; the sensation of Jon's tongue swirling in his mouth, of his slender fingers on his cheek and his neck, the pressure of his body against his chest; all of it making Martin dizzy with happiness.

Martin pulls away when his lungs painfully remind him breathing is still a necessity and he opens his eyes to look at Jon – His soft lips, his nose, his pockmark scars, and his eyes, green yet with no trace of Beholding in them. He takes him in whole, with all of his flaws and all of his virtues, and he feels seen in return, seen by the man he loves and who loves him. The weight of it all hits Martin like a crashing wave and he pulls Jon in for a tight embrace.

“I love you,” he whispers against his shoulder, and he feels Jon's arms tightening around his torso.

“I love you too, Martin.”

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Speech Writers

( Don’t forget to come see my on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord ) The politics of the universe hold just as much sway as the governing laws of nature themselves in the distant future. With the passage of a few laws empires rise and crumble in the ever changing cosmos like the changing of the tides with the Draconian Empire as a prime example.

Spanning 17 star clusters and ruling over nearly 83 different worlds they were considered the prime super power of the galaxy at the time. Their fleets numbered in the thousands and their armies the millions of professional soldiers ever ready to take up the banner of conquest.

Most neighboring civilizations had either been wiped out from fruitless attempts at military defiance against Draconian expansion or had negotiated unfavorable deals to secure their independence with the empire.

Such was the scale of the military that equally as large was the governing body that oversaw the day to day functions. Legions of clerks and data archivists researched and gathered data for additional armies of legislators, governors, senators, and high council members and even the royal family themselves as a sea of information and statistics flowed daily over the span of light years.

To be a member of such a labyrinth of government was to be a one of many; a cog in a machine whose purpose is so far reaching that one risks being buried into the depths of obscurity.

And such we find regional overseer V'tet Darorn of Sector 12.

Unlike many of the Draconian species, he was not considered normal by many measures. While other of his species were thick with muscle and scales of such redness they made blood look pale, his frame was slender and his scales appearing as a rust red. Where other's wings on their back were full and strong, easily able to carry them high into the sky, his wings had developed a genetic deformity that made them extremely painful to fully open and thus remained closed.

V'tet had obtained a seat on the overseer council for sector 12 of the empire more through family connections and contributions to the empire then by initial skill. That was to say he was not dedicated and hard working, but in the grand mechanisms of the governing powers of the Draconian Empire new comers rarely gained more higher postings. This frustrated V'tet as he had developed new ideas that would push the power of the Draconian Empire to even greater heights, and yet was never able to sway his fellow council members to vote with him leaving him in a state of limbo.

That was until fate saw fit to intervene and introduce V'tet to one of the strangest people he had ever known.

Her name, was Rayah Amari. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The council chamber was a vaulted circular room of black stone and a vaulted ceiling made entirely of stained glass. Each piece of glass was from a different world under the domain of the Draconian Empire with the piece in the middle being made from the very planet beneath their feet.

At the center of the room was a descending pyramid built into the floor with levels of chairs and desks for each of the some several hundred council members to sit. At the very bottom stood a pillar known as the "Speaking Stone" which any council member must mount to earn the right to address the council. Not only was it symbolic, it also weeded out the weak as whomever mounted the stone would be gazing upwards at all of his fellow members and feel the weight of their gazes baring down on their every word.

Though any council member could mount the stone to speak, not many could handle such a matter save for several of the most senior members whose years of experience had numbed them. Indeed, some of the newer council members would go so far as to attempt to bribe senior members to mount the stone for them to push forward their motions with promises of wealth and political support.

It had been rare for a new council member to last long atop the stone and so it was quite the surprise when young V'tet began his descent from the stony steps towards the speaking stone.

As he passed by others he would nod a greeting or shake a hand but his descent was never stopped until he reach the bottom level.

Obrik and Htvala stood before him and blocked his path to the stone. Together they were the most senior members of the council and their respect was such that they had warranted seats beside the speaking stone itself.

"Come to propose your new plans once more?" Obrik's voice was a low grumble, like that of thunder rolling over the distant hills.

"You should let us speak in your stead." Htvala's voice was of a higher pitch which made him sound far younger than he actually was.

V'tet smiled. "Thank you, but I shall be fine."

He moved to get around them but Obrik stood in his way once more.

"Think carefully young runt." His tone dripping with smug superiority. "You wouldn't want to make your proposal and choke at the last moment."

Htvala snickered. "You never were one for words; it's not too late to make us an offering."

"You are both most generous, but I shall be fine." V'tet side stepped once more and approached the speaking stone.

"I've recently hired someone to take care of my short comings." he said as he slowly clambered up the stone. As he climbed the stone the murmur of conversation surrounding him slowly died away until finally he stood atop the stone and saw every council members eyes fixed on him.

He stared up at as many councilors he could as he slowly turned on the spot taking the grandeur in before stopping to read some of his notes on a scribbled piece of paper, to which Htvala and Obrik chuckled.

As if ready, V'tet set his notes and papers down and clasped his hands behind his back.  

"When I was a child," V'tet began, " I considered taking my own life."

Whatever the councilors had been expecting this was certainly not it and a rush of gasps filled the chamber.

"Doctors had told my parents that my disease would only grow worse with age and eventually I would never be able to spread my wings again."

He began slowly pacing atop the stone while the eyes of every councilor were glued to him.

"Can you imagine it?" He asked, stopping in place and spreading his hands out to his colleagues. "To be blessed with the gift of flight only for it to be taken from you; to never feel the rush of air beneath you nor the softness of clouds against your scales ever again?"

Several of the councilors reached for their own wings while some flexed them instinctively.

"So when I learned that one day this would be taken from me I went to the tallest cliff I could find and planned to leap from it." V'tet stood at the edge of the speaking stone as if reenacting it, the tips of his feet hanging off the edge. "I planned to feel the rush of wind one last time before I faded away to join the eternal glide of our ancestors."

"I leaned forward over the edge," he spoke as he too began leaning over, " and just as I was about to plunge into the void once again my father came from behind and pulled me back." He spun in place and took several steps back to the center of the stone.

"He looked at me and said "What madness has taken hold of you?" to which I replied that I knew what would become of me,  that I knew what the disease would take from me."

He stopped and put his hand to his head and pinched his brow and he appeared as if holding back emotions. After several seconds passed in silence V'tet spoke again.

"My father knelt beside me and put his hand on my shoulder and said "My son, just as the clouds are ever changing so too must we; for to remain stagnant as a mountain is not our way."

"He took hold of me in his arms and to my surprise leapt with me over the edge I had nearly fell from mere moments before." V'tet was circling the stone now, his arms wide in motion as if gliding through the air as he captivated the council. Obrik and Htvala looked on and scoffed at the seemingly childish antics unbecoming of a councilor.

"As he carried me in his arms as we flew home he spoke to me words I have carved into my heart. He said "Every problem we face will always have a solution, even if it was one we had never considered.""

V'tet stopped and spread his arms once more to the chamber.

"I tell you this story as now our great sector faces problems that even now seem impossible." V'tet's gaze wandered over the councilors as he spoke. "Our citizens earn less and less with each passing cycle while prices soar ever higher making their goals ever farther from their reach; but do not despair!"

V'tet's voice rose and he smashed his clenched fist into his chest. "For as my father taught me and as each of you know in your hearts there is no problem that we Draconian can not over come!"

A chorus of approval cam from a few of the councilors and some even clapped.

"When the Yupori war machine invaded did we cower behind our walls?"

"No." was cried out by several councilors who had served during the Yupori Crisis Wars.

"When our very sun spat ever growing deadly belts of radiation, did we flee from this sector with our tail between our legs?"

"No!" came a chorus of councilors who served the trade commission that had made countless negotiations with numerous other political bodies to import a rare element so powerful it stabilized their sun in a matter of weeks, saving billions from lethal radiation.

"And when our very own surrounding sectors sought to steal our glory and present them to the emperor himself, did we allow such a travesty of justice to unfold?"

"NO!" was the reply of some hundred councilors who served as the old guard who had stopped a plot from sectors 11 and 13 to mislead quota reports to make them appear more beneficial to the empire when in reality sector 12 had out performed both sectors combined.

"NO!" V'tet shouted. "When impossible tasks have been set before us we Draconian haven risen to meet each and every one of them; and we have emerged victorious in each and every one!"

The councilors were now cheering as they became swept up in their achievements, V'tet's words filling them and swelling them to the brim with pride.

V'tet was in full motion now, as if he was a hurricane made manifest that sought to sweep every councilor present up in his gale. "This challenge of wealth is not some monumental undertaking, nor is it some impossible task, not even is it something we should hide and fear from the very discussion of!" V'tet was staring directly at Obrik when he said this as Obrik had been the one in the passed who had pushed for delaying talks of economic reform in favor of the current system.

"No my fellow councilors, my conquers of the impossible, my defiers  of the very fates themselves!" V'tet turned back and faced the massed audience. "This is but another marker for the very foundation of our greatness!"

The cheers were much louder now and several dozen councilors now were standing and clapping their hands while Obrik and Htvala's eyes narrowed at V'tet.

"For as my father told me I now tell you all!" V'tet stopped his speech and appeared to be in pain. The cheers and applause died down as the councilors wondered if something was wrong when they noticed V'tet's wings twitching.

Slowly and with painful bellows V'tet cried out as his wings shakingly stretched out. The creaking and breaking of muscles and bones reverberating up through the chamber until even the lowest members could hear the pain.

Finally, through gasping breaths shaking hands, V'tet stood proudly at the center of the speaking stone with his wings fully outstretched.

"Nothing is impossible for the Draconian!" V'tet roared and the chamber erupted in jubilation as nearly every councilor stood to their feet and cheered the young councilor.

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

"I heard you put on quite the performance."

V'tet looked up from his files and smiled.

"Given by these messages of support I would say so."

V'tet had returned to his office some hours later after the council finished for the day. After his speech the days discussions had been shifted to tackling the economic problems facing the sector with almost laughable ease.

His companion had been waiting for him in his office and it was her he now enjoyed the quite evening with. She sat comfortably across from his desk swirling a caramel liquid in a crystal goblet.

"I could almost hear the applause from here." Rayah Amari said as she smirked and took a sip of her drink.

V'tet set down his data pad and stood up from his own chair to face the window behind him.  The view overlooking much of the city from the council chambers to the slums of the grit district.

"I still find it hard to believe that your speech worked."

"Don't sell yourself short." Rayah quipped, finishing her drink before pouring another. "You did well reading it and going through the motions."

V'tet shook his head and looked at her. "I have given speeches before, yet none of them have ever been as impactful until I hired you to write them."

"I am but a humble word smith." She raised a glass to him and relaxed back into her chair.

"Now who is selling themselves short?" V'tet said as he sat back down and poured himself a glass.

"I've read your previous speeches; they were decent enough but they failed to sell capture you audience."

"How do you mean?" V'tet looked puzzled at her remark. " I laid out the facts clearly for all to understand."

"But it lacked spectacle and flare."

V'tet must have still appeared confused because Rayah leaned forward and pointed her glass to him.

"Arguments made with reason are good, but there is a time and place for them." she said. "You were making your case before you even got in the door, and no one wants to listen to the ravings of a man on the street."

"Then how did your building get me inside?" V'tet asked.

"By blinding them with emotion."

"Emotion?"

Rayah grinned. "When people feel emotions while listening to something they immediately become more invested in it, regardless of what it is." She put down her glass and cracked the sore muscles in her neck.

"My speech opened with something known to every Draconian, your wings." She motioned to his which had folded back tightly behind his back. "Every Draconian has them and uses them and deep down fear what would happen if they couldn't use them."

V'tet nodded at this, as not a day had gone by that he did not think of his wings.

"You lure them in with a tale of sadness, but you end it with a high not; a moment of inspiration that things will be better."

"Is this important?" V'tet asked, to which Rayah nodded. "Despite what some people think the majority of the population likes a happy ending."

"Next we stoked the pride of the people you would most need the support of." She held up a single finger.

"Mentioning military pride ensures you will have support from a few of their members as they enjoy being seen as proud defenders of their people, regardless of the problem they face."

She held up a second finger. "The merchants and money lenders who are often overlooked now have been moved front and center as their support will be helping the people, which will in turn boost their image and importance thus giving them a stake in your venture."

She held up a third hand. "The old guard who would most likely be opposed to change. By mentioning the previous clashes with neighboring sectors we've shifted their focus to what is best for the empire; something they are more likely to support given their national pride."

V'tet nodded as he followed along. "So by making each of these parties feel something, and giving them a reason they could benefit from it; the speech ensnared them?"

"I wouldn't say that," Rayah said as she finished her drink and set the glass down, "but it got them interested enough that their own imaginations will begin painting pretty pictures of what could be if this succeeded and they were the ones who most contributed."

Hearing this strategy V'tet was not ashamed to say he was impressed beyond measure that a single speech could have such depth of underlining themes and sentiments.

"Hiring you was one of my best decisions yet it seems." he spoke as he smiled to her.

Rayah shrugged. "I've had of practice with using emotions back home. You'd be surprised how often I could get people to vote against their own interests."

"Then I look forward to a long and mutually profitable cooperation." V'tet said as he raised his glass to her.

"As do I councilor." Rayah said with a devilish smile crossing her face. "As do I."

[red-archivist]

“What... is this?”

“Never seen a pine tree before, boss?”

Jon’s mild frown morphed into a fierce glower as he turned from the waist-high decoration to Tim.

“You know what I mean.”

~~

Two Contrasting Christmases in the Archives; snapshots of season 1 and 2

[voiceless-terror]

(if you feel like it) what about “snowed in” or “comfort” with jontim for the tma december bingo? my jontim brainrot never stops and I’d love to see what you come up with (I’m sure it’d be amazing as always) thanks so much !

The JonTim brainrot is real and appreciated! I combined this prompt with one of @balanced-to-a-tea‘s, who asked for Secret Santa with the season one archives gang! Here there be 3.5k words of gifts, pining, and kisses of the Jon/Tim variety :)

“It’s a mess out there,” Tim reported, plopping down in his office chair and looking strangely cheerful, given the situation. “Looks like we’re stuck here for the time being.”

There were audible groans all around, though Jon’s was quieter than the others. If he were being honest, their current situation was his fault- he asked them to hang back at the end of the day and help him with some unreachable boxes (unreachable for him, that is). He was trying to get into the habit of checking the weather in the mornings, though he never managed to actually do it until he was too far from his flat to get an umbrella or a heavier coat. This resulted in a few sticky situations, including several occasions of arriving late, looking like a drowned rat. 

“And here I was going to tuck in for the night, have a glass of wine, blast the heat at unreasonable levels,” Sasha complained, doing a half-hearted twirl in her chair. “Terrible!”

“What if we lose power?” Martin fretted, still outfitted in his coat and scarf. “I heard there’s going to be high winds. High winds!” Jon’s guilt increased. Being stuck with his (likely angry) staff in the Archives was not a great start to his career as Head Archivist. And just when we were getting along again…

“I’m sorry,” he began, his hands fidgeting. “I shouldn’t have started this project so late, I didn’t realize the weather would get quite as nasty as it did…”

“Don’t worry about it, boss!” Tim grinned, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on his desk, an act Jon would usually scowl at him for. “Should’ve told you ‘bout the storm. You never check the weather reports.” Jon flushed; Tim knew him too well. “Besides, I can’t say I was expecting it to get this bad; London’s not known for its prodigious snowfall.”

“You don’t seem too put-out by it.” Martin eyed Tim suspiciously as he began to unwind his scarf. “You’re smiling.”

“Well, yeah!” Tim swirled around, eyeing them all with an unfettered glee. Jon wondered what he had in mind; there was never a dull moment when Tim had free time. He’d learned that the hard way. “There’s something so romantic about being snowed-in, don’t you agree, Jon?”

Jon did not agree; being trapped, even in a big building like the Institute, left him feeling anxious and restless. Sasha agreed, if her rolled eyes were anything to go by. Martin seemed to be considering it, though.

“I suppose there’s something poetic about it?” he mused, leaning back against the wall. “The snow falling, blanketing the ground in white…” All eyes turned to him and he blushed under the scrutiny.

“See! Martin’s got the spirit.” Tim clapped his hands and got to his feet. “We’ve got leftovers from lunch in the fridge. Between that and Martin’s stash of tea biscuits, we won’t go hungry. And there’s that weird frozen lasagna in the back of the freezer…”

“We don’t have an oven, Tim,” Jon pointed out. “And I’m fairly certain that’s been in there for more than a year.”

Tim continued, impervious to any criticism. “And if we have to stay the night, Jon’s got that cot he thinks we don’t know about-”

“Hey-!”

“-and we can raid all the break rooms for their gross cushions-”

“I am not sleeping here,” Sasha said, punctuating the statement with a slam of a hand on her desk. “The weather report says it's supposed to pass over soon. We’ll only be here for a few hours, tops.”

“Weather reports are wrong all the time, Sash! Think of the fun we could get up to.” Tim smiled and Jon’s heart stuttered without his permission, most likely due to the idea of what Tim considered ‘fun.’ With the way his eyes lit up, however, Jon couldn’t fight a small smile. “Ooh! We could do Secret Santa, like we used to do in Research. Remember?”

Jon did remember. He still kept some of the gifts he’d received, mostly small trinkets from Tim and Sasha that somehow managed to give him a small thrill of happiness whenever he saw them. Still, he didn’t know how they could do such a thing in the Archives, with nothing around that could constitute a gift.

“How’re we supposed to do that?” Martin asked, sharing Jon’s concern. “Statements and office supplies are the only things we have access to.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Tim replied, nudging Martin with his foot. “We’ll get creative! I’m sure with a little thought and effort, we can all find something suitable.” He’d already begun to scribble their names on a piece of paper. “C’mon, it’ll pass the time. Please?” Jon sighed, unable to argue when Tim used his most pathetic puppy-dog eyes. 

“Fine,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes at Tim’s whoop of enthusiasm. “But don’t expect anything extravagant. I’m not feeling particularly creative.”

“I guess it could be a good distraction,” Sasha acquiesced, with Martin nodding tentatively. “How long do we get to find a gift? Or make one, I suppose.”

“An hour? Two? Then we can all meet back here and exchange!” Tim nodded, and without waiting for any agreement he crumpled the pieces of paper into a cup and stood up. “Martin, you first. No peeking!”

“I won’t,” he mumbled, reaching in with one hand with his head turned pointedly away. He pulled out a slip of paper and immediately turned red upon opening it. “Um, alright. Yeah.” Maybe he got Tim, Jon mused. 

Sasha picked next, her face giving nothing away. Tim held the cup out to Jon, waggling his eyebrows. He ignored this, reaching in to pick one of the remaining two slips of paper. Tim!! It read, with several smiley faces and hearts. He felt his own face heating up and shoved the slip into his pocket, staring at the floor.

“And last but certainly not least, me!” Tim took the last slip with a flourish, grinning at what he read. The four of them stared at each other for an awkward beat until Tim broke the silence with a shrill whistle.

“What are you waiting for? Clock’s a tickin’!”

Fuck.

________

It had been an hour and a half. As far as Jon knew, Tim and Sasha were waiting in the break room, steadily demolishing Martin’s stash of sweets, the man himself having locked himself in Document Storage and thereby eliminating one more place for Jon to scavenge for a gift (not that there was anything in there, but it was the principle of the thing). So now here he sat, moping in his office with nary an idea for what to give Tim.

Tim. He was glad they’d started talking again, albeit not with the same frequency as before. There was of course an adjustment period, that was to be expected- especially when someone younger and arguably less qualified than quite a few candidates suddenly became your boss. But Tim had always been there for him, tolerated his quirks, helped him through a breakdown or two. He stuck by his side when most people in the department couldn’t stand him. Perhaps, with some time, they could go back to being as close as they were. Or closer.

Jon tamped that thought down- it was ridiculous to even think about, now that he was his boss. Professional boundaries aside, what would Tim even see in him? It wasn’t his fault Jon read into every wink, every casual word of praise. A hug or a warm arm around his shoulder that he leaned into instead of turning away. Tim did that with everyone, Jon wasn’t special. He wasn’t Sasha, with her beautiful laugh and her razor-sharp wit. Hell, he’d probably pick Martin over him. Someone nicer, with less sharp edges. Someone who laughed as easily as he did.

Someone who wasn’t Jon.

He shook himself from these thoughts, attempting to concentrate on the task at hand. What did he have that Tim could possibly want? Not his rubber band ball, though he knew that Tim was jealous of its now astronomical proportions (he added to it when he was stressed, which he always was these days). Not the stale packet of crisps in the bottom of his drawer. He thought vaguely of getting a book he thought Tim would like from the library, but that was more of a loan. Maybe an article he found interesting? Tim always used to read the ones Jon forwarded him, and even had a thing or two to say at the end of them. But maybe he found them annoying. Maybe he just did that to shut Jon up. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Jon’s thoughts kept straying to the foyer of the institute, where festive decorations had been set up at the start of the month, most likely Rosie’s doing. There was a beautiful handmade wreath, filled with pinecones and red flowers and other seasonal flora. He remembered back in Research, when Tim would terrorize them all with stupid little pranks and games, his main target being Jon. Jon would always duck away, grumble and complain, and Tim didn’t take it personally. Maybe I’ll indulge him just this once.

Mind made up, he slipped out of his office.

________

Tim watched his three friends with undisguised amusement.

Martin was fidgeting in his seat, constantly crinkling the grocery bag he’d decorated to look more seasonal. Tim knew at once that he’d gotten Jon; he wouldn’t have turned that red for anyone else. Poor sod. Tim had Sasha, a gift he wouldn’t sweat over. She appreciated a good gag. He was fairly certain Sasha got Martin, judging by her neutral, unbothered expression.

Or maybe he just hoped she did. Because that would mean that Jon got Tim.

Not that it would mean anything. He was just interested in what Jon would pick out, that’s all. He could be surprisingly thoughtful, if past gifts were anything to go by. He still had the small box of fidget toys on his desk, where they got regular use.

He clapped his hands decisively, attempting to clear his mind of any more Jon-thoughts. “Well, then. As the emcee for this event, I’ll go first. Sasha, may I present to you the Tim Stoker Coupon Bonanza, valued at over one thousand dollars- but for you? Free!”

He revealed it with all the fanfare of a marriage proposal, bending down on one knee to hand over a binder of hastily drawn nonsense that Sasha would surely appreciate. She took it just as delicately, thumbing through the pages with a delightful smirk.

“One free coffee from the place around the corner?” She put a hand to her chest in faux- surprise. “Tim, you shouldn’t have!” Never mind that he already got her coffee every morning.

“I know, I know. I’m too generous, really.”

“One three hour lunch break. Don’t think Jon would like that.”

“He can come along. Marto too!”

“One date to the Jade Buffet, where we will split the check- Tim, the rest of these are more for you than they are-”

“Moving on!” He interrupted. “Sasha, why don’t you show us what you’ve got?” She ignored his  wink, shutting the book with an over-exaggerated sigh. She reached out for a small bag on her desk, which she handed over to Martin. He thanked her quietly, unwrapping a mug- Sasha’s favorite, with a cartoon of a dog that she’d hand-painted (Sharpie’d, would be more accurate) to look like one of those highland cows Martin was always going on about. The entire effect was monstrous, but Martin seemed touched. Tim was happy too, as this meant Jon must have drawn his name.

“Oh that’s- that’s so nice, thank you Sasha!” His smile was infectious, even Jon wasn’t immune to it (though he tried to hide it). 

“It’ll probably come off if you wash it, so I wouldn’t actually use it,” Sasha advised. “But it could make a nice pencil holder.”

“Oh! That’s handy-”

“Ahem!” Tim once again interrupted; he was eager to see what Martin had whipped up for Jon, considering he’d holed himself up for about two hours. “Martin, I believe it’s your turn?”

“Um, y-yeah.” He put the cup down with some reluctance, picking up the bag he’d decorated with snowflakes and trees and handing it over to Jon, who looked surprised that anyone had gotten him anything. It was an expression Tim was used to; Jon never expected kindness, even in circumstances when he would very clearly receive it. Silly man. 

As soon as Jon began to reach into the bag, Martin stumbled through an explanation. “You don’t need to keep it, n-not if you don’t want, but y-you’re always saying you’re cold and y’know, I have extras, so-”

Martin had given Jon one of his many scarves, this one a worn, dark green that was sure to look lovely with his skin tone. He spent two hours deciding on that? It was a nice gift, for sure. Jon held it in his hands like it was completely foreign to him, though Tim could see him running his fingers over the knit appreciatively, looking at it with wide eyes.

“B-But this is your scarf, Martin,” he said, once he found the words. “I can’t-”

“Well now it’s yours,” Martin replied, his voice steadying with resolve. “Anyway, I um- it’s got your name on it. Or your initials, at least.” He gave a nervous laugh, his face turning even redder if possible.

And sure enough, at the end of the scarf was a small, messy embroidered J.S., along with a crude attempt at a small cat face. The effort was adorable, and it sent a pang through Tim’s chest for several reasons he didn’t want to name.

“T-That’s- well, thank you, Martin.” Jon ran his fingers over the small ‘J’ as if it would disappear if he looked away. “That’s very thoughtful of you.” Jon placed it almost reverently back in the bag, giving Martin a rare, genuine smile, one that Tim wished he had put on his face. Stop that.

“Jon’s turn!” he said, mustering up his last bit of enthusiasm. “I for one have no idea who Jon got, so this is going to be a real surprise-”

“S-Shut up, Tim.” Jon muttered, reaching for something behind him. He hesitated, his hands trembling slightly as he pulled out a small sprig of what looked to be pine needles, because it couldn’t be what Tim thought it was, no sir, that wouldn’t make sense-

He watched as Jonathan Sims moved closer and with shaking hands and a beet-red face, moved up on his tippy-toes to hold a tiny sprig of mistletoe above their heads. And then, in what surely must have been a hallucination or a dream sequence, two lips met his in a tiny peck of a kiss that was over before Tim could truly register it. 

He stared unblinking as Jon sank back on his heels, his eyes still tightly shut from the kiss. Tim brought a hand up to his mouth, the warm tingle of slightly chapped lips on his still fresh in his mind. Jon began to stutter in the absolute silence of the room, stumbling backwards without looking up from his feet.

“I’m, um- I-I have to. S-Sorry! I’m going to... goodbye now.”

And with that Jonathan Sims fled the room, leaving three stupefied assistants in his wake. 

_________

“Knock Knock!”

Tim tried to keep his voice as light as possible. He didn’t think Jon could stand anything more than that right now.

He’d given him a half hour of solitude, enough for him to overcome whatever embarrassment he felt over the encounter. Martin was stewing in a corner, looking shell-shocked and mopey over the turn of events. Tim was just as shocked as he was. Little Jonathan Sims, grumpy researcher and now even grumpier Head Archivist, giving Tim a kiss? Under the mistletoe?

“Go get him,” Sasha smirked, kicking his chair. “Bring him some food. And maybe return the favor.”

So he took a plate of reheated Pad Thai and a bottle of rum he kept under his desk for special occasions, hoping to win Jon over. Let him know the kiss was much appreciated, and that perhaps he’d like another if Jon was so inclined.

The man jumped up from his desk, where he’d had his head pillowed in his arms and his chunkiest cardigan wrapped around him for warmth. It was getting colder, and Tim hadn’t checked outside recently, too distracted by current events. His face was still flushed red, and he wouldn’t meet Tim’s eyes. I’ll have to change that.

“Thought I’d come bearing gifts.” He waved the bottle of rum around for Jon to see as he walked into the room. “Of the food and drink variety. But I wouldn’t mind a repeat of what happened in the break room.” He threw in a wink for good measure- God, why couldn’t he ever be serious? He always fell back on jokes and teasing words.

“I’m-I’m sorry, Tim,” Jon groaned, reaching out for the rum and pouring a liberal amount into a mug that previously housed tea. He still avoided Tim’s eyes. “That was completely inappropriate, I-I just couldn’t think of-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he placed the food down on Jon’s desk, ignoring the pain in his heart at the apology. So he didn’t mean it. He plopped down on Jon’s couch, trying to feign a lightness he didn’t feel as he drank straight from the bottle. “No harm, no foul. It was nice.” He shrugged. Jon moved from his desk to join him on the couch, looking so adorable and cozy that Tim had to restrain from taking him in his arms. He watched as Jon took two large mouthfuls of the rum, knocking it back like a champ. Jesus. And then he raised his eyes to his, meeting them with a wide-eyed hopefulness that made Tim’s heart stutter in his chest.

“So- so you didn’t mind?”

“Nope.” Tim took another sip of the rum, wondering where this was going. He wouldn’t…

“Then you-,” Jon gulped, seemingly gathering his courage. “You wouldn’t mind if we- that is, if I maybe did it again?”

Tim stared.

“I-I still have the mistletoe.”

Jon sat there, so earnest and vulnerable, his hands fidgeting with the drink in his lap. Tim remembered the first time he laid eyes on him, the taciturn young researcher with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue. He imagined asking him on a date, getting to know the man under that prickly exterior. Making him laugh, getting that rare smile that Martin got today. But he didn’t seem interested and Tim never wanted to push it, too respectful of his boundaries.

But maybe he hadn’t imagined the way Jon leaned into his touch. How he laughed at Tim’s shitty jokes a bit longer than necessary. That the looks he got in the library weren’t ones of annoyance, but fondness. So he set the bottle down, took the drink out of Jon’s hands and replaced it with the warm grip of his own. His voice came out low, quiet and serious and utterly unlike him.

“I wouldn’t mind at all.” And he leaned in and kissed Jonathan Sims, just like he wanted to do all those years ago.

It was a sweet, lingering thing- the taste of rum on his lips, lips that parted so easily for Tim like he’d been waiting, wanting this for so long, maybe even as long as Tim had. And when they finally parted, Jon stared at him with those deep brown eyes and gave him the smile he’d been wishing for and it was just for him. He put that there.

“Was-was that okay?” he murmured, feeling nervous and open under Jon’s intense gaze. 

“Yes,” was the whispered response. He let out a small, charming laugh that Tim would always remember when he thought back to this night, the first night of many stolen kisses and secret smiles. “I-I liked that.”

“Well, good!” Tim could no longer contain the urge to have Jon in his arms and pulled him to his chest, appreciating the small squeak it earned him. “Because there’s more where that came from.” Jon leaned into his touch, as if trying to leech every bit of warmth from Tim that he could. It felt so utterly right to be here, on this uncomfortable couch with an armful of the man he’d been pining over for the last three years. Score, a giddy part of his mind yelled. They laid there in silence for a few minutes, reveling in the feeling of affection finally realized when Jon’s head perked up from his chest, a concerned look in his eyes.

“Do you think Rosie’s going to notice I nicked her mistletoe?”

Tim snickered. “Oh, absolutely. But I’ll take the fall. She’s not getting that back.”

Jon was always thoughtful with his gifts. And this was one he intended to keep.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28201134

[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.

[toosicktoocare]

Prompt: Season 2 Jon being paranoid spying on Tim from a far noticing he’s acting weird/not very Tim eventually confronting him only to find out that Tim’s been acting strange is because he’s fighting off a nasty cold. Guilty Jon and some mildly grumpy Tim.

I love this prompt so freaking much!

Set in season 3 when Jon’s kinda suspecting everyone, but before everyone starts player hating on him. 

“Supplemental: Tim’s asked to leave work early. He was... quiet when he asked, almost subdued. It was quite disconcerting. He didn’t make eye contact with me when he asked, and... he didn’t call me ‘boss’ to annoy me as he usually does.”

Jon pauses, tape recorder hovering just before his lips. He’s frowning at the closed door, almost as if he can peel away the wood with his gaze alone and see what he’s promptly missing on the other side.

“He’s hiding something,” he deduces, voice quiet, speculating. “And I’m going to figure out what it is... End supplemental.”

***

“Supplemental: Tim was two hours late this morning. He practically plowed into me in the hall, and he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. He just apologized to me under his breath and said he would skip lunch and work late to make up for it. His voice was lacking in energy, and his posture seemed rigid and distant, none of the usual too-early smiles and shoulder claps. I think... No, I know that he’s definitely wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday. Same plaid, button down, same navy trousers.”

Pausing, Jon sighs, thoughts reeling with theories he’s trying to work through. He thumbs the stop button, contemplating. “What could have kept him up at night and made him late this morning? What’s got him so on edge? What kept him from going home last night? Perhaps he knows something about Gertrude? He didn’t start acting like this until shortly after coming back from his leave. I’m... going to keep a close eye on him today. End supplemental.”

***

Jon leaves his office often throughout the day, for tea, to visit the library, anything that can have him walking by Tim’s desk. The first time he shuffles by, he spots Tim scribbling notes into a legal pad, eyes flicking back and forth from the screen to the paper. Tim doesn’t acknowledge his presence, which, in itself, is quite suspicious. Normally, Tim teases him with light jabs: “the monster’s emerging,” “I didn’t realize vampires could be out right now,” and, the one Jon hears the most, “Jon... Jonathan Sims? You still work here? Haven’t seen you in ages!”

The second time he walks by, Tim’s dozing, his face propped up against his knuckles. He startles awake when Jon clears his throat and masks a few coughs into his fist, wincing and apologizing.

Jon contemplates questioning him right then and there, too eager to discover just what exactly is going on, but then Elias rounds the corner, and he’s got a familiar look in his eyes, one Jon immediately squares his shoulders at. He’s carted off to a brief meeting with the library staff, annoyed at the interruption.

The third time he walks by on his way back from the meeting, Tim shoots a panicked look toward him when he rounds the corner and immediately shoves something into his desk drawer. There’s an air of tense silence that flutters over the two, and it’s in that moment that Jon decides he’s going to confront him today.

***

Keeping his word, Tim works an hour past quitting time, and Jon knows that Tim didn’t leave the building for lunch as he’s been watching him for the better half of the day. He slips out of his office, prepared to corner Tim at his desk, but he pauses when he spots that the desk is empty. He spares a quick glance around before briskly walking toward the desk and trying the drawers, finding each one locked.

“Damn,” he mutters under his breath. It’s only two minutes past six, so Tim can’t have gotten far. He keeps the brisk walk up when he exits the building, just barely spotting Tim rounding a corner across the street. He only spares a half glance at the road before starting across the street in a light run, waving apologetically at a few honking cars. His lungs are burning slightly when he meets the other side, his stiff body cracking uncomfortably, but he keeps the pace, whipping around the corner.

Tim’s only a few feet ahead of him, and he sucks in a deep breath and shouts his name, slowing to a walk when Tim freezes and spins around with a frown.

“Jon? What’s-” Tim’s unable to finish his sentence, overcome by a coughing fit that Jon doesn’t pay any mind to, the gears in his own mind already whirling far too quickly.ti

“You’re hiding something,” Jon spits out, a dangerous timbre to his voice, and Tim’s face twists from surprise, to confusion, then holding mild annoyance.

“Excuse me?” Tim matches Jon’s tone, and he cocks his head to the side, shivering slightly and pulling his jacket a little tighter around himself.

“You haven’t been yourself,” Jon starts, mentally ticking off each unusual scenario that’s led him to this conclusion. “You’ve been quiet, reserved even. You left early yesterday, and you were two hours late this morning, wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday. So I ask, Tim,” he pauses, voice low and just barely audible over the traffic beside them, “what were you doing at all hours of the night? And, what were you trying to hide from me in your desk drawer?”

Tim reaches into his coat pocket, and Jon’s entire body goes rigid. Is Tim going to pull out a knife and try to kill him? Or, maybe he’ll pull out a gun, the same gun that was used to kill Getrude. Was he right in his theory that Tim knows what happened to Gertrude? That Tim may have been the one who killed Gertrude? Does Tim have a thing for harming archivists? What dark story has Tim so wrapped up-

His thoughts, both current and the ones rushing forward, come to an abrupt halt when Tim presses a small box of paracetamol tablets into his palm. Frowning, Jon brings the box up to his eyes, and despite his best efforts of finding some unearthed, hidden meaning behind it, it is, in fact, just a box of medicine.

“What...?”

“Paracetamol?” Tim starts, raising one brow. “Medicine used to reduce fevers? Sure you’ve heard of it?”

“Yes, I know what it is,” Jon drags out sharply. “I simply don’t...” He stops himself this time, almost unconsciously, because when he looks up from the box to Tim just as a car’s whipping by, he can see through the car’s bright headlights that Tim’s cheeks are a concerning shade of red, and he’s sweating despite the full body chills he’s trying to mask with crossed arms. 

“They’re yours,” he says, almost dumbly, and Tim sighs, wincing when the low breath pulls into a deep cough that hurts his chest.

“Great job,” he grumbles flatly. “I took some earlier and didn’t want you to see and send me home.”

Oddly, Jon’s having trouble processing Tim’s reasoning, his mind still so wound up with heightened theories. “Your clothes...” he mutters, and Tim glances down at himself, a bit self-conscious.

“Yeah, about that... I sort of passed out when I got home yesterday, and I slept straight through until morning. I didn’t intend on doing that, so I didn’t set an alarm, hence my showing up to work late.” He shivers around his words and lifts his fist to his mouth to cover a heavy cough.

“You’re ill,” Jon mutters, almost to himself, his mind slowly down to the mundane reality that Tim’s been acting so “odd,” as he thought, because he hasn’t been feeling all that well. He presses up on his feet and smooths his palm across Tim’s cheek, hissing lightly and jerking his hand back at the alarming heat. “You’re really ill, Tim. You’re burning up.”

“It’s just a nasty cold I can’t quite shake,” Tim mutters, rubbing absently at his chest. “I got the paracetamol this morning while racing to work, so I should be better soon.”

“I thought...”

“That I killed Gertrude?” Tim supplies, finishing Jon’s thought through a series of coughs.

Wincing, Jon drags his eyes to the ground, pretending that the sidewalk is far more interesting to look at for he can’t quite life his head under the muted pressure of guilt pushing down on him.

“I’m... sorry,” he mumbles, clearing his throat, daring to push against the icy pressure of guilt to meet Tim’s eyes. “I’ve been preoccupied with-”

Tim stops Jon with one, shaking hand. “Save it for another time, Jon. It’s freezing, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be standing upright.”

Jon can see, now, that Tim’s swaying slightly, one hand presses to his forehead. He gnaws at his lip, glancing around, feeling terribly out of his element. “Do you, um, do you need to go to a clinic? Hospital?”

“I don’t,” Tim stops, turning away from Jon to cough harshly into his arm, “think so,” he rasps out, breathing a little too loudly for Jon’s liking.

“Let’s... You should... Let me take you back to the Archives, and I’ll phone a cab.” Jon’s guilt is morphing with a tight knot of concern deep within his stomach. “You shouldn’t be walking like this or taking the tube.”

“Fine,” Tim sighs. “I’ll go to ease your guilty conscious.” He manages a smirk, and Jon shoots a brief, sharp stare before guiding Tim safely back across the street, keeping one hand awkwardly planted to the small of Tim’s back, aware it won’t do much, but hopeful it will bring an ounce of comfort to Tim’s shivering body.

It’s not until they are back inside, with Tim huddled atop a floor vent that’s sputtering out hot air, and Jon’s already phoned with a cab that Tim tries to address Jon’s behavior, something Jon reluctantly expected.

“So you think that we are all suspects?”

“I...” Jon sighs, leaning against the receptionist desk, arms hugging himself defensively. “I don’t know what to think.” The knowledge is still new, still a fresh wound ripping angrily across his thoughts. The mere moment he was informed of Gertrude’s body, he shifted to high alert, suddenly seeing everyone differently, taking account to how his staff walked, how they talked to him, how they even looked when entering and exiting the archives. Yet, there’s a smaller voice, one that he keeps shoving away, that whispers “paranoia.” No matter how hard he tries to ignore it, it comes back, a perk, he thinks, of his mind’s necessity to consider all factors.

“Christ, Jon, I wouldn’t have asked if I had known you would get lost in your own head.”

Jon blinks slowly, the room around him coming back in slow waves. He turns to see Tim with one hand at the door, a cab waiting right outside.

“Sorry,” Jon mutters, clearing his throat. “You can... call... if you need anything.”

“Martin’s already got that covered,” Tim sighs, patting his coat pocket where his phone is resting. “He stole my phone when I dozed off at my desk and created a speed dial with his number.”

“Right,” Jon draws out, feeling suddenly drained, a consequence, he assumes, of spending an entire day lost among theories. “Well, I’ll speak to Elias on your behalf, so take as long as you need to recover.”

“You’ll speak to Elias about what?”

Tim breaks Jon’s gaze, looking past him, and Jon whips around to see Elias approaching the two.

A different feeling hits Jon square in the chest, one he’s familiar with anytime Elias approaches his staff, and unspoken drive to protect. He looks over his shoulder, mouthing for Tim to go.

“Right,” Tim says, almost hesitantly. “Bye then.” He opens the door, stopping when Elias speaks, his legs unable to move.

“Do feel better, Tim. You look quite dreadful.”

Tim doesn’t respond, slipping out the door with a wordless shudder that Jon watches with a frown.

“Glad to see that you’re still here, Jon. I’ve picked out a few statements I’d like you to review.”

“Now?” Jon asks, taking a moment to glance over his shoulder just as the cab pulls away.

“If it isn’t any trouble,” Elias says.

Despite the clear ‘out’ Elias gives him through words alone, Jon knows how to pick out Elias’s true intentions not by his words, but by the finality of his tone. So, he follows because while he sees everyone as a suspect, he’s got a gut feeling, one that’s overwhelming, that Elias is, and should be, suspect number one.

[shakespeareanqueer]

Welcome to the Land of the Living (Avengers Library for the Study of Enhanced Persons and Heroes, Chapter 1)

Pairing: None yet ;)

Series summary: When you wake up with no memories in the Avengers compound, Tony takes you under his wing and gives you a job as librarian and archivist for the Avengers. What is this alpha, beta, omega stuff, and why does Bucky Barnes smell so good?

Chapter summary: You wake up in a strange medical room surrounded by some people who call themselves the Avengers. Everything is confusing.

Word Count: 1,990 words

Series Masterlist | My Masterlist

Contents: Omegaverse. Amnesia and related distress. Cussing.

A/N: This is for @sherrybaby14​‘s Mini-Challenge, for the A/B/O trope. I hope to have the first three chapters up by the 13th (the deadline) and I’ll make a masterlist post to be queued for the challenge, if that’s all right. Thanks for letting me participate, and no pressure to read all of the fic if it’s not your cup of tea! 

I am still writing this series, though I’ve got a lot of the chapters done. I hope y’all enjoy reading it as much as I’m enjoying writing it!

Chapter 1 - Welcome to the Land of the Living

Photo by Daan Stevens on Unsplash

Beeping. Hushed murmurs. A bright, focused light being shone into your eyes. These were the first things you remembered. Your earliest memory.

When you wrenched open your eyes, there was a man hovering above you with curly brown hair and glasses, and a white lab coat instead of scrubs which was odd. He was very close to your face. You screamed.

“Woah so she’s awake!” Quite literally perched on the windowsill was a man with dusty hair and a purple shirt. He made that exclamation. You were pretty sure. Your brain was still rather addled. “Welcome to the land of the living, kid,” he added with a chuckle.

You surveyed your surroundings. You were in a hospital room of some sort, that was for sure. There were more people than a hospital should allow into a patient’s room of this size though. Along with the doctor, who continued puttering around with a clipboard, and the man on the windowsill, there was a goateed man in the chair closest to your cot. He was wearing blue tinted glasses and an AC/DC t-shirt. His hair was ruffled and his shoulders were tensed. He looked like he had slept in that chair for at least a few nights.

You wondered what he was to you that made him stay by your side like that.

There was also a woman with bright red hair pulled into a French braid leaning against the wall near the window. And an extremely tall and muscular blond man with a white t-shirt at least two sizes too small stretched taut across his broad chest leaning against the door frame.

The doctor cleared his throat and approached you, clipboard at the ready, glasses perched on his nose. “I’ve got a few questions for you, now that you’re awake.”

“I have precisely zero answers,” you responded quickly but calmly. You made a vague gesture at your head. “There is absolutely no information up here whatsoever. I believe the kids call it amnesia.”

The man on the windowsill chuckled. “We’ve learned one thing already. She’s got a great sense of humor to fit in with us clowns.”

The doctor ignored him. “So you don’t remember your name? Or how you ended up unconscious in the middle of a large field in rural Pennsylvania?”

You shook your head. “Nope.”

He scribbled on his clipboard before looking back at you. “Sometimes memories can return a little after waking. We’ll give it some time before we go poking around your head.”

“Cool, cool, cool. Sounds like a good plan. Um, thank you. Who are you?”

He laughed. “Sorry, we’ve all been so rude. I’m Bruce. Dr. Bruce Banner.” He switched his clipboard to one hand to reach out and shake yours with the other. “Due to a gamma radiation accident, I’m also the Hulk,” he added in a quieter voice.

You shook his hand amicably. “That means literally nothing to me.”

The redhead introduced herself as Natasha (due to Soviet spy training, Black Widow), window-sill man as Clint (due to some really mean circus carnies, Hawkeye), door-frame man as Steve (due to some German man and his fancy serum, Captain America), chair man as Tony (due to his own stupendous genius, Iron Man). You repeated each of their names back to them with a small smile and wave, cheerily confirming that neither their names nor their alter-egos rang any bells whatsoever.

A couple hours of friendly chatting went by. You learned that these were some of the Avengers, along with who the Avengers were in the first place, and about some of their exploits. The attack on New York, Ultron, the very near split that occurred somewhat recently but its ultimately happy resolution.

At some point, a tall, refined strawberry blonde who introduced herself as Pepper came in and insisted everyone eat lunch. Most people evacuated for the cafeteria, giving you a pat on the back or a wave goodbye. Tony, however, insisted on staying with you. After a heated debate between Tony and Pepper executed silently and entirely with their facial expressions, Pepper sighed and left the room. When she returned, she had two trays. She kissed Tony’s cheek after she placed his in his lap, then left the two of you alone again.

A few minutes of companionable silence followed as you chewed your food. You learned new things about yourself in this process, like you didn’t like pickles but you didn’t mind if the pickle touched your sandwich, in fact you kind of liked the taste of the pickle juice residue. You also learned that you absolutely loved chocolate chip cookies.

As Tony nibbled on a tuna fish sandwich, you took a moment to observe him. The deep bags under his eyes reinforced the guess that he had taken up residence in that chair some time ago.

“Are you-” you began hesitantly, then started again. “Do you mean something to me?”

He looked at you with wide eyes. “Um-what?” he stammered.

“You seem to care a lot. Staying by my side and all. I thought maybe we were… connected in some way? Related, maybe?” Your voice was small, and you used your fork to poke at the coleslaw you had decided was not your cup of tea.

You were terrified to offend him with this line of questioning. You knew how much it would hurt if he loved you and you had no idea who he was. But you couldn’t help the fact that you didn’t recognize him, and your curiosity got the better of you.

He set his tray aside and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Bruce’s question about your memory wasn’t a trick one. We don’t know your name or how you ended up in that field either. We know nothing about you.”

Your brow furrowed. “So then… why? I mean, thank you, but why do you seem so… invested?”

He chuckled wryly. “I’d chalk it up to alpha protection instincts, but I’m a beta and none of the alphas on the team have put in the hours I have in this room. So, paternal instinct maybe?”

You scrunched up your nose. “Alpha? Beta? What?? Why are you reciting the Greek alphabet????”

Tony cocked his head to the side. “Alpha, beta, omega? The presentations? The biological… you really don’t know?”

You looked at him like he had twelve heads and seventy pairs of eyes.

“Huh. Ok. Weird. Gonna have to tell Bruce to mark that down,” he mumbled. “Um, yeah, how to put it. It’s something everyone’s born into. Alphas are typically more dominant, betas tend to be pretty neutral, omegas more… submissive is how people describe it, but I don’t like that word. Alphas are protective, betas peace-keeping, omegas nurturing. Yeah, that’s a better word, nurturing. Of course, these are all stereotypes. And the Omega Rights movement, which I absolutely support, believes firmly that it’s more of a lateral spectrum than a strict hierarchy, and the science is starting to support that. I don’t know.” He shrugged.

“What… am I?” You were almost scared to ask.

“From the looks of it, beta. You don’t really present one way or the other, and your scent’s not that strong,” he replied. “Beta’s sort of the default in that way. No heats or ruts, less sensitive to scents and pheromones. Honestly it’s kinda nice.”

You just blinked at him. None of this meant anything to you. Heats? Ruts? Sounded animalistic.

His hand floated to your neck. You retreated back into your pillow, but he only made feather-light touches on either side of your throat beneath your jaw and near your collar bones. “No bonding gland…” he murmured.

“No what??”

Your confusion about this whole system was baffling to Tony. Amnesia patients usually still understood the way of the world, still had a general understanding of basic concepts like presentation and gender, social norms, etc. You seemed to have a lot of that stuff down, like shaking hands, waving, eating politely; you even knew that the terminology was from the Greek alphabet. Why this one normal thing that everyone dealt with starting from birth was completely foreign to you… it made no sense.

“You don’t have a scent gland. One of these.” He bared his neck to show you the small protrusion of skin, a slightly darker shade of pink than the surrounding flesh. There was a set of old, scarred-over teeth marks.

“Why are there bite marks???” You were shocked and appalled, reaching out on instinct to run your fingertips over the piece of anatomy you didn’t seem to share.

“It’s a bonding mark,” he replied. “Pepper and I bonded, marked each other, ‘claimed’ each other; there’s different vocabulary for it.”

You shook your head and leaned back. “Weird.”

Just then, Bruce returned. None of the other Avengers were with him.

He clapped his hands together, heading straight for his clipboard. “Right then, any progress on those memories?”

“Nope. Still blank,” you replied.

“Bruce,” Tony muttered. He pulled the doctor aside to have a hushed conversation in the corner, presumably about your glaring lack of knowledge about the presentation system. You couldn’t find it in you to be embarrassed.

“Huh. Weird,” Bruce concluded the exchange, stepping back over to your bed. “Ok, so with your permission, I’d like to run some tests. See if we can find any clues to who you are.”

“With a DNA sample, FRIDAY—my computer system— can start looking for your identity,” Tony offered.

“Whatever you need,” you assented.

For the next hour or so, you were poked and prodded. Why blood, saliva, skin scrapings, gum scrapings, hair and urine were all necessary you had no clue, but you weren’t the doctor or the scientist, so you just let them do whatever they needed to do.

You were awoken from your nap to Tony and Bruce looking at you with odd expressions. Slowly, you sat up. “What is it?”

It was another couple of beats before anyone answered you. In that span of time, your heart rate increased and panic began to sink into your bones. Finally, Tony scrubbed his hand down his face and muttered, “So… you don’t exist.”

“Pardon?” you asked.

“There’s no record of you anywhere. DNA search resulted in nothing. Which means you were never registered with the A/B/O Board, never put into the public school system… couldn’t even have been born in a proper hospital. FRIDAY even hacked into private databases and, nothing.”

“Oh, ummm… odd.”

“You also have no presentation whatsoever,” Bruce added. “Some people, when they’re born, are registered as betas because their nature is repressed for some reason, but with the proper exposure to alpha or omega pheromones, present later as one or the other. That’s because people assume presentation at birth based on behavior and scent, which can be deceiving. But if you were to take those babies and test their DNA the way I have yours, you could know from birth their true presentation. But you don’t even have the string of DNA where your presentation should be encoded.”

“Are you saying I’m… not human?”

Tony shook his head. “All the aliens I’ve encountered also had presentations. Bruce?”

He nodded his confirmation. “I’ve been on three planets, on opposite sides of the galaxy, and all have had presentation systems. Even that guy Thor was friends with made entirely of rocks.”

“The talking raccoon did too,” Tony added.

You blinked a bunch of times. “I think I’m having a stroke. The fuck are you on about aliens?? Talking raccoons??” The monitor picked up a spike in your vitals, in your blood pressure and heart rate.

“I think we’re upsetting you with too much information. You should just rest and relax. We’ll deal with everything.” Tony patted your shoulder comfortingly, before exiting the room with his friend, leaving you to stew in confusion.

[diddlesanddoodles]

Dumpling ch. 17

(author’s notes: I’M NOT DEAD!)

Keral sent along his message to Hev the blacksmith informing him of Nenani’s need for a new marker with a servant who came to replenish the wine decanter and deliver a few papers and notes to Maevis. Once a fresh post of tea had been brewed and Keral’s wine glass filled, they got to work.

In no time at all, the number of books being taken down from the shelves were taking over the table and along with them came seemingly endless rolls of parchment upon which Maevis furiously scribbled as many notes and citations as his quill and ink could produce. Keral, for his role, thumbed through various books and whenever he came upon something, he slipped a small piece of parchment in the page and sat it before the magician. The library had taken on an air of solemnity.  

However, as was his nature, Jae did not much care for the weight of the room and did his best to keep the mood from sinking any further.  

“So a smoke mage,” he wondered aloud to to one in particular, lounging against a stack of books. “What makes a smoke mage so dangerous? Because by the name alone, I think the fellow may have drawn the short end of the magic stick.”

“No mage is inherently dangerous,” Barnaby said. “But we do not know this mage’s intentions and what we do know is that they are violent and not above meaningless killing.”  

He was on his second cup of tea and comfortably seated on a cushion close to where Maevis was working. After trying to aide in the research himself and suffering a slight dizzy spell, Maevis all but demanded that the old archivist sit and rest.  

“It won’t do to tire yourself, my friend,” the magician had told the human gently in an attempt to mask his worry. “Best rest a while.”

“I am fine,” Barnaby replied with a disregarding wave, but he still lowered himself onto the cushion nonetheless. “Just a bit over excited, mind you. I’ll be right as rain in a bit.”

“Not very nice t’be worryin’ old Meeves now,” Keral added. “He already frets over ya like a hen. Won’t be helpin’ ‘im much to be actin’ fragile, eh? Let us do the heavy liftin’ and if ya remember anything, we’ll write it down.”

Barnaby huffed mildly at being accused of acting fragile, but stayed put and did not refuse Jae when he handed him his tea. Nenani watched with confusion as the two giants worked and fussed and Jae fidgeted. She knew very little of magic and prior to meeting Maevis, she had never seen it used.  

“What’s a mage?” she asked.  

All at once, she became the focus of the room and she felt her face flush. Perhaps it had been a silly question.  

“Well,” Maevis began thoughtfully. “A mage is a person who uses magic.”

“Like the kind of magic you do?” she asked.  

“Not exactly,” he replied patiently. “I learned magic from studying it in books and from other magicians. A mage does not learn magic, they are born with it. Sometimes they are called Elementals, because a mage’s magic often times coincides with a particular element.”

“Like fire?” she asked. “Fire mages?”  

“Correct,” Maevis replied. “Though it is also important to note that while all Elementals are considered mages, not all mages are Elementals.”

Nenani made a face. “I...I don’t...huh?”

Keral laughed at her as he sat a book down. “Elementals are human, but one of us big folk could be a mage. We just wouldn’t be called an Elemental. Like that Bertol fellow.”

Now it was Maevis’s turn to make a face and Keral released a loud bark of a laugh.

“Oh, come now,” Keral replied. “Don’t y’know Bertol is the greatest prophet who ever lived?”

“Bertol the bumbling buffoon,” Maevis replied dryly, “Is as much a prophet as that tea pot over there and not nearly so useful. And only by the skin of his teeth does he have any right to claim himself a mage.”

Keral grinned, laughing. “Don’t care fer his ramblings either then? Hm. Neither does the King.”

“I would not blame King Warren if he should one day decide to place that idiot in the stockades and conveniently forget him.”  

“Who is Bertol?” Nenani asked, glancing between the two giants, feeling more confused than ever. Mages, Elementals, and now prophets?  

“Bertol is a Vhasshallan mage,” Maevis replied sourly. “He is thought by many in Vhasshal to hold the gift of foresight. That he can see the future and make predictions based upon his visions. He was the one responsible for the Gold prophecy.”

“Gold…?” she asked, trailing off.

“It’s why Warren’s called the Gold King,” Jae added before biting into a biscuit.  

Seeing her confusion, Keral reached for a book sitting on the edge of the table, a smallish black volume with gold lettering, and he flipped it open and began to read. His voice was even and mellow, but the words that sprouted from his lips brought with them a sickening sensation of her guts being pulled and ice dripping down her spine.

“The river runs uphill to the dying songs of the fall of fools and Kings that tear flesh from bone and the crown from the mountain. Water runs red with fire and shall rise when the old blood runs new. The flesh taken will be paid in blood and the dead walls will rise with gold.”

He closed the book with a snap and tilted his head down to regard Nenani with an open expression, but froze, brows drawing together, and he bent down. “Ya alright there lass? Yer a bit pale.”

In depths of her memory, she could feel the cool stone of the catacomb and see the empty hollows that once held eyes of those that had once been a person. Those voices chanting. Her dreams that played out in her mind every night. The smell of smoke, the screams of men dying as the fishing boats burned. A man in black, his face obscured by the skull of a stag. Her Uncle calling to her as he died.

And those words…

“...shall rise when the old blood runs new.”

She felt thick fingers wrap around her shoulders and Kerals voice broke through the fog of her mind. Abruptly she broke free and she was no longer within herself but back at the library. The scent of smoke and ash replaced by that of parchment and ink and tea. And Keral’s body odor.  

She met his eyes and was surprised to find her cheeks wet. “I...I don’t know...”

“Oi now, don’t go lettin’ them words scare ya. Yer alright,” he told her quietly. “Nothin’ to be upset about. They’re just words, remember. Besides, it already came to pass. Nothin’ to fear, eh?”

Barnaby and Jae were both studying her with a mixture of expressions from worried to bewildered. Now aware that everyone was intently focusing in on her, Nenani flushed and scrubbed at her cheeks in slight embankment. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

“You’ve had quite a day,” Maevis said, an air of suggestion in his tone. With a gloved hand, he waved behind towards the door just beyond the curtain. “Would you like to have a rest?”

“Best thing t’do would get ya back to th’ kitchens,” Keral added as he rubbed his chin in contemplation. “But if ya showed up without a marker, Farris would have a right apoplexy.”

“Yeah, Hev’s work is good,” said Jae. “But metal working takes time. And it’ll take most of the afternoon for Connor to do the detail work.”  

Nenani shook her head. “I’m fine. I don’t need to rest. That poem, er – prophecy. I’ve heard it before, but I didn’t know it was a prophecy.”  

Maevis expression of concern shifted into mild disdain. “Yes, well. I wouldn’t put much weight nor worry to those words. The one responsible for that dribble has as much foresight as a week old turnip.”

“First a tea pot and now he’s a turnip,” Jae sniggered. “So which one is he?”

“What has that poor old buggar done to earn your ire, Meeves,” Keral asked. “Didn’t think you had it in ya t’hold a grudge. Even against someone deserving of it.”  

Maevis took a moment to take a long and slow breath, placing his folded hands atop the table, and seemed to collect himself.

“Anyone can string together phrases with grandiose words so vague as to be perfectly useless,” Maevis replied, his irritation smoothed over, but still there. “There are many who take themselves for grand prophets and mostly their predictions fall to deaf ears. Bertol has managed to convince people his words are true and by the God’s graces, I haven’t the foggiest inclination as to why they would listen to him, of all people.”

“He had good timing,” Keral offered in response. “Folks were looking for something to cling to. They'll cling to hope if they smell it. Makes ‘em desperate.”

“My meaning, precisely, Keral! Words have power when people make it so. Bertol’s words were hallow and meaningless. Just enough vague enough for opportunistic fiends to take advantage. They see themselves in his words and are convinced that they’re meant to grander things. Bertol’s words are reckless. And therefore, dangerous.”

…………………………………………….

“Tell me master Barnabas,” Keral said with surprise formality. He sat in the same chair, but his glass of wine had been replaced by a cup of tea by Maevis after the ranger had all but drained the pitcher all on his own. Beside him stood a small stack of books. Maevis held his own cup and nursed it. Beside him sat a much more impressive amass of books and tomes.

They had paused their research for a break and Barnaby was looking over the slate he had given to Nenani to draw on, showing her how to hold the chalk and how to use the lines to create an image. Keral had been watching them with an enigmatic expression, though Nenani tried not to let it bother her. Keral had managed to subvert her expectations of what kind of a person he was, but there were occasions she had caught glimpses of something else.

Something that she could not help but feel nervous about. But no one else seemed at all concerned, so Nenani decided she was just being silly.

At hearing his name, Barnaby looked to Keral inquisitively and the ranger continued. “How common was red hair in Silvaara?”

The question was odd. Odd enough to catch the room by surprise and then as a consequence, all eyes turned to Nenani. The only one of them with red hair.  

Feeling the weight of their curious eyes, she shrank away from their peering gazes. “What?”

Barnaby turned back to Keral, perplexed. “Not too common. Black or brown is more common, such as young master Jae. I myself had brown hair. When I was young. And had hair. Why?”

“What about the highborns?” Keral asked. “Nobles and the like?”  

Barnaby’s eyed widened as understanding struck him. “Oh. Well, red was much more common. A genetic consequence of the blood purity obsession that took over the last decades. Though it was wildly held as truth that those with red hair were born of fire and were more likely to hold the Flower’s blessing.”

Jae watched with mild curiosity and then laughed, eyeing Keral skeptically. “What? You think Nenani’ might be a long lost highborn?”

Keral shrugged. “I get curious. The Hill tribes are all brown and black haired save for the last one Farris picked up from Dornbey. Poor sod had quite the reception when I delivered ‘im to Gregis. It was all m’lord this and m’lord that. Practically swarmed th’fellow. He was already outta his head. Poor bastard.”

“Well,” Barnaby continued, glancing at Nenani. “That was one subject I had hoped to broach with you dear. As Jae may have explained, I am an archivist and I write histories. Whenever a human comes to live here on castle grounds I write down their histories. To persevere what little of Silvaara remains. And after your first visit and all that transpired, I had quite forgotten to ask you about who your parents were as I did not want to upset you any further. And Keral has made a fine point. Your hair color tells me I may be able to find your family history if you can tell me your family name.”

“Family name?” Nenani asked, thinking back. “I don’t think we have one...”

“Oh, nonsense,” Barnaby replied. “Everyone has a family name. We’ll start with your father, then. What was his name? Many families passed down names to the first born sons. I might be able to trace you to a particular family.”

“That’s how I got my name.” Jae added in.

“Hayron,” Nenani said. “Papa’s name was Hayron.”  

Barnaby, who had taken up a quill and spare parchment to take notes, paused and he peeked over the top of the parchment with raised eyebrows. “Hayron, you said?”

Nenani nodded. “Yes. My Uncle’s name was Halden.”  

He placed the the quill and parchment on his lap and seemed to consider her for a moment as though seeking something in her face. After a long moment, he asked “And you’re mother?”

His tone was quiet and almost...seeking?

“Oira.”  

The longing look in his eyes dissipated and he nodded. Almost sadly, as though he was disappointed in her answer. “Oira. Hm. I do not know that name. But I do remember Haryon.”  

Nenani blinked. “Huh? You knew Papa?”

“And Halden in some respects, though I cannot recall ever speaking to him very much. He took his duties quite seriously, if I’m remembering correctly. They were junior members of the Thorn Guard.”

“Yes!” Nenani exclaimed excitedly. “He told he once that he was in the Thorn Guard. But I don’t know what that is.”

“Oh, whoa. Thorn guards?” She heard Jae whistle and glanced back at him to find her fellow human grinning. Behind him, Keral was expressionless, but his eyes were sharp and focused and she knew his interest had been peaked.  

“Hayron is an old name that is fairly common among the Thorn Guard families. However, I only knew one Hayron with a brother named Halden. They were the sons of Captain Hayier.”

Nenani was quiet a moment. “I remember his sword. It had thrones on it. The one they think killed him.”

Barnaby’s eyes turned sad and empathetic and he sighed. “Your father was a good man. Dedicated to his duty and family. All sons of Thorn Guards were under immense pressure to perform and live up to expectations. Competition for high ranks was fierce and even being the son of the captain was not a guarantee of a rank. He earned his mark. As did his brother. I am sorry to know that fate was not so kind to him in the end.”  

“So would that make her a Daelg?” Keral asked suddenly. “Or was it Daeleg? I was never much for studying all them Silvaaran Houses.”  

“You had it correct, sir. It is Daelg. Unless there was another pair of brothers named Hayron and Halden in the Thorn Guard,” the archivist replied with a grin. “I would be most confident that you’re family name is Daelg.”  

The name did not stir any memories and it felt foreign and odd. However, she was not nearly as curious in regards to the name as the revelation that Barnaby had known her father. She had questions now. So many questions. But mostly, she just wanted to know him more. It seemed forever ago that he died. A whole world away in another time. Another life even.  

“So, she is highborn?” Jae asked, glancing between Barnaby and Nenani. “I don’t have to start calling her m’lady do I?”

Keral snorted into his drink and turned away to cough into his elbow.  

“No, the Thorn Guards were not nobility,” Barnaby replied, amused. “They were in a caste all their own. Above merchants and below Nobles. Once upon a time, marriage between them and highborns was permitted, but it was almost always for a financial gain or the belief that the two would produce exceptional progeny. However it fell out of favor decades prior to the war and in someways expressly forbidden in the name of blood purity. The King and therefore his court were all obsessed with the idea of pure blood. The more pure the line, the higher chance that they would produce a mage of fire.”

“Fire Mages.” Keral added with a final and disdainful cough to clear the tea from his lungs. “Crazy bunch of inbreds.”  

“So,” Jae asked. “Speaking of Mages and all that. What exactly is a smoke mage, then? If that’s what you think might be skulking around the countryside killing Vhasshalans.”  

“It is an ancient variety of deviant magic. So rare, there does not seem to be any contemporary sources ever describing the existence of one,” Barnaby replied. “But when I was a lad, I was told that a smoke mage is a fire mage that sinned so greatly that the Gods stripped them of their blessing and their fire and leaving only the smoldering ruin of a person. Cursed to wander the world, creating chaos, and suffering in their wake.”

“Well,” Keral said, standing and stretching out his back. “Smoke mage or not, I’ll be needin’ more to work with than an old folk tale. I appreciate your help lads, but until we know more, the only thing to be done is to be out there scoutin’ and reportin’.”  

“You’re going back out?” Jae asked. “You just got back.”

“Not tonight. I’ll be with the boys organizing the routes first. First light tomorrow, perhaps,” Keral regarded the boy with a lopsided grin. “Why? D’ya miss me when I ain’t here to hold yer hand, lad?”

Jae glared at the giant. “No.”

“Yer welcome t’use my room when I’m out if ya be needin’ a place to hold up,” Keral said. “Beats sleepin’ in them moldy tunnels.”

Jae glowered, his cheeks flushed. “No thanks. Your room smells like armpits. Besides, I like the tunnels. You bastards can’t go in after me.”

“Young master Jae,” Barnaby snapped indignantly. “I cannot condone such language. Least of all when a young lady is present.”

“It always amazed me how that for a King’s ward,” Maevis observed with a suppressed grin. “Your decorum lessons never have seemed to find proper purchase.”  

“Warren does not keep me around to lick his boot,” Jae quipped with a shrug. “He’s got advisers and the court for that.”

Keral laughed. “Ah, well if ya changed yer mind about the room, the offer stands. Y’know the way in.”

The ranger gave his made his excuses and an apology to Maevis’s for leaving him with all the books to put away, but the magician wave him off.  

“Nonsense. You never put them back in their proper place when you do feel inclined to return them, so it matters not. I know you have your duties to perform and would hate to keep you from them. I will let you know if I find anything that might be of use.”  

With a grin and a wave, the ranger was gone.