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#also jon and tim should have kissed at least once
lizard-queen-izzy · 1 month
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' "What do you mean you've never kissed anyone before?" Tim's voice cut through the air as they walked back to their desks from the canteen. Jon's hands flew up to attempt to cover his mouth.
"Good lord! Keep your voice down, Tim." His face was already thoroughly flushed. And if he folded into himself anymore, Tim was sure he'd be laying on the ground. Tim tried to stifle a laugh before throwing his arm around Jon's shoulders.
"Firstly, no one's listening to us. Second, it's not that bad. I'm just surprised is all, guy like you? Didn't you say you had an ex girlfriend?"
"I do. It just, never came up while we were together, I suppose. Probably part of why we're not anymore." His voice trailed of at the end. They were treading into personal territory, getting too close. So Tim redirected.
"Well! It's not a requirement, but it's fun for some people. I think anyone who wants should try it, at least once." They were almost back to the offices now, which meant almost back to working and Jon shutting down this conversation. Suddenly Tim felt the pull of resistance on his arm from Jon stopping. He looked down to see Jon deep in thought. He took a second to watch him. The way he twiddle his fingers while he was running through possibilities. The way he let his hair fall slightly into his eyes because he wasn't paying attention to it. The way his mouth twitched, almost like he was starting to mouth out his thoughts but not quite making it there. He was cute, Tim knew that. He tried not to think it, tried not to let himself get too attached. But he couldn't help it. He was starting to get equally lost in thought staring at Jon when Jon's next words snapped him clean out of it.
"Would you be interested in kissing me?" The words came out so easy, there was a slight cloud of uncertainty in his eyes but his face was set with determination. He was serious.
"Seriously?" Tim couldn't help himself, he had to be sure.
"I mean, obviously you don't have to. I suppose I shouldn't just assume. I think I remember you saying you like men, though I acknowledge that doesn't automatically mean you'll kiss any man. I just thought-"
"Jon! Jon. You're spiraling." He placed his hands on his shoulders, and Jon's focus re-centered to Tim's face. He was flushed, and he looked embarrassed again. God, he was cute.
"Sorry."
"No need to apologize!! I do like men, and I would like to kiss you. But not in the hallway right after lunch." He kept the tone of his voice light and playful, to try and keep Jon calm. It seemed to be working. "How about we go back to work for now, and at the end of the day, we can circle back. Yeah? Gives you time to make sure you wanna do this, and gives me time to find some mints." That time he earned a half laugh from Jon, and he knew he'd started to calm back down.
"OK, that sounds reasonable."
...
Jon had been staring at Tim for the last few hours. Every so often, Tim would feel eyes on him and when he turned to find the source, Jon would be turning back around or looking back down at his desk. Tim couldn't say he wasn't also aware of what he'd promised Jon earlier in the day. He'd scheduled a kiss with him like it was an appointment, but at the time it was the only thing that made sense. He didn't regret it, but he was starting to worry Jon was having second thoughts. '
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Have this very rough, first draft/stream of consciousness beginnings of a small fic thing. I wrote this this morning while waiting for my friend to pick me up to go pick up my book from Barnes and Nobel. And I can expand it into a proper thing but I need motivation.
This blurb is not related to the Multi-chap thing I'm planning, that is getting properly planned and mapped out and will take a Bit.
This is a Research Days first kiss thing, btw
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lumikinetic · 8 months
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Representation in comics is seriously in the gutter these days but you know what specific examples really piss me off more than anything else?
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When people try and use these panels to claim that Kitty is bi. This shit aggravates me on SO MANY LEVELS, first and foremost of which is the sheer fucking lack of self-respect on display that comes from it. Like I don't know about the white gays who go apeshit for these but Kitty's bisexuality being hinted at exactly once, not being addressed at all for two years, hinted at a second time then ignored again to this day really makes me feel so seen and represented. Call me old-fashioned but I want better than that, for Kitty and for myself.
And they hit you with that slick shit, they go "they kissed! She said she has a type "of guy"! What do you mean that's not canon!" and you know what, it would be canon, if writers knew how to do it, but they don't. Bluebird is my favourite DC character and her canonical coming out was not much better than whatever this attempt with Kitty is, she got canonised and then also promptly ignored and never addressed again, and that's BAD that's a damn SHAME there's prime opportunity here for interesting character work they're not taking advantage of
BUT.
At least she said it. At least she said, out loud, in plain English, on official ink and paper "I am bisexual" and now no one can take that from her, if they do it's intentional erasure. There is a concrete, inarguable source point to refer back to. Kitty never said it, so it doesn't count.
And that's not to say "every single comic character that gets canonised as LGBT+ HAS to say their sexuality out loud!!!" like no there are plenty of queer people who choose not to stick with one specific label preferring to be nebulous and undecided and that's FINE that's GREAT it's a viable avenue for representation in comics
BUT.
If a character doesn't say it out loud then the trade off is you have to put the work in, you have to do it in a meaningful way, you can't just do it once then only do it whenever you need to tell people "hey we didn't forget!" And that's just not something editorial is willing to commit to. Worth noting too, HUGE benefit of the doubt to the writers, the fact these panels even exist is a sign they want to do it, but for my sanity, I'm gonna assume it's editorial's fault. That said, there are a few names that come to mind but that's for another post.
Comics are getting more and more progressive each year, which is so great to see
BUT.
(Last one I promise)
The trade off for THAT is they're so so scared of offending anybody, they don't want to say for absolute certainty that anyone is or isn't - do the words "bare minimum" sound familiar? - and the ones that do by some miracle get confirmed, like Tim/Bernard or JayJon - are immediately shoved together with some zero development character that was so painfully obviously shoehorned in just to say that the other character is LGBT, and they're just not INTERESTING. All these relationships are clean and safe, pulled fresh from a Hallmark commercial and the dialogue is written like a goddamn PSA instead of real people. And I don't even care about Tim or Jon like that (especially not with Tom Taylor's hack writing) so that should be an indicator of how much this pisses me off, like we are never returning to the days of Scandal Savage marching into hell to save her one true love then ending up in a poly relationship because they're scared of implying that gay people go to hell or something equally stupid and cowardly.
So uh tl;dr Big 2 Comics are fucking spineless in case you didn't know that and please don't hope for actual representation from them, go out and read some books that actually do interesting and engaging explicit queer relationships (start with Invisible Kingdom by G. Willow Wilson)
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lostjonscave · 3 years
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hmm. i’ve been away for a while, and. this blog is now 2 years old. and my thoughts on tma, among other things, have changed significantly over the past 2 years. i don’t mean they’ve gone from positive to negative, they’ve mostly gone from one prevailing idea to another, but i don’t necessarily agree with a lot of the meta that i wrote 2 years ago now based on various developments throughout the course of the show. since those posts do still get attention every once in a while, i feel like that’s important to say, at least for me?
however jon archivist is autistic and i was right from day one about that part. fuck yeah neurodivergence baby
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squishneedsahero · 3 years
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Motherly Instinct
Awesomest of Them All 2.0 | One-Shots
Part 8.5 of 13
Word Count: 1541
Batman x Batmom!Reader
You know what the bat family needs? Someone to pull them together and give them all the love they deserve. Who better to do that than you? An author rising to stardom in Gotham who catches the eye of a billionaire with your standoffish attitude at a huge social gathering. You are yourself and never pretend to be more or less than that. Plus you're the most stubborn person in the world, refusing to let good things go without reason.
This is a bonus part that I’ve just thrown in cause I felt like it and I have other ideas for the series <3
Some shit had been going down with the Justice League, you had no idea what exactly it was but you hadn't seen your husband in at least a week. Needless to say you were tired of not seeing him and your two sons. So, you decided to do something about it. Something you hadn't done before now.
You walk down to the cave, after warning Alfred you were leaving, and find the suit Bruce had gotten made for you in case of an emergency. For you this qualified as an emergency. You put the mask over your eyes and prepare to head up to the watchtower. One way or another you're going to drag your family home for some rest.
Bruce didn't trust every member of the League to know who he was even if he trusted them to protect the world. It was a bit paranoid but you'd deal with it and wear the mask if it meant you could drag him home. You step up to the teleport and announce the number you were assigned then step in and when you step out you're in space.
Not exactly in space but being in the watchtower was close enough. You take a look around, seeing no one you recognize you approach someone in a green suit and ask, "excuse me, do you know where I could find Batman?"
"Of course I do beautiful, I'll show you the way," the man says, obviously he's a flirt. "The names Hal by the way, and I can call you?"
You decide to bs something on the spot, and say, "just call me SH/N." From there you follow alongside him as he leads you to wherever it is Bruce is located.
"So, why are you looking for the grumpy bat? You know he's quite boring, I'm sure the two of us could have much more fun."
He clearly has no idea who you are and you can only hope this walk won't be long. You go ahead and have a little fun with your response anyways, "yeah? What makes you so sure about that?"
"Well, he's Batman, all dark and brooding I've never seen the guy smile. Just don't tell him I told you that," Hal responds.
You can't help but laugh, "of course I'd never tell him that."
Hal opens up a door and waves his arm, letting you in. "Hey Bats, this beauty is looking for you, though why she's here to see you I have no idea."
Bruce had been standing there talking with Clark and Diana about something. He doesn't respond in any way to the sight of you besides a slight nod, but you can tell that Hal's flirting has already hit a nerve. You let the slightest smirk cross your lips and you pat Hal's arm saying, "thank you for the help," before walking across the room to your husband.
First thing you do is kiss his cheek and say, "hello love." You tilt your head and cast a side glance at Hal, seeing the color somewhat drain from his face. You wrap your arms around Bruce's neck.
His arms come to rest around your waist as the door closes behind Hal as he leaves. "What are you doing here dear?"
"I haven't seen you in over a week so I'm here to drag you home." You let go of him long enough to take the mask off since it was already bothering you, "also don't kill Hal I think I scared him enough," you laugh.
Bruce sighs, "I can't come home there's... a situation we need to figure out first."
You roll your eyes, "okay, what is the situation because I'm not going home until you and the boys can come home with me." You can tell that Bruce is just goi g to argue so you turn to Diana and ask, "what's going on?"
Diana quickly explains that a clone of Clark, a teenager, had been found and they were trying to figure out what to do with him. The fact that they were still trying to figure it out told you more than enough and you turn to face Clark.
"So, should I ask why it is you aren't taking him in?"
"He was created by Luther and is most likely a threat," Clark states simply.
"So?" You ask. "He's a kid." Clark doesn't have a good answer to that so you turn back and look at Bruce for a moment. "You go get the boys and tell them it's time to go home?"
Bruce agrees to go find Dick and Tim, taking Diana with him and leaving you there with Clark. "Hey, y/n, with Lois and Jon I can't risk their safety by bringing a  strange clone into my house." The large alien tries to defend himself.
"That's not a good enough reason. It's understandable but not a good reason. You're there and can protect your family if anything goes wrong, this boy is a child who was probably raised in a lab. Abandoning him is the stupidest idea I've heard in a long time," you cross your arms.
Somehow Clark found you scarier than Bruce was. No wonder Bruce didn't argue when you told him to go find your kids. He once again doesn't have a good answer. "So, you don't have a good response so that usually means I am right. You should talk to Lois about this before deciding anything but for now I'm going to have the kid come stay with us."
The two of you stand in an awkward silence as you wait for Bruce to come back since you don't know how to get back to where you'd started. When they finally come you put your arms around your boys and press a kiss to the top of each of their heads, "we have one more thing before we can go."
You look at your husband and the boys look between the two of you. You smile at them, "we're going to have someone staying with us for the foreseeable future." They all understand what you're saying and go get the superboy and you take him home to the mansion with you.
Once you're home you send everyone to bed and you take care of the boy. You introduce yourself to him and ask if he has a name.
"A- name?" He asks with a pause, obviously thinking about it.
"It's alright if you don't have one, we can come up with something for you." You offer him a kind smile. "So, here's the deal, I'm going to take you upstairs and give you a room to stay in rather than leaving you down here because my husband is paranoid. You'll get to see who we are and in return you'll eat some food and get some sleep, alright?"
"Okay," he says with a little hesitation before you lead him upstairs. You take him to the kitchen where the two of you get some food, quickly being caught by the rest of your family.
Bruce gives you a look upon seeing that you'd brought him upstairs, which you return but just say, "hello Love, he's going to be staying with us so I brought him upstairs to get some food. I figured he can stay in a spare bedroom because we have plenty of room."
Bruce nods slightly, "alright." He looks between you, Alfred, Dick and Tim before turning back to the boy, "so, I'm afraid I forgot to ask your name," he says, putting up with you and your mom instinct.
You jump in, saving the kid from another awkward answer and say, "we were just thinking about a name he'd like. Maybe all of you could help us come up with some ideas."
Alfred makes sure everyone is fed and you try to make sure the kid feels welcomed. He's a little awkward and doesn't talk much but he's polite, eventually you fin a name he likes, Kon-El, and then if needed he could go by Conner. You make sure that he gets to bed before going to face your husband.
You sit on the bed next to him, and face him, "okay, go ahead, let me hear it for letting him in our house."
He sighs and shakes his head slightly, "it was reckless to just let him in and see who we are." He puts his arms around you and pulls you to him, "I love you, and can't exactly be mad at you for making the call on this one when I've done it the other times." He presses a kiss to your temple, "I trust you and your instincts, so it will be fine no matter what happens."
You lean into his chest and smile softly, "thank you, I love you." You tilt your head to press a kiss to his jaw, "he needs someone to take care of him, I don't care where he came from but I'm going to make sure he has a home."
Bruce presses another kiss to your head and pulls you onto the bed with him, tucking the both of you into the covers and holding you tightly to him as he finally gets some reset.
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mossy-rainfrog · 3 years
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[Image ID: A digital drawing of Martin and Jon in season 1 of the Magnus Archives. Martin is seen out in the archives hallway, through the doorway to Jon’s office. Martin a fat Black man with short coily hair, round glasses, and snake bite lip piercings. He wears a blue sweater over a white collared shirt, and carries a brown satchel with him. Martin is looking over his shoulder with interest as he walks into work, and in a smaller panel to the side, we see Jon watching him with wide eyes. Jon is a thin Persian person with long greying hair tied back in a low bun, and rectangular glasses. He wears a red button down underneath a brown jacket, and is seated at the desk in his office. He stares out at Martin, looking flustered. There are small lines by Martin’s mouth indicating the piercings, and there are exclamation marks by Jon’s head indicating his reaction. End ID.]
I found an old fic in my notes about Martin dressing alt/punk outside of work and accidentally leaving on a small indicator of his usual fashion when he comes into the archives and I just. had to bring it back. Also, because I am still fond of it, please enjoy the aforementioned fic🥰:
Jon is having a difficult morning, to say the least. He had believed that coming into work an entire hour early would provide him with ample time to get a head start on today’s organizing, but that has decidedly not been case. He’s already had to take the statements of two utterly ridiculous liars who could barely keep the grins off of their faces as they recounted their ludicrous tale, and then listen to Elias subsequently dress down his so-called ‘attitude towards patrons’ for nearly half an hour, and suffice it to say, he would really like to get started on something that is actually worth his time.
He dislikes settling down with the more... difficult statements before all of his colleagues arrive, an attempt to keep them from interrupting his recordings to greet him, so once he’s finished his other menial tasks, he finds himself simply sitting and waiting for the ensemble of his assistants to arrive.
Tim and Sasha are the first - entering together as usual after having stopped for coffee on the way in - but Martin is slow to follow, taking nearly another fifteen minutes to arrive. It’s nearly ten past seven at that point, and once Jon hears Martin’s steps coming towards his office, he has half a mind to give the man yet another lecture on punctuality and work ethic. He gets as far enough as bracing his hands on the table to stand up, and then Martin appears in the doorway to his office, and he realizes something strikingly different about his appearance.
That is to say, Jon’s whole world narrows down very suddenly to the little black studs decorating the space underneath his bottom lip.
He’s staring, he knows he is, but Martin is busy looking down the hall for the moment, so Jon doesn’t force himself to tear his eyes away just yet. How long has he had his lip pierced, Jon wonders? Has it been there the whole time he’s known him? Has he only recently gotten it done? How? Why?
It’s hard to imagine Martin - soft, unassuming Martin who is far too large for the amount of space he crams himself into, always slouching, always pulling himself inwards as if he can make himself disappear - dressing in any way other than soft sweaters and slacks, but if Jon’s honest, he’s never actually seen the man outside of work. He has no idea how Martin chooses to dress himself when out from under the Institute’s rigid dress code, and this tiny window he’s been provided with is making him maddeningly curious.
He’s not... he doesn’t have feelings for Martin, aside from a general annoyance, occasionally marked with curiosity. He’s a professional, for God’s sake, not to mention that Martin’s very existence as a given is like a grain of sand in his eye, rubbing and irritating. Now he cuts clean through without even noticing. Jon itches to know more.
“Jon?” Martin’s voice tears him from his thoughts. “Is something wrong?”
Oh, shit. Jon can feel his gaze heat up as if he’s done something horribly wrong - how embarrassing that he can’t even keep a blush off of his face - but he still forces himself to open his mouth and stutter out an excuse. He means to remark on one of Martin’s missing reports, or the fact that he’s coming in nine minutes late, but what ends up leaving his mouth is; “Your lip is pierced.”
Just a sentence, not a question. He thinks he’s positively beet red. Martin freezes, the tips of his ears darkening visibly against his brown skin as his hand shoots to his mouth and his eyes widen.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I must have forgotten to take them out,” the poor man looks like he’s about to panic as he whips his gaze around as if to see if anyone else has noticed. “Don’t tell Elias, please, I’ve seen how he gets after Tim for the dress code, and there is no way, I mean no way—”
“Oh, n-no, it’s- I- it’s fine, really,” Jon raises his hands in defense as Martin rambles, for some reason inclined to reassure the man. “I won’t- I’m not- I’m not going to tell him.”
Martin hesitates, wringing his hands, apologies visible on every pore of his face. “I- Thank you. I’ll- I’ll go take it off. Christ, that’s embarrassing.”
“Only if you want,” Jon shrugs, which is definitely not the correct thing for him to say as a boss, and it definitely comes out a little gentler than he intends it to, and Jon is three seconds from screaming if he can’t figure out how to make himself react normally to this. It’s a non-traditional piercing in an academic institute of research; it’s against the rules, however dated they may be, and further than that, there is no reason for it to completely undo his composure the way that it has. He tries to get a hold of himself. “I-I mean, that’s likely for the best.”
Martin is giving him a funny look - probably a response to seeing the whole spectrum of human emotions flash across Jon’s face in a millisecond - but he still nods and says: “Sorry again. Thank you,” and then disappears down the corridor.
Jon immediately buries his face in his hands and sighs.
What is wrong with him? For God’s sake, he’s just seen Martin with a lip piercing, it’s not like he’s witnessed the man undressed. Besides, he works in an archive where he has to read statements about the intricacies of monsters that rip off people’s skin and suchlike every day, he should know how to keep his composure better than this. He should just move on with his day and focus without a problem, just like he does every morning.
Except, his mind keeps wandering back to it; the way the little studs had followed the shape of his mouth, the way they had quirked up when he flashed one of his nervous smiles, the way Jon is still desperately curious about what brought him to get them done, and also what it might feel like to brush a thumb, or perhaps even his lips over them.
Jon sits up so fast his head actually smacks against an open filing cabinet behind him. His mind is too busy reeling to notice the ache that fills his head, and he stares straight ahead with wide eyes and utterly scorching cheeks. Absolutely not. He absolutely did not just think about kissing Martin Blackwood. that was- that would be...
He blinks hard, clears his throat. It doesn’t matter what that was. He’s decidedly not interested in Martin Blackwood romantically, or in any other capacity given his truly ridiculous academic competence and his obnoxious habit of interrupting seemingly every stable thing Jon has in his life. He crushes the feeling down hard, locks it up in a box, stuffs it down under his lowest two ribs, and resolves himself never to open it again.
He is not going to keep thinking about this all day. He has work to do, and if something as simple as a pair of metal studs can distract him this badly, then he needs to make absolutely certain it doesn’t happen again.
He tells himself he’s not disappointed when he sees Martin without the piercings later that day.
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bluejayblueskies · 3 years
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i cannot stop thinking about tma hell's kitchen au
(@f0xesand0wls thank you for enabling me)
- elias is the head chef, and peter and gertrude are his sous chefs. there are 20 total chefs in the competition: red team: jon, tim, georgie, daisy, naomi, agnes, gerry, jordan, helen/michael, oliver blue team: martin, sasha, melanie, basira, mike, jude, julia, jared, jane, manuela
- the black jackets are jon, martin, tim, sasha, georgie, and melanie, and the finalists are jon and martin. the winner is probably martin, but it doesn't really matter, because the actual plot of this is a jonmartin rivals-to-friends-to-lovers slowburn
- annabelle is the one who puts all of the film and audio together at the end. jmart watch the show once it's put on television and go 'what the fuck i didn't say any of that' because that's how reality tv is babey
- martin is one of those chefs who does poorly at the beginning but gets better and ends up in the final two. even though he's not on the same team as jon, jon is like 'this guy sucks' and maybe martin messes something up for jon early on and jon decides he does not like martin.
- jon is so nervous that he's going to screw up and get sent home early (he doesn't have formal culinary training and feels deeply underqualified) so he's very stiff and overly professional at the beginning. he relaxes over time as he becomes more confident in his own cooking and as he does well at challenges and dinner services.
- somewhere around chapter/episode 5, martin tells jon that he doesn't have any formal culinary training and that he said he did in order to get into the restaurant job he had prior to coming on the show. he's been cooking for his mother since he was ten though, and jon surprises himself by saying that that's a lot more impressive than studying technique in france or something. that's the catalyst of their transition from rivals into friends
- somewhere around episode 8, jude (who got switched to the red team a few episodes prior) gets eliminated, but on the dinner service before she does, there's an incident in the kitchen and jon's hand gets burnt pretty badly (not so badly that he has to go home, and he fights through the rest of dinner service because of course he does). he insists he doesn't have to go to the hospital for it, and elias reluctantly agrees and has the medic look at it. in the dorms later, martin helps jon unwrap it and put more burn cream on it and change the bandages and... yeah <3
- daisy and jon do not get along at first, and daisy actually tries to sabotage jon early in the season/fic. jon nearly gets eliminated because of it and he is not happy. then, a good few episodes later, the red team wins a challenge and they go on some sort of outdoorsy award and something happens and jon saves daisy from getting seriously injured. they're on better terms after that.
- when jon, tim, sasha, martin, melanie, and georgie get black jackets, elias (like every actual season of hell's kitchen) brings their family members/friends in for them to see. jon gets his grandmother, tim his brother, sasha her mother, georgie her best friend alex, and melanie some of her ghosthunt uk (the restaurant) friends. the only person martin has is his mother, and they tell him that she was too sick to come, but he can't shake the feeling that she just didn't want to. she didn't even agree to make him a video. it's a very awkward affair, and after the challenge (which tim wins) jon stands by martin while they're... idk, peeling 200 pounds of potatoes or something and they talk about it and they talk about a lot of their personal lives. for most of the competition, they're very aware that they're on camera at all times, but jon decides that being there for martin is more important than worrying about that.
- jon wins the next black jacket challenge and, when asked who he wants to invite on the reward, invites martin. they get to go wine tasting in a beautiful vinyard together and then they get some time to sit in the vinyard and just relax. martin probably realized he had a crush on jon around... episode/chapter 8? pretty soon after his admission that he doesn't have formal training. this episode is when jon realizes that he has a crush on martin, and the wine tasting suddenly seems very romantic and he gets very flustered. martin just thinks he's getting nervous since they're getting closer to the end of the competition.
- it's martin and jon in the finals. martin has tim, melanie, basira, and agnes on his bridage and jon has sasha, georgie, daisy, and gerry. in the middle of the entrees, something goes very wrong in martin's kitchen (not because of martin, because agnes burns like... ten racks of lamb or something ridiculous like that) and it looks like martin might not even be able to finish and he's freaking out just a little bit, so jon does something incredibly stupid and tells sasha to take charge of the kitchen for a moment and goes over into the other kitchen and pulls martin aside and takes martin's hands in his and is like 'it's okay, you're okay, everything's going to be okay. you're extremely talented and an amazing chef and an amazing person and i love you and this is not your fault and you're going to go back out there and get things back on track.'
jon goes back to his kitchen, elias yelling at him the whole way, and martin kicks agnes out and gets his kitchen back under control and they have no other issues that night. and martin's brain completely skips over the 'i love you' until the end of service, when the adrenaline wears off and they start to clear down and jon gives him this smile and suddenly martin remembers and he's like 'oh fuck'
but jon doesn't say anything about it so martin assumes he hadn't meant to say it, because of course he didn't, because they're competing for a job and $250,000 and he probably just heard jon wrong or something. jon probably said 'i love your cooking' and martin's just being stupid and letting his crush get away from him. so they both go back and sit in the dorms and wait for elias to call them up to his office. meanwhile, jon also remembers that he accidentally let i love you slip and he's having a bit of a crisis about it because on the one hand he meant it, but on the other hand he should not have said it then and martin hasn't said anything, so maybe he didn't even hear.
still, martin needs to thank jon. so he's eventually like 'thank you for what you did back there. i don't think i would have made it through service without what you said.' then, after a moment, because it is a competition: 'why did you help me? you could have let me drown and you'd have a secure win'
and jon just shrugs and says, 'because you needed help, and i... i care about you. i didn't want to see you fail. you are a good chef, martin, and i... i know you deserve this job just as much as me. you can go work at elias's restaurant and i can go back to mine and... and that'll be okay, if that's what happens'
and martin realizes suddenly that jon lives across the country from him normally and he doesn't know if he'll be able to see jon after this (chefs are busy people, after all, not a lot of time for family and such) and before he can really think about it he's like 'i wouldn't be okay with that' and then when jon just looks at him he clarifies, 'i... i don't want to just go back to living in [washington?], working all day and coming home to an empty apartment, and you'll go back to [new york?] and i... will i even see you again? because it's been so nice, being here, being with you, and i want to see you again, jon. every day.' he hesitates a moment, then decides fuck it, if i'm wrong, at least i'll only be embarrassed for a little while longer and says, 'what you said during service. did you mean it?'
and jon, tentatively, is like, 'that you're a good chef? yes, martin, i meant it, of course i did' and martin's like 'no, the... the other thing you said. right in the middle of it all. i- i don't know if i heard you right, and i just... i need to know if you meant it'
and it would be easy for jon to say no, to pretend like he didn't. but instead, he sits next to martin on the couch and takes martin's hand in his and nods and says, 'i... i've meant it for quite some time, i think' and he smiles at martin, a little bit shy, and martin's overwhelmed with affection and he reaches for jon's face, leans forward, and--
and the phone rings. unfortunately. because elias made a decision
- martin's door opens and jon's doesn't. jon thinks he should feel crushed, and he does feel disappointed, but mostly he's just so, so happy for martin. martin is stunned, and tim and sasha and georgie and melanie and basira and daisy are waiting for him below to congratulate him. martin's stuck in a round of thank yous when he turns and sees jon, who's run down the stairs to join the celebration and is looking at martin with those same eyes he would get when he was determined to win a challenge or finish a dish that needed two more minutes in one minute. and then jon just hugs martin, so tightly martin can barely breathe, and he mumbles into martin's neck, 'i would very much like to kiss you, but i very much do not want our first kiss to be on national television' and martin laughs and hugs jon tightly in return and mumbles back, 'i love you too, jon. just in case it wasn't obvious' and even though jon just lost, he's never been happier
- (they watch the show when it comes out together half a year later, in the little bit of free time they have around running their own respective restaurants, and they spend the whole time picking it apart
jon: okay i did not say that, where did they even get that from??
martin: god do i really look like that from behind...
jon: oh christ. martin, i- i think they thought i wanted to have sex with you. ugh, they've put on weird romantic music. red lighting. i hate this. i clearly did not--no, martin, don't give me that look, you know what i mean.
martin: wow, this makes us look like terrible chefs
and, at the end:
jon: christ, of course they were recording us in the dorms after the last service. this is a cooking competition, not a romance.
martin: eh, it was a bit of a romance.
jon: hush, i'm trying to watch. they're about to announce the winner. i don't have much hope for this chef martin; after all, he did burn that risotto back in episode 2--
martin, trying not to laugh while he glares at jon: oh my god jon let it go)
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seachanqe · 3 years
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Kiss prompt 63 please !
63. Routine Kisses Where The Other Person Presents Their Cheek/Forehead For The Hello/Goodbye Kiss Without Even Looking Up From What They’re Doing
(also fits another I was asked to do by an anon: 2. Kiss on the forehead) Takes place post episode 22 in season 1. This ended up being way longer than I thought it would be, whoops. It also doesn’t exactly fit the 63 prompt but close enough! -
It had become their little routine of sorts. Jon would either arrive at work very early in the morning primly dressed or stumble out of his office at 6am blinking blearily, hair mussed, shirt absurdly wrinkled. 
Either way, he always made his way to the little break room where Martin would usually be preparing some sort of approximation of a breakfast. There was tea at least; sometimes he'd already be frying some bacon or eggs in a pan on a hot plate Tim had set up a few weeks ago. And Martin, bless him (though Jon wouldn't say that to his face), would always make enough for Jon. Jon didn't understand why Martin, of all people, would do this for him. But he couldn't just ask Martin. No. He would continue to politely thank Martin for the breakfast and leave it at that. 
Most of the time, Jon would take it with him to his office to get an even earlier start on work. Every once in a while though, Jon would stop by the rickety brown break room table where Martin was sitting by himself, Jon would set his plate at the table, nod at Martin's bemused expression, and eat with him. They never really said much; sometimes Martin would update Jon on a case or two he was researching or Jon would make a remark about his commute, silly, mundane sorts of things that you would share with a co-worker.
This little routine they had established between the two of them was comforting to Jon in it's reliability, it's structure; it was something Jon hadn't even known he had been missing or needed. There was no other word for it than it was just… nice to wake up and have this breakfast with Martin to look forward to. 
One morning, after several weeks of these breakfasts, Jon was helping Martin with the dishes. Jon washing, while Martin dried. Jon had found out early on he had to very strongly insist he would wash the dishes, over Martin's many protests. As he scrubbed at the pan, Jon half listened to Martin chatting on about the benefits of a ceramic cartridge in a turntable over a magnetic one as he painstakingly (maybe too much so) dried the two plates they were using. It was comfortable, familiar, but something in Jon ached for a thing he could not completely grasp.
Jon had finished with the pan, and handed it to Martin to dry. Martin quickly put the two plates in the cabinet where they belonged before taking the pan.
"Thanks Jon. Really," Martin stressed as Jon shook his head. "I'm grateful for your help. Again."
"Nonsense," Jon said, frowning. "You did the cooking, the very least I can do is assist you with the clean up after."
He stood there for a moment next to Martin, feeling slightly awkward, as Martin busied himself with drying the pan. He felt like he was almost getting deja vu but he couldn't place where or from what.
"Well," Jon said finally. "I should get started on work. I have that statement from Nathaniel Jacobs to record, despite my belief it's highly likely it's anything but a fanciful story he made up for us back in 1994." Jon sighed. "But I have to record it anyway."
Martin, looking up at Jon, nodded agreeably enough, with only one eyebrow raised to betray his incredulousness at Jon's disbelief. "Okay then, well. Have a good day?" which was pitched high at the end, ostensibly a question. "Let me know if you see any worms," he finished with a laugh that Jon could tell by now was tinged with genuine unease. 
"Yes, I will. Uh. Thanks again, Martin." And before he turned to leave, without a moment's thought on the matter, he reflexively leaned down to press a quick kiss to Martin's forehead, distantly noticing that Martin's eyes fluttered closed at the touch. A second after Jon had begun to move towards the door, he nearly froze, feeling like he had been struck with a jolt of lightning as he realized what he had just done. He had just kissed Martin Blackwood, what had he been thinking? 
Eyes wide, Jon didn't dare turn around, but forced himself to keep moving until he reached the safety of his office. Today was definitely one of those days he'd hide in his office for the rest of the day. And most assuredly not spend any time at all reflecting upon why he had kissed Martin. It was just a silly little mistake. Probably, for a split second, he had thought he was with Georgie and muscle memory took over. That must be it. Hopefully this would all blow over in a few weeks.
The next day, however, Jon couldn't help himself; he was like a moth drawn to a porch light, drawn in by the comforting familiarity, the promise of warmth. He had to find out at some point what Martin's reaction was, so why not today? Despite his resolve to get it over with, he felt a tangle of anxiety and fear in the pit of his stomach at the thought he might have to give up this early morning routine if Martin had decided to avoid him. He wouldn’t blame Martin at all really.
As he entered the break room, he saw Martin, biting his lip, lost in thought, preparing breakfast as usual, sinking two tea bags into two mugs of tea. When he heard Jon enter, Martin greeted him, with only the barest hint of discomfiture, and gave him a small smile. Jon felt a wave of relief crash upon him as he took the proffered tea mug and tentatively smiled back. Maybe he hadn't ruined everything. Maybe... perhaps this would turn out okay.
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[AO3]
“Why do you even have that?”
Sasha looks up from her laptop to give Jon a quizzical look. They’ve been deep in a research hole for hours now, Jon with his files spread out before him like a buffet and Sasha picking her way through line after line of code to access things that she really shouldn’t be able to access - although, the government should have better security if it didn’t want to get hacked so she tried not to feel too badly about it. Jon’s not looking at his files now though, his gaze appears to be drawn to her shoe-box sized kitchen.
“Why do I have what?” She asks, “A kitchen?”
“No, the--” He flicks his fingers in a vague gesture to the counter, and his eyebrows pull together in a fetching little wrinkle that Sasha desperately wants to smooth away with her thumb, “the absolutely massive thing you have taking up half your kitchen.”
“Oh!” Sasha says, and then starts to laugh.
The stand mixer is large, honestly, too big to store in the meagre storage space of her cabinets and taking up half the countertop next to the stove. It’s also a garish bright red, loud against the backdrop of beige walls and a white lino countertop. She wonders why on earth Jon’s bringing this up now, they’ve been working for hours now and this certainly isn’t the first time he’s visited her flat, and decides the answer to simply be that ‘it’s Jon, he’s probably just never noticed.’
He’s fully scowling at her now, in a way she knows is defensive. He probably thinks she’s making fun of him. He can be so sensitive. “Sorry,” She says when she stops laughing long enough to speak, “I think you just caught me off guard. It was cute.”
“Cute?” Jon starts to sputter, the tips of his ears darkening and his nose wrinkling.
He is cute, Sasha thinks.
She waves it off. “It was a wedding present. That’s one of the big ones, I think, for most people. First thing I added to the registry.”
Jon couldn’t look more blind-sided if he’d been hit by a lorry. He even drops his pen, staring at her with wide eyes. “You’re married?”
Sasha snorts. “Don’t be daft. Does it look like I’m living with someone?”
Jon looks around anyway like he’s looking for evidence. “Divorced?”
“Nope.” She says, popping the ‘p’ with extra emphasis and grinning at the helpless confusion radiating from her friend.
“Then--” Jon trails off. He looks at the stand mixer again, like maybe it holds the answers he’s seeking. He looks back at her, and then down at his files. Suddenly his head jerks up and he says, “Wait, have you ever even been engaged?” He says this so seriously it tugs at Sasha’s heart. His eyes narrow like he’s caught her in some kind of trap, as though that wasn’t what she was expecting.
Sasha grins. “No.”
Jon looks at her incredulously, like he’s fitting together a bunch of puzzle pieces in his mind. It’s fun. Jon is so fun. “Sasha, did you fake an engagement just to get a stand mixer?”
“Yes!” Sasha slams her laptop shut and points at Jon, “But do not tell my great aunt that, do you understand? It took me years of work to get that stand mixer, Jon!”
Jon stares at her silently for just a moment, absolutely bewildered, before he dissolves into laughter, curling in on himself and digging his fingers into his sides. It shakes his shoulders and Sasha swears there’s tears in his eyes and before she knows it she’s laughing too, hard enough it hurts her chest and blurs her vision. To an outside viewer they must look positively loony. It takes ages for them to stop and gather themselves back together. Jon takes off his glasses to wipe tears away from his eyes while Sasha rubs at her face and tries to stop the giggles that keep bubbling up when she looks at Jon.
“God,” Jon says at last, “I haven’t laughed like that in--” he clears his throat, “anyway.”
“Yes,” Sasha agrees, “anyway.”
She looks at the clock and is both shocked and completely unsurprised that it’s after midnight.
Jon must follow her gaze because she hears him utter a quiet, “good lord.”
She’s dangerously close to laughing again.
Jon starts to shuffle his files away back into their folders. “Later than I thought.” He says.
Sasha hums in agreement, putting her laptop away and sorting her notes into neat piles. “No use trying to get home this late, you might as well just stay the night.”
“Ah,” Jon’s nose does that cute wrinkle thing again, and Sasha’s lips twitch, “that’s quite alright. I’m sure I can just find a cab.”
“Could do,” Sasha agrees, “but it’d be easier if you stayed. I’ve got an extra toothbrush and everything. Plus, tomorrow is Saturday so it’s not like we have to rush back to work or anything.”
Jon’s got all his things put back in his messenger bag, a solid olive green canvas affair that Sasha privately thinks is dreadful looking. “Wouldn’t want to spoil your weekend. I’m sure you have plans.” He’s stalling, looking for a reason not to go. Sasha wishes he’d just tell her what he wants.
She smiles, because Jon isn’t easy but she knows him and she likes him anyway, “Well, I was going to put that stand mixer to work and make myself some bread. But other than that--” She shrugs.
Jon’s eyes go once more to that bright red piece of kitchen equipment. “You make your own bread?”
“Sure. It’s cheaper and it tastes better.”
Jon makes a thoughtful noise. “Well, I suppose… that is, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Lovely,” Sasha beams, and then adds slyly, “I’ve even got some of Tim’s things you can sleep in.”
Jon goes properly red at that and buries his face in his hands with a groan.
-
Sasha busies herself with getting her ingredients together while Jon wakes up. Before they’d become friends she’d always just kind of assumed he’d be a morning person. He had that air about him at work, sharp and alert even when she was still trying to get her head on. The truth is that while Jon has difficulties getting to sleep, he would happily sleep until mid-afternoon if she let him, so she makes sure to wake him at a decent hour and then goes back to check and make sure he hasn’t fallen back asleep. Since her flat is basically a glorified closet, and Jon sleeps on the sofa, this is not a hard task to keep an eye on.
It takes a good twenty minutes before Jon comes and sits himself down at what she generously calls a kitchen table. His hair hangs in curls around his shoulders and he impatiently pushes a hand through it where it covers his face. He’s still sleepy-eyed, the sleeves of Tim’s jumper she’d let him borrow pooling around his hands.
“Good morning.” She says with amusement.
He grunts, flopping into a rickety chair. “Coffee?” He asks.
“All out. Tea alright?”
He nods.
“Great. Kettle is over there.” She gestures vaguely to the area next to the fridge, “Tea is top cabinet.”
Jon sighs, like it’s a great effort for him to make his own tea, but offers no further complaint as he retrieves the kettle and fills it with water.
With Jon out of the way Sasha appropriates the table for more space to set out her scale and bowls. She won’t need anything too fancy today so it doesn’t take long to get set up. She hears the kettle and turns around just in time to see Jon half-way climbing onto the counter. “Jon!” She scolds, similar to the way she would her cat when she was a child.
He freezes and gives her a sheepish grin. “You said top cabinet.”
She did, and she hadn’t thought about the almost foot of height she had on Jon. She snorts and waves him down. “Grab the mugs, I’ll get the tea then.”
He grumbles something about doing it himself but obliges, plucking two mugs from the drying rack.
“Green tea alright?”
Jon makes a dismissive noise. “Black?”
“Out.”
“I’m taking you shopping after this, Sasha James, this is downright unacceptable.”
“Yeah, sure.”
She hands him the box of tea bags and he rolls his eyes at her, muttering as he fills their mugs with water.
“Do you at least have milk?”
“Yes.”
“Thank god.”
Sasha rolls her eyes and gets back to her scale, weighing out her dry ingredients.
“Why are you doing it like that?”
“By weight?”
Jon hums.
“It’s more accurate by weight than by volume, typically.”
“You can’t just, I don’t know, eye-ball it?”
“Jonathan Sims have you ever baked anything in your entire life?”
She takes the jerky shrug he gives in response as a no. She shakes her head and dumps her flour and yeast into the mixing bowl of her stand mixer. Jon hovers there at her shoulder, watching, so close she can almost feel his breath.
It gives her a wicked idea.
She reaches a hand up, like she’s checking something, and then flicks the mixer on high.
Flour explodes from the mixing bowl in a cloud of white, covering her and Jon and the countertop.
The little shriek Jon gives will stay with her for a very long time.
“Why?” He asks, mouth agape and positively covered in flour.
“Because I knew it would be funny.” Sasha says, laughing. There’s flour in her hair, and she’ll definitely need to wash her clothes, but the look in Jon’s wide eyes and the slowly blooming smile on his face is worth it.
It takes less time than she thinks to get everything clean again, and the second time she even allows Jon to help her measure ingredients and start the mixer. He’s very serious about the whole thing, watching the scale with a grim kind of determination like it would mean death if he added just a bit too much yeast to the dough, but it’s the most fun Sasha’s had in forever. By the end of the day she has enough bread to wrap a loaf up for Jon to take home, and he looks at her like she’s just given him the greatest gift he’s ever received.
“Same time next week?” She asks as she wraps his scarf around his neck.
“I suppose.” He says, ducking his head to avoid the kiss she tries to plant on his cheek. “If you’re amenable.”
“I’m amenable.” She says, and kisses the top of his head anyway.
Sasha watches him leave and Jon turns back at the end of the hallway to wave, before disappearing into the stairwell. She laughs, bright and happy, and closes the door.
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icerosecrystal · 3 years
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Daminette - The Goddess of Deception vs the Goddess of Creation Pt. 1
Next
Marinette, goddess of deception, at least, that’s what everyone thought. In reality, she was the goddess of creation, but all the other gods and goddesses had handed over the title to another goddess. Lila was her name, and she was the actual goddess of deception, not that anyone except for Marinette knew. Even the queens and kings of Olympus Tikki, Plagg, Wayzz, etc. were starting to believe Lila. How did Lila manage to do this? Well, it all happened a year ago.
(A Year Ago)
Marinette was heading out to meet her friends. Once she arrived, she heard a loud, obnoxious voice claiming to be the Goddess of Creation. She looked around and saw a girl with sausage hair, talking to the rest of her friends. Supposedly, she found out she was the goddess a couple of months ago, and she and the god of the sun, Adrien were to be married in six years. While the dates were correct, her claims most certainly were not. Marinette then came up and questioned, “How could you possibly be the goddess of creation?”
Yeah, tactlessness was not her forte. Sausage hair burst into tears, exclaiming, “Of course you would question me! I expect nothing less from the goddess of deception.” Marinette couldn’t believe what she just heard, she tried to stammer out an answer, but after sausage hair’s response, everyone swiftly turned to glare at her.
“That’s so not cool, have you been lying to us the whole time, Marinette,” Alya yelled, “And just because you are the goddess of deception, that doesn’t mean you have to have it out for poor Lila.” Oh, so Lila was her name, it should be Liar, not Lila. Everyone continued shouting similar things to Marinette, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lila looking at her smugly.
Lila then loudly laughed and said, “Well, I should tell more about what it’s like being the goddess of creation, ” and she then dragged everyone along, leaving Marinette shaking with blinding rage. She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked around to see Adrien looking at her. He had a disappointed look in his eyes.
“Marinette, why would you do that? If you leave Lila alone, she will get some more friends and will eventually admit that she isn’t the goddess of creation. Just play along.” It made Marinette even angrier was he implying that she should leave her future in the hands of a LIAR!
Marinette gave him a cold glare, “ I don’t care what you think, Mr. Agreste. You think Lila’s well being is more important over my own. She is stealing my title and future, and it will end up harming everyone, including me.” She saw him opening his mouth to most likely retort, but before he could, she turned on her heal and said, “Have a good rest of your day Mr. Agreste.” After seeing Adrien’s true colors, Marinette swore that if she ever got out of this mess and be identified as the true goddess of creation, she would do everything in her power so that she wouldn’t marry Adrien. For he is a fool, the god of the sun is.
~Present~
Marinette sighed, reminiscing in the consequences that day. Who knew that her friends had so little faith in her?! The only good thing that came out of the whole ordeal was that she ended up dodging a bullet in having to marry Adrien. But, she realized that if she does come out as the true goddess of creation, she would have to marry him. Fortunately, it would be a bit harder for her to do because Adrien had kissed Lila, which resulted in the breaking of the bond between Marinette and Adrien. It came with a price of immense pain, but the bond, still broken.
Either way, she would end up losing something if she left or stayed, and did she want to out her true identity to a group of people who believed a stranger over her? No, she didn’t. So, she made the hard decision to disappear, well the semi-hard decision. She would miss her parents, the god of baked goods and family, and the goddess of the harvest. She would miss Luka, the god of music, Juleka the goddess of insecurities, Kagami the goddess of war, and surprisingly Chloe, the goddess of subjection, whom she got closer to over the year of isolation that Marinette faced from her old friends. Nonetheless, she would be sad about leaving them, but she needed this. She got in contact with her Grandma, goddess of traveling, and she then left for the mortal world, saying goodbye to Olympus, if only for a couple of years.
(Time Skip of 4 years)
It has been four years since Marinette left Olympus, and she was so happy. She was able to explore so many different places in the mortal world with her grandma. But, unfortunately, her grandma was needed back in Olympus a year ago, so she had been traveling by herself ever since. She was currently in Los Angeles, California. It was crowded with many mortals and was very noisy, but it was incredibly beautiful and a new experience for her. She was walking around the city when she saw a doorway. She looked around and saw that none of the mortals could see it, meaning it belonged to Olympus. She looked back at it and saw a dark figure leaning against the alleyway leading to the doorway. When he saw her, he pushed off the wall and walked to her. He stepped in front of her and smirked, “Little goddess, what are you doing all alone? And why are you looking at one of the gateways to the Underworld?”
Wait, Los Angeles was one of the gateways to the Underworld?! (Yes, I did get this idea from Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) But, if that’s the gateway to the Underworld, then it meant that this figure in front of her was Damian, the god of the Underworld! “Yes, I am,” Oh, crap, she said that out loud. “Little Goddess, you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here and not on Olympus?”
It took a minute for the question to register into her brain before she promptly explained how Lila claimed the title of the goddess of creation, how she was the real goddess of creation. How she got completely isolated because Lila said that she was the goddess of deception. Marinette ranted about how her life had been five years ago, and how Marinette had had enough, deciding to leave Olympus for the mortal world. The whole time, she could see Damian’s face growing darker, and he looked like he would try as hard as he could to commit a murderer to a goddess, which confused her. Why did he care she just met him? By the end of her tirade, Marinette was panting for air, before she realized that he might no believe her like her old friends. So she timidly asked, “Do you believe me?”
Damian was snapped out of his murderer planning and quickly reassured her, “Of course, I believe you! I can feel the aura of creation surrounding you while you can most likely feel the aura of destruction and death around me.” She understood what he meant about the auras. She was also relieved that she had finally found someone who believed her.
Damian watched her closely before asking her a question that changed everything, “Would you like to go to the Underworld with me?” Marinette looked startled for a second before carefully thinking about her answer. It would be a great experience staying in the Underworld. And Damian had been so kind to her so far, on top of all that he believed her. No one believed her, especially not a stranger. She looked him straight in the eye before giving him her answer, “Yes.”
Damian leads her through the doorway, and after a series of confusing twists and turns, they finally reached the Underworld. Most would find it dark and spooky, but for Marinette, she was in awe of how all the shadows mixed to make a type of beauty that was found only in a place like the Underworld. Damian was watching her closely and smiled softly at the look of sheer awe displayed on her face.
Before he could say anything, a loud voice yelled from somewhere, “Well, if it isn’t Demon spawn, and look, he brought a goddess!” They turned around and, Marinette saw a god, as she assumed, with black hair with a shock of white along with blue-green eyes. His sentence was followed by a crash and dogs barking, and finally, three more gods barreled in from a doorway. Two of them squealed in delight, while the other one yelled, “Is that a real, goddess?” (I did just casually quote Frozen in the middle of my one-shot)
From there, it was chaos, all the boys were asking questions, trying to know her, but all of the questions were flying overhead, none of them understandable. Having enough, Damian whistled, halting everything to a stop. “Tt, enough you useless, morons! What’s going to happen now is that you are going to shut the hell up, let me explain how I met her, and then you will ask Father and Pennyworth to come here so that I may introduce each of you to her. UNDERSTAND!” They all muttered agreements and then waited for Damian to explain how they met. Damian then went on to explain how they met and exactly what Marinette told him about her past. By the end, all the boys looked like they wanted to tease him or get more info on Marinette. They decided to choose the former.
“Oooh, the demon’s in love. The brat found a girl on the street,” the boy that was in the room from when they first arrived exclaimed.
“Tt Todd, go get Father and Pennyworth so I can introduce you,” Damian yelled harshly. The other boy raised his hands as if to surrender and ran out of the room. After some awkward silence, he came back with two gods trailing after him.
“Damian, what is this,” the younger of the men asked.
“Father, this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, she is the goddess of creation, but the goddess of deception claimed her title, and everyone thinks that Marinette is the goddess of deception,” he went on to explain everything he already explained to the other gods. Once he finished explaining, he introduced everyone. “Marinette, I would like to introduce you to my Father, Bruce Wayne. These are my adopted brothers, Jason Todd, Tim or Timothy Drake, Dick or Richard Grayson. My best friend Jon or Jonathan Kent, and my butler Alfred Pennyworth. Father is the god of darkness and adoption, Todd the god of weapons and witchcraft, Grayson the god of death, Drake the god of judgment, Alfred the god of emotions, and finally, Kent, the god of happiness. If you couldn’t tell, he’s visiting.”
Marinette smiled widely at all of them, “It’s nice to meet you all.”
“Ahhh, blinded, we’ve been by the pure sunshine that you are,” Jason yelled, covering his eyes. Marinette’s mood automatically soured, “Please, don’t compare me to the sun. You would be comparing me to the god of the sun who is an asshole and a coward.” They all raised an eyebrow
at her response but didn’t further question it.
“Go be idiots somewhere else, heathens,” Damian screamed, pulling out a katana with the intent to impale them. All of his brothers and his friend ran out of the room, screaming bloody murderer, while his Father and Alfred calmly walked out.
Damian turned back to Marinette, “Would you like to stay for a little bit?” Damian asked. “Would you like to stay forever?” someone shrieked along with a thump. (If you couldn’t already tell, I am obsessed with Disney movies. This was a Mulan reference.)
Marinette smiled gently and replied, “I think I would like that.” Loud whoops, were heard after her response, which caused Damian to groan in exasperation.
(Time Skip, it is about the time of the “Lila’s” and Adrien’s wedding)
Marinette has been staying in the Underworld with Damian and his family, and she has been enjoying it. They were all very kind and supportive of her. They helped her, and she found common interests with each of them. But, out of all of them, she connected with Damian the most. He was the one that brought her here, and he was the one who always had her interests in mind. He made sure to check in on her every day, making sure that she was satisfied with her day and didn’t want to leave the Underworld. Marinette wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she loved how much he doted on her. It was a nice change for her. But, she finally realized the actual reason when it smacked her in the face, literally.
She was walking down one of the long windy halls that she would most likely end up getting lost in, but her being the stubborn person that she was, refused to ask for help. She then smacked right into a shirtless Damian. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her and looked at her, “Are you alright, Marinette?”
But she couldn’t answer. The only thing she was capable of doing at the moment was staring at Damian’s toned chest. It was smooth and had a beautiful shine to it underneath the lights. He had huge biceps, broad shoulders, and a very clear eight-pack. He had just finished exercising, so he was sweating, which made him look even hotter,“…Marinette, MARINETTE!”
“Huh,” she mumbled out. Damian gave her a curious look, “What were you looking at?”
She looked up at him, “You hot, I -I mean, you look nice, n-n-no, uhh your a chest look amazing, w-wait no, ” she then started mumbling to herself, so that Damian couldn’t understand her and hid her face in her hands.
He gently took her hands and rested them on his chest while putting his hands on her hips and pulling her closer, “So, you think I’m hot. Am I hot enough for you to do this?” He started leaning forward slowly so that she could pull away anytime. Yet, she didn’t. She instead tilted her head up and brought her lips closer to his, fluttering her eyes shut. Their lips met in a moment of passion. Her lips were warm and sweet, almost like strawberries, and they molded against his lips. Damian gripped the back of her neck, deepening the kiss, evolving it from chaste to intimate. It felt like a dream, her hands around his neck, his in her hair, and around her waist. Her finding the feeling of being loved. She pulled away and put her hands back on his chest. She looked into his amazing emerald eyes and his swollen lips while panting in sync with him. He pulled her close again and asked her after giving her a peck on the lips, “ Be my girlfriend?” “Yeah,” she replied, and they went back to kissing, this time making out. They heard the cries of joy at her response, it looks like they had some incompetent fools to murderer later, but for now, it was just them.
That had been a couple of months ago, and they were happy together. While things were going great in the Underworld, things were falling apart in Olympus and the mortal realm. Because Marinette, the real goddess of creation, was in the Underworld, plants stopped growing, and many other things that the goddess of creation controls, was, in the process, of destruction. In Olympus, the Kings and Queens were trying to figure out the cause of the lack of life in the mortal realm. And so they went to Lila. Lila claimed that someone was stealing her powers. The kings and queens were skeptical, but since everyone else believed her, they figured that it must be the truth. And so, everyone on Olympus was ordered to find the thief. And the wedding of creation and sun was to commence.
Back in the Underworld, Damian and Marinette were making plans to expose Lila, but one thing was still troubling Marinette, “Dami?”
“Yes, little goddess.”
“If I do go through with the plan, I would have to marry Adrien. I don’t want to marry him!”
Damian hummed thoughtfully, “That does seem like a problem. What do you suggest?”
She blushed underneath his loving gaze, “Would you be willing to marry me?” Damian looked stunned, opening and closing his mouth, looking like a fish. After several failed attempts to speak, he manages a nod with a hint of red splayed across his cheeks. Marinette squealed and tackled him to the ground.
Dick came inside, pretending that he wasn’t listening to their conversation the whole time, “Well, congratulations, make sure to use protection, we don’t need little demons running around the place.” Marinette blushed and swiftly tucked her face into the crook of Damian’s shoulder. If looks could kill, Dick would be dead three times over with the glare Damian was giving him at the moment. Dick seeing his reaction, quickly left the room in an attempt to avoid being stabbed by Damian.
Marinette cuddled into Damian. Damian looked at her tenderly and spoke, “When do you want the wedding to be? And before you answer, I want to tell you something. If we get married, we would be together legally, but you won’t be the Queen of the Underworld automatically. To do that, you need to eat these six pomegranate seeds, but don’t do it for me, I don’t want to ruin your life, okay?” She looked at him and nodded, “Good.”
They held the wedding the next day. It was a beautiful ceremony, but none of Damian’s family could believe it. Who would have thought that the goddess that he met in an alleyway in Los Angeles would be with him forever? None of them expected it. By the end, both Marinette and Damian were happy that they were together. But, they still had one more obstacle to face, the wedding of the goddess of creation and the god of the sun.
To be continued…
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Sick Fic I Didn’t Bother to Name Part 2
Basically Jon is sick post canon and Tim lives and is looking after him while Martin is at work.  See look you don't have to read chapter one!
Okay so I know we all expect my fics on Wednesday, but next week it will probably have to be early Tuesday morning.  So keep an eye out.  Wish I didn't have to switch it up, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  
cw fever, delusions sort of? sort of flashback?, past strained friendships, I think that's it?
Jon is starting to lose track of time.  Getting lost between the seconds.  Gaping spaces where he isn’t awake enough to register what is going on or what episode he and Tim are supposed to be on.  He’s lost in the moments his gummy eyes are closed and between strained breaths.  
He knows it’s the fever.  And he thinks he knows where he is.  
He’s on the couch with Tim.  
In his and Martin’s home.  
But between blinking and the gaping chasms between one tick of the clock and the next, he finds himself in places that have been gone.  Long gone.  Burned to the ground.  Both the places and the things that occurred.  
He’s on the couch he’s on the couch.  He is on the couch.  He is using Tim as a pillow.  While Tim gently runs a hand through his curls.  It would be soothing if he wasn’t also seeing another time.  Another place.  Another Tim.  
A Tim with his face twisted in a familiar rage.  
Shoving him.  Redirecting a forgotten, graceless fall.  Legs giving way under the strain of the worst couple months of his life.  Whichever worst months those were…  Because for a while each month was the worst in a new and horrifying way.  
He is on the couch.  
He is on the couch.  
And Tim is speaking to him soothingly as his breath catches in a panic he knows is lost in time.  Out of time.  Unstuck like Billy Pilgrim.  So it goes.  
It would have been a sensible fear years ago.  
It Was sensible.  
When the exhausted slip of the tongue and static echoed off the hatred behind Tim’s eyes, ricocheting.  At least once slamming Jon against the wall when he lost control.  
And he knows he isn’t making sense.  And he knows that Tim would never raise a hand against him.  And it wasn’t as if Tim ever really did.  But he wasn’t gentle.  Touches that once-and-now mean comfort and safety then meant something too tight too rough too much and sent him into walls or to the floor or caused bruises on his stupidly sensitive skin.  
Jon is on the couch, mumbling to himself feverishly. 
Tim is worried.  Jon’s fever is up, despite the recent medication and the damp flannel on his forehead.  Tim doesn’t even think it’s too high, but Jon has always been delicate.  Or has been recently.  Tim wishes he could cast his mind back far enough to confirm that this is just the way his friend has always been, and not a recent development in the years in the Archives where the world was against this slip of a person.  
Tim tries not to think about it.  Because he can’t lose himself to regret when Jon is facing whatever his mind is throwing at him.  Even when his mind could very well be throwing the memory of a Tim that the present Tim regrets.  Guilt is something for the bottom of a bottle.  Or in the muscle cramping heat of the heavy beat pounding music and pounding feet.  Or in the thick of paint fumes and the wet splat of a brush against the walls.  
Guilt and anger are not meant for quiet moments on the couch watching over a sick friend.  Not for episodes of Avatar the Last of the Airbenders.  
No, this is how you rewrite the guilt and rage.  
He will regret and be angry with himself and the situation that is no longer the situation when he has his coping mechanisms, both constructive and self destructive.  
He soothes Jon.  With quiet reassurances and a gentle embrace, trying to gauge if Tim will have to step back to sooth, or if the words are helping, or if he should pause the show or if the familiar noise will help ground Jon.  
In another time, Jon stumbles across Tim in the break room.  Limping his way to make some tea and let that sooth the fire beneath his skin and the heavy weight of trauma.  Rubbed raw wrists.  His body failing to bounce back after kidnapping.  And the taste of static as the question he’s already forgotten pulls and answer he can’t comprehend from Tim.  
The twist of lips in a snarl.  
Jon reaching out to apologize, but Tim jerks away.  
Sending the unsteady Jon reeling.  
Tim is gone before Jon hits the ground.  Too dizzy to keep his feet.  
Jon is crying, and Tim wonders if he has grounds to blame himself.  He will anyhow, but he wonders if it is justified this time.  
But he can’t act on that sort of regret.  Substantiated or not.  This is not the time.  
“Hey, ace.”  If Jon were more lucid, he would absolutely hate the nickname.  Tim loves it.  It combines a lovely gender neutral expression with the happy double meaning of Jon’s sexuality.  Tim feels that it could serve to ground Jon to a friendlier memory.  Not to mention, well.  Okay he wouldn’t Hate the term.  But he would love to make a show of hating it.  “You with me?”  He pats Jon’s face lightly, and gently wipes away the tears.  He isn’t really sure if Jon is sleeping or hallucinating or just uncomfortable.  
Jon frowns.  He struggles with coordination enough to rub at his eyes.  Eventually he cracks open a fever glazed eye, bringing (Tim assumes) the world into whatever blurry focus he can without glasses.  
“Tim?”  Jon’s voice is rough.  Tim isn’t sure if it from congestion settling or just disuse.  
“The one and only.”  He throws in a cheeky wink.  He wants to say more, but doesn’t know where Jon is in his mind.  
A clammy hand reaches up and traces some of the scars Tim got in the unknowing.  
Tentative.  Both with the lack of clear vision, probably, and with a hesitation that Tim is fairly certain that comes with an uncertainty of where their relationship stands.  
“What?”  
Again, Tim isn’t sure if this is Jon lost in the past or just hazy on some details.  
“It’s Tuesday and Martin made you call out from work today.  Martin would have stayed, but I got off from work earlier today, so I am keeping you company.  Sasha is at work, though.  She’s probably jealous.  Uh… We’re watching Avatar.  Which you always complain about, but I know that’s just for show because I know you watch it on your own.  Oh!  And my favorite part!  The Magnus Institute has been burned to the ground!  And please don’t try to know anything, because you’re sick enough please don’t give yourself a migraine.”  
Jon doesn’t give him the typical annoyed look at over-explanations, so Tim has to guess that Jon was missing some of those details.  Jon relaxes, however.  Which is good.  Lucid enough to understand what he’s saying.  
“You back with me?”  He asks Jon.  
Jon makes a so-so gesture.  He’s stopped crying, which is good, but he’s still hesitant to relax against Tim.  
“Where had you gone?”  Tim asks against his better judgement.  
“Felt unstuck.”  Jon’s hand closes over Tim’s wrist.  Using it to cling to the here and now.  Tim understands that feeling.  
“Anything I can do?”  
“Just… be here?”
“Not going anywhere, bud.”  Tim promises.  
Being shoved.  Hitting the ground.  Curled on the unforgiving tile.  
He’s on the couch.  Tim is here, and he’s kind and solid.  
Tim is shouting.  Angry.  Biting.  Chilling words.  Bent too far to be a friend.  Twisted.  
Jon is getting dizzy from the unstuck feeling.  
Everything is spinning and he is dreadfully cold.  
Aching cold.  
But he’s afraid that every drag of his eyelids will take him back to echoing shouts and freezing tile and bruising hands.  
Jon wakes up screaming.  He tries to pull himself up, the blanket wrapped around him like restraints and he wants to be up and moving and free.  He screams when someone grabs his arms.  
Tight grip, enough to leave marks over his raw wrists.  Tim shaking him until the world upends itself and he’s on the floor.  On the floor.  On the floor.  
As Tim looms.  Angry and shouting and tall.  And Jon is so so so small.  Breakable.  In a way that no one seems to notice until he’s broken in front of them.  
He’s on the floor of his living room.  There are no bruises.  No rope burns.  
Just a precariously high fever.  Sitting crying and dizzy in the thick tangled blankets.  
Tim kneeling before him, making his posture as unthreatening as possible.  
“Jon?  Bud?  You back with me?”
Five things he can see.  Tim.  The laptop.  His cane.  The couch.  His ace ring.  
Four he can hear.  His own pounding heart.  His strained breaths.  Uncle Iroh on the laptop.  Tim’s voice.  
Three he can feel.  His sweat damp frizzed hairs plastered to his forehead.  The thick blanket that takes turns being a comforting weight and a panic inducing restriction.  Again, his heartbeat.  
Did he take his medicine this morning?  
Is he up for more medicine for his fever yet?  
The heat of anxiety is easing him back into the ice fever chills.  
Tim is reaching for him.  Offering him a hand.  Instead he tips forwards against him.  
“Back with you.”  Jon assures, finding his voice at length.  
For sure this time.  
Nothing like panic to jolt him back aware.  
Tim settles him back on the couch with care.  Presses a kiss to his forehead, and tucks him in again against the shivers.  
Jon settles back to watch another episode, Tim as his pillow once more.  
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phoebenavarro · 3 years
Text
and on you stumble on (ch 1)
part 6 of my Jon trusting Tim s2 AU, we’ve reached the end of season 2! woo let’s go
the magnus archives, established JonTim, pre JonMarTim, 1642 words
read this part and the rest of the series on ao3 here
Jon sits, frozen, as his mind struggles to process everything. He told Tim what Melanie said about Sasha, the two Sashas, but he’d kept the rest of his little investigation to himself. It wasn’t fair to Tim, but Sasha is a delicate subject for him, and Jon wanted to be sure. And maybe, as long as he kept it to himself, it wouldn’t be real. Sasha wouldn’t have been replaced by a monster that looks nothing like her, the real her. But the time for that willful denial is over now; he knows the truth, much as he wishes he could change it. Sasha’s dead, and she has been since Prentiss.
Tim. He has to tell Tim. He deserves to know, and he deserves to help kill it.
Especially after the tapes. The tapes with the real Sasha’s voice on them. He presses play on the recorder with a shaking hand, and the voice he still can’t recognize as Sasha’s crackles through the speakers. He sits there and listens and hates himself for not figuring it out sooner. That thing hasn’t even been trying to be like Sasha, the real Sasha, and he still didn’t realize that his friend had been replaced by a monster.
He’s listening to the tape—her statement about her encounter with Michael—for a third time when the door to his office opens.
“Alright boss, you about ready to go?” Tim asks cheerfully, striding in, but he freezes when he sees the distressed look on Jon’s face. “Jon. What’s wrong?”
“I, um…” Jon says, at a loss for words.
“What happened? Did Michael come back?”
“What? No, no…” Jon sighs and rubs his eyes. He’s so tired. “No, it— it’s not that. I suppose it’s easier if I show you.” He gestures Tim over to his desk. “Do you remember what Melanie King said, about there being two Sashas?” Tim nods slowly.
“Yeah, what— did you figure out what’s going on?”
Jon sighs again. “Yes. Tim… I’m sorry.” He hands Tim the paper copies of the statements. Tim frowns, but he doesn’t say anything, he just starts reading. Jon tries not to stare at him while he reads, heartbroken for him and a little bit terrified for how he’s going to react. Jon’s own grief for Sasha hasn’t hit him yet, he’s too preoccupied with thinking about what they’re going to do now. He’s got a plan forming, but that will entirely depend on what Tim wants to do.
Tim sets the papers down and rubs his eyes. “Fuck,” he swears quietly. “That’s it, then. She’s dead,” his voice is disturbingly flat, and Jon aches to reach out to him, to comfort his boyfriend, but Jon’s never seen him like this.
“I’m sorry,” Jon says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“When did it happen?” Tim asks.
“I uh… It seems like it was during the Prentiss attack, when she got separated from Elias and ran into Artifact Storage.” Tim breathes in sharply and swears again under his breath.
“She hated Artifact Storage,” Tim says quietly.
“I know.”
“Or are our memories of her even real? If this thing could replace her and change what she looked like in our minds, why couldn’t it completely change everything?”
“I… I don’t know,” Jon admits, “It’s certainly possible, but we can’t— we can’t start questioning every little memory. I think that’s what it wants, what it feeds on, and besides, it’s just not feasible.”
“Yeah,” Tim says quietly. Jon reaches for his hand, trying to find some way to comfort Tim, to make this news a little more bearable. Tim lets him.
“I think our memories are our own,” Jon continues, “I mean, we both remember her being different before the Prentiss attack. She… changed. We both noticed. We didn’t know why she changed, but we definitely noticed.”
Tim nods, but he doesn’t say anything, so Jon just launches into the next thing he needs to tell Tim about.
“I-I found the missing tapes,” Jon says, and he chuckles bitterly, “They were in Sasha’s desk. Not even well hidden, almost like it wanted us to find them. Finally figured out what those tapes had in common, they all had Sasha— the real Sasha’s voice on them.
Tim cocks his head. “How do you mean? I thought the monster changed pictures and recordings too.”
“Yes, but not polaroid photos, for some reason, and apparently not tape recordings.”
Tim’s breath hitches. “So, what’s on the tapes— that’s real?” Jon nods.
Tim swallows. “Can I— Can I listen to them?” he asks, and Jon’s chest feels tight.
“Y-yes, of course,” Jon says, and he starts rewinding the tape with Sasha’s statement. “I-I don’t think you want to listen to all of them, a-at least not right now, one of them is from the Prentiss attack, when it h-happened.”
“I need to know what happened, Jon,” Tim says, “I need to know how, if it was painful, if she…” Tim trails off. Jon thinks about Sasha’s scream, and he shudders.
“It was awful. I wish I hadn’t heard it. And- And I don’t think there’s much point to you listening to it if you’re just going to use it to punish yourself for not doing anything about it.” Tim glares at him, but Jon keeps his voice steady. “I know you, and I know you’re gonna blame yourself, but it wasn’t your fault.”
Tim mutters, “Yeah, right,” and he turns his head to stare at the floor.
The tape finishes rewinding, and Jon presses play without another word. They listen in silence as the Sasha on the tape tells her story, Tim gripping Jon’s hand so hard that it hurts. Jon can’t help but be hyper focused on every one of Tim’s reactions, every sharp intake of breath, every sigh, every small exhale of laughter. Jon remembers Sasha being funny, and it seems like she was. Jon notices a few tears on Tim’s face, and he pulls Tim close to put an arm around him.
When it ends, Tim wipes his eyes with his free hand.
“I still can’t believe she did something that reckless,” he says, “She was always going on about being the rational one.” Jon smiles. He moves to switch the tape out for the one where Sasha interrupted him to talk about the proper way to pronounce calliope, and he fast forwards to around the point where she walked in. Tim listens just as intently, like he’s trying to catalogue every little thing he can gleam about the real Sasha from these tapes. Then the Jon on the tape resumes reading his statement, and they let it play out in the quiet of the office.
Eventually, the tape ends, and Jon stops it. Jon looks to Tim expectantly, but Tim is staring at the wall with a far-away look in his eyes.
“What are we going to do about that- that thing pretending to be Sasha?” Tim asks, finally breaking the silence.
“Ah,” Jon says, “I’ve been thinking about that. It’s tied to the table, so it seems like destroying the table will kill it, or at least weaken it.”
Tim nods slowly. “Makes as much sense as anything else around here.” He runs a hand through his hair. “When?”
“Tonight? After everyone’s gone home, artifact storage will be empty.”
Absently, Tim presses a kiss to Jon’s hand. “I’m not letting this go, by the way. I want to listen to all of those tapes. But… Maybe you’re right. Maybe now isn’t the best time.”
“That’s reasonable, I suppose,” Jon replies.
Tim stares off into space again for a few minutes, clearly thinking, before he speaks again.
“Should we tell Martin? In case something happens?”
“No,” Jon says immediately, and he can’t ignore the panic that rises in his chest when he thinks about getting Martin involved in this, “No, he’ll insist on staying to help and I won’t put him in any more danger.”
Thankfully, Tim agrees. “Yeah,” he says, “He’ll be pissed when he finds out, though.”
Jon thinks back to the stern lecture Martin had given them on trust, on treating him like an adult, and when he thinks about how Martin is going to react when he finds out, he does feel guilty. Just this, he thinks, This is the last thing we’ll keep him in the dark about.
“We can deal with Martin being angry at us, if we live, but I can’t lose anyone else. It’s my job to protect you all, and I’ve already failed Sasha…”
“Hey, no—“
Jon cuts him off, “I know it wasn’t my fault, what happened to Sasha, wasn’t anyone’s fault, really, but I should have been able to protect her. And Tim, if I could, I’d send you home too, deal with this on my own.”
“Jon…”
“I know you won’t go, you’re too stubborn, and I won’t make you, because I know this is just as important to you. But I’d rather you be safe.”
“How do you think I feel?” Tim says, “That’s two of the most important people in my life, dead, and I did nothing to stop it.” Jon opens his mouth to protest, but Tim plows on, "I don’t want you to be number three, and it seems like, as Archivist, you’ve got a target painted on your back. I also know that you’re too damn stubborn not to put yourself in danger, and well, we’ve got a better chance of not dying if we do it together.”
“I certainly hope so,” Jon agrees, “Have I mentioned recently how much I love you?”
“Once or twice,” Tim replies, “I love you too. Now how exactly are we going to go about killing this thing?”
“Did you know, it is remarkably easy to buy an axe in central London?”
Tim smiles.
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voiceless-terror · 3 years
Note
prompt request: JMart angst/hurt/comfort "you're not broken" + "i love you, no matter what your brain tells you"
Hey there friend! As requested, here is your prompt. I made it into a sort of season one/two au where Jon and Martin have already been dating. Hope you like! It can be a stand alone piece, but it is also the second in a series, the first of which is here: The Art of Conversation
“I was thinking…”
“As you do.”
Jon fixed Martin with a scowl. “Perhaps we could- that is, if you want-wouldyouliketospendthenightatmine?” 
“You’ll have to try again, love. Didn’t quite catch that.”
Jon sighed in the face of Martin’s open fondness as they strolled down the street, making their way back from lunch. Martin brought a happiness to his life that he never thought possible- a companionship built on mutual respect and love. He enjoyed every night he spent in Martin’s cozy flat, curled up on the couch drinking tea and talking about everything and nothing at all. That’s not to say they didn’t have their troubles- Martin was rather inexperienced with intimate relationships, and Jon didn’t have the greatest track record when it came to communication. But Martin held his hand the night he stuttered out his asexuality, patient and loving and kind. Jon wasn’t ashamed of who he was, never had been- but he knew that for others it was considered a deal breaker. He’d heard stories. But Martin nodded, thanked him for trusting him with his boundaries, and let him curl back into his side, as if it changed nothing.
If he could handle that, than why, for fuck’s sake, was he so worried about having Martin over?
His flat wasn’t that bad. In actuality, it was quite a bit bigger than Martin’s. He wasn’t dirty, he usually kept up with chores, kept it relatively tidy.
But there was something so intimate about it- there was a reason he never hosted any events. Martin saw glimpses of it when he picked him up for things, but he’d never actually been inside. It was just so...barren. Void of anything Jon-like. Sure, it housed his possessions, his favorite books, his grandmother’s salvageable furniture. But it was a peek into his mind that he didn’t like others seeing. What if the way he lived was wrong? What if he didn’t have the right things? Like the little things that Martin had- a proper strainer for loose-leaf tea, little jars of spices for cooking, a towel-rack instead of a plastic hook on the wall. A nice bed frame and headboard, a worn but cozy duvet. In comparison, Jon lived like a freshly-graduated college student. He should have his shit together by now, right?
But every time he thought of making it a bit more homey and lived-in, his mind blanked. Where were the lists of all the things you need to make a home yours? What would look best on the walls? And what if he bought all of those things and it just looked awkward, like puzzle pieces forced in the wrong place? So he kept his mismatched furniture and odd little piles of books. It’s easier to stick with what you know.
But it was about time he had Martin over- the man had accepted him in every possible way, this couldn’t be the thing that would make or break their relationship. That didn’t make it any easier, though.
“Would you like,” he started again, taking a deeper breath. “To spend the night at mine on Saturday?” That would give him enough time to prepare, it was only Wednesday. “I could- I dunno, fix dinner, we could watch that movie you wanted to see? Or whatever, really. I don’t mind.”
Martin beamed a bright, shining smile that always made Jon’s heart flutter when it was aimed his way. “I’d love that, Jon! I’ll bring over some wine, we’ll make a night of it.” His arm wound around Jon’s waist, bringing him closer. “Fix you an omelette in the morning.”
“With the green peppers?”
“Of course. Oh! We could go for a morning stroll; you’ve got that lovely park by your house, yeah?”
“Mhm.” It was nice seeing Martin so excited. His anxiety eased, though he still felt the need to qualify. “It’s- well, it’s not the nicest place, but I keep it clean and-”
“Jon,” Martin’s elbow nudged his side, and he bent down to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Any place is nice if it’s got you in it.”
“Sap,” Jon rolled his eyes even as his face flushed red. 
He could probably do this. Right?
______
Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
Jon was twitchy and nervous the rest of the week, his mind spiraling as he considered every situation, even the most ridiculous. Martin’s not going to care if your flat is ugly. Martin’s going to take one look inside and suggest going back to his. Martin will like your cooking. It’s perfectly serviceable. Martin’s going to spit it out and-
“You alright there, boss?”
Jon jumped at the sound of Tim’s voice, almost dropping the mug he’d been preparing to wash. “Christ, Tim! Announce yourself next time, please.”
“That was me announcing myself,” he hopped up on the counter, giving him an easy smile. “What’s going on? You’ve been in your head all week.”
“I have not.”
“You asked me about the Ling statement twice today. It’s Friday. I finished researching it on Monday.”
Well then.
Jon sighed, putting the mug in the sink and turning to face Tim’s friendly concern. “It’s- hm. I’m having Martin at mine tomorrow, and- well, I’m a bit nervous.”
“Aw, that’s sweet.” Jon dodged the condescending pat to the back. “Seriously, that’s adorable. What’s there to be nervous about? You’ve been dating for three months, and pining for much more besides that.”
Jon’s hands gripped the counter with a renewed force. “I just want everything to be okay. I want him to think I’m a fully-functional human being, not someone who panics over having his boyfriend over. We’re always at his place, he’s always cooking for me. He deserves- he deserves everything.”
Tim hopped off the counter, face suddenly serious. “Jon, you’re quite literally Martin’s everything. It’s sickening with you two, honestly. You’ll be fine.” He threw an arm around his shoulder and Jon allowed it, just this once. “Now, what’re you cooking?”
“Well, there’s this pasta dish he loves at the Italian place on Third,” Jon began, his hands fidgeting nervously. “But it’s a bit...difficult to cook. I found a few recipes and I think I can recreate it, it’s just going to take some time and I’ve never worked with some of the ingredients and I might not have the right dishes for it and I don’t want to just substitute things-”
Tim cut off his rant. “That all sounds really lovely, but why don’t you just stick with something you know? That penne you brought to Sasha’s potluck last year- now that was good. And Martin liked it, right?”
“Well, yes,” Jon bristled. “But you think I can’t do it? It’s just a recipe, I should be able to follow basic instructions, I’m not stupid-”
“I didn’t say that, Jon,” Tim grabbed his shoulders and steered him into a seat. “I just think if you’re already this nervous about having him over, maybe you should minimize the stress, yeah? Lighten the load.”
“I can’t,” Jon argued. “I already bought all of the ingredients- I can’t just let them go to waste. I can do this.”
“Well, that’s the spirit!” Tim put a hand on his shoulder as Jon slumped over, leaning into the table. “Look, it’ll go over fine. Stop worrying. Martin will love whatever you make because you made it, alright? And if you need help, just give me a call. I’m not so bad in the kitchen myself, y’know.”
“Tim, you once set the toaster oven on fire because you left a cheese toastie in there for two hours.”
“Fuck’s sake, you set an oven on fire one time and no one lets you forget it-” 
_______
The day arrives without much fanfare, besides a text from both Sasha and Tim declaring that “he had this!” and to “relax, it’ll go great!” Tim wasn’t very good at keeping secrets.
And of course, a text from Martin.
Looking forward to tonight :) Love you!
He straightens up his apartment and then un-straightens it when it looks too clean. He moves furniture to make it more centered, he studies the recipe a couple more times so when four o’clock hits he’ll be ready to start cooking. It’ll be on the table by six, right when Martin’s supposed to arrive. And everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.
But his books look wrong today. Messy, ugly, no sort of order. There are little piles and big piles. Even the ones on the bookshelf look bad somehow. He’s got authors and genres all mixed up. It looks stupid, laughable. Jon’s got to fix this.
He starts unloading them one by one, first in alphabetical order then later by genre, because that makes more sense, right? He switches them back to alphabetical after much consideration- that’s the easier one, of course. But then he gets online, sees all of these nice color-coded displays and wouldn’t that look nice on his bookshelf? He grabs the older, leather-bound books he keeps in his bedroom and brings them out to the sitting area. Now these should be displayed, these look nice. But then there’s no room left over and he’s surrounded by paperbacks he couldn’t find room for and Christ the place is a mess-
And then the doorbell rings.
Fuck. Fuck!
Of course Martin would get here early. Martin always shows up at least fifteen minutes early, but two hours is kind of pushing it. Maybe he wanted to surprise Jon with something, Martin’s very kind like that. Jon opens the door, hands shaking.
Martin’s standing there, looking flustered and harried. “Sorry I’m late!” he begins, giving Jon a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug. Late? “The trains were running slow again and I practically sprinted down the street- hope I didn’t mess up your plans, love!”
Jon looks down at his phone, dumbfounded. It’s six thirty. 
It’s six thirty and there’s no dinner on the table. It’s six thirty and his living room’s a mess, books everywhere. It’s six thirty and Martin’s going to be so, so disappointed.
“Jon? Is everything alright?” He can barely make out Martin’s voice as his head swims; his arms wrap around his torso and dig into his body and all he can mumble is apologies.
“Sorry- I’m- fuck, I’m so stupid, I’m-”
“Hey, hey,” Martin’s voice immediately goes into that low, soothing tone that he uses whenever Jon’s upset. Whenever Jon makes everything about him when it should be about Martin for once. “None of that, now. Let’s go sit down, yeah?’ Martin immediately sets down his bag and his- oh God, he’s brought flowers and now Jon’s crying and everything’s wrong.
Martin’s steering him over to the couch with infinite care sits beside him, putting a hand on his knee and the other on his cheek, wiping his tears. It’s a gesture Jon loves but doesn’t deserve today. “It’s alright love, don’t cry. I’m here.”
“You’re- you’re here and I didn’t - I didn’t fix anything and nothing’s right, I’m so sorry-” Jon is well aware his words are barely intelligible, but that hardly matters now. Not five seconds in and he’s already ruined the night with his stupid, broken brain that just can’t fucking focus.
“You’re not broken, Jon,” He must have said the words aloud because now Martin’s got his face in his hands and is trying to make eye contact with him. “Don’t say that about yourself. You know it’s not true.”
“But it is,” Martin has to see that. What grown man can’t keep a schedule? What kind of adult loses three hours to a failed attempt at organizing books? Martin’s going to realize how messed up he is and he’s going to leave and Jon’s going to be alone again. “You- you deserve so much more than someone who can’t e-even make you dinner, can’t do one simple thing-”
“Jon, don’t- don’t say things like that. I know what I deserve, alright?” Martin pulls Jon to his chest and the pressure is good, stabilizing. “I love you, no matter what that brain of yours tells you. Okay?” He can only nod as the words bring on a fresh round of tears and he buries his face in Martin’s jumper.
It feels like hours before he calms down under Martin’s soothing hands and warm voice. He reluctantly pulls away to look the man in the eye. He deserves an apology that isn’t a breakdown. “I’m- I’m really sorry, though,” he sniffs, trying to keep his emotions in check. “It’s just- you’re always cooking for me and doing nice things and I wanted to pay you back.”
Martin’s brow furrows and Jon’s afraid he’s said the wrong words. “It’s not about paying me back, Jon. I cook for you because I want to, not because I have to. I like- well, it’s nice to finally have someone who appreciates it.”
Jon’s aware of Martin’s tempestuous relationship with his mother- he’s never brought Jon along on his visits, though he says that’s more to spare Jon than it is any judgment on their relationship. “She’s absolutely horrid sometimes, Jon. You don’t deserve that,” he said.
“Well, neither do you, Martin.” Jon never liked seeing Martin cry, though he insisted these were happy tears.
“You’ve got a lot of ingredients over there,” Martin murmurs, casting an appreciative eye over at the counter. “What were you planning on making?”
He pulls up the recipe on his phone, reluctantly handing it over to Martin. “I don’t think it would’ve turned out well, but I know how much you loved it when we-”
“When we went there on our first date,” Martin finishes. His eyes are watering- is he crying? “I’m sorry, it’s just- that’s so thoughtful, I think that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“Martin,” Jon says incredulously as he winds his arms around the man’s neck. “I didn’t even make it.”
“It’s the thought that counts, Jon!” His voice is nasally and tight. 
“Don’t- don’t cry Martin-”
“I can’t help it!”
“You’re going to make me cry again-” Martin chuckles at this and leans back on the couch, taking Jon with him in a mess of tears and laughter.  “What a pair we make.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, love. Maybe we can make it together, yeah? Bond n’ all that.”
“That sounds nice,” Jon’s response is muffled by Martin’s jumper. “Would require getting up, though.”
“We’ve got some time. This couch is heavenly- you’ve been holding out on me, Sims.”
Later that night, after a few mishaps but an all-around good dinner, he’s back on the couch and back in Martin’s arms. He runs his fingers through Jon’s hair, a touch that quiets his brain for the first time all week. 
As it turns out, the only thing his flat was missing was someone to share it with.
ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27354958
Next in Series:
My Dearest
The Weight of Love
146 notes · View notes
bluejayblueskies · 3 years
Note
53 + Jon for kiss prompts <3
kiss prompt list!
53 - against a wall kiss
i went with jontim! cw for mentions of ghosts, hauntings, and demons, mentions of decay and rot, bats (the animal), and mentions of alcohol
.
Jon looks up from the small scrap of paper he’s holding, squints suspiciously at the building in front of them, and looks back down at the paper with a frown. “This can’t be right.”
 “Huh,” Tim says, peering over Jon's shoulder at the paper. It’s barely illuminated by the faint glow of the streetlamps, small pinpricks of light against the night sky. “This was supposed to be a haunting, right? Some lady kept seeing a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye, and her lights kept burning out.”
 “Alleged haunting,” Jon says tersely. “You know as well as I do that the ‘ghost’ statements are usually absolute rubbish.”
 “Yeah, but this one’s got zest,” Tim says with a grin, swiping the paper from Jon’s hands and ignoring Jon’s noise of protest. “Usually it’s all oh, there’s a cold spot and I came home to find the telly on or whatever. But shadowy figures of darkness and deceit—”
 Tim gasps dramatically. “Jon, we could be dealing with a demon.”
 Jon fixes Tim with an unimpressed look. “It’s more likely that we’ve driven two hours outside of London just to waste our time staring at a house that looks like it hasn’t been lived in for thirty years.”
 “Yeah,” Tim says with a grimace, “the place could really use a paint job. And, uh. Some actual glass in the windows.”
 Jon sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and mutters something under his breath about don’t get paid enough to—
 Tim couldn’t agree more.
“Fine,” Jon says, sounding resigned. He rifles through his satchel for a few moments before retrieving a small black torch. He clicks it experimentally on and off a few times. “We might as well get this over with.”
 “As much as I love your enthusiasm,” Tim says, “the place is very clearly condemned, Jon. The chains across the door don’t exactly scream hey, come in, it’s completely safe!”
 Not to mention that, technically, they’d have to break and enter. But Tim had learned long ago that the only problem Jon had with that was the physical effort it took to lift himself through broken windows and over chain-link fences. He’d decided, the first time he’d seen Jon pull a lockpick set out of his pocket and pick a lock in less than a minute, that he did, in fact, have a bit of a predilection toward delinquency. Particularly when said delinquent dressed like a college professor and used words like ‘ostentatious’ and ‘salient.’
 The being a little bit in love with him bit had come later. But it wasn’t like Tim hadn’t seen it coming.
 “I don’t think there will be any demons,” Jon says flatly, and before Tim can explain that he was actually talking about things like asbestos and rotten floorboards, Jon’s crossing the street at a quick pace and approaching the house.
 “Christ,” Tim mutters under his breath, scooping his backpack up from the ground and swinging it over his shoulder as he jogs after Jon. “Forget safety, let’s- let’s just run right into an abandoned building. Great.”
 By the time Tim’s wriggled his way through one of the ground-floor windows, Jon’s already scanning the inside of the house with his torch, an expression of intense concentration on his face as he maps the walls, ceilings, and floor. “Forget thirty years,” Jon says under his breath. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s ever lived here.”
 Jon’s right; beneath all the rot and decay and dust, the house itself is threadbare and hollow, walls a dull white and floor still an unfinished wood. Somehow, that more than anything makes Tim’s stomach turn with unease. “Right, well. This has been fun, but I think we’ve established that the statement belongs solidly in the discredited section so maybe we should… go?”
 Jon makes a noncommittal noise. “Why? It’s just gotten interesting.”
 “Right,” Tim says under his breath, hating how fond he sounds. “If this house collapses on top of us and we die, I am never going to forgive you.”
 Jon scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing’s going to happen.”
 .
 “Nothing’s going to happen?” Tim demands, having just sprinted halfway down the street and into a small side alley with Jon’s hand firmly grasped in his, practically pulling him along.
 A bit breathlessly, Jon says, “Well, I- I was right. The house is still very much intact.”
 Tim affixes Jon with the strongest glare he can muster, his heart still threatening to jump straight out of his chest. “Jonathan.”
 Jon throws his hands up in the air, dragging Tim’s hand with them. “How was I supposed to know that there was something living in there?”
 “Because it was condemned, Jon! Of course there were things living there.”
 Jon lets out a noise that’s somewhere between a groan and a laugh.  “They were just bats, Tim. I would think that would be a significant improvement from demons.”
 “Hey, at least I get paid to deal with demons!” At Jon’s raised eyebrow, Tim amends, “Alleged demons. I can handle the monster-under-the-bed stories, but—”
 Tim shudders. “Bats. I hate bats.”
 Jon’s mouth curves into a smile, and this time the noise he makes falls squarely into the realm of a chuckle. “Yes, I noticed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you make a noise quite like that.”
 “Hey, if you were getting assaulted by God’s most abhorrent creation on this Earth, you also would have screamed. I feel no shame.”
 Jon seems to realize that he’s still holding Tim’s hand at the same time Tim does. But instead of letting go, Jon squeezes Tim’s hand tighter and says, “I am sorry. I… may have gotten a bit carried away.”
 “Mm, a bit,” Tim agrees pleasantly. He squeezes Jon’s hand back reflexively, and Jon’s intake of breath is audible.
 Huh.
 Maybe it’s the adrenaline making him bold, or maybe Tim’s just gotten tired of waiting, but he finds it surprisingly easy to take a step closer, bracketing Jon between him and the brick wall of the alleyway, and say, “Jon, if I’m being completely honest: running away from a swarm of bats after breaking into a half-rotted building isn’t the worst way I pictured this evening going.”
 “Oh?” Jon says, voice pitched slightly higher.
 “I mean,” Tim says with a barely-concealed grin, “running from danger, hand in hand, catching our breath in a very narrow alley?” He shifts a bit closer to Jon, just to prove his point. “Could be worse.”
 Jon looks down at their still-joined hands, then back up at Tim with a small frown. “Are you…?” He cuts off with a small sound and a shake of his head. “Ah. Never mind.”
 God help him. Tim opts for bluntness, because if he’s going to show a few cards he may as well turn over his entire hand. “Jon, there is nowhere I’d rather be right now than holding your hand in a dingy alleyway.” He pauses, considering, then says, teasingly, “Well, almost nowhere. I hear the Canary Islands are nice this time of year.”
 Jon just stares at him for a long moment. Then, just as nerves start to creep up the back of Tim’s throat, Jon lets out a small, breathy laugh and says, “Well, until we get a statement about the Canary Islands, I suppose this will have to do.”
 Tim scoffs. “Have to do. You flatter me.”
 The smile Jon gives him warms him from the inside out. Carefully, Tim lifts his free hand and settles it on the bricks next to Jon’s head. Jon inhales sharply, and his eyes when they meet Tim’s are wide. Suddenly unsure, Tim says quietly, “Is… is this okay?”
 The noise Jon lets out is startlingly close to a whine, and he nods once before saying, in a small voice, “Are you going to kiss me or not?”
 Oh, Christ.
 Jon’s barely finished speaking when Tim leans in, tangles his fingers more firmly with Jon’s, and captures Jon’s lips with his. Jon lets out a contented sigh and relaxes back against the brick wall, and god, Tim’s never going to get that sound out of his mind. He presses closer and deepens the kiss, documenting every one of Jon’s little noises and sighs and storing them away for later, so he can relive this moment again and again and again.
 Tim’s not sure how long they stand there, Jon’s back against the wall and Tim’s hand splayed flat on the brick next to Jon’s head, before a bright flash of car headlights startles them apart. As the light fades, Jon lets out a sound suspiciously close to a giggle before pressing his free hand to his mouth to hide his smile. “Sorry,” he says, his voice muffled by his hand. “I just… all the times I imagined kissing you, I really didn’t have this in mind.”
 Tim’s brain, for a brief moment, bluescreens. “All the times?” he says in disbelief. “Jon, all the times?”
 Jon drops his hand, looking sheepish. “Yes, well. In my defense, I thought you weren’t interested.”
 “Not—” Tim cuts off with an exasperated noise. He reaches down and takes Jon’s hand in his, threading their fingers together and squeezing once. “Let it go on record that I have wanted to kiss you for a long time now and that I am very much interested.”
 “Yes,” Jon says, amused. “I know that now.”
 Tim groans. Under his breath, he mutters, “Not interested. Ridiculous.”
 Jon laughs softly before leaning forward and pressing another chaste kiss to Tim’s lips. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m glad that I was wrong.”
 “Jonathan Sims, admitting that he was wrong? I thought I’d never see the day.”
 Jon gives him a glare without any heat. “Yes, yes, all right.”
 I love you, Tim wants to say. But it’s entirely too early for that, and he’s certainly not going to give his heartfelt love confession in an alleyway that he’s starting to realize smells something awful. So instead, he pulls lightly on Jon’s hand and says, “Well, I’m definitely not working any more today. Fancy a pint?”
 “Only if you don’t ridicule my taste in beer.”
 “One time, Jon! That was one time.”
152 notes · View notes
gentlemancrow · 3 years
Text
Written in the Stars Will Have to Do
OK so I saw @hey-there-hunter ‘s JMart Wedding Challenge and I pretty much fan ficced immediately??  Like it was an instantaneous plot bunny that stabbed me in the brain and would not let me free until I made it exist.  SO HERE YOU GO!  Read it here or head on over to AO3 below!  And enjoy some unapologetically aggressive fluff with weddings!  Also subtitled someday Crow will stop abusing excessive astral imagery and symbolism for extended metaphors, but today is not that day.
Read on AO3 instead!
Written in the Stars Will Have to Do
Jonathan Sims always thought of himself as a man with a deep appreciation for the great literature of the world.  A passionate turn of phrase, crystalline motes of clear imagery like snowflakes reflecting light in his mental scape, a devastating contemplation on the nature of good and evil in the hearts of all mankind, everything that could express the beauty and tragedy of the world in ways he never could.  Prose was a bright paintbrush on a ragged canvas of the universe he had known from an early age was swathed in shadow and pain and evil, and those words on those pages, for at least a moment, were another world he could hold in his hands, could cradle and protect, could mourn.  He liked the power of them as well, of the tinkling brightness of alliteration, the oaky sophistication of a well-aged metaphor, the evocativeness of the idiosyncrasy in a simple simile, laying bare truths in ways he never could have articulated for himself.
There was one thing he could not abide by in language, however, one cardinal sin liable to besmirch any piece of lush and sparkling verse or prose and taint it forever.  And that was idioms.
Jon loathed idioms and their dismally quirky cliches dressed in familiarity’s tacky clothing almost as much as he hated spiders.  Perhaps it was something about their reliance on common knowledge and repetition.  He couldn’t bear reading the same book twice, or even a book that felt too familiar, it only made sense that hearing a hackneyed phrase repeated in that awful singsong sardonic tone of someone who knows full well they’re saying something asinine that has been repeated ad nauseum for millennia would scrape at the back of his skull and down his spine.  They were too whimsical and blasé, crutch words for when one’s limited lexicon came up empty, or worse, for ill comedic effect.  They reinforced that staunchly English notion of skirting about the true depth and breadth of emotion for clipped niceties and unfeeling banalities.  Idioms to him were mere verbal window boxes, colorful and meaningless, dressings for untold disasters behind the shining windows they peacocked before.  
He hated them all with vaguely equal rancor, but there was one he could definitely single out as the one he hated the most, and that was the one about hanging the moon.  Such and such thinks you hung the moon, to me you hung the moon, and so on.  This particular rhetorical felony attracted his wrath only marginally because any moon symbolism never failed to feel outlandish and infantile, a mawkish image of love and care rampant in nursery rhymes and cheap commercialized slogans for t-shirts and wall art.  That was the least of it.  He hated the idea of hanging the moon mostly because once, another lifetime ago now it seemed, Tim Stoker had lobbed it in his face in a fit of smoldering rage and he had been completely, complacently, ignorant of its magnitude.  
Funny thing was, he couldn’t even remember what the actual fight had been about any longer.  Though he could remember exactly where he was standing, cornered next to the file cabinet for the year 1985, January through February, and the label had been peeling up on the upper left-hand corner.  He remembered he’d discovered a hole in the elbow of his jumper that morning and he had been obsessing over it all day, fussing with the dangling green thread and tugging at the knit as if it might magically close the wound.  He’d put his finger clean through it with his arms crossed haughtily over his chest without even realizing he’d been fiddling with it when something flippant about Martin came out of his mouth.  It hadn’t even been cruel, he couldn’t even remember how Martin had come up in the argument in the first place, he could only remember Tim’s mouth moving like he wanted to say something else, then him forcibly stopping himself before he snarled.
“Yeah well, god knows why, but he thinks you hung the moon, so you might try treating him at the very least like a human being once in a while.”
It was such a small thing.  Small words for a small feeling cloaked in a chintzy veneer of idiomatic dismissal.  A trembling little bird cupped in his scarred and battered hands and smothered.  Or so he thought.  Sometimes trembling little birds turn out to be phoenixes, and those who looked to someone else to hang the comfort of a wise, silvery moon in the sky already have the hammer and the picture wire at the ready.
As far as Jon was concerned, the moon only rose on their Somewhere Else because Martin deigned to pull the strings every night, not him.
It was Martin who brought him tea every morning, set it down on the breakfast table with that little flip of the tag and the deft, one-fingered turn of the handle toward him.  It was Martin who scolded him because whites are a separate load, Jon, were you raised in a barn?  Martin who talked him through every episode of the Doctor Who reruns that were the only thing their ancient aerial could pick up.  Martin who planted flowers in the garden and brought muffins from the sweet old lady at the grocers because they traded baking recipes.  Martin who still looked at him with diaphanous pools of ethereal moonlight in his eyes and his smile like he alone hung it in the sky over his head to wash him in its radiance.
Even after everything.
Even after it had been Martin who had to hold the knife buried in his chest as he lay gasping wetly for breath in an alleyway in Another Chelsea to keep the hemorrhaging at bay.  Martin who had cupped his face in his bloody hands with tears streaming down his and forced him to focus, furious love blazing in his sea mist eyes as they locked with his, screaming at him and him only, heedless of anything else.
“Look at me.  LOOK at me, Jon!  Stay with me!  Stay with me, DAMN YOU!”
Stay with me had not been a plea, it had been a command.  He had never once said please because it was never an option.  Shivering, breathing blood through his teeth, the streetlights a fading, star studded halo in Martin’s strawberry blond curls be damned, he was right.  Against every tangled thread of fate twisted deep into his flesh, or perhaps because they had been the only thing that held his torn innards together, he made it to the part where he awoke a few fractured times to nothingness, and then to fingers he knew every inch of inextricably bound up in his and a fierce whisper in his ear.
“I’m here, Jon.  I’m still here.  I’ve got you.  I’m going to fix this.  I’m going to get us out of here.  We’re going to be okay.”
It had been Martin who orchestrated their clandestine escape from the hospital the moment they both agreed he was well enough to survive under his rudimentary medical care and before the authorities got too invested in an urban ghost story of two men who didn’t exist.  Not to mention one of which should, by all medical and logical law, be dead.  It had been Martin who had stolen the necessary antibiotics, drugs, and wound care supplies, Martin who had picked enough pockets to buy passage on a midnight train to the only place they could think to go, and expressly told Jon not to ask where he learned how, even though he knew full well he would later.  Martin who had fought for everything and kept him hidden and safe while he lay in a dingy hotel room somewhere in Scotland, drifting in and out of consciousness between kisses, cold compresses, spoonfuls of whatever he could get him to swallow and keep down, and desperate ‘I love you’s.
Martin had been the one who hung the moon even on the nights Jon couldn’t see it, just so he knew it was there, that the light might finally guide him home.  Not him.  He could have never done something so selfless and simple and beautiful.  No not him.  Not The Archivist.  How could he have ever known that?  Stupid, myopic, pedantic, all-seeing and blind.  A blustering, sanctimonious Tiresias in a sweater vest and half-moon glasses.  And how important was the moon, anyway that he was expected to hang it too?  Would not night still come and the stars still shine?  The stupid, vapid saying should have been about the sun anyway.  Something that nourished and guided and warmed.  Not the moon.  Not the thing of night and hungry wolves and quiet loneliness.  Not a thing of the darkness they fought and still not won, not exactly, not in a way that mattered.  How could he have known the weight of such a thoughtless, frivolous, meaningless phrase and how far and how long Martin had borne it for him to protect he who hung his moon?  
He could see the weight of it so clearly now.  He could see it especially on the darkest days, which came, in grotesque mockery, the moment they found something like their safehouse and rest at last.  Jon had conned his way into a job at the village library with an ancient head librarian who didn’t care much for too many questions, or background or credit checks, and was more than happy to pay in cash.  With Martin’s help of course.  Martin himself had taken up stocking at the village grocers, and their life had teetered onto something so close to quaint and normal it suddenly laid bare the gravity of the depths of darkness they had escaped.
No longer did they have to run, no longer did they have to fight, they could finally lay down the chase and curl in upon each other to lick their wounds in quiet.  But without the driving, primal instinct to live, to survive, that ushered in the days where all the hurt came back to roost and brood and fester.  The days where he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed, or the days Martin couldn’t bear the sound of his voice, or the days they shouted themselves hoarse, stormed apart for hours then came back, silent and broken, red-eyed and exhausted to hold each other and weep into the spaces between neck and shoulder where it still smelled like love and home.
He could see so painfully clearly the toll following him to the ends of the cosmos and back had etched its marks into his goodness, his body and soul, see how often he would walk down the road from their cabin, just a little ways, to stand on the heather spotted hills and gaze out into the frigid infinity of the gray sea.  Cold terror would grip him then, incite a desperate want to run after him, to throw his arms around him and bring him home, but also the fear it would only be to have him turn to mist and slip through his fingers forever.  He always had a cup of steaming tea waiting for him when he came back, just in case.
But again, and always.  It was Martin who would pick up Jon’s hands, kiss every slender, scarred finger through his tears and be the first one to utter ‘I’m sorry.’  Martin who told him with just a single scathing flash of stern blue eyes and not a single word uttered that he was certainly coming to bed and not banishing himself to the couch like an idiot.  Martin who wrapped him in his arms and warmth and boundless love and reminded him, “One way or another.  Together.  That was the deal, right?  You don’t get to back out now.  No returns, refunds, or exchanges, I’m afraid.”
And even through the deepest sobs he would find the laugh Jon didn’t think was in him.  Martin sifted through the mire and the muck and held fast to the tiny, shining things so easy to lose in the darkness.  Things Jon was certain were lost forever, only to be reignited and hung in the brightening sky of their story.  Even if they weren’t quite the moon yet.
It had also been Martin who, on a perfectly ordinary day, on a simple walk through the local farmers market, stopped to peruse one of the usual unremarkable stalls filled with crystals and oils and trinkets.  Jon had wandered off to procure the parsnips and the strawberries, unrelated recipes Martin swore, he had been tasked with finding.  When he returned he found him, a radiant monument tall among the faceless locals, rusty curls caressing his face in the salty breeze, carved of marble and rose quartz and gazing down at a pair of hematite rings on a velvet display box.  His eyes were distant, but not in the enthralled, disembodied way they were when he looked at the sea, or the broken way when they weren’t speaking, but in the contemplative, regarding of puzzle pieces way when he would look into the fire during their talks and turn his words in his mind over and over again like a rock tumbler until they were polished just right.
“Getting into crystals now, are we?” Jon had joked, “Surely I’m not so dull to be around that that’s becoming an attractive hobby.”
Martin snorted and shook his head.
“Supposed to mean healing, or grounding, or something.  Aligning your meridians, I think the lady said?  Whatever that means,” he elaborated, reaching out to touch.
They clinked weightily together, thick and glossy and the dark astral gray of a moonless night.  Martin turned over the card that went with them and read.
“’A grounding stone that belongs to the planet Mars.  It strengthens our connections to the earth and aids the warrior on their journey.  It is a stone of invincibility, but also fragility.  It balances yin and yang energies with its magnetic properties for the perfect reflection upon one’s own soul, astral, physical, and spiritual.’”
“Hematite, is it?” Jon asked, “Also more commonly called bloodstone.  You know if you scratch it, it leaves a red mark.  Like it’s bleeding.  Watch.”
He picked up one of the rings and firmly ran it down the corner of the card Martin had been reading from.  Sure enough, the black stone had left a faint, but starkly crimson mark on the yellowed paper.
“It BLEEDS?” Martin exclaimed in horror.
“It’s just a kind of iron oxide, so, rust, basically,” Jon explained with a chuckle, “Kind of weirdly romantic if you think about it?  This intimidating shiny black stone like armor, made of iron to boot, but with a bleeding heart at its core.”
“I just thought it was pretty, I didn’t know it bleeds,” Martin had laughed in that incredulous way he always did when Jon was telling him something he didn’t actually want to know, but appreciated anyway.
“I find that the strongest, prettiest things often do,” Jon had said in reply.  He remembered saying that particularly clearly, waxing poetic, feeling a swell of affection for the hugely beautiful man he leaned against and was adorably aghast at bleeding rocks.
“Yeah, I reckon they do,” Martin murmured back.
And then his cheeks had flushed bright red under his freckles and the stone steps of his shoulders crumbled a bit under the crushing ancientness and vastness of what he had originally been pondering.
“So, I mean, before you spoiled it with the blood thing.  I was thinking… Well, I was just having a browse and I saw these and I thought they were quite fetching, and then the lady told me they meant grounding and healing and a journey, like on the card.  A-And there were two of them, all by themselves, and everything else was so colorful and flashy these were just so… Um.  Maybe the blood and rusty iron thing makes it more poetic now, actually?  I don’t know.  Sorry I-  This sounded so much better in my head.”
It wasn’t his fault, Jon remembered thinking.  Martin couldn’t find the words because there weren’t any.  Not in this universe or any other.  Not for what they’d gone through, and especially not for what they meant to each other.
“I guess I was just thinking.  If… I bought one.  And wore it.  Sort of like.  Um.  You know.  Would… Would you-?” he had asked, his voice trembling.
Jon had never said yes, yes of course he would, faster or with more conviction in his life.  And there was that look again, rising from the ashes, that flooding of golden, unbound love and light, of eyes turned sky blue, of looking at the man who hung his moon in the sky come back to him.  He could still hang Martin’s moon all over again after so many nights of black clouds and darkness, even if it was only paper.  They’d paid for the rings in rumpled bills, exchanged them right then and there, and kissed each other as the crowd of oblivious people in a world they did not belong in flowed like a river around them.  Jon forgot the bag with the parsnips and strawberries.
But it didn’t matter.  It didn’t even matter that Martin’s fit nicely on his ring finger, but Jon had to wear his on his thumb, and even then sometimes on a chain around his neck for fear of losing it.  It didn’t matter that it was the closest thing they were ever going to get to a proposal and a wedding, consigned now forever to the shadows in a borrowed reality with only each other.  Because it was theirs, and they could begin to figure out how their broken pieces fit back together again.
But like most things that don’t matter, it didn’t until it did.
It began as simple things.  Seeing a wedding on some program they weren’t actually paying much attention to and Martin making a flippant, innocuous comment as he combed his fingers lovingly through Jon’s long and silvered chestnut hair in his lap about how he would have loved to have a cake that had a different flavor on every tier at their wedding.  Just so everyone could have something they liked.  And Jon woke up from his half catlike stupor and looked up at him with such aching regret as those words settled into the pit of his heart alongside ‘he thinks you hung the moon.’  
And soon they began to gather a collection of completely innocent remarks that ran the gamut from ‘would they have worn black or white?  Or one of each?  I don’t know… does it really matter?  And were these engagement rings or wedding rings?  I don’t know.  Neither?  both?  And do we say husband instead of boyfriend now?  Fiancé?  Whatever you want, Martin…’ To the heavier, cancerous weights that sank to the bottom of his gut, even below hanging the moon, like ‘I know Tim would have thrown the most amazing bachelor party for both of us, and his mum had always talked about him getting married someday like it was a farfetched pipe dream, but she would be happy for them, he thinks.’
He could never answer those questions.  There was too much at stake, too much finality and familiarity in them, a strange weightlessness in a world that weighed far too much.  The sun and moon continued their eternal dance of time, ignorant, unbothered, but Jon kept collecting those silent debts of normal life, secreting them away in a hidden singularity in his heart that only grew heavier and metastasized farther the more times Martin walked out at night, not him, beaming starlight from his eyes and his fingertips, to hang the moon again.  So soft, so full of wooly cows and pink heather and the smell of tea and sea salt and Martin’s shampoo on the pillow next to him did it become, that it was almost inevitable that one morning Jon awoke absolutely convinced none of it could be real.  
The moment he decided that, everything made so much more sense.  He could breathe again.  There was a reason he could never sit still, never just feel at ease or talk about the future like it was a real thing that could still happen.  He knew why the silence made his brain itch and why he still glanced around corners and glowered at anyone who dared let their gaze linger on his Martin too long.  Why Martin’s ring fit and his didn’t.  There was too much debt to the universe to be paid, too many broken promises, too many corpses in his wake, he had done nothing to deserve this idyllic life of love and peace and smallness and Martin.  It had to be Her doing, It’s doing, some carefully woven torture chamber that would lure them to the apex of their joy, the center of the web, where they would just be devoured over and over to empty husks and set up like chess pieces to fill with love and light just to knock down again.  He wasn’t free after all.
Jon had been halfway into his coat and halfway out the door to do, he didn’t know, something, anything, to go to the library to use their computer and research something he didn’t know he was looking for when Martin had seized his hand and whirled him around.
“Jon.  STOP.  It’s over.”
And he’d stopped.  He’d looked into those baleful blue eyes, fallen into their depths, landed on the precipice of madness, and broken.  It wasn’t over.  Not for him.  He finally understood.  It was still there.  The Eye.  It always had been.  Though not really, he understood slowly as he wept on his knees in their doorway into Martin’s chest, it had indeed closed forever on him, but it lingered as distant static, like a phantom limb, a metaphysical itch that could never be scratched.  Martin had cradled him close and listened, listened so patiently as he ripped the jagged black fear from the deepest, ugliest part of his heart, hauled it up bloody and messy from his throat and finally laid it bare for both of them to see.  And when it was done and he couldn’t cry anymore Martin had locked eyes with him in a way that made him forget any others could have ever existed outside of crystalline blue and filled with moonlight.
“Listen to me.  I know you think you have some cosmic burden to bear.  That you’re still wearing some… some fucked up crown and sitting on a throne of skulls and death and eyeballs or whatever image you want to put there, and that you have to sit and hurt and watch over everything so it doesn’t happen again, but...  Sorry, Jon, but that’s bullshit.  It’s just a scar now.  That’s all.  Just like the rest of them.  Ugly and beautiful and proof that you —Jonathan Sims— are still alive.  And you are not The Archivist anymore.  You’re just mine.  My Jon.”
He’d held his Jon’s stunned face in his hands and peppered kisses over the pock marks in his skin, over the slash on his throat, the burnt fingers that still couldn’t bend quite right, even the one on his chest, the one almost always hidden by fabric but the one he didn’t need to see to find.  His heart and fingers would always remember exactly where it was.  And he’d kept his lips there a moment, then turned his ear to his chest and wrapped his arms around his waist to listen to his heartbeat like a trembling little bird.
“If I can hear it and feel it.  So can you,” he whispered.
Unsteady fingers curled desperately into Martin’s silky locks, hematite loop cool against his scalp, “Thank you…”
Martin stayed for the kiss on top of his head he knew was coming and smiled.
“Okay, so it’s simple to fix if you think about it,” he murmured into Jon’s chest, “We just need that thing, you know?  The thing that makes you feel like you’re still doing the thing, but you’re not.  What was the word for it again?  A placeholder?  Like when you quit smoking and you hold a pencil or a straw or something that’s not actually a cigarette so you can wean yourself off the ritual?”
Jon blinked owlishly down at him as he dried his eyes.
“A… placebo?  Are you talking about a placebo?”
“Yeah!  That’s it!  We just need to find you a placebo for Knowing things!  That’s all.  Like… reality shows, or-or zoo cams or something!  We’ll figure it out together.  Alright, love?  I promise you.  It’ll be okay.”
Jon was skeptical, so very skeptical, but if Martin was determined to find a balm to soothe his jagged, ontological scars he would happily play the part of lab rat for him.  They’d tried a myriad things to replicate the feeling of Knowing and looking something deep within him still craved.  The zoo and animal livestreams were a bust, cute and entertaining as they were, but animals weren’t ever the purview of The Eye and the camera itself was barely a scrap.  Reality shows came closer, the more salacious the better, but even that temporary fix wore off when Jon’s disgust with the overall content and participants outweighed any benefit.  Martin was just happy to have finally converted him to Bake Off, at least.  They tried people watching in the square in the village, but it made Jon far too self-conscious and guilty.  He used the binoculars exactly once, and that was to look at the cows in the fields, and the choose-your-own-adventure books Martin had been certain would strike a sagacious chord wound up in the donation bin at the library.  But that was when he was struck with a bolt of genius.
Unbeknownst to Jon, which brought him no small measure of glee, Martin ordered, received, and then set up with a literal bow in their back garden the finest telescope he could afford on his meager savings.  He’d researched for days, asked on every amateur astronomer forum he could find, and had it delivered to the grocers so he could make it a proper surprise.  He’d even gone so far as to attack and blindfold a hapless Jon the moment he made it home from work on the day it was ready, and stood behind him giddily bouncing as he tore the tea towel away from his eyes.
“A… Telescope?” he’d blurted dumbly.
“Yes!  It’s perfect, right?  I asked around to find the one that had all the best features, and this one has the best overall magnification and the most lenses, but it doesn’t have the little satellite positioning thing?  I figured you wouldn’t want that anyway, you always like figuring things out and finding things on your own better.”
Martin had been positively radiant.  Jon had just stared at the gawping black tube and chewed the inside of his cheek as he processed what to say.
“I mean… thank you, Martin, really.  It was a sweet thought, but if the binoculars didn’t-“
“Screw the binoculars!  This is different!” Martin happily insisted, “You can look at so much more!  Stars and planets and galaxies and what have you, and it can maybe be sort of like you’re looking for other worlds?  Wormholes or whatever?  Or signs of The Fears and where they’ve gone?  Or even if the stars are the same here as they were back before?  Space literally has so many things to LOOK at we can’t even count them!  This has got to be it!”
Jon tried to smile and laugh and agree to try it out, at the very least, if only because Martin was beaming so sweetly with pride and hope.  Though that first night he didn’t, ushering them back in with promises of tomorrow, Martin, I promise tomorrow.  Tomorrow had been a lie.  As had been the next night.  In fact, it took Jon a full week to even remember they even had a telescope, and that was only after getting the smuggest, Cheshire grin out of Martin after casually mentioning there would be a visible, if partial, lunar eclipse that night.  He’d relented, only because he’d entrapped himself, and they’d both bundled up, looked in the manual for the best size lens to view the moon with, poured a few glasses of wine, and turned their eyes to the stars.
Martin had gone first, gripping the eyepiece and adjusting the focus all the while gasping in awe.  It was so beautiful he’d burst into poetry with a crooked grin.
“Art thou pale for weariness?  Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth, and ever changing, like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy?  Sounds a little familiar, eh?” he joked, casting a wry look over his shoulder.
Jon rolled his eyes fondly.
“Gross.  Keats again?”
“Nope, Shelley this time, and even he thinks you ought to have a look at the moon.  I think you’ll find you have a lot in common.”
Jon had sighed obligingly and shuffled to the telescope, fully expecting to look at something bright and round with a bit of a shadow on it that was distinctly unremarkable, have another glass of wine, and then go back inside to snuggle by the fire.  What he saw in that tiny pinhole of light pierced straight through the hazel brown of his eye and plunged him into another world entirely.
The sands of the moon glowed the purest white in the refracted light of the distant sun with which it waltzed.  He could see in crisp, shadowy relief the innumerable scars she bore, the depth and breadth of Ptolemaeus, the boundless lonely flatness of the maria, named for the oceans they were once thought to be, an insult to the rock plains forged a millennia ago in birth by cataclysmic fire.  Every crater remained wrought in perfect, frozen detail with no erosion or foliage to slowly heal them over, and she beamed them proudly, ostentatiously in her heavenly light.  A hulking, ancient protectorate, hung by the hands of creation at the dawn of time for a fledgling planet, hundreds of thousands of miles away, and yet so crystal clear and unafraid as he perused her millions of years of cosmic sentinel through a lens.  It was dwarfing, humbling, viscerally awe inspiring in a way he dared not voice for fear of snuffing out the fragile glow of wonder and excitement welling in his chest he had been so certain was gone forever.
Astronomy had never been something that had particularly interested Jon, back when his entire reality from the moment his childish hands had touched a single book was spent peering into shadows and watching his own back.  There was no point in wondering what lay among the stars when danger and death lurked so close behind with slavering jaws ever poised at his throat on terra firma, but now.  Now, he had been living in an alternate world, dimension, reality, somewhere, he couldn’t even say for sure.  He’d been hurled potentially through the very stars that twinkled coquettishly above, flashed through their nebulous veils and curtains under their indifferent gaseous gazes, but seen nothing.  Here was a vast expanse of complete chaotic indefiniteness inviting him in to see what few had ever seen, to guess and hypothesize and gesture wildly at secrets only the stars could keep.  To Know.
Jon had jerked back so suddenly from the telescope to survey the entirety of the astral dome above them that Martin had choked on his wine.
“Jon?  Are you quite alright?”
“Yes, I…” he’d murmured, only even half hearing that Martin had said anything at all, stars reflected in his wondering dark eyes, “I’m fine, I just… How… How much more can this see?  How deep does it go?”
Jon hadn’t seen the victorious smirk on Martin’s face as he set down his wine glass and picked up the instruction manual and lens guide.  They’d watched the rest of the eclipse, of course, marveling through the lens at the inky trickle of shadow over craggy white, but then they’d changed the lens to the strongest one, according to the guide, and spent the rest of the evening triangulating their position beneath their slice of the universe and plotting out the various stars, planets, and constellations above.  Jon had even dashed inside to grab a mostly blank notebook and had filled several pages with notes and observations and things to research later, all while Martin held back tears watching him come so alive over a project he didn’t even know he needed.  Eventually though, sleepiness and cold claimed him, and he kissed his beloved goodnight and left him, more than gladly, to ride out the intellectual flare up until it burnt both him and itself out.  
Martin had no clue what time it was when he finally returned, and it didn’t even matter.  All that mattered was at some point, a practically frozen Jon had climbed into bed, snuggled up close behind and wrapped his arms around him to kiss the back of his neck so softly like the wings of a butterfly and whisper.
“Thank you.”
Another victorious smirk and a loving murmur.
“Told you so.”
Where there had been nothing but an Eye shaped hole in him, scarred around the edges and aching in its vacuum, Jon had filled it with the names of nebulas and quasars, of the myth of Andromeda, and Orion, and Castor and Pollux, or Hercules, and why they had all been hung in the stars for eternity.  The stories were much the same as he remembered, but he’d found slight eccentricities, tiny irregularities in the sky which fascinated him even more so.  Night after night he would look at a different astral body, chart it down in his notebook, then come bounding in with starlight beaming from his eyes and his fingertips with some cry of eureka.
“Martin!  Did you know here Polaris is in the south and Sirius is in the north?”
“Martin!  Did you know the Andromeda Galaxy is actually a little closer to the Milky Way here?”
“Martin, you have to come see this!  Oh, no it’s not weird this time, it’s just I finally got Saturn in the telescope and you can actually see the rings!”
His nightly herald would always be different, but Martin would always rise from the comfort of the couch, put his slippers on, and let Jon talk as long as he needed to about his latest discovery, watching him smile again while he, too, watched the matching smile it never failed to ignite illuminate Martin’s face and they lit each other up in the fused brilliance of a binary star.
Martin no longer hung the moon for Jon, he’d finally just up and quite literally given it to him, and there was no mortal way to repay him for that.  Or so he’d thought.  It came to him, as most flashes of brilliance do, on a night he hadn’t even been thinking about it at all.  All he had been doing was sitting in a lawn chair with his telescope long after Martin had gone to bed, chewing his pencil idly, vaguely missing a cigarette and pondering notes on Vega and Lyra between watching it through his lens.  He’d been stuck for days on Vega and its potentiality for another solar system and what that could imply for their new Earth and their new sun, as well as Lyra and the tragic tale of Orpheus and his doomed love.  Even in their new reality he still turned back at the end of the story, still could not contain the roiling, effusive adoration to his own downfall.
Bitterness had risen like bile in the back of Jon’s throat as he replayed the myth again in his head, unsure why it was vexing him and rewinding in his brain so torturously.  “Stupid, stupid man, if he’d only just…” he’d thought again and again, each time giving the star-crossed musician a different decision, a different choice, urging him down another path somewhere, anywhere along his journey, but in the end, he’d always looped back around to the original.  It was the point of the story, after all.  Not so much the love itself or even the loss of it, but the power of it over one man and the creation born from his mourning and eventual destruction.  Patently Greek.  But the chorus would always begin again in Jon’s head.  If he’d kept his Eurydice, if his songs had been happy, if he hadn’t spent the rest of his life mourning so intensely he was eventually destroyed for it, would he have become the paragon of healing he was, the oracle, the lynchpin of the fate of the world he had eventually become?  Which of them was the stupider man?
Jon was only mortal now, he was no longer all-seeing oracle and dark savior, he had no authority to say, but it was a trifle easier to ponder the hubris of Orpheus instead of his own.  He couldn’t help but think, achingly, sometimes the heroes just deserved to pull their beloved from the pit of Tartarus, promise to love them for eternity, and then simply get married, ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after.  A story wasn’t a story if it didn’t write itself upon the very bones and sinews of its heroes, that was the law of the universe, but when the story was done and the cracks and fissures in their tissues had faded to myth and legend, what became of the heroes who did not die a tragic or heroic death and were not hung in the stars?  What happened to heroes left behind?  Twisting his bloodstone ring on his thumb idly as it caught the shivering fire of those stars in its dark mirrored surface, the musical arrow of the muses pierced his heart, wide-eyed in wonder.  He’d asked the universe, but he already knew the answer.  He’d always known.  He knew, and he knew it with such clarion joy as he had never known anything before.
He could no longer be the man who hung Martin’s moon, he hadn’t been for a long time.  That much was clear to him, but he could certainly do something else.  Perhaps they had grown past the need for moon hangings in the first place.  He knew how their story ended.
It took months of saving, secreting, preparation, and then finally just simply waiting for the perfect, clear night.  The moment it came, the moment he knew it was the night, Jon struck without hesitation.  Poor Martin wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the couch, into Jon, when he returned from a late shift at the grocers, but found himself instead stuffed right back into his coat with a picnic basket in hand and hauled out into the frigid night in a flurry of Jon with little time to protest.  He bounded up the hill behind their little cottage beneath a perfect blanket of stars flaming coldly overhead, trailing Martin’s hand in his behind with his breath coming in silvery puffs of clouds, and paying no heed to the whining.
“Jon, whatever it is, does it have to be NOW?” Martin panted, “I am absolutely knackered and it’s beyond freezing and wouldn’t it be nicer just to curl up with a cuppa and fall asleep in front of Star Wars or something?  Doesn’t that have enough stars and space in it?”
Dauntless, Jon only tugged harder.
“There’s tea in the basket, and I’ve seen Star Wars.  And yes, it has to be tonight, it’s really important, I promise.”
“Look.  I love you.  So much.  You know this, and please know it is with the utmost love and deepest affection in my heart that I point out that you say that every time, and you’ve still shown me Pluto like, a hundred separate times.  While I quite like it, and I still feel sorry for it being bumped out of the solar system and all, it’s just a dot?  How many times can you look at a dot?” Martin sighed.
His words finally threw a caltrop into Jon’s warpath, and he paused, turning over his shoulder woundedly.
“What?  No, it’s not Pluto, I swear just- Please, Martin?  I’ll never ask again if you don’t want to, but just for tonight, please?” he pleaded.
Martin winced, and immediately folded under the onslaught of doleful honeyed brown eyes under a nimbus of stars.
“Oh, lord there you go with the puppy dog eyes.  Okay, okay fine, but there better be a nip of whiskey in this,” he chided lovingly with a gesture at the thermos in the basket.
The smile flared back to life brightly on Jon’s face as he turned back up the craggy little footpath to the top of the hill.
“Of course, hot toddy with tea.”
“Ooh, lovely, you do know me.”
The rest of the way was trivially short to the small, flat hilltop surrounded by heather where Jon had already set up a blanket and the telescope over a pristine vista of the dark line where the stars sank into the sea.  He ushered Martin to sit down first, then perched on his hip beside him and poured him a generous helping of tea and whiskey from the thermos before pouring his own.
“Thanks, much.  Right then, what exactly are we up here to look at that we couldn’t see from our garden?” Martin asked, accepting his cup of potent hot toddy and sipping it gratefully around the lemony steam that billowed up.
Taken aback by the sudden logic lobbed into the center of his romantic posturing, Jon looked momentarily stunned, as if someone had slapped him upside the head.
“Oh!  Oh, um, well-!  Ahah, that is to say- Uh.  There is a reason for all this.  It’s not that we couldn’t see it from our garden, we very much could have.  B-But it’s so beautiful up here, and you can kind of hear the sea?  And it’s nice and peaceful, and the heather is still blooming a bit and um…” he trailed off, cheeks burning.
“Okay…?” Martin probed, frowning a little.
“Er, actually...  It’s less about the stars than it is- W-Well it is about the stars.  Let’s get that clear.  But to be completely honest I mostly just… I-I well.  There’s something I need to tell you?”
Jon was ill-prepared for the look of abject horror on Martin’s face as he went paler than the moon overhead.
“Shit, what is it?  Did you find something?  You saw something?  There’s been a sign of The Fears?  Oh god it’s not HER is it?” he asked frantically, nearly slopping hot toddy all over his lap.
“What?  No!  No, none of that!” Jon spluttered, aghast.
Martin regained a modicum of color in his face and breathed in measuredly.
“Okay, so then what is it?  Oh god, you’re not… Jon you’re not ill, or something, are you?  Please, you can just tell me if-“
“No, I am not ill either, damn it, Martin!  If you would just listen to me!  I-!” Jon moaned exasperatedly, “I just wanted to do something… nice.  Something nice for you.  And nicer than I normally would because I am apparently much worse at crafting romantic moments than I thought and-“
“Wait…” Martin cut in, eyes gleaming with realization, “Jonathan Sims… Are you grand gesturing?”
“Well I am certainly trying but you are making it exceedingly difficult!” he retorted, red in the face and breathless.
“Oh my god, you are!  I’m so sorry!” Martin laughed brightly, “Oh god Jon you poor thing I’m so sorry, I’m awful, I’m the absolute worst!  No please!  Don’t let me spoil it.  Please go on.”
Grinding the heel of his palm into his forehead, Jon tried to summon the words again, only for Martin’s strong, warm hands to take it from him and tip his chin up to gaze into his eyes.
“Hey.  Hey, Jon.  Look at me,” he breathed, looking into his eyes idolatrously, “I’m sorry.  I love you.  You can tell me.”
Taking the steadiness from those clear blue depths he needed, Jon focused on them, on the strawberry blond curls tossing in the icy breeze, of the kiss of chilled pink under his freckles, and that eternal, sunshine smile.
“Okay,” he finally answered, smiling softly.
With a deep, shuddering breath, and a long swig of whiskey laced tea for good measure, Jon drew himself up and fished deep in his soul for the words he had waited a millennium to say.
“Okay… So here it is.  Um… I’ve um, I’ve had a lot of time alone lately with my new hobby, as it were.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.  A lot of it is overly complicated and ridiculous and doesn’t deserve to live outside of my head but… a lot of it has been about you, about us.  And I know we don’t need to-to put a label on us or put us into a… a box or anything like that.  But every time I look at this ring on my finger, I can’t help but remember we never actually talked about what they meant,” he began, holding out his left hand and fidgeting with the loose band around his thumb.
“Oh Jon, don’t worry about that.  It was just me being a big sappy, sentimental dork.  And if I recall correctly, we’d had a pretty awful row a night or two before, and I just wanted to feel close to you again, I guess?  We both know what they mean to us.  It doesn’t matter,” Martin assured him sweetly.
“Except that it does!” Jon insisted passionately, “That’s the point!  You are a big sappy, sentimental dork, Martin.  I bet you were the kid that had a dream wedding all planned in a notebook with pictures cut out of magazines and everything.  I adore that about you, but big sappy sentimental dorks should have big sappy, sentimental moments like huge, expensive seaside weddings with three-flavor cakes and all your friends and family and rose petals and dove releases and whatever else your heart could dream up.”
Martin snickered and shook his head, charmed at least by the mental image of kissing Jon on a seaside cliff at sunset while doves flew in glorious formation around them and everyone they had ever known and loved cheered.
“Pfft, I don’t need a grand wedding and all that, I just need-”
“Me.  I know,” Jon finished for him with a smirk, “I knew you’d say that.  Maybe not.  But you deserve one.  And I know I don’t use that word lightly, but it’s necessary in this case.  You deserve it.  All of it.  Me on one knee with a ring in a box, you deserve us picking out flowers and tuxedos and arguing over the font on the invitations.  You deserve Tim’s awful bachelor party and laughing at me at the altar because I had to read my vows off a card and they’re still so stiff and awkward and they pale in comparison to the beautiful poem you wrote about me.  You deserve smiling so hard your cheeks hurt and crying as we exchange rings.  All of it.”
Martin weighed his words carefully on his tongue with a sip of his boozy tea to chase away ghosts of things that never even were.
“I mean, sure, not going to say I never wanted that.  And I did have that stupid wedding notebook, by the way.  But all that became a pipe dream the minute we wound up here, right?  No use being upset about something that can never be.”
“That may be so, but the crux of it is… you also contented yourself with the idea of it never coming true not because we’re here, but because you didn’t think I wanted it,” Jon answered, his unspoken truth hanging heavy in the chill night air between them, “Every time you tried to tell me you wanted to be with me forever, I brushed it off and painted it gray and tucked it away and carried on the way we always were like nothing happened and it didn’t matter.  Because it was alright, really, you were just so happy to have what we have, that I didn’t die in your arms that night, that we were still together after everything.  That I at least kept that promise after I’d broken so many.  You were so grateful just for what you were gifted after we thought we would end with nothing you didn’t dare think to ask the universe for more and I am so, so sorry it took me so long to see that, Martin.  I’m so sorry.”
His voice broke.  The breath caught in Martin’s chest as he reached out to touch his wrist comfortingly.
“Jon, I-“
“No, please.  Please let me finish I… I can’t give you any of those things.  I can’t give you our friends back, I can’t give you cake and doves and the sunset and crying through vows in front of the vicar.  I can’t even give you an elopement at the register office because we still don’t legally exist.  And I guess for a long time I resented myself for that.  For all of it.  For stealing that from you, for dragging you through literal hell only to give you a shadow of a life stuck here with me because I betrayed you.  But- no stop, don’t say anything yet I’m not done.  B-But now I finally realize.  You’re right, Martin.  You were always right.  It doesn’t matter.  Those things are all just… things.  I said to you once, a long time ago, and I’m still not even sure if you really heard me, that I didn’t want to just survive.  It was true then, and maybe it wasn’t true for a while, but it’s certainly true again.  We did not fight tooth and nail to just survive.  We fought to live, and live together.  So what I’m saying is… I know now I don’t have to give you tuxedos and white roses as long as I give you something… Something to prove to you that you are my everything, my entire world, something to show you that I love you more than I have loved anything in my entire life.  That I want forever with you.  S-So I…” he trailed off, sucking in his breath to give his gesture of undying love the ardor and grandeur it deserved, “I bought us a star.”
The proclamation rang out like the toll of a bell, its gravity sonorous and quaking.  Martin blinked.
“You… I’m sorry?” he squeaked.
Jon set his empty thermos cup aside, flailed his hands in the air and shook his head frantically
“I-I know, I know it sounds mental just hear me out!” he protested, “Technically I didn’t buy the star, if we want to get picky about it.  I mean obviously no one can own a star.  Just the rights to name it?  It’s a thing you can do online.  I was a bit gobsmacked it was real to be honest.  I just had this silly idea when I was out looking at the stars.  I was looking at Lyra and thinking about you and Orpheus, and I… W-Well I just typed it in, ‘can you name a star?’ and it came right up.  Right then and there.  It um… comes with… hold on.”
Remembrance placed a gentle bookmark down on Jon’s fluttering thoughts, and he rummaged in the picnic basket for a moment before pulling out a navy-blue manila folder covered in stars and full of the paperwork and certificates that had come with registering theirs.  He handed it to Martin, who took it in place of his own empty cup, numb, muscles quivering under his jaw, and opened it to the glittering gold typeface that proclaimed ‘Congratulations!’.
“It comes with paperwork, too!  See?  So, it’s official, at least?  The Jon-Martin star.  Not a marriage license I know, but at least our names are together on something legal?  Our real names?  I figured even if we manage the fake identity thing we’d have to get married as not us.  Not really.  So…  I-It could be like our marriage certificate?” Jon explained, chewing his lower lip.
Martin said nothing as his hand turned the pages of the documentation, his eyes distant in a way Jon had never seen before.  Not disembodied and enthralled, not broken, not even regarding puzzle pieces.
“Oh!  Um, also I-I got us a binary star.  I forgot to mention that bit,” he went on, filling the sudden void, “It’s, ah- What a binary star is- It’s technically two?  But they’re caught up in each other’s gravity and they orbit each other so tightly they look like one star together, one that just shines a little brighter.  They’re bound together forever by the most powerful cosmic force in the universe.  Just like us.”
Only silence answered, punctuated by one last crisp whisper of paper, and then the folder closing with Martin’s spread fingers atop it, bloodstone gleaming in the vivid pale light of the night.  Jon’s heart pitched frantically in his chest, and desperate, stranded tears pricked at his eyes.
“I uh… I would have rather gotten us a whole constellation.  Heh, you know?  But they don’t do that, obviously,” he tried softly, his fingers barely brushing Martin’s knuckles, “They record heroes in constellations, after all.  Great deeds, doomed romances, lovers who can be together no other way… That would have been a better way to honor us, I think.  Our story.  A-And who knows?  Maybe back on our world there are a few new stars to remember what we did, to mark the place we left it, so that everyone we left behind can look up and remember us.  They don’t know how the story really ended, and they probably never will, but we do.  We do, and I want to end it right here, right now.  With our star shining above us ‘and they lived happily ever after.’”
Martin still said nothing, but his head bowed, casting a slice of shadow over his eyes, and his shoulders quivered as a thin, bright line of wet silver trickled down his cheek.  Jon felt the very sky shatter above and begin to crumble around him.
“Please… M-Make no mistake, Martin.  P-Perhaps the gesture is silly and meaningless, but it was all I could think to do to go with everything I’ve said tonight.  Martin… Martin, don’t you see?  These are my wedding vows to you.  This is me saying ‘I do’ and also ‘Martin K. Blackwood would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the universe?’  All at once.  This is me saying I swear to you I will be yours, through everything, until the end of time.  M-Maybe I wasn’t before.  Maybe I was still punishing myself, but I’m telling you, I’m ready now to have my happily ever after.  With you, Martin.  If you’ll have me.  If I haven’t-“
He would never finish.  In a dizzying blur of blue folder, flashing hematite, and a wreath of golden curls, Martin kissed the words off his lips.  He kissed him so hard and so fierce, through wracking sobs with his hands woven so raptly into his long, wavy locks he thought his lips would bruise and his fragile soul would finally shatter to pieces in Martin’s arms.  Undone, all Jon could do was surrender and kiss him back with equal passion, thumbing away the hot tears as they spilled freely down his cheeks and anointed them both with their cleansing, hoary heat.  Their lips parted and they panted softly against each other in the space between, each afraid to break the sacred, pulsing silence.
“You’re crying,” Jon whispered at length, “I’ve said something wrong. Martin, darling I’m so sorry.  I never meant to-”
Martin laughed, raspy with tears, but ethereal, sparkling, like stardust floating on the breeze.
“People are allowed to cry when they’re happy you stupid, silly man,” he murmured in between kissing him again, and again.
“Oh.  Oh.”
He kissed him one last time, that idiot man who always burnt the toast and always knew the facts but never knew what to say, who finally figured it out and bought him a star, and threw his arms around him, enveloping his slight, fragile form protectively in his embrace.
“I love you.  I love you so much.”
Jon sank into that warm, familiar comfort and buried his face in his shoulder.
“I love you, too, Martin.  I want to be yours for the rest of my life.  I want to be me, I want to be us.”
“I know.  I’ve always known.  Oh god, you do know that right?  I know that you love me, it’s written in everything you do and say.  I have never, ever once doubted you love me with everything you are.  Even in the moments I was afraid that… that maybe we just weren’t meant to be together, I still knew it wouldn’t be because you didn’t love me.  Never because you didn’t love me.  Just maybe that we didn’t fit together anymore,” Martin replied in a small voice through his tears as they spilled down his cheeks.
As much as he wanted to vehemently deny there was ever a chance they might have not fit back together again after they had both been so shattered, to kiss him and tell him not in a million years would there ever have been a future where they weren’t Jon and Martin against the world, Jon knew it to be inescapably true.
“I’m so sorry you ever had to be afraid of that,” he swore, digging his fingers into Martin’s back pointedly, “After everything.  After we fought so hard to escape fear itself.  That I almost let it truly win in the end.  That I couldn’t just let go… Because… Because this was never about The Eye, was it?”
A heave of breath and its shuddering exhale shook Martin’s body free of lifetimes of grief, and fear, of ugliness carried far beyond the borders of their souls.  His fingers curled tighter in unspoken reply.
“No Jon, no it wasn’t, but I’m so very glad you finally figured that out.”
“Me, too…” he whispered.
They held each other in the quiet wake of being a moment and let the astral plane wheel calmly overhead.  An impatient star twinkled.
“Wait… you never answered me,” Jon finally said as he pulled back, sliding his elegant fingers down Martin’s strong arms.
“Huh?” Martin blurted, scrubbing under his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.
“About marrying me tonight.  You never actually said yes, so…”
A twinkle in his eye and a slight mischief to his grin, Jon dove back into the picnic basket and emerged with a velvet ring box.  Martin’s hands flew to his mouth.
“You didn’t.”
“Of course I did!  Nothing fancy, but I thought it was high time to retire the blood rings,” he explained rising from his former perch on his hip to kneel properly.
The box cracked neatly open, and inside lay a simple, white gold band with a tiny circle of milky moonstone embedded in it on a midnight-blue satin cushion, blindingly bright against the dark.  Martin sobbed joyfully all over again.
“So, uh… I suppose if it had just been us, if we’d just been together, without everything, and we’d arrived at this moment.  I would have done much the same.  I would have brought you somewhere beautiful, somewhere I could teach you some inane fact you didn’t actually care about, but liked because it came from me.  Emulsifiers in ice cream and rum raisin…” they both snickered, “And I would have tried my best to make it into some sort of romantic metaphor but completely bunged it up and you would be laughing as I got down on one knee, just like this.  And it would have just been simple.  To the point.  Just… Will you marry me?  So…”
Jon assumed the traditional position, on one knee, arms outstretched, his every slender point a star in a perfect constellation of love.
“Will you marry me?”
Their eyes met, across a thousand different realities, across a thousand different worlds, carried on celestial winds to fall hopelessly, inexorably, into each other’s orbit.
“Yes, yes I do believe I will.”
With one last farewell kiss upon it for what it had meant for them both, Jon slipped the bloodstone ring from Martin’s finger and replaced it with the delicate band made of starlight.  It took its place radiantly, and shone as Martin drew his hand back to admire it with an equally radiant grin before it dimmed with concern.
“But what about you?” he asked worriedly as he watched the old ring entombed lovingly in the box.
Jon only smirked and produced a second box from the basket, which he offered on his open palm out to Martin.
“Naturally, I got one for myself.  Couldn’t pass up a chance to get a wedding ring that actually fits, could I?  It’s just… Don’t you think you deserve to give it to me the way you would want?” he urged.
Martin took the box eagerly, biting his lower lip in thought.
“Not sure you want to give me that freedom.  I had about five different ways of asking you in my head and all of them you would have hated so, so much.  But I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t kind of the point,” he answered wryly.
Jon chortled.
“Sorry I, the unromantic one, sprung this on you, the romantic one.  But I did want to surprise you.  I-I mean you can still write me a vows poem later?  If you want to, of course.  I’d love to have it, even if I don’t actually get to hear it at our wedding.”
Martin’s face flushed immediate crimson and his eyes darted coyly away as he toyed with the wedding band box in his lap.
“Oh that?  A-Actually I… I have it memorized, i-if you really wanted to hear it.”
“You- WHAT?” gasped Jon, his cheeks flushing in tandem.
“Oh yeah, I wrote my vows poem for you ages ago and I’ve gone over it so many times I know it by heart.  It was comforting, okay?  I-I’d read it again when times were good and I thought maybe you’d actually- um… a-and when times were not so good, when you were gone, in your own head, when I was afraid we were broken for good, whenever I needed it.  I’ve read it over a thousand times and never changed a thing from the first time I penned it.  Never needed to.  I’m surprised I haven’t recited it in my sleep at this point,” Martin admitted sheepishly.
Jon’s entire body flushed with a solar heat that melted his joints and his heart into a swirling flare of adulation.
“I can think of no better way, then, to receive my ring,” he breathed, reaching out to cup Martin’s cheek in his hand, “I’ve had my turn, now it’s yours.”
In mirror ballets of love exchanges, Martin cradled Jon’s hand against his cheek as he spoke the first lines of the vows etched ever on his being softly into his palm.
“Let he who, shadow dwelling, must In paper, pen, and book be bound Shake off the chains of dark and rust And chart his own bright fate unfound.
Let he with lifelong burdens borne Cut paper wings with thread of gold And hand in hand, the sky forsworn Flit clouds and sun in laughter bold.
Let he whose blood and soldier’s ken The world did shield from dark and fear Heal fast those wounds, be whole again And sleep at last, held close and dear.
Bring him to me with spirit free With stars in eyes and music sung From lips a joyful promise be One soul conjoined, one fate’s thread strung.
Two hearts rejoice in love renowned. We lift our heads, alive, uncrowned.”
He waited until the last couplet to pull the ring from the box and slide it onto Jon’s finger where it too, fit perfectly, like it had always been there, and shone defiantly bright in the moonlight.  Jon wept.  He had been weeping since the first words of verse left his beloved’s lips, but seeing that ring like a piece of his missing soul returned to him undammed the tears effusively.
“God that was… Martin, I don’t have words.  I-It was… so beautiful.  You’re so beautiful.  Thank you,” he cried fervently, “I wish I could tell you properly how much that meant, but I just-“
“Hey… That’s alright.  I’m the words guy.  You’re the emulsifiers guy.  Making you cry is all I need to see to know how you feel,” Martin assured him warmly, reaching out to brush his tears away as he chuckled.
“Yeah… add this one to the running tally.”
“Oh, I have,” Martin snickered, “Speaking of!  Now we’ve done the crying through vows bit.  Shouldn’t we say the ‘I do’ bit, as well?”
Jon pursed his lips with a shrug as he reached out with his left hand to take Martin’s left as well, twining their fingers together
“Yes, I suppose we should.  I don’t see why not.  Well then, Martin, do you?”
“I do.  And Jon, do you?”
“I do.”
“You may now soundly snog the groom.”
“Martin…”
The emphatic drawl of his name the way Jon only called it when he was frustratingly enamored of him perished gently against Martin’s velvet lips as they caressed his.  They kissed slowly and reverently, sealing a pact ordained by the heavens long before either of them had seen the stars in the other’s eyes, lighting with white flame the torch to guide them for the first time, forward.  They broke it only to punctuate it with two more featherlight kisses and a breathless laugh, bowing their foreheads together in deference to the forces of fate and the universe.
“I know this isn’t the wedding either of us ever dreamed of, but as far as I’m concerned, it was perfect,” Jon murmured, nuzzling closer into his husband, swaddling the new, fledgling and beautiful word in his heart.
“Well, hey, what is a wedding really other than just a formal declaration that this is it?  This is us, we’re forever, no matter what.  We did it.  And you did it for me, in the STARS, Jon… Can we just remember that again?  You put us in the actual stars.  I am so writing a ballad for our constellation later, you do know this.”
“Oh lord.  Of course you are.  But really, it was the least I could do, after you’ve done so much for me, sacrificed everything for me.  Waited for me for so long.”
“And you came back to me,” Martin reminded him passionately, “And I don’t just mean back to life, here, in this world.  I mean you came back, Jon, MY Jon, the Jon I was in love with the moment I laid eyes on him.  The fidgety and obstinate Jon who can’t make a decent cup of tea to save his life, who puts on two different socks in the morning because his nose is already in the paper or a book, who teaches me about bleeding rocks and binary stars and still reacts to the simplest acts of kindness like a warm cranberry orange scone without asking for one like they’re divine miracles he is undeserving of, who looks at me like I hung the moon or something every time.  Even when I thought I was a complete and total waste of a human being, you, Jonathan Sims, the most beautiful, amazing, brilliant man to ever walk the Earth, looked at me like I hung the moon.  And that was… Still is… everything to me.”
The heavens shifted, the stars wheeled, the last piece clicked smartly, smugly into place.
“W-What did you say…?” Jon asked with such urgency, grabbing his hands so fiercely, Martin startled.
“Wh-I-I don’t-?  Which part?  The moon hanging part?” he stuttered, rolling his eyes fondly as he realized mid-sentence, “Oh, right.  Ugh, Jon are you seriously going to get after me about your weird vendetta against idioms at our wedding?  Because if you are that would be annoyingly adorable and so intensely you and kind of perfect, but also can you not on THIS particular occasion?”
The laugh that tore from Jon’s throat was half mad, half euphoric as the weight of the moon lifted from his shoulders and became naught but an indifferent sentinel disc in the sky once more.
“No no no, it’s just… It’s funny, I had more than a few things very, very wrong for a very, very long time.  That’s all.  Don’t worry about it,” he explained, leaning in and pressing a delicate kiss to Martin’s forehead, “If you’re the one who hung the moon after all, then I suppose ‘written in the stars’ will have to do for me.”
Martin lit up with literary glee.
“Oh ho!  Two space related idioms in one go?  What a rare treat!  Maybe this is your gateway drug into puns…” he teased impishly.
“Absolutely no chance in hell.”
They both laughed, laughed with the billowing icy breath that reached with victorious fingers up to the heavens.  They laughed, messily sniffing back the pesky drip of tears and cold.  They laughed with lightness of the encumbrance of hematite armor shed, its bloody protections no longer needed to cage wounded hearts and keep them safe and close.  They laughed in breath and also in the dancing points of light in their eyes as they fell into one another free from gravity.
“So uh… Do I get to see my star tonight, or don’t I?” Martin finally remembered, relishing the utterly horrified yelp from Jon.
“Oh god I completely-!  Y-Yes!  Yes of course, it’s already set up at the proper coordinates!” he had already sprung to his feet, “Oh, though, hang on, it took longer to get to the star viewing part than I anticipated, so I might need to adjust it a bit.  Oh!  And I have a little strawberries and champagne, if you like?”
“I do like, please and thank you!”
Jon set to readjusting the telescope to the proper ascension and declination while Martin poured them two glasses of crisply bubbling champagne.  They twined their arms to drink a toast from each other’s glass, ‘to us’ or ‘to happily ever afters’, or to several other messily rambled toast worthy sentiments.  They couldn’t decide and toasted to all of it.  They ate plump red strawberries and licked the juice from each other’s fingers as they looked at their star, which was, after everything, just a dot, just like Pluto, but Martin had to admit that he rather liked looking at dots after all.  And that one was their dot.  The warm intoxication of love and champagne begged for music, and someone fumbled in the cold for a wedding playlist on some app, somewhere, it didn’t matter, just as long as they could join hands, gaze into each other’s eyes and dance inelegantly, stepping on each other’s toes, under the umbrella of stars in a gentle rain of moonlight.
“I don’t see your problem with cliches, idioms and all that, really…” Martin mused at length, laying his head on Jon’s shoulder as they slowly spun to the rhythm of a longing ballad and the song of the sea, “Like this stupid, great song.  They’re familiar and cozy and everyone knows them.  They’re like… like old friends.  Always there to rely on when we can’t come up with the words ourselves, because sometimes we can’t.  And if something trite and silly sums up the way you feel, why not just let it be?  Sometimes things are said over and over again because some truths are universal, you know?  They’re just… human.”
Jon pressed a kiss into the mop of curls that tickled his nose and smelled faintly of toasted sugar and lavender and mused on all of the romantic cliches that had just passed through his mind unbidden.  Who was he to deny he was but one star in the sky, a single gear in the grand mortal mechanism of the universe.  If he had handed himself over to the humanity of it all instead of rusting, stopping, looking outside where there was never anything to see, perhaps he could have had this dance much sooner.  It didn’t matter though, until it did, because that night Martin took his breath away, made his world go round, he was head over heels for his match made in heaven, and better than heaven, they were written in the stars.
“You know what, Martin?” Jon laughed in reply, “Tonight, being what it is, I am willing to concede.  You are absolutely right.”
“I’m glad…” came the tender acceptance, followed by a distinctly puckish beat of silence, “Then does this mean I can I start saying love you to the moon and back?”
“Don’t push your luck...”
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ieattaperecorders · 3 years
Text
Something's Different About You Lately - Epilogue: Borrowed Time
Life goes on, impossibly.
Read on Ao3
---
Martin shifted the bag of groceries in his arms as he climbed the stairs, still feeling a bit nervous.
The dinner had been Jon's idea – his O&M instructor was covering kitchen skills, and he'd thought it would be fun for the two of them to try making something together. The recipe had sounded a little elaborate to Martin, who'd protested that he didn't cook much, but Jon promised that it wasn't beyond them. He added that Martin was ‘perfectly capable' in the kitchen anyway, and said it with such prim, knowing confidence that Martin hadn't even bothered to ask. Before he knew it, he was writing down a list of ingredients to bring over.
He supposed that was just going to keep happening, Jon telling him things about himself. It was . . . strange. Sometimes it was endearing, sometimes just annoying. Occasionally it made him feel sentimental and a little bit sad in a way he couldn't put his finger on.
The door to the flat opened after a moment of knocking, and he smiled as Jon appeared.
"Hi Jon, it's Martin," he said. He'd read online it was polite to say your name, to not assume the other person will recognize your voice. "I've got the groceries."
"I know it's you, Martin." His tone was light and a little condescending, and Martin felt heat rise to his ears. "Come on inside. You know where the kitchen is."
Martin slipped past him and set down the bag, pulling things out and arranging them on the counter as Jon followed him to the kitchen.
"The store was out of chili paste," he mentioned.
Jon shrugged. "We'll improvise, then."
"If you say so."
Jon began taking out cookware, placing things down wherever he found counter space. "Do anything interesting today?" he asked, over the clatter of pans.
"Not especially. Filled out a few applications, then took a walk," he said. "Met a really friendly dog in the park."
"Flattered that you tore yourself away to come here."
"Wasn't by choice, her owner wouldn't let me keep her."
"How unreasonable."
It was weird, not having to worry so much about money. Not that Martin was complaining of course, but there was still a voice in his head telling him he was being too slow and selective in his job search, that it was lazy of him. And he felt anxious dipping into the new funds too much.
He'd just about gone into conniptions when Sasha told him what she'd done while she'd been fiddling with Elias's computer. Embezzlement might not have been an escalation when they were already committing arson, but they could still get caught, and wouldn't a financial windfall point a lot of suspicion towards them? But she kept assuring him that it was untraceable, some hidden fund Elias had, ready to be drawn on by anyone with the account information. The running theory was that he'd been keeping it for his next identity, which . . . yeah, the less Martin thought about that, the better.
Fear of discovery aside, he couldn't deny it was nice having a buffer like this. There was space he'd never had before to think about where he wanted to be, what he wanted to do with himself. And with the bills taken care of, Jon could focus his time on recovering. At the urging of his O&M teacher (and some amount of prodding on Martin's end) he'd even started talking to a counselor every few weeks. It was ostensibly just about handling the emotions that come up with sudden, traumatic vision loss, and he doubted Jon would be discussing the more exotic traumas he'd been through. Still. It was probably good he had something like that.
They went about the business of prepping ingredients, talking idly about food, things they'd done in the past few days, updates from Tim and Sasha. Martin's initial nerves already dissolving into the steady flow of conversation. There was something comfortable, he reflected, in being around someone who was so comfortable with him.
"Would you mind--" Jon frowned, fiddling with the hob on the stove. "I've got this, I'm fairly sure. Just . . . make sure I keep the pan centered?"
"Sure."
He came to stand behind Jon, watching over his shoulder as he set the carefully oiled pan on the stove and turned on the heat. Martin was a terribly distracted spotter, his attention frequently straying from the pan to look at Jon's face, pinched slightly in concentration. There was a single bead of sesame oil on his cheek, and it made his intensely serious expression that much more charming.
Despite his concerns, Jon had the pan well handled as he heated the oil and added in the aromatics. Martin only noticed him drifting once, the flames going high on one side of the pan.
"A little left," he advised.
In a moment of impulse and bravery, Martin curved an arm around him – placing a hand on his elbow, then running it down his arm to cover Jon's hand with his own, guiding the pan carefully into place. Jon leaned back, fitting the curve of his body into Martin's and sighing deeply.
"God, I've missed this," Jon exhaled. "Just . . . cooking dinner with you. All these little domestic things."
His voice was so unselfconsciously fond. It made Martin dizzy, just how easily affection poured out of him.
In hindsight, at least part of Jon's strange, awkward behavior around Martin had been a result of him holding back, wary of letting his feelings show. He never held anything back now -- his demeanor going from nonchalant or haughty to unbelievably soft and loving at the slightest prompting. It still took Martin by surprise, inspiring so much unreserved affection in someone. It wasn't anything he'd usually associate with himself. It was strange, and lovely, and at times made him feel almost frighteningly powerful.
He leaned forward, kissing the soft skin just beside Jon's ear. Jon smiled, holding his pose for a moment before gradually returning his attention to the pan, shaking it gently to move the vegetables around. Martin kept a hand on his, now fully for the sake of touch rather than any pretense of assistance, letting Jon's movements guide them both.
"Did we cook together in that cabin a lot?" he asked.
Jon nodded. "It was one of a handful of things we could do that felt . . . well, like a date, I suppose. We couldn't really go anywhere since we were lying low. I mean, we could walk around the area, isolated as it was, but trips to the village were all short and functional. So preparing something elaborate together made an evening feel special," he smirked. "You used to get defensive, too, just like today . . . saying you didn't really cook, like you were trying to lower my expectations."
"In my defense, I never said I didn't cook, just . . . ." Not since mum left , he thought. "Not for a while."
"To be honest, we were both at a disadvantage in that kitchen," Jon continued. "There weren't a lot of modern conveniences there. The power came from a generator, and the stove was an ancient, wood-burning thing that neither of us quite knew what to do with at first. Took a lot of trial and error before we really managed."
"Sounds cozy."
"Oh yes. So cozy we almost suffocated ourselves before we figured out how to adjust the vents."
Martin smiled, listening to Jon describe the little kitchen in that place. The cabin in Scotland had supposedly been a remote safehouse the two of them laid low in, but the way Jon talked about it sometimes it might as well have been a romantic holiday retreat. He made it sound so nice that Martin once idly suggested they go see it someday. Jon had gone tense and quiet at that, had shaken his head and said softly that they had to stay far, far away from that place. That there was nothing good that happened there now.
Jon was mostly open about the things he remembered. But sometimes "open" meant he'd easily speak at length about something, and other times "open" meant he'd answer your questions with short, one-sentence explanations, volunteering nothing unless pushed. And anything about the police officers he'd apparently worked with fell solidly into the second category.
Sometimes it seemed like they might have been friends, but Jon was always adamant that no one ever try to contact them. Daisy in particular seemed hard to talk about. Martin did know about the coffin. Jon had told him in a soft, emotional voice how another Martin had stepped from his cloud of isolation to set out tape recorders calling him home, how it had been one of very few things that let Jon believe he hadn't given up on him yet. And he knew something had been different about Daisy after the coffin, some sinister force like the one that had kept them at the Institute had loosened its hold on her.
He also knew that Jon was terrified of her, that he said again and again she was too dangerous to go near. That something about her made him sad -- and, Martin suspected, guilty, though he wasn't sure why. It was a topic he'd decided not to push . . . if Jon ever wanted to talk more about it, he would in his own time.
There were other things, things closer to home for Martin that Jon had hesitated over. Once while he was recounting the events of those years he'd paused mid-sentence. Stammered that it wasn't all supernatural in nature and some of it may still happen, and was he sure he wanted to know everything? Martin imagined Jon thought he was being subtle, but it wasn't a hard guess.
He told Jon not to give him the date. It was obviously going to be within the next couple of years, there was no spitting out that apple of knowledge. But he didn't want to be able to mark it on his calendar.
It shouldn't have felt like news, that his mum was going to die soon. Shouldn't have been the uncomfortable weight in his chest that it was. She was ill, of course it was coming, it had been coming for a while, hadn't it? But maybe that was the problem. It had been ‘any day now' for such a long time, ‘any day' had stopped feeling like a reality. And he still wasn't sure what to do with this information, if it really changed anything. Should he try to get some sort of closure? How did you make the most of the time you had left with a person who refuses to see you?
Martin hadn't asked Jon how much he knew about his mum, that just wasn't a conversation he was eager to have. But the careful, hesitant way Jon talked around the subject suggested . . . something, at least. Just like how the gentle, quiet tone he got when he talked about the Lonely told Martin more than he really wanted to have explained.
There was only one thing Jon flatly refused to tell him about, and that was whatever Elias had done to him on the day of the Unknowing. When pushed, Jon had gone quiet for a while, then said he didn't remember. It had been a lie, and a bad one, and both of them knew it. But it was clear there was no point in asking for more.
"You like pizzelles, don't you?"
Jon's voice snapped Martin to the present. With a last squeeze of Martin's hand, he turned off the flame, moved away from the stove and over to the pantry.
"Um, dunno?" Martin said, pulling his thoughts back together. "Never tried them."
"Really?" Jon frowned, pausing halfway to the cabinet door. Then he shrugged. "Well, no matter. You will."
Martin rolled his eyes. Jon spoke with so much more authority than anyone deserved to hold over another person's cookie preferences, and he couldn't help feeling contrary.
"No. You stepped on a butterfly last week and set off a chain of events that forever changed my feelings on pizzelles, I hate them now."
"That's all right," Jon said, popping open the plastic package and arranging the cookies on a plate. "If you don't want these, there's also canned peaches for dessert."
"Oh, don't you dare --"
Jon snickered, picking out a broken piece of one of the large, thin cookies and holding it out, just short of passing it into Martin's mouth. With an annoyed grunt, Martin leaned forward, taking a bite.
Damn it. It was really, really good.
---
Jon sank into the couch, pleasantly full and a little bit tired. He leaned back and listened to the sound of running water coming from the next room.
Martin had insisted on doing the dishes, on the basis that Jon had done "all the real work" of cooking. He wasn't sure that was true, but didn't argue. Just asked that he leave everything in the drainboard when he was finished so Jon could put it away later. He knew he'd be frustrated for hours if the dishes weren't where he expected them to be.
There were so many frustrations in his life now. His O&M instructor had promised he'd learn new ways to move through the world, that in time the frustrations would be fewer and fewer, and he'd find himself capable of nearly everything he'd done before the loss of his sight. Jon believed her, but it didn't make the prospect of getting there any less daunting. Nor did it make the learning process any easier.
The worst were the things his instructor would never understand, that no resource or guidebook would mention. The dread that gripped him when he became disoriented and found a door where he wasn't expecting one. The phantom tickles on his body that prompted him to pat himself down for spiders again and again.
Still. He was alive. The others were freed from the institute, and he was there with them, to struggle and to mourn and to continue on.
A part of him would always fear it had been a mistake. That the Web, or the Eye, or some other power still had plans for him that would reach apotheosis someday. Maybe he saw the fear as vigilance, as though something was waiting for him to feel safe so that it could rip that security from him. And as long as he never allowed himself to be truly, entirely at ease, that day would never come.
Irrational, perhaps. But it was so hard to tell anymore which irrational fears were truly irrational, and which would one day manifest with teeth and claws.
Even if nothing ever came for him, they had only bought the world some time. One day, maybe soon, someone would figure it out and attempt a ritual again. Maybe there would be others out there who would catch it in time, postponing the end over and over, forever. Or maybe someone would do it next week, and Jon would be plunged along with everyone else into unspeakable suffering until Terminus claimed them all. He could follow Gertrude's path if he chose, devote his life to stopping rituals at the cost of everything he cared for. Even then one could slip past him, come from someplace he hadn't been watching, or had been made not to notice. At some point he was going to have to find a way to live with that knowledge.
He'd work on it. But for the moment . . . .
The sound of running water stopped. Jon smiled, scooting to make room on the couch, feeling the cushions sink and shift as they took the weight of another person. With a hmm that came out with more whine to it than he'd wanted, Jon found Martin's arm and tugged it towards him. With a quiet laugh, Martin obliged, leaning into him and resting his head against his chest.
"Better," Jon arranged their limbs more comfortably. Martin's hands were still cold, and he smelled faintly of dish soap.
"Glad to hear it."
Jon knew Martin found it amusing, how clingy he was. The first time he'd commented on it had been profoundly embarrassing. Part of it was just the way Jon was, but he also remembered the days after the Lonely. The skittish, uncertain moments of contact, the times when Martin stiffened at his touch but whimpered when he pulled away. The other days, when they could barely let go of one another, when Jon would plant himself beside Martin or wrap his arms over his shoulders, and he would relax into it, sighing with release. Both of them too grateful for the fragile miracle of each other's touch to consider breaking contact.
This Martin didn't remember those days, and if he ever sensed anything desperate or reverent in the way Jon clung, he didn't comment on it. Still, even if he found it funny, he didn't seem to mind how ardently Jon held on to him.
Jon moved a hand into the space between Martin's shoulder blades and scratched down his spine, the particular way he used to like. Jon felt him shiver with pleasure under the soothing contact, and a powerful warmth spread through him.
"God . . ." Martin whispered, "you really know everything about me, don't you?"
Jon snorted. "Hardly. In a very real way, we barely had time to get to know each other. And when we did, well . . . it was close by necessity. It was intimate, and intense. But there's still a great deal I've no idea about."
"You were never tempted to use those powers of omniscience to look inside my head?"
"Constantly," Jon said, with great seriousness. "But I never did. I promised."
Martin went quiet at that. Maybe Jon's reply had been a little intense, or maybe Martin hadn't actually realized that looking inside his head had been a possibility when he'd asked the question as a joke.
"Oh," he said eventually. "Um . . . good?"
"I have picked up a few things," Jon continued, speaking with quiet and fond admiration. "For example . . . I know you'd like a pet, but your landlord won't allow them so you keep plants instead. You can't say no to panhandlers. You have a favorite hoodie that you only wear when you're sad and need the comfort. You like old, careworn furniture, and rainy days, and sitcoms that were made before you were born. You're kind to people who aren't kind to you, but you never forget the unkindness."
"Wow. Okay," Martin made a soft noise, shifting in his arms, voice tight and quiet. "Okay. Y-You're, uh, probably going to kill me if you keep that up, you know."
"Trust me, you've survived worse."
He felt Martin move a little higher, slotting himself beside Jon and giving him a tight squeeze. Jon grinned as the breath was pushed out of him, all twenty-four of his ribs contracting at the assault.
That was another difference, one of dozens of subtle changes Jon couldn't keep his mind from analyzing. Martin wasn't ungentle, exactly. But he hugged Jon more tightly, shoved or poked him when he was annoyed, whereas the Martin in his memories had held back a little. Been more mindful of his strength, as if wary he might handle him too roughly. It had been subtle, a thing Jon hadn't even noticed until he had something to contrast it against.
It made sense, he supposed. The other Martin had seen Jon limp back to the institute with fresh wounds and new scars one too many times. This one didn't have to have those images in his head.
There were some things that were lost between them, Jon knew that. Memories too small and simple to explain, questions he couldn't ask anymore. Moments they would never share, both good and bad. But there was also so much they had gained. This Martin hadn't had an easy life, not by any measure. But he hadn't had to watch helplessly as the people around him died or disappeared or became monstrous. Hadn't been lost in grinning corridors, or attacked by Hopworth's hooligans, or made to feel the heat of the endless tenement fire. And for that, Jon was so, so grateful.
"You look thoughtful," Martin commented.
"Mmm," Jon sat quietly for a while sifting through his thoughts before speaking. "We should go to a movie sometime. When I'm up for going out out."
"That sounds less fun for you than me . . . ."
"Depends on the movie. I could listen, even without description. And I'd enjoy being with you," he said. "Or maybe a concert? Though I don't really know what sort of music you like . . . ."
"Really? There's actually a blank spot in your catalogue of Martin trivia?" he said sarcastically. "Surprised it never came up."
"You only ever used headphones at work," Jon bristled, feeling oddly defensive about it, "and we obviously couldn't bring our devices to the cabin. Too traceable."
"Hmm," there was a teasing smile in Martin's voice. "Don't know if I want to tell, now. Feels like I've got a secret."
"Oh, except . . . there was one song? I don't know the lyrics, but you used to hum it all the time in the cabin."
"What was it called?"
"I didn't actually ask. It sounded nice, though. Maybe we could listen to it together. . . "
"How'd it go, then?"
He hummed the tune from memory. It came easily to mind, connected as it was with images of Martin sipping tea or wiping down a countertop, a bright, easy smile on his face. After a moment, Martin burst out laughing.
"That's -- that's from a soap commercial!"
". . . What?"
"Floors and doors, walls and halls, Liquid Lather cleans them all," he spoke-sang along with the tune. "It was probably just stuck in my head."
Jon frowned, mildly disappointed. "Well. It sounded nice when you were humming it, anyway."
"God. If you want I can serenade you with an insurance advert sometime."
"No thank you."
"Or we could listen to your album from uni," he pushed, the satisfied smile in his voice growing.
"Thankfully we never recorded anything," Jon grinned ruefully, "so that's lost to time."
"Bet you could still sing some of it."
"Try me the next time I'm not expecting to live through the night."
Martin made a displeased sound at that, but said nothing.
"I'm sorry that you always have to come over here," Jon said. "I should probably be making more of an effort to get out of the flat. But it's so much still, even with a guide. I can do it if I have to, but I can't relax."
"C'mon . . . you know I don't mind, and even if I did it wouldn't be something to apologize for. You're going at your own pace."
"Suppose I'm just impatient with myself. It feels absurd, I've walked through a London warped by unfathomable terror, but now ordinary city life is overwhelming. I think I never understood how many people there are on every block until each one became another unpredictable factor to be aware of on my way to the damn corner store," he sighed. "It may be a while before I'm up for anything like a concert."
"It's alright," Martin gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "I'm good at waiting."
For a moment Jon's mind went to a dark, creaking bedroom, air heavy with dust and thick with terror. It's all right. I'm good at waiting. The same phrasing, almost the same tone. Maybe it was to be expected, little parallels like this. Given a person's linguistic habits and enough time it was probably inevitable, but every time something like it happened it floored Jon in the most wonderful way. Some small but meaningful part of the man he loved reflecting and echoing back at him.
If the world didn't end, if he didn't dissolve into spiders or die at the hands of some unfathomable terror, Jon swore someday he'd find the words for how moments like that made him feel. And if he had any courage left in him, he'd tell Martin about it.
"Though, as long as we're talking about that," Martin said, "I've been thinking . . . ."
"In general?" Jon teased.
"Sort of. I've been reading some stuff about adjusting to vision loss? And I know this is fast – well, maybe not fast to you – but it seems to me like it's probably easier, especially at first, if you've got a sighted person staying with you . . ."
He felt himself breathe in sharply, and Martin's words came faster, his tone careful.
"Not - not to do everything for you, of course! I know you can do things yourself. Just to make little things easier, and – you know, that aspect aside it – it might just be nice –"
"Yes," Jon said decisively.
"Because it isn't really just the vision thing – I mean, it's alright if you do need help but it's also alright if you don't – but there's other reasons – "
"My answer is yes."
A faint laugh came out of Martin and he slapped Jon's chest lightly. "Stop agreeing and let me finish."
"Sorry."
"I'm not suggesting moving in. That would be too fast, at least for me," he said. "I'd want to keep my own place, and I'd probably still spend some time there."
"Of course," Jon nodded solemnly. "Perfectly reasonable to want some space of your own."
"Yeah. But if it works for you, I thought I might get a bag together, y'know, just sort of stay for a while? I – hell, I wouldn't, uh, mind the excuse to cook more dinners with you? And I slept better than I had in a while the night I stayed over here."
"So did I."
"I just think it might be nice. If you think so too, of course."
There was a pause as Jon waited, not sure if Martin had more to say. After the silence had dragged on for a while, he spoke up. "Am I allowed to say yes now?"
Martin laughed, nodding against Jon's chest.
"Then yes. I'd be very happy to have you stay here with me."
"Cool. Cool . . . " Martin exhaled. " . . . I love you."
"And I love you."
"More than I'll ever know?"
There was a teasing smile in Martin as he echoed the words Jon had said to him back in the tunnel. Jon was quiet for a moment.
He'd meant those words when he'd said them. It hadn't been a romantic turn of phrase. He'd confessed his feelings in that moment with the understanding that Martin would never be able to see how deep they ran. That he could tell Martin he loved him, but he'd never be able to show him that. He wouldn't have the chance. He found Martin's cheek with a hand, turned his face towards him, then bent down and kissed him, once.
"No," he said. "Not if I can help it."
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