#but jon was the one that was letting himself fantasize about how it would have been if they had had a normal life together

[clown-eating-pig]

Has anyone done the “in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you” thing with jmart yet…..

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jmart #teaholding #making myself sick thinking about it actually #my only issue is that I don’t know who would say it #martin is maybe more like waymond #but jon was the one that was letting himself fantasize about how it would have been if they had had a normal life together #ugh I’m gonna be ill

[lawrites]

Just Enough (NSFW)

Jonathan Crane x Plus Size Gender Neutral Reader

You've always fantasized about Jon and his Scarecrow persona...well...what if he felt the same?

CW: dead dove, talk about getting dosed with fear toxin, Jon being creepy and scary, bit of non-con if you look at it but nothing explicit.

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

Do you feel a little bit bad that you are attracted to Jonathan while he's in his full scarecrow costume? Well...no...but you probably should, which does make you feel bad.

It's no secret that Jon is a slight man, and his figure, while attractive to you, is not exactly intimidating when dressed in his sweater vests and khakis. But when donning his alter ego? He drapes himself in flowing, dark fabric that hides him, making you see shapes, limbs, even faces where they aren't there. It builds him up, even makes him intimidating.

His fingers are extend into needles which look like claws, to you. It makes you fantasize about how they would feel...tracing along your body...pressing into your skin. And his mask...it's a grim visage with deep, dark buttons for eyes and an eerie smile stitched in blood-colored thread.

All of that together would make most people run, even without the knowledge of who The Scarecrow is. But you? You've found yourself crossing your legs more often than not as he starts getting ready to head out. You usually lounge around, wearing a comfortable set of pajamas and watching him don his terrifying (sexy) garb, trying to babble away about any inane thing so he can't tell how much you want to jump his bones.

Tonight is a bit different. Jonathan doesn't know it, but you have something pretty for him under your usual comfy clothes. He hasn't told you of any plans to go out, so you are hoping that he will return from work, collapse, and let you spoil him for a bit. He does work so hard, and you would love to give him a nice treat. And maybe...you could bring up something you've been wanting to try for a bit.

You return from your daydreaming to your current focus, lazily stirring the chicken stew you have put together and making sure there are no burned bits on the bottom. The slight chill outside is making you feel like you need to take care of the handsome, skinny Professor. He must be freezing.

And with that thought, you hear the jangle of keys being inserted clumsily into the front door. You smile and turn the burner to low heat, giving the stew one last stir and tapping the spoon on the edge before laying it down. You wipe your hands and hurry to the living room just as Jon opens the door.

"Jon! Hi! Welcome back!" You do your best to not immediately run into his arms.

He looks a bit haggard, shaking off the bits of snow from his coat, but he also looks invigorated. His eyes glow with excitement. "Darling!" You blush. "I have had the most wonderful idea for a target for my fear toxin. It must be done tonight but I think-"

You don't catch the rest of his sentence, feeling yourself collapse a bit in defeat. His sentence ends and you manage to get out, "That's great Jon!" Before turning to go back to the kitchen, trying to hide your irrational tears.

It wasn't like he promised to be available tonight, so the only person who let you down tonight is yourself. You shouldn't hype yourself up with plans when you know he has goals that he has to achieve. It's time to start being more realistic, especially with Jon as a partner. He would understand your feelings, but would be more annoyed by them than anything.

As you hear him set down his briefcase and meander around the living room, you let a few tears fall before wiping them away and trying to get yourself in order.

"I-I made chicken stew, Jon! If you want some!! It looked cold out there."

Jon's voice responds, too close and right behind you, "Sounds delicious."

You jump, involuntarily, causing a bit of the hot soup to splash on your hand. A hiss leaves you as the sting registers, reddening the back of your hand.

Jon tuts and turns you around, immediately inspecting your hand gently. He grabs a paper towel and wipes the soup off, holding it up to the light and turning it to and fro. He nods at it, almost to verify that you aren't seriously injured. "I'm sorry, dear, I just wanted to see you a bit afraid." His smile is wolfish. "You know I would never hurt you without your consent first."

He winks, and you can't help the blush that takes over your face. One of his hands comes up to lightly brush your cheek, and it makes you want to swoon a bit. At first, you think maybe he is just trying to comfort you after your injury, but then you realize that he is tracing the tear tracks that must be visible, moving his thumb up and down, his brow furrowing.

"I have to do this, tonight, darling. And I'll be back, don't worry." You can't escape his gaze, and your blush deepens a bit further when you realize that he knows why you are upset in the first place. Of course he does, it's his job to read people.

You nod, still a bit sad that your plans won't work but happy that he at least is acknowledging your feelings. "I understand." His brow stays furrowed, and he opens his mouth like he is about to argue, but you cut him off. "Really! I do. I...I want you to succeed, Jon. Your work is important to you and you are important to me."

He seems to at least be placated by your answer, releasing your cheek and moving to hold both of your hands instead. Silence takes over for a bit, both of you unsure how to change the subject. You start, unsure of what he wants you to do tonight. "Would you like me to stay up? I can wait until you get ba-"

He vehemently shakes his head, cutting you off. "Don't worry, I may be out late. Go to bed at your usual time and get a full night's rest."

He releases your hands from his gentle hold, clapping his own together. "Well! I must have some of this stew and then head out to work. You are right, it was cold out there," he admits with a sheepish grin.

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

Watching Jonathan get ready to go was even more taxing than usual today, knowing that you had lingerie underneath your clothes the whole time. The temptation to tear them off, showing him what he would miss by leaving you here tonight...maybe timing it so he would be in his full scarecrow costume...

It had you fantasizing and looking off in the distance instead of prattling on as usual. Jonathan may have noticed this, as he reached out with one gloved hand, a needle extending to gently press right into the softness under your chin. Even if you weren't paying attention before, you are now. You try not to breathe too heavily, knowing that even a slight prick could have you seeing visions for hours.

"You'll be good and go to bed on time for me? Hmm?" His voice is deeper, lower, when he's in the mask. It comes out whispered, like he wants you to lean in to hear him and pierce yourself on his needle. Your thighs subtly shift together.

You would nod...but that's probably not the best idea. "O-of course, Jon. I'll go to bed on time, for you."

His needle clad finger retracts, and he reaches over to find his cloak, placing it over his shoulders in a sweeping motion. "Good. I'll be back soon."

And with what seems to be a swish of his cloak, a bathing of your vision in darkness, he's gone.

Thank God.

If you weren't going to get any direct action from him tonight, especially after he seemed to be more loving than usual, then you needed to find relief in other ways before bed. Having his hands on you and knowing that it would lead nowhere tonight was torture.

You hum to yourself, stripping off your clothes and looking at what you had picked out in the mirror. A burnt orange babydoll shift, in his colors. The sheer, silky fabric hits just right at the midpoint of your hips, which allows the tiny panties you had on to peek through. So much discomfort, if you're being honest, was worth at least a bit of enjoyment, even if it's just on your part.

Suddenly a chill moves through you, once you are only in your lingerie. Someone's here, your body is telling you. They're in the window. You glance at the window...and see nothing. Shaking your head and trying to convince yourself not to look, (this is how people die in horror movies!), you walk slowly over to the window to check, pulling back the sheer curtains.

You see nothing there. Chuckling, reminding yourself that you are on the 8th floor and the fire escape is so flimsy you would hear someone breathing on it...you walk away. But the nervousness doesn't fade as it should. It sits, uneasy, in the depths of your body.

It works for you, in an odd way. Maybe Jon had a point about the intersection between fear and pleasure...because your nipples had pebbled in the cold air near the window and the chill you experienced from the fear. It makes them sensitive to the silky fabric encasing your chest.

Finalizing your preparations, you pull back the comforters, set down two massive towels, and turn the lights off, leaving only one lamp on your bedside table.

Settling back against the pillows, you reach for a silky bag you keep in your bedside drawer. The toy encased inside is lovingly maintained, batteries replaced and the outside sanitized after each session.

The bottle of lube is opened by your hands, carefully measuring out a perfect portion and running them up and down the main shaft of the toy. Your mind drifts, already thinking about Jonathan. You imagine it's him you are running your hands over and an involuntary sigh of his name leaves your mouth.

The fire escape creaks.

Ending all prep work as your heart drops to your stomach, you freeze and your muscles stiffen. Carefully placing the toy down, you walk slowly over to the window again, feeling your heart beat in your throat.

Step. Beat.

Step. Beat.

Step. Beat.

Your hands grab the curtain and yank it back, trying to stare into the inky blackness of a Gotham night. And you, again, see nothing. The howling of the wind outside picks up, and your eyes are drawn to a slightly loose panel of the fire escape as it clanks, metal on metal.

You must be on edge tonight, being alone, you tell yourself. There is no reason to think that anyone would be coming for you. Jonathan must just...be in your head. Maybe he did prick you with some fear toxin earlier...or maybe it's just hard for your brain to focus on anything when he's not near.

Tired of standing by the coldness seeping out of the window and hugging yourself to stay warm, you make your way back to your bed. Your eyes fall on your toy...right.

And suddenly, a wave of warmth takes the place of the coldness. You had finished lubing it up before, so all that was left to do was to prepare yourself.

Laying down right in the middle of your towels, you sigh as a hand traces over your chest. You see thin, clever fingers doing the work in your mind's eye.

Jonathan. You sigh again.

The wind howls, the fire escape creaks, and you ignore it. Your thoughts are consumed with your love, instead.

Running your hands down the sheer fabric encasing your body, hearing his gorgeous voice in your mind, "My colors encasing your form...does that make you mine?"

Your hands grip at the softer flesh of your hips like he would, digging your nails in and gasping. "Yes Jonathan!"

Another creak, but you don't even notice it this time.

Desperately, you reach for the toy, surprisingly keyed up tonight and already ready for it. (You try not to think about Jon's theories any more). Pushing aside the fabric covering you, you tease around with the toy and your own fingers for a bit, moaning and wanting to be filled, soon.

You are so, so desperate, that you don't even notice the window opening. Maybe it was the hum of the toy vibrating...maybe it was the expert way that the perpetrator knew the window. But either way, you don't see a shape moving in the dark.

You gently ease the toy in, letting out a groan of Jon's name. "Jon, please!"

The shape gracefully keeps to the shadows, pausing when your groan reaches its ears. It stops, then, watching as you fill yourself slowly, letting out mumbles of nonsense around your pretty sounds.

You get a feeling that something is watching you, somewhere in the back of your mind. But, as you've gotten that feeling all night, you ignore it, favoring the pleasure coursing through your veins as you manage to work the entire length of the toy into you with a gasp.

Deciding that Jonathan would tease you, you let it still for a second, and then your mind imagines him filling you, asking you what you want around your moans.

"What do you want? You are so desperate, I can't understand you. Use your words, darling."

"Jonathan, please, move!"

And just as you begin to pull the toy out of you, the shape pounces out of the dark.

With expertise, the shape finds your mouth quickly, silencing your scream. The feel of its body surrounds you, a cloak and sharp claws are what you feel against your skin as you kick and struggle.

And then, a singular claw finds its way to the soft underside of your chin. Your mind jumps back to only an hour earlier, when your lover pulled the same move...

You pause, for just a moment. "J-Jon?"

A dark chuckle reaches your ears. "Clever mouse."

Expecting him to move the needle away, you are instead surprised to hear his breathing pick up as he traces it down your body, digging into your flesh just enough to not break it. You can't see his actual eyes in his mask, but you notice how his head angles towards where the toy landed on the towels. His mask snaps right back to where that toy was only moments ago. "I noticed, you know." His voice rumbles out.

You are a bit dazed. Pleasure, fear, pleasure, fear, pleasure...it's left your mind floating, especially since Jon is actually here, now. His needle traces over your nipple and it makes you squeak out in response: "W-what?"

Another chuckle, and suddenly you feel the rough texture of his mask against your cheek as he leans in to whisper. "I noticed, all those times you wanted to fuck me in my Scarecrow costume."

He pulls back, and you can't help your reaction to his voice, clenching around nothing and watching his mask angle to take it in. Hoping you didn't somehow make him uncomfortable, after the initial onslaught of warmth from his words, you try to explain yourself, "Oh, Jon, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

He cuts you off by carefully gripping your chin with his gloved hand so his needles don't pierce it, forcing your mouth to meet his. A deep groan emanates from his throat, making him pull apart from you after he ravaged your mouth. "Dear, do not apologize. I am delighted you find me attractive in this form, for you see..."

He rests his chin on your shoulder, hugging you to him tightly and whispering into your ear, "...you are my perfect test subject for a theory about my toxin."

You balk a bit, "T-test subject?" Trying to get out of his hold, he instead keeps you close, chuckling.

"Please, darling, let me explain. For you, at least, I'll need...informed consent." If you could see his face through his mask, you can tell he would be smirking by the tone of his voice. The needle continues tracing your body, moving to your ass and digging slightly into the soft flesh, making Jonathan pause. "God, I've been thinking about piercing you here for ages, now. Testing how the toxin causes reactions when injected in different areas of your... delectable form."

But the needle keeps moving and he continues his explanation, as well. "You have been paying attention to my lectures about fear and lust, haven't you pet?" You nod, unable to use your voice as his needle is tracing up and down your soft side, paying special attention to your hip. "Good." You shiver as his usual baritone deepens, and Jonathan lets out an exhale of air to show his amusement.

"All of my theories are, so far, theories...at least where my toxin is concerned. But seeing you so eager to...what is the term...jump my bones in my cloak and mask made me consider a new experiment." Your whole body is keyed up thanks to the low sound of his voice and his needle tracing the softness at your belly, picking up the silky fabric with it.

"You see, I need to test my theories, and I need a subject that is not only attracted to me, but that I am attracted to as well." His mask nuzzles into your neck, "And you obviously fit the criteria, my pretty crow." His hips press against you from behind, causing you to moan as you feel his cock hardening already.

Another chuckle can be heard from behind his mask, "And you have already given me wonderful notes to start with, haven't you?" He grinds against your ass, making you whimper and causing his hands to dig deeper into your hips, careful to avoid his needles, "Calling my name while so afraid of what was outside your window. Were you really that desperate for me?"

You nod, "J-Johnathan, please! I've been ready for you all night." He groans, and then he suddenly moves your body so you are facing him. When you try to get closer, he once again presses a singular needle into the softness of your chin, keeping you at bay. He pushes up with it, forcing you to look up at him to avoid being pierced.

His voice comes out of the mask, flustered, "W-we'll keep you in the apartment. I don't need anyone else seeing what is mine." The last word comes out in a growl, his needle moving from your chin to the side of your neck. You obediently keep looking up at him.

His voice struggles with the next sentence, seeming to be affected by your gaze. "T-this will give us the best results, and I-I'll start with a low dose." He gathers himself, more sure, "What do you say, pet?"

Your mind struggles, trying to consider what this truly entails. His fear toxin isn't a joke, it has seriously injured people in the past...and even if it is a low dose, you know you'll be out of your mind, not even yourself for a while.

His mask gazes down at you, unfeeling, unreadable, but you can hear his breathing. He's trying to keep it subtle, but he's gasping for air, already desperate for you and this as much as you are for him. And...as much as Jonathan is terrifying...if he truly thinks you are in danger, you have enough trust in him to stop you and possibly administer an antitoxin. It will hurt him, but he will do it. You just have to trust him.

"Jonathan..." You look unsure. He gently traces the needle up and down your neck, making you shiver. "Pretty crow, I need a concrete answer." Convincing yourself, you reach up to grab his hand.

"Yes. I'll do it. Just...treat me gently."

If you could see behind his mask, you would see his face practically split in two by his grin. "Excellent. And don't worry."

You feel the sting of his needle as it pierces your neck. "I'll give you just enough to make you whimper for me."

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

So yeah. uhhhh lemme know what you think lol

#lawrites #plus size reader #plus size fic #x reader #reader #jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane x plus size reader #scarecrow x reader #scarecrow x plus size reader #batman rogues x reader #batman rogues x plus size reader

[totally-a-different-person]

Oh I have something to share too!! More of a question I guess, do you think if Edd and Eduardo were together, would Edd ever fuck himself while on the phone with Edu just because the sound of his voice makes it better?

This is honestly really cute I like it a lot and there are a few aspects that make it as nice as it is

For one, just simply the idea of Edd getting that much enjoyment just from hearing Eduardo talk (probably ranting about whatever errands he had to run that day or something annoying Jon did) is absolutely adorable

I think it would probably happen because he was already in the middle of some personal time, but Eduardo called and he didn't wanna ignore him. He didn't mean too, but was still all hot and bothered (and had very likely been fantasizing about Eduardo playing with him only moments ago) and maybe he didn't even realize he was doing it at first, or just really couldn't help himself and is trying to keep it quiet since that's obviously mortifying

And imagining how his side of the conversation is so funny, he's just mumbling "m-mhm... Yeah?" And trying to act as natural as he can but obviously Eduardo's gonna figure it out when he finishes up whatever he wanted to talk about and goes to say goodbye but at this point Edd's brain is so melted and scrambled that he panics and just straight up asks him not to go yet like "W-wait just- a little more, please, I'm almost done" and as jaring as that is to suddenly hear is suddenly explains his heavy breathing and being way quieter than usual or how much his voice was shaking when he did speak.

Eduardo's good for it though, he'd totally play along and tease him for being such a dumb little perv and how adorable it is, talk him through his orgasm then let him get some sleep

#this one was a bit long winded sorry

[kocch]

someone posted these byler questions on the tag and now i can’t find the post anymore.... buT SINCE I WROTE THE ANSWERS.....

How do you think Will would react when he finds out that Mike is in love with him? I think he wouldn’t believe it at first... I don’t think he -as of now, as 14-yrs old will - can imagine a romantic ending with Mike. The happy ending Will envisions with Mike is them being best friends, having him by his side his whole life, but never having him as a lover... he wants a special bond with him, but he can’t claim it as romance; so he wouldn’t phantom Mike feeling love for him (especially because Will thinks he and El are a good happy couple)... then after some kissing I think he would be gladly accepting Mike’s hand hahah 

How do you think Mike would react when he finds out that Will is in love with him? (If Mike doesn’t in love with Will) I think he, too, wouldn’t really believe it at first! I personally don’t think Mike is aware of Will’s love, he feels like Will is his special person, but he can’t picture Will loving him. I don’t even think Mike is entirely aware of Will’s sexuality tbh. BUT i think he would be happy to know that Will loves him. I think he would actually feel a sort of happiness that he hasn’t experienced yet. I think Mike would feel “SEEN” by Will... I think he would be elated. (and probably Mike is now partially aware of his love for Will, so it would be a reciprocated feeling)

How do you think will felt after “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls”? The scene that broke my heart!! I still don’t think Mike knew what he was implying, but personally Will could understand perfectly the implication of that sentence. In a way, Mike just wanted to say Will wasn’t growin up as fast as his friends and he had to move on from childhood, but also it was a reminder to Will of how different he is from his peers... how he can’t have what they have. Their first crushes and romances. Their first special ones. He just can’t experience that the way they do, he can’t be out, he can’t easily find a boyfriend. It hurt him just so much. I think it was one of the most dramatic scenes in the whole show. I don’t know how people watched it and didn’t realize Will was a gay kid. 

How and when do you think Will found out that he loves Mike and how did he react to his own feelings? I think!!! That Will’s love for Mike has been gradual. He just didn’t start from a specific point, when he realized he was in love it was already too late! Mike is too precious to him. One day he just woke up and realized... that the romance he saw in movies, the love he saw between lovers, he felt it for Mike. I think that, despite being unable to stop that kind of love, he probably struggled with it at first... he was happy to see Mike, to love Mike, to have Mike in his life, but it was hard to reconcile that love with what the outside world thinks of it.

What future do you think Will likes to envision for himself and Mike? (If Mike loved/loves him back) .. I don’t think he does see anything for himself and Mike yet. I think he sees himself growing with Mike as his bestie, and maybe one day they’ll be far apart that he’ll move on and love someone else, even if it’ll never be as loving Mike. ... he doesn’t let himself truly fantasize about him and Mike (sorry I’m too tragic haha but I’m too logic to picture that! Maybe Will is better than me at being a dreamer tho, since he is the F to my intp ass)

How do you think Will was feeling at the snowball? OH. LOL. I think he wanted to dance with Mike.

Do you think Will knows that Jonathan knows about him? I think he’s now aware that Jon has seen something through him. Idk on what length... but Jonathan’s speech was a beautiful hint for him to speak, one day, when he’s ready, about his feelings and sexuality... so Will must know deep inside that his brother has seen him suffer for love. Jonathan acknowledges that what Will feels IS love.

What do you think Will imagines in the situation if someone finds out that he is gay? I don’t think Will hates being gay. I think he somehow owns it. I think he still struggles with it, but one day he’s gonna be fine. He probably is afraid to be found out for now, but he’s been used to that kind of bullying so I think he pictures himself in a situation that he has already experienced. And if he managed when he was younger, he thinks he will manage it now too.

How do you think Lonnie’s abuse affected Will? How it didn’t affect him!! Abuse leaves scars. I haven’t really thought about it too much, but it must have affected how Will has perceived himself and his sexuality. Even if he doesn’t feel like it’s wrong to love Mike, he still feels like a “mistake”... I think external homophobia is something he is battling against. I also think it must have been hard to accept that his father was “right” about him, because when he was younger Will sought the love and approval of Lonnie’s... but somehow as he grew he started caring less... he started, imo, understanding that Lonnie isn’t a good person, so it doesn’t matter if he is becoming the thing Lonnie feared, because Lonnie cannot be Right... like ever. Lonnie is a bad person, and his opinion cannot matter. Probably having Bob in his life also helped him realized how a “good decent” man can exist within their family! Bob was nice enough to him, talking to him and trying to understand his struggles like Lonnie wouldn’t have done; and I think Will knows that he could have talked with Bob about who he truly is.  

What do you think Will thought of Mike in season 3? Since Mike’s relationship with Will was not very good .. I said Will doesn’t envision a romantic future with Mike, but maybe in s3, when he still didn’t know El that much so he couldn’t feel guilty, he was feeling the conflict of Mike dating El because... he actually pictured himself being El. I think he was annoyed with Mike being a bad friend, but at the same time he was pining over him haha s3 is them becoming teenagers and struggling with that! With new feels! with wants!!

#byler #will byers #personal #lmao i cannot sleep #My st talks

[fox-guardian]

was struck with inspiration this morning and cranked out some fluff.

~1k words, light angst, mostly fluff, and there's mag 200 spoilers so ye

----

three times jon was clingy, and one time he wasn't

Martin could tell that Jon was unsure of how much space he should be giving him once they had gotten out of The Lonely and into the safehouse. He had been staying close, but not too close, ever since they’d arrived. Just lingering by the doorways of rooms Martin was in if he himself didn’t have any business in there. By the end of the first day there, though, they had talked about boundaries and decided that hugs were fine. More than fine. Martin wouldn’t mind if Jon gave him hundreds of hugs a day. He didn’t say that, exactly, but he implied something close to it. Close enough that it wasn’t too difficult for the two of them to tuck in next to each other on the only bed in the safehouse, albeit with a bit of space still between them. Baby steps.

Martin woke up the next morning with a warm presence pressed against his side, a head pillowed on his chest, and an arm draped across his middle. His heart swelled as he looked down at Jon’s sleeping face, peaceful yet looking very grumpy about being unconscious. He knows it’s just the way his eyebrows are shaped, but he just looked so mad to be so peacefully asleep. It took everything in him to suppress a giggle at the adorable sight.

He laid there, feeling all warm and fuzzy until he realized he needed to use the little gentleman’s room. He slowly tried to extract himself from Jon’s sleepy embrace, before feeling a squeeze around his middle and hearing a soft noise of protest coming from the sleepy man beside him. He froze, listening for another sign that Jon might be awake. When he heard nothing, he tried to wriggle away, only to be pulled back again, with another sadder sounding noise of protest from Jon getting muffled by his chest. Martin’s heart melted, and he carefully shifted back into lying comfortably on the bed, wrapping his arms around his beloved.

He could hold it, just for a little while longer. He had a very important person to cuddle with until then.

----

Martin woke with a start as he always did, now. The nightmares quickly fading from his memory, only leaving behind a cold sweat and a chest heaving with quickened breath. As he took in his surroundings, he began to ground himself. He saw their bedroom, the edge of their bed, the drawers and the bedroom door. He could hear the faint sound of wind whipping outside, and distant screams. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he could see newly-turned-white curls peeking over his shoulder, and he could feel arms wrapped tightly around his middle, and a face buried into the back of his neck.

He laid his hand over Jon’s, gently stroking over his knuckles. He knew he was awake. He didn’t sleep anymore. He felt him nuzzle in closer, and hold him tighter, clinging like he was afraid Martin would disappear if he let go. Martin didn’t mind. Jon was holding him so tightly to try and make him feel safe, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t working. He shifted, cuddled closer to him, and didn’t fall asleep again.

----

Upton House was quiet. No screams, no crawling monsters, no eyes in the sky. Just the warm sun peeking through the curtains as they rested in bed. Martin knew they wouldn’t be able to stay long, what with Jon becoming so confused and disoriented already, but that was okay. This would be enough for now. So on their first proper morning waking up in their quiet little room in Upton House, Martin was more than happy to stay in bed for a while. Especially if it was with the man currently sprawled on top of him.

Jon’s head was pillowed on his chest, his arms tucked under Martin’s sides, and his legs draped around him, guarding him like a reverse turtle shell. But this wasn’t Jon’s way of guarding him, really. This was just Jon indulging himself and being comfortable being affectionate with him. Martin was glad he felt safe enough with him to be this way, not to mention how cute it was.

He looked down at the top of Jon’s head and saw that his hair was growing in black again at the roots, and at the center of the whorl at the top of his head he saw a small bald spot forming. He thought about growing old with Jon, and being able to kiss each other’s deepened crows feet, wrinkled hands, and empty patches where hair had been. He thought about how likely that outcome would be, realistically, and softly kissed the tiny space on Jon’s head.

He shifted slightly, and Martin rubbed his back to soothe him in his sleep, and then allowed himself to slip away again into that soft bliss with him.

----

After everything, they were safe.

He shouldn’t be alive. Or at least, that’s what the guilt tells him. His heart had stopped, but the doctors had pulled a bloody miracle and saved him somehow. So he supposed he had died. Again. If only for a short while.

But now, he was safe. They both were. Safe in a warm bed, somewhere else, with sunshine peeking in through the curtains at them. Jon was awake, and Martin was plastered to his side, face buried in his chest and hand tucked under his chin there. Jon was comfortable, and happy, and surprised that he had woken up before him. He wasn’t much of a morning person, especially not when he was going to sleep with Martin every night. It was hard to wake up so early while feeling that safe and warm, but here he was, on that rare occasion that he woke up first. He wanted to take advantage of it, to make a nice warm breakfast for the two of them to enjoy in bed. How lovely would that be?

After a few minutes of fantasizing, he finally decided to try and wiggle away to actually make the food. But a heavy hand slid across his front and tucked itself under his side, pulling him close, a muffled sound of protest coming from Martin as he nuzzled into him.

Jon paused, heart melting, and looked down. Martin’s face was still buried in his chest, and he wasn’t moving now. Just lying still against his side, warm and comforting, holding him so tightly. Jon shifted again and Martin squeezed him, making a sad little sound before he lifted his head to look at him with the sleepiest puppy-dog eyes Jon had ever seen. His hair was a mess and he still looked half-unconscious, and Jon’s heart melted into a puddle. He settled back down, and stroked Martin’s hair back into place, rubbing his back with his free hand.

Breakfast could wait. He had a very important person to cuddle with until then.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jmart #fg's writing #tags aren't working. sadness #OH IT WORKS NOW OKAY I SEE HOW IT IS

[bluejayblueskies]

in the reciprocal

Words: 8.3k

Relationships: Jon & Martin (QPR)

Tags: Season 1, Scottish Safehouse, Light Angst, Queerplatonic Relationships, Gray-Aro Martin, Kiss-Averse Jon, Kiss-Averse Martin

Warnings: internalized arophobia, mild external arophobia, mild internalized homophobia, canon-typical Lonely depression and dissociation, teasing someone about a crush (in a friendly manner), mention of canon character death, Martin briefly pretending like he still has romantic feelings for Jon and participating in a romantic relationship that makes him uncomfortable (this is addressed and resolved)

Ao3 link in source

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Martin’s relationship with romance has always been … complicated.

He has distinct memories of his early teenage years, when the major topic of conversation had shifted abruptly to who had a crush on who and who had kissed who after school and who had asked who on a date. Martin had never really participated in those conversations, though that could be owed more to the fact that he didn’t have many friends than that he wasn’t interested.

Because Martin was interested. The idea of romance had always intrigued him—a fairy-tale thing where there was somebody who would choose you and love you and never let you be alone ever again—and he wanted, more badly than he knew what to do with sometimes, to be in love.

The world, as Martin quickly learned, was not a fairy tale. No matter how much Martin tried to pretend otherwise. In fairy tales, when people got sick, they eventually got better. In fairy tales, parents always loved their children and showered them with affection. (Or were villainous and cruel, locking their children away in towers and treating them like objects to be discarded. Though Martin was never fond of those stories.) And in fairy tales, love was always easy. It wasn’t something that had to be learned or forced. It was instead like breathing—nearly effortless unless you thought about it too much—and, like breathing, it was something that everyone did.

So Martin couldn’t understand why he was so bad at it.

Just before he’d dropped out of school to work full time after his mother couldn’t anymore, he’d been asked on the first and only date of his entire life. Nino had been his friend for nearly a year and a half, and Martin loved spending time with him more than he loved most things in his life back then. School was growing more difficult as Martin had to take on a second part-time job, his mother was growing sicker and shorter with her temper, and he was quickly coming to the realization that he was … different.

After all, he’d never once felt the same kind of affection toward the girls whose names he attempted to doodle in the corners of his notebooks as he felt toward Nino.

Coming to terms with the fact that his first real crush was on his very lovely, very male best friend was … hard. But one day, Nino had bumped his shoulder against Martin’s as they sat in the library and had said something funny that Martin has long since forgotten, and he’d found himself smiling widely. His heart was a stuttering mess in his chest, his stomach twisted up into knots, and … things hadn’t been so bad, then.

Loving Nino had felt safe. Looking back, Martin is sure that Nino had been able to read all of Martin’s stutters and flushed cheeks and clumsy attempts at affection for what they were, but at the time, it had felt like a private indulgence. Just another way for Martin to spend time with the boy who was gradually becoming the most important person in his life. (Behind his mother, that is. She would always come first.)

What was funny about the whole situation, in a way that was actually not very funny at all, was that Martin was even considering asking Nino out. He liked to fantasize about what it would be like—creating clumsy scenarios in his mind where he would slip a note into Nino’s backpack before they parted ways or blurt it out on their way to the tube or whisper it quietly under his breath in the library so that nobody else could hear it but them. He imagined what it would be like if Nino said yes, his face lighting up with a smile and his hand reaching for Martin’s.

He tried to imagine what would happen after that—the date, the kissing (which he could never quite picture without grimacing and pushing the image quickly away), the hand-holding, the…

Well. He actually wasn’t quite sure what was meant to come after.

(Like breathing. It was supposed to be like breathing.)

It was funny, except it wasn’t. Because when Nino pulled Martin aside on their way home one day, face flushed slightly darker than normal, and hesitantly asked if Martin would like to go to a movie with him in a way that was very clearly meant to be a date, Martin expected to feel happy. He expected to feel relieved, that he hadn’t had to muster up the courage to ask Nino himself, or nervous, that he was finally going to be pursuing a romantic relationship with the boy he cared so much about.

Instead, he felt … stiff. Uncomfortable, like his skin was suddenly just a bit too tight. He felt the sudden urge to hide, or maybe to run, or to vanish into thin air so he didn’t have to be standing here anymore, now desperately trying to avoid the eyes of the boy who had just bared such a vulnerable part of himself to Martin.

Confused, Martin tried to look within himself for that warm, stammering affection that had been there a minute ago and found it transformed into something awkward and tense and devoid of all desire for romance. But that didn’t make any sense, he thought as he stared blankly at Nino, who was becoming increasingly nervous, shifting from foot to foot as his mouth pinched into a thin, anxious line. He remembered liking Nino. He remembered the fantasies, remembered coming up with a thousand scenarios just like this one, remembered stammering and stuttering and wanting so badly to take Nino’s hand in his own.

It was like remembering a story he’d been told. Just a fairy tale.

“You … can just say no,” Nino said finally, and Martin felt a curl of guilt in his stomach at the clear upset in Nino’s eyes. “If you have to think this long, it’s … probably not a yes. Is it.”

Yes, Martin tried to say. It’s a yes—of course it’s a yes, I’m just … surprised. Maybe things would make more sense if they actually went on a date. Maybe Martin would just … sort himself out. He was just surprised, or maybe in shock.

He loved Nino. He did; he knew he did. He just … had to figure out how to bring it back.

He didn’t get the chance. (Though, thinking back on it now, Martin knows that even if he’d tried, it wouldn’t have worked.) Nino pulled back slightly, hands going to the straps of his backpack self-consciously. “Right,” he said, sounding terribly embarrassed, and Martin felt himself mirroring the emotion. “S-sorry, I … I guess I was reading things wrong. I—I thought that you … never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Nino forced a smile then, and it lacked all the bright and shining things that Martin liked about it. “S-suppose I’ll … see you in school tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Martin managed to say. And then Nino was gone, and Martin walked home alone.

He dropped out a few months later. Nino said that he would call, but Martin has always been good at lying and even better at telling when somebody else is doing so. And Nino hadn’t been putting much effort into it.

That was … probably for the best. At least Martin didn’t have to feel that dizzying, sickening sensation of guilt and awkwardness every time he looked at Nino anymore.

So, there it was. The world was nothing like a fairy tale. His mother only ever got sicker, her affection for him only ever grew more a thing of the past, and love was…

Well, love clearly wasn’t for him.

That didn’t stop him from falling hopelessly, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with Jonathan Sims.

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.

.

Martin, as a rule, makes a habit of not talking about his love life. For one, because there is a distinct lack of it (a fact that he much prefers but doesn’t generally feel like explaining in detail). And for two, because Martin just knew it would turn into something like this.

Martin places his head in his hands to hide the flaming red of his cheeks. “Can we not talk about it?”

“I think we’re actually obligated to talk about it now,” Tim says with what Martin is absolutely certain is a cheeky grin. “Given that you’ve just admitted that your not-so-mysterious crush is Jonathan Sims.” He drops his voice to an exaggerated conspiratorial murmur. “Is he the one you’ve been writing poetry about then?”

“I don’t have to say anything,” Martin mumbles into the very clammy palms of his hand.

Tim, fortunately, drops the poetry topic. He unfortunately does not drop the crush topic. “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “You’ve got good taste. The whole … sweater vest, ‘disgruntled professor’ vibe is attractive, and he’s funny, you know? In his own way.”

Martin lifts his head from his hands and gives Tim an exasperated look that he hopes screams can we please stop talking about this. Tim must misinterpret it as jealousy instead because he holds his hands up in the air placatingly. “Hey, no competition here. We’re just friends, and I’m not really interested in dating anyone at the moment.” A pause. “Though, I suppose if Jon asked, I wouldn’t say—you know what, that’s not helpful.”

“He is pretty hot,” Sasha pipes in from her spot on the break room couch. “I definitely get where you’re coming from.” Then, after Martin turns that same exasperated look onto her: “Just trying to show our support for the cause, Martin.”

“Yeah, well—don’t.” Martin stands, maybe a little bit too abruptly, and crosses the room to where the kettle sits on the counter. He fills it in the sink and then clicks it on, the blue light reflecting off the countertop and faintly illuminating his hands.

“Hey,” Tim says, leaning against the counter next to him and giving him a surprisingly serious look. “I’m sorry. If talking about this makes you uncomfortable, we’ll drop it.” He mimes zipping his lips closed and throwing away the key. “No questions asked.”

“I’m pretty sure talking afterward negates the ‘zipping your lips shut’ thing,” Martin says, which earns him an amused huff of laughter and a gentle elbow in the side. He finds himself smiling, if only briefly before it falls from his lips once again. “And it’s … fine. I’m not upset. It’s just…” He hesitates, considering, and settles on a suitably vague, “It’s complicated.”

Tim makes a noise of understanding. “Say no more, Marto. Consider the subject dropped.”

“Thank you.”

There are a few moments of silence between them, filled only with the gentle hum of the kettle. Martin reaches for the mugs, and as he pulls four from the cabinet, Tim says abruptly, “So wait—is that why you always bring him tea?”

Martin nearly drops the mugs. “Tim.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Tim grimaces at him sheepishly. “I’m dropping it.”

Martin nods and pulls the box of tea from the cupboard. As he gets the mugs ready, however, he can feel Tim’s eyes on him, heavy and curious. Finally, it gets to be too much, and Martin sets the box down with a sigh. “I bring him tea because he never leaves his office and at least this way he’s hydrated. If you absolutely must know.”

“Caffeine is a diuretic, you know,” Sasha says from where she’s still sitting on the couch.

“Yes,” Martin says tersely, grabbing the kettle as it clicks off, “but it’s better than nothing.”

The tea isn’t related to the crush. It really isn’t. But Martin knows that the more he tries to make excuses, the more it’ll seem like he’s deflecting, which will just be counterproductive. So he prepares the tea and passes Tim and Sasha’s mugs to them. Then, fully aware that Tim and Sasha are watching, he grabs Jon’s mug and makes his way to his office.

He doesn’t knock. He found out his first week here that Jon doesn’t like it when people knock and prefers them to verbally announce themselves instead. It wasn’t because Jon had told him; Martin gets the feeling that Jon is too stubborn to admit to that sort of weakness in front of him. It was because of the subtle tension in Jon’s shoulders every time Martin opened the door after rapping three times on the doorframe; the way his voice sounded ever so slightly pinched when he asked what Martin wanted.

So Martin says, just loud enough to penetrate the thick oak door, that he’s coming in, and then, after a moment, he opens it.

Jon is sitting at his desk, mountains of papers and files stacked on either side of him. His laptop is open in front of him, and he’s currently focused intently on something on the screen, the harsh white light of the LCDs reflecting off his glasses. He doesn’t seem to notice when the door opens, but when Martin takes a few steps closer and gently clears his throat, he looks up from the screen, blinking a few times as his eyes adjust to the dimness of his office.

“Ah,” Jon says, his gaze landing on the mug. “Right. You can…” He looks at the disastrously cluttered surface of his desk and, after some consideration, pushes a stack of papers to the side to make a mug-sized gap in the mess. “You can place it there.”

Martin does. He doesn’t mean to linger afterward. Even though things are ... better between them now that Martin is staying in the Archives and Jon seems to have softened slightly toward him, they’re not quite at the ‘hold a casual conversation’ stage of their relationship yet. Still, Martin finds himself standing in front of Jon’s desk long enough for Jon to glance back up from his computer, a small furrow forming between his eyebrows.

“Did you … need something else from me?” he says, sounding more confused than annoyed.

No, Martin means to say. I’ll be going now.

Instead, he says, “How are you doing?”

Jon stares blankly at Martin, like he doesn’t understand the question. Martin briefly curses his complete lack of a verbal filter at the worst times and purses his lips, telling himself that frantically trying to rescind the statement will only make things worse. “I’m … fine,” Jon says with a hint of incredulity in his voice, like he can’t fathom any reason why Martin would want to inquire after his well-being.

Good, Martin opens his mouth to say. Let me know if you need anything else.

Why he says instead, “I just … noticed that you haven’t been going home lately,” he doesn’t know. He hasn’t had a crush in so long—is this what it was like the last time? God, it’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?

Jon still looks bewildered, though there is an edge of irritation to his voice when he says, “There is a lot to do here, Martin. I assure you, I can take care of myself.”

“Right, yeah.” Martin fights the urge to rub his hand along the back of his neck, settling for the inside of his wrist instead. “Just … I know I’ve taken your cot recently, and if you’re not going home at night, I—I would hate to feel like I’m making you sleep at your desk.”

“You are not making me do anything. I can make my own choices.” Jon purses his lips for a moment before saying, more gently, “Besides, you … have more need of the cot than me at the moment.”

Martin can’t help the little shudder that goes through him at the reminder of why, exactly, he is in need of the cot. “Yeah,” he concedes. Then, because it’s only been a week or so and he still feels like he hasn’t said it enough: “Thank you again, for … for letting me stay here.”

Jon’s expression softens into something almost sympathetic, just for a moment, before growing closed-off and shuttered once again. Martin’s traitorous heart thuds in his chest at the sight, just like it had when Jon had listened to his story impassively and then matter-of-factly offered him the cot like it was the only logical thing to do.

(He hadn’t understood why he’d reacted like that—pounding heart, sweaty palms, cottony mouth—until that night, staring at the dark, cracked ceiling of the Archives and running Jon’s words over and over again in his mind. But it wasn’t surprising, was it? Of course Martin would find himself attached to his prickly, no-nonsense boss who kind of hated him the first moment he showed him an ounce of kindness.)

“It’s … really no problem at all,” Jon says, sounding a bit stiff in a way that’s hopelessly endearing, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with Martin’s gratitude. Then, even more stiffly: “You’re … doing all right?”

The tentative concern in Jon’s voice is enough to bring a flush to the tips of Martin’s cheeks that he desperately hopes can’t be seen in the low light of Jon’s office. “Y-yeah. As well as I can be, I—I suppose.”

“Well,” Jon says in a businesslike voice, like he’s delivering a report, “if you need any further accommodations, please let me know. Given that this was a workplace incident and you were investigating the Vittery building on my request, the Institute and I are responsible for ensuring that you remain safe while you’re … displaced from your previous home.”

Martin has always been good at reading people. And for all that Jon wears various masks of professionalism and skepticism and authority, he’s still surprisingly easy to read. It’s easy to control an expression, to control a tone of voice, but Jon’s eyes are always so much more emotive than he probably means them to be. Right now, they’re flitting around the room, from Martin to the floor to his desk to the floor again, like they’re afraid to settle on one place for too long.

It’s easy to identify the emotion as guilt. It takes Martin a few more moments to place what, exactly, Jon is guilty for.

“It’s … not your fault, you know,” Martin says slowly. “What happened with Prentiss. You’re not … responsible for it.”

Martin expects Jon to brush him off—to tell him that he’s being ridiculous. He doesn’t expect him to say, with a voice that leaves no room for argument, “I am not responsible for Jane Prentiss’ presence in the Vittery building, yes, nor for the fact that she followed you home. But I would be remiss not to acknowledge that you encountered her while following up on a statement, per my request, and that I … was not as cautious as I should have been with regards to sending you on dangerous assignments.” Jon’s eyes are sheepish now, and a touch concerned. “I will be sure to take the appropriate precautions in the future, as it would be unacceptable for you to be injured or … otherwise hurt whilst performing your duties as an archival assistant.”

It’s not a heartfelt statement by any measure. Really, it’s just common decency, and definitely what should be expected from one’s superior in a line of work that is (apparently) much more dangerous than it appears to be on paper. But Jon’s eyes when they finally turn to Martin are softer than he’s ever seen them, even as his expression remains carefully neutral and professional, and it feels like Jon has just said something profoundly kind.

Martin’s heart has some stuttering, skipping things to say about that particular fact.

“Um,” Martin says eloquently. “Th-thanks.” He considers mentioning again that Jon really isn’t at fault for sending him into a building that, for all Jon knew, contained nothing more than a few very persistent spiders. But he doesn’t. Instead, he holds the little scrap of kindness he’s been given close to his chest, stammers something about getting back to work, and leaves Jon’s office before he says something embarrassing like I like it when you care or you have kind eyes or we could share the cot if you stay too late.

Tim wiggles his eyebrows at Martin as he takes a seat back at his desk, and Sasha gives him a much more subtle knowing look. Martin ignores both of them and busies himself with the statement sitting on the corner of his desk, diving back into the formatting he’s been struggling with all morning.

Jon is his boss. Jon doesn’t even really like him, when he’s not feeling guilty for almost getting Martin killed. It’s never going to work between them.

A bit of the tension bleeds out of Martin’s shoulders. His eyes drift back toward the door to Jon’s office—the golden nameplate outside it, embossed with Jon’s name, the frosted window, the old, warped wood—and he feels something light and comfortable settle in his chest.

Jon is prickly and lovely and blunt and awkwardly conscientious and completely unattainable. Jon is never going to look at Martin with affection in his eyes and ask Martin to run away with him to pursue a romantic, fairy-tale ending, and Martin is never going to feel that intense, awful discomfort that seeps into the gaps where the love once was. He can blush and stammer and imagine holding Jon’s hand and kissing the inside of his wrist and tangling his foot with Jon’s underneath a table, and nothing will change.

It’s never going to happen between them. And it’s better that way.

.

.

.

The car ride to Scotland is quiet. Jon keeps sneaking glances at Martin when he thinks Martin isn’t paying attention, as if Martin will vanish if he doesn’t keep a watchful eye on him. It should be irritating, but … maybe he’s right. Martin doesn’t feel fully here yet. He still feels empty and numb, like all of the emotion and life and things that make him him have been cut away, consumed by the salty fog that had filled his lungs and stung his throat as he inhaled.

Peter Lukas is dead. Martin had felt it happen with a sort of empty detachment—the ripples of fog as Peter disintegrated into nothing but mist and static. Jon hasn’t spoken about it since they left the Lonely, but Martin had seen the tension in his shoulders as they’d returned to their flats to pack and taken the keys to the car from Basira and made their way painstakingly through London traffic.

Martin had wanted to tell Jon that it was all right—that everything was going to be okay. But his throat refused to form the words. It took all of his energy to remain present and solid, and he just … couldn’t. So he remained silent and gripped Jon’s hand as tightly as he was able and focused on not giving in to the Loneliness that still lingered underneath the surface of his skin.

Now, both of Jon’s hands are on the wheel of the car, his fingers and elbows rigid and stiff. Generic pop music spills out of the radio, the signal distorted enough that Martin only catches about half of the song, the rest swallowed by static. Better than him, he thinks absently. Right now, he feels as if he’s only static.

He can’t remember if he was like this before the air opened wide in front of him and he was swallowed whole by the fog, the panopticon gone in an instant and replaced with nothing but endless gray. He was … close, he thinks. Every day, things grew dimmer, his own thoughts and feelings more difficult to get a handle on. It grew harder and harder to remember why he was resisting at all. What his goal was, other than to just … be alone. He thinks he would have forgotten entirely, had Jon not been three floors beneath him, alive and breathing and reminding him that he was doing this—all of this—for a reason.

It had been … lovelier than Martin ever could have imagined, falling in love with Jon. It grew within him like a garden, new flowers cropping up every day. Some were white and delicate, blooming in his lungs when he looked at Jon and felt the all-consuming need to bundle him up in a blanket and make him tea and hide him away from the things in the world that wanted to hurt him. Others were purple and angular, blossoming with every lunch they had together and story Jon told him. And some were red and thorny, roses with waxy petals that made Martin’s cheeks grow hot every time Jon said his name like it was special or treated him kindly or smiled.

So when things grew difficult—when the loneliness crept too close, when he grew too comfortable being invisible, when he had to look Jon in the eye and tell him that he didn’t want to see him—Martin retreated to the quiet garden in his soul. He ran his fingers along the petals and stems and leaves and reminded himself that he needed to do this, or he’d lose Jon again and the garden would shrivel and die.

It had been an easy decision, in the end.

There’s a soft crunching noise, and Martin breaks free from his thoughts to see that they’ve transitioned from the smooth asphalt of the motorway to an unpaved gravel road. It’s bracketed on either side by trees, and though the sun has long since set, Martin can still see the gentle swell of hills around them, outlined softly in the moonlight. He thinks, for a moment, that he sees fog, clustering around the bases of the hills and swirling around in tight eddies, but when he blinks, the image is gone.

“We’re almost there,” Jon says quietly. It’s one of the few things he’s said to Martin the entire trip. Then, after a moment: “It’s … rather nice out here.”

Martin supposes it is. The landscape around them had been a vibrant green before twilight had washed it out into deep blues, and there have been cows dotted around the fields, shaggy and brown and grazing contently. It’s a stark change from the grays and browns of central London, with buildings on all sides and people everywhere and no chance to ever really see the stars. If circumstances were different, Martin thinks he would be cooing over the cows and trying to get Jon to stop so he could take pictures and enjoying his first trip outside of England.

Instead, Martin just nods.

Jon seems to understand. He sneaks another glance at Martin—full of something soft that Martin, in his foggy state, doesn’t quite know how to parse—but remains silent for the rest of the trip. It could easily be a stiff, uncomfortable silence, but … it’s not. It feels companionable.

When did being around Jon become so easy?

Daisy’s cabin is small and squat, nestled between two hills and idyllic in a way that doesn’t match the rough-hewn, steel-eyed woman Martin had known. The inside is dusty and cold, and Jon mutters something about central heating before disappearing down the corridor and leaving Martin standing in the living room, staring at the place he’ll be living in for the foreseeable future.

The place he’ll be living in with Jon for the foreseeable future.

Martin feels something in his chest stir at that—a strange, twisting emotion that’s there and gone before he can put a name to it. He shivers, in a way he doesn’t think is from the cold, and goes to find Jon.

He … doesn’t think he should be alone right now.

They find an old, rusted radiator that miraculously still works, pumping out hot air with a groan of metal. Jon digs a set of musty sheets out of the linen closet and begins dressing the bed. Martin notes the lack of a second bedroom, and he thinks he might object to the implication that they’ll be sharing a bed if he weren’t aware of the fact that he might vanish if left alone for too long. (Or if he were himself enough to feel embarrassed. Or to feel anything.)

He doesn’t think anything shows on his face, but Jon’s always been keen, even more so now that knowledge drips into his mind like water from a leaky faucet. Jon’s hands flutter over the sheets for a moment before he says, “I … hope this is all right?”

Martin tries to find his voice to agree, but the energy required to summon it is too much, so he settles for a shallow nod. He doesn’t think it’s a sufficiently enthusiastic agreement, but Jon doesn’t question it. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, then says, “And … you’re all right?”

It’s a bit of a ridiculous question, really. No, Martin isn’t all right. No, there’s nothing Jon can do about it. No, he doesn’t know when things will be better. Or if they’ll ever be better.

Martin just looks at Jon, eyebrows slightly raised. Jon lets out a small, dry laugh. “Right. I … suppose that was a silly question. I—I meant…” Jon hems and haws for a long moment before finally saying, “Do you feel … safe, here? W-with me?”

That question has a much easier answer.

When Martin nods without hesitation, Jon visibly relaxes. “Good,” he says, voice rough around the edges. “That’s … that’s good.”

They stand there for a moment longer, the silence between them thick and heavy but not uncomfortably so. Finally, Jon clears his throat and says, “Well, I—I suppose we should rest then. We can … talk tomorrow?”

Martin nods and tries to smile. He doesn’t quite manage it, but … that’s all right. For now, this is enough.

Jon retreats into the bathroom, and Martin finds himself overcome with exhaustion. He slips into the soft pajama trousers he’d absently stuffed into his duffle bag, climbs under the covers, and is asleep before the sound of running water from the other room abates.

.

.

.

Martin doesn’t remember what happened in the Lonely. Things had been foggy and disjointed, slipping through his grasp when he tried to hold onto them. He barely remembers what came after, when Jon had led him away from the sand and the fog and the waves, his palm a searing heat against Martin’s. His first few days at the safehouse are spent in a similar fog, like each muscle in his body is frozen solid and he’s slowly attempting to warm them with a matchstick flame.

His third day is … better. His fourth, better still. By the end of the first week, Martin feels more himself than he has in months, if still acutely aware of the fog that now lives in his lungs and creeps out of his throat when he thinks too hard about what’s transpired or when Jon is out of sight for too long.

Martin remembers what it’s like to be happy. He feels it when he shuffles sleepily into the kitchen on their eigth morning in the safehouse and sees Jon standing in front of the stove, hair tied up in a neat bun and eggs sizzling in a pan in front of him. He remembers what it’s like to be frightened. He feels it when he wakes at night, shivering and shaking with the lingering memory of dreams of nothing but endless fog and aching loneliness.

And he remembers what it’s like to be in love.

He remembers it just in time to lose it.

The worst thing, Martin thinks, is that he’d almost managed to convince himself that it would be different this time. He knows, logically, that it’s not that simple. He’d done a little bit of research after what happened with Nino, reading through a few web pages on aromanticism before becoming overwhelmed and closing out of every single one of them. He tentatively returned to them a few years later after realizing that this wasn’t something that he was going to grow out of or move on from.

He had difficulties settling on a label, partly because of the sheer number of them and partly because he … didn’t quite know how to categorize his feelings. How could he categorize something that he’d only felt once before? Gray-romantic seemed the safest option, so that was the one he settled on.

(Not that he ever told anyone that he was arospec. It never seemed important, even when Sasha would needle him about his crush and Tim would make too-loud suggestive comments that could surely be heard through the door to Jon’s office.

… Martin misses Tim and Sasha. He thinks, if he’d had the chance—if he’d had more time—they would have been the first people he told.)

Martin knows that his relationship with romantic attraction is complicated. Yet somehow, he’s still found it within himself to hope that this time, things will be different. This time, when he tells Jon that he’s very in love with him and has been for a while, those words will continue to be true even after they’re spoken. (He ignores the fact that the actual thought of saying them aloud makes his stomach twist and his mouth grow chalky.)

But, just like with Nino, Martin doesn’t get the chance to try. Jon beats him to the punch.

“I … I love you,” Jon says quietly. He has Martin’s hand in his, and he’s holding it so gently Martin might cry. There were things Jon said before this moment—a conversation that has led them here—but Martin is having a hard time recalling any of them. All he can think is no, no, not now, not here.

His skin crawls. His hands are clammy, and he’s sure that Jon can feel it. He has the instinctive need to get away, but he’s also frozen in place, the lump in his throat sealing away all of the words that he should be saying.

He should be saying something.

The silence stretches on between them, the vulnerability on Jon’s face slowly morphing into concern. “... Martin?”

He sounds so confused, and Martin … he can’t. He just can’t. He doesn’t think he’ll survive the moment when that confusion turns to hurt.

So Martin swallows sharply and forces his hand to squeeze Jon’s and says, “I love you too.”

And he does, in a way. He wants Jon here, by his side, eating breakfast next to him and rambling to him about whatever latest thing has piqued his interest and listening to Martin describe the cows he’s seen on his walks. The thought of Jon leaving—of losing him, the same way he lost Nino—makes his stomach twist into knots, because Martin loves him.

Just … not in the way that Jon thinks he does. Not anymore.

And Martin can’t help but feel guilty about that fact.

Jon frowns at Martin for a moment more, like he can tell that something’s wrong but he’s not entirely sure what. Martin breathes out slowly and gives Jon as genuine a smile as he can muster, trying to convey that everything is fine. That nothing’s wrong—why would anything be wrong?

It must work, because Jon exhales slowly, his expression softening into one of the gentle smiles that Martin has grown so fond of. He rubs a thumb over the back of Martin’s hand in a motion that should be comforting but only reminds Martin of the fact that Jon is doing it because he loves him.

Martin thinks that Jon is going to kiss him then—isn’t that usually what comes after things like this?—and dread coils in his stomach. But Jon doesn’t. Later, Martin will find out that Jon dislikes kisses just as much as he does (though for different reasons). For now, though, Martin can only feel relief when Jon squeezes his hand once more before letting go and standing. “I’ll go make us some tea,” he says quietly, then retreats to the kitchen.

Thinking back on it, Martin wonders if Jon knew then. That something was wrong. But for now, he just feels relieved that he has the space he needs to breathe.

.

.

.

It’s their second week at the safehouse, just a few days after Jon told Martin that he loves him, that Jon finally sits Martin down after dinner and says softly, “Martin, am I … am I making you uncomfortable?”

“What?” Martin says, like he has no idea what Jon’s talking about. (Like a liar.) “No. What … what makes you think that?”

Jon wrings his hands together. He’s wearing one of Martin’s sweaters, and Martin doesn’t know how he feels about it. The clothes sharing is fine. The fact that Jon is clearly perceiving the clothes sharing as a romantic gesture is … less than fine.

Martin told himself that it would be okay if Jon perceived their relationship as a romantic one and Martin didn’t. He was good at pretending. And besides, how different could things be?

Very different, as it turned out. In all the ways that mattered.

Jon seemed to take any opportunity he could to touch Martin—a hand brushing against the small of his back when he passed behind him to grab a mug, an ankle nudging against his underneath the table as they ate, a head resting on his shoulder as they sat side-by-side and read. Martin had never been particularly touch-averse or touch-starved; touch was just … touch. He’d liked it when Tim had tousled his hair or when Sasha had thrown her legs across his on the breakroom couch, but he didn’t feel like he was missing out on anything on the days he went without any human contact at all.

Now, it’s all Martin can do not to flinch away from Jon’s touches, knowing that each one is delivered with love and affection that Martin can’t return. Though perhaps he hasn’t been doing as good of a job as he’d thought, judging by the concerned look Jon is giving him now.

There have been other things too—whispered I love yous in the early mornings and soft smiles that seem somehow more and little gestures that are so Jon but also so romantic—and Martin wants so badly to disappear back into the fog in those moments. But that … that wouldn’t be fair to Jon. It’s not his fault that Martin is like this, after all.

(It’s not Martin’s fault either. He knows this, logically. He’d spent a long time hating himself for what happened with Nino, for how he couldn’t just be normal and go on dates and enjoy something that the rest of society seemed to prize above all else. It had taken him years to finally come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t broken, and he couldn’t be changed. That this was just … who he was.

It doesn’t mean that sometimes, he doesn’t wish that he could be someone else. And he’s never wanted it more acutely than when he stares at Jon’s kind brown eyes and soft smile.)

So Martin lied and lied and lied. And he thought he’d been doing so successfully. But here Jon is, frowning at him, a careful distance between them, and Martin feels his chest begin to tighten.

“I just…” Jon begins, then stops. He looks down at the couch, studying the ugly floral pattern with apparent rapt fascination. Martin doesn’t know what to say, so he waits anxiously until Jon finally continues, “It doesn’t feel like you’re … happy. I know that things have been hard, a-and … it’s all right if you still need time after the Lonely, but it…” Jon swallows. “It feels like some of it may be because of me? W-when I touch you, sometimes you get … tense. And sometimes…”

“Jon?” Martin prompts after a moment, the word strangled by the growing lump in his throat.

“Sometimes,” Jon says quietly, “when you tell me that you love me, it … it feels like you’re lying.”

And the way Jon says it—tentative, with wide, hesitant eyes, like he’s the one that’s the problem—makes Martin’s desire to keep up the ruse crumble away in an instant.

It still isn’t easy to come clean. But he forces himself to do it anyway.

“It’s complicated,” he begins, then winces. Not a good start. Sure enough, Jon’s shoulders grow tense, and he shifts slightly further away, like he thinks Martin wants more space. Because he thinks he’s done something wrong. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” Martin adds quickly. It’s not you, it’s me, he thinks wryly. “It’s … not your fault.”

Jon opens his mouth—to say what, Martin doesn’t know. He barrels on before Jon gets the chance to speak, his haste making his words harried and blunt.

“I’m aromantic.”

Jon blinks at him, clearly surprised by the abruptness of the statement. After a long, awkward moment, during which it becomes abundantly clear that Jon is waiting for Martin to make the next move, Martin continues, “My relationship with—well, with relationships—i-is complicated. I-it’s, um … it’s hard to explain? A-and I don’t want you to think that I—I don’t care about you. I want to be here, w-with you, just…”

“Not in a romantic capacity?” Jon finishes softly.

Martin exhales heavily, feeling a bit like a hole has been punched in his chest and he’s slowly deflating. “Yeah.”

Jon is looking at him with soft, kind eyes, and Martin doesn’t know what to do with them. So he buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice coming out muffled.

“Hey, hey.” Jon’s hand brushes against Martin’s shoulder before pulling away quickly, and that just makes Martin feel worse. “You haven’t done anything wrong either.”

“Yes, I have,” Martin says into his palms. “I lied. I let you think that I—I was still in love with you, and … Christ, that was shitty of me.”

“I … do wish you had told me sooner,” Jon concedes. “But … only because I care about you, Martin, a-and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me.” He hesitates. “You … do know that I’m not mad at you, right? Th-that I wouldn’t have been mad, o-or upset, or hurt, if you told me that you didn’t feel the same way about me?”

Martin takes a deep breath, then another. “But I did,” he says raggedly. “For … for so long, I did. Ever since Jane Prentiss locked me in my flat for two weeks and you believed me when I told you about it a-and let me stay in the Archives. A-and I didn’t lie, in the Lonely. I did love you, a-all the way up until…”

Martin trails off. Jon lets the silence linger for a moment before saying gently, “If you don’t want to explain it to me, o-or if it’s hard, you don’t have to. But … if you can, I’d like to understand. For myself, a-and for you.” He wraps his hands tightly around his knees where they’re tucked against his chest. “This is important, and … I want to get this right.”

Martin exhales. He picks at a loose thread on the couch between them, focusing on it so he doesn’t have to meet Jon’s eyes and can pretend like he isn’t so extremely exposed and vulnerable right now. “I … I do want to explain. O-or I want to try. It’s … hard, though. Mostly b-because I’ve never had to explain it to anybody else? But also because … I don’t really understand why I’m like this.”

Jon opens his mouth, and Martin holds up a hand. “I know, I know—you don’t … have to comment on that.”

Jon closes his mouth and tentatively shifts so his knee is pressing against Martin’s. Martin waits for the tingling of his skin, the pins-and-needles discomfort, but it never comes. Maybe it’s because he knows that this is an act of comfort rather than one of affection. It’s … really nice.

He presses back with a sigh, feeling a bit of the tension and nerves drain out of him. “I—I get that love is difficult for me,” he says quietly. “I’ve just … always had trouble with the fact that what makes it difficult is that I’m someone who apparently never actually wants their love … requited. And if it is, I just … can’t anymore. It all goes away, a-and I just … fall out of love?”

Martin can feel Jon’s eyes on him, inquisitive and searching, but Jon doesn’t say anything. There’s a moment of silence between them, during which Martin tries and fails to collect his mess of feelings and thoughts and emotions into something that he can verbalize. Finally, Martin sighs and says, “It’s ironic, isn’t it. I’ve loved you for so long, a-and I still do, but … not in the way you love me. Not anymore. And now you’re the one who—who loves someone w-who doesn’t … who can’t…”

“Oh, no, Martin.” Jon’s hand is covering his then, and it’s warm and gentle and lovely, and Martin could cry. “I’m not…” He hesitates, squeezing Martin’s hand once. “Well. I am still in love with you. In the … romantic sense. I—I don’t want to lie to you about that. B-but I also love you in … so many other ways. Y-you’re my friend, Martin, a-and you’re someone that I can trust. You … you make me feel safe, e-even when there’s … so much in my life that’s dangerous and unpredictable, and I know that you’ll … always be there for me when I need you to be. I want to be here with you, always. I would … be happy in a romantic relationship with you, yes. But I would also be happy to just be with you. In whichever way you will have me.”

Martin’s throat feels very tight. “Oh,” he says faintly. He feels a pressure at the corner of his eyes and realizes, with a flush of embarrassment, that there are actual tears collecting there. He stares hard at the lamp just behind Jon, trying not to let any of them escape.”You, um … you really … mean that?”

“Of course,” Jon says, like there’s no question to be had about the matter. “You are … such an easy person to love, Martin. In all the ways it’s possible to love someone.”

Martin tries—he really does—to keep the tears back. But it’s just … so much, and Jon is so lovely, and this is more than Martin ever thought he was going to be able to have. So he takes a shaky breath in, and on the exhale, a few tears slip free and trail down his cheek. He brings a hand up and scrubs them away, mutters a sorry underneath his breath, but Jon just squeezes his hand tighter.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay, I’m … I’m here. I’m not leaving you.” Jon hesitates. “Provided that that’s … all right with you, of course.”

Martin can’t help the shaky laugh that escapes him. “Yes, it’s all right with me. Of course it is.”

Jon smiles, and Martin aches with it. “Good.” He nudges his knee gently against Martin’s. “Because this cottage would get very dull without you in it. Who would I talk to about all of Daisy’s awful romance novels?”

Martin laughs again, and it chases away most of the lingering tension in his body. “Be careful what you wish for. I’m going to start doing dramatic readings next.”

Jon’s eyes sparkle with humor, but his voice is sincere when he says, “I look forward to it.”

True to his word, over the next week, Martin does increasingly dramatic readings of the worn, water-warped romance novels stacked haphazardly on the safehouse shelves. (Skipping the, quote, ‘unnecessarily erotic’ bits to avoid Jon’s pinched look of discomfort and his own beet-red face as he stares down at words that should really not be used in a sexual context ever.) He bakes cookies, laughing when Jon drops the cup of flour he’s holding and ends up covered in it. He spends the first three walks after their conversation wringing his hands together before finally asking, in a series of nervous stutters, if Jon would like to hold hands while they walk.

“But not in a romantic way!” he hastens to clarify. “You just have very nice hands, a-and I’ve always liked the idea of holding someone else’s hand, but—you know, th-the romantic connotations of it aren’t … great, and … you know, now that I think about it, this was a stupid question, you don’t have to—”

And then Jon takes his hand and squeezes it gently, and Martin feels a warmth spread through him that he doesn’t quite know what to do with.

That’s been happening a lot lately. He … doesn’t think he minds at all.

Then, a few weeks after their conversation, Jon turns over in bed to face him and says, without any preamble, “Have you ever heard of a queerplatonic relationship?”

Martin has, but only in passing, so he shakes his head. Jon explains, sounding very much like he’s reciting the wiki page for the concept, which is … more endearing than it has any right to be, probably.

“Does … does that sound like something you might be interested in?” Jon says nervously. “W-with me, of course. If that wasn’t … clear.”

Martin nods before Jon is finished speaking. “Yeah,” he says, maybe a bit too eagerly. Then, quieter: “Yeah. I’d … I’d like that.”

Jon smiles then, bright and wide and lovely, and it occurs to Martin—not for the first time, and probably not for the last—that he can have this. That he can be with Jon—maybe for the rest of his life, though that’s a … big thought that he definitely isn’t ready to look at head-on yet—without the dates and the kissing and all the other romantic gestures that Martin always thought were necessary for something like this. That they can be happy, together.

That Martin can have his fairy tale ending, and it doesn’t have to look like he’s always been told it should.

Martin smiles back at Jon, reaching across the bed to brush his fingers lightly against Jon’s. And for the first time in a long, long while, he finally feels like he’s home.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #(in a queerplatonic capacity) #my writing #my fic

[sherlokiness]

White, white, white, white, white but you know what's not white? Her blue eyes. Her dark honey hair. Her red cheeks.

They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

This is a Sansa reference. And not foreshadowing for Val turning into a wight. One could argue he forgot the color of Val's eyes but it's undermined by the fact that he put three dots before it. GRRM made Jon elaborate on what's white on Val(There are 5)just so he could contrast it to a color that is finally not white- her eyes cause they are blue. If it's a mistake then GRRM failed epically with this passage. Using an ellipsis for emphasis but not bothering to double check?Even the hair color is wrong!

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice.

As you can see, GRRM later used the same trick with Dany. Person X is mentioned but then is later described with traits not belonging to them. I think we can conclude that both passages are talking about different people.(Sansa or Jon/Euron)

The light of the half-moon turned Val's honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

Imagine if GRRM added that last line. I would be an Aegony rn. Gotta hand it to GRRM to make the moon do the impossible to have honey be turned into silver.

The last time he saw such a sight was this

Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. 

Blue eyed, dark honey hair,belonging with a 'ghost' direwolf? Check.

He's so blown away he had to ask

"Have you been trying to steal my wolf?" he asked her.

Have you been trying to steal me? Jon and Ghost are one. "Ghost is a part of him..."

"You wrong me, ser. I am no thief!"

Ser Roland placed his hand over his heart. "Then how do you explain this hole in my chest, from where you stole my heart?"

Jon/Roland upon seeing Val/Sansa talks about stealing an important part of them.

The language used is "have been trying" meaning this is not the first time this has happened. When did she ever try to steal his wolf? It should be " Are you trying to steal my wolf?" I hope you can see my point.

It calls to mind this exchange

"You could dance with me, you know. It would be only courteous. You danced with me anon."

"Anon?" teased Jon.

"When we were children." She tore off a bit of bread and threw it at him. "As you know well."

Anon means soon or shortly and only used twice. GRRM must have known that it is an unusual use of the word soon since she was referring to a dance in the past.

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon.

The correct meaning of anon is used here and it also makes us remember Waymar(Jon Snow parallel and who also happened to be Sansa's first love 🤣)

Ser Waymar met him bravely. "Dance with me then."

We all know Jon will "dance" with the WW. But since anon is used, we harken back to Alys's words which Jon changed from the past (you danced) to the future ( you'll dance) with me.

So anon is not used correctly and this Jon response(he's about to betray the Wildlings) was also used incorrectly and it doesn't make sense unless he's foreshadowing a different event

The man kept staring at him, with eyes as big and black as wells. I will fall into those eyes and  drown. 

As I've explained here, there's no way GRRM used drowning in someone's eyes as a metaphor for falling in love multiple times(5 times) just to make the sixth one(Jon's) an exception. Let's look at this earlier Sansa chapter in the same book.

She could only imagine what it would be like to pull up his tunic and caress the smooth skin underneath, to stand on her toes and kiss him, to run her fingers through those thick brown curls and drown in his deep brown eyes. A flush crept up her neck.

Sansa is fantasizing about the Knight of Flowers.

"You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes."

So "a man will drown in those eyes" while Jon said he "will fall into those eyes and drown." Such coincidental wording and both cases involve water (sea and wells).

It was Lemore who forced the water from your lungs after Griff had pulled you up. You were as cold as ice, and your lips were blue.

This is how Tyrion was described when he nearly drowned. Makes you think.

#jonsa #jonsa meta #ice and fire boy and nothing so sweet

[rosy-cheekx]

Peeling Labels

Aspec Week, Day 7: Something New-- @aspecarchivesweek

an exploration of Jon and demisexuality! As a demisexual mspec person, a lot of this is based on my own anxieties as an aspec person and not being “ace enough.” (thanks to @ombreblossom for listening to me try to parse out how being demi feels and how to word it for the fic.)

Rated T for reference to a sex dream, but no explicit language/smut words used!

-

Jon has a weird relationship with labels. Labels are good, they categorize and compartmentalize feelings, situations, states of being. An archivist’s dream, really. But when they are applied to Jon, either by himself or someone else, they feel non-Newtonian, as if holding onto the word for too long causes it to slip through his fingers.

Usually, it’s fine. He knows that labels don’t really matter, but they still feel good. It’s comforting to know that he isn’t broken or a liar or confused; there are people in the world who share a word with him. They are bonded under a flag of black, white, purple, and grey.

Jon had set the precedent quickly, with Martin, on the first night they had been in Jon’s flat, pressed against a doorframe and exploring each other with gentle urgency. “I-ah, Martin,” he had broken away from Martin’s lips, eyes shining with a mix of adoration and anxiety. “I don’t think I’ve told you before, but I’m asexual. Just-uh, well. Thought you should know.”

Martin had nodded, eyes soft and full of understanding. “Okay. Do we have a boundary I should know?” The answer was yes: anything below the belt was strictly off limits, to give or to receive. And that was that. Martin was the perfect gentleman, checking in constantly whenever they were in the heat of a moment. The rule remained and was never crossed. Rules have labels and that label was: asexual.

 Except, it wasn’t that easy. God forbid anything was easy for Jon. Labels are nice and they’re helpful to the part of Jon that craves structure, order. He’d found his ace identity while dating Georgie, after she gently asked him what was up after his third gentlemanly refusal of her advances. He had stammered out that he liked her, but didn’t want sex, at all, and he didn’t want her to be upset with him. And of course she wasn’t, because she’s Georgie, and she helped him find the word asexual, that glorious, blessed word that made so many frustrations and doubts slot into place.

Their romance didn’t end because of his aceness, far from it in fact. In fact, honestly, they were probably together as long as they were because their friendship was the strongest part of their relationship. But god, they were too similar to be in love. They were both too stubborn, too determined, unable to reach compromise when it came to the silliest things like movie nights (Jon found Georgie’s Lord of the Rings box set far too long and far too pretentious for his taste) or how their cupboards should be arranged. Their relationship was something they could win, and they were both determined to be the victor.

In the end, they both lost.

--

While Jon and Georgie had been a couple first, friends second, he and Martin had a foundation. There was friendship, shared trauma, a love that surpassed romantic and dug into something deeper. When they’re in bed and the dark is warm and heavy, limbs intertwined, Jon is reminded of the Greek myth of soulmates: a four armed, four legged being split in two, deemed to be too powerful by the gods. Sharing an essence, completing each other, making two halves whole. It makes Jon smile and kiss Martin’s forehead affectionately. They had been too powerful for the gods, hadn’t they? Unstoppable, really.

All this to say…what he has with Martin? It’s new. Something he has never experienced before. And it’s leading to a host of new, confusing experiences. He’s been in a relationship with Martin for nearly six months now. Jon really thought that at 32 years old, after battling down fear entity after fear entity in an apocalyptic hellscape, there were no new feelings he could experience. But here he was, lying awake, trying to trace patterns in the ceiling and understand the dream he had woken up from.

Not a nightmare. No, quite the opposite. Nightmares he knows how to deal with: slip out of bed, make a cup of tea or a glass of water, slip on the lamp by the bed, and cuddle into bed, reading quietly until sleep steals him away. But he does not know how to deal with this new dream of Martin, hovering above him, low voice stealing his breath and pressing kisses along his jaw, collarbone, shoulder as delicate, warm, strong hands brushed his body, dipping low with confidence. Jon woke up to a heat pooling in his core, tight and powerful, one he hadn’t experienced in such a way.

Jon has a libido, sure, but it’s always been a bodily desire, not a…what would you call this? Emotional one? He certainly never fantasized about another person, especially not someone he knew, that felt so invasive. He felt a flush heat his cheeks and chest as he pictured that image of Martin his subconscious has supplied him, above and around him with that concentration face he wears whenever he’s starting a puzzle or stuck on a particular difficult crossword, the one that always makes Jon grin and kiss his wrinkled forehead. But this one looked more heated, more filled with lust. And it… it affected him. Jon realized with a dawning that he liked it. A lot.

Jon glanced at the bedside clock and sighed at the blinking green 5:15 on the LED screen. Good a time as any to get a hot shower and let his feelings wash away with the soapy water. He extracted himself carefully from Martin’s warm arms and slipped into the ensuite, stripping to the sounds of water pounding from the showerhead and letting the steam and hot water envelop him. He scrubbed himself down harshly, watching suds rinse down his legs and down the drain, trying desperately to keep his mind off whatever that had been.

Once his skin was blotchy from heat, Jon decided he had enough. He slid into the flannel trousers he’d left abandoned on the floor of the loo and slipped back to bed, trying to do so without disrupting his sleeping boyfriend. Martin looked so lovely like this, auburn curls streaked with white plastered against the pillow and his forehead, mouth hung open and naked torso splayed so openly, so unguarded. He looked so lovely, the freckles smattered on his shoulders and stretch marks carving beautiful lines across his skin; the stars and the rivers below, a whole world in the work of art that is Martin Blackwood. How would he feel if he knew Jon had had that dream about him?

Jon’s staring, the lowercase-b-beholding of the man he loved was broken by Martin sleepily opening his eyes, a moment of confusion followed by focusing on Jon, who was kneeling on the edge of his side of the bed, captivated.

“Mmm. Hi there, love,” Martin mumbled, running a hand through his hair and sleepily glancing over at the clock. “You alright? Bad dream?”

Jon nodded; the spell broken. “Ah, yeah.” He couldn’t tell Martin, it was just a dream; he didn’t want to confuse Martin or worse, convince him he was a liar, that he wasn’t asexual, that it had all been to avoid-

Oh. Martin had spoken. He was staring at him expectantly, waiting for a response. “Sorry, say it again?” Jon asked meekly, sliding back under the covers.

“Do you want to talk about it, Jon?” The voice was patient, so patient. Jon shook his head and tucked himself into Martin’s side, tying up his damp, freshly brushed hair out of the way.

“I don’t really remember it anymore.” Lies. “It mustn’t have been that bad.” Martin’s hands were cool on his skin, still warm from the shower, as they brushed over the planes of his face in a slow way, stroking his nose and cheeks and forehead in the way Martin always did when he wanted Jon to go back to sleep. With some reservation, Jon let himself fall back against the pillows.

--

Jon thought about “The Dream” quite a bit in the week that followed. He wanted to understand it: why it had happened at all, but also, why it was still affecting him. Every so often, between emails sent and papers graded, his mind would drift back to the image of Martin, cheeks ruddy and eyes glassy, gazing down at him with such affection and Jon’s whole body would freeze up. Why was he suddenly attracted to Martin in such a new way? He loved that man with his whole being and yet, there was suddenly a new element, something unexpected, coming over the horizon. It’s been almost six months with Martin; why now?

The implications scared Jon. He had always identified as asexual; it was a core part of who he knew himself to be. Had it all been an unknowing lie? Had he just never been attracted to Georgie properly? Was it like when people get STIs; would he have to ring Georgie up and say, “hey, sorry to bother, I was never asexual, oops!”? He really didn’t want to have to do that. Would Martin be upset, angry that he had missed out on six months of potential sex just because Jon was…what? Prudish? Naïve? Afraid?

The worst part was that this…desire hadn’t come on all at once, he realized. He hadn’t even noticed the way his stomach would flip when Martin’s hands brushed his thighs, blaming his touch-based love language. It was in the way he stared at Martin when he couldn’t see it; eyes tracing his form and wondering what it would be like to feel every inch of him, in a way he had yet to experience. 

God he…had to tell Martin, didn’t he? He didn’t want to feel like a pervert in his own relationship, observing and imagining from afar without Martin’s knowledge. It felt…dirty.

--

Jon made dinner, nine days after the dream. Nothing extreme, tikka masala, rice, and garlic naan. Martin’s favorite. As he cooked, he vacillated between trying to plan out what he wanted to say and very-much-not-thinking about how the evening could end. The worst outcome, he imagined, was Martin storming out, betrayed and heartbroken. That…that probably wouldn’t happen. No, he knew Martin Blackwood. Better than anyone else in the world. That definitely wouldn’t happen. Lo-fi techno crooned through the speakers as Jon cooked and he let his thoughts float away with the music, trying to focus on the spices of dish he was making and not the knowledge that Martin would be home in ten-

Oh. Jon heard the shhlik of the door sliding against the welcome mat and felt his whole body tense up.

“Jon? You making dinner?” Martin’s voice was warm as he called through the entrance, he didn’t know yet what Jon was going to tell him, that it was all a lie-

“Yes!” Jon called back, determined to keep his voice light and casual. “Your favorite. Be ready in five, so get out of your work clothes.”

“Smells delicious,” Martin was behind him now, voice low against the shell of his ear. Jon felt a shiver run down his spine, to where his stomach and pelvis met and a ball of electricity crackled there, unbidden. Martin kissed the crook of his neck chastely and Jon froze, unsure how to reciprocate.

“You okay?” Martin’s chin was on his shoulder now, voice soft.

“Fine, fine. You smell like crayons. The cerulean one.” Jon nudged Martin away casually, trying to pass off a witty remark.

“Hazard of the job, I suppose. You know you love it,” Martin mercifully pulled his hands from Jon’s waist and retreated to the bedroom, and Jon exhaled in relief.

Jon plated the masala. Martin poured the wine. They sat down to dinner. Jon felt it all happen, was there for it all, but it passed in strange jerky stop-motion, and he couldn’t seem to slow it down. He couldn’t see to find the words, so elected for none at all, eating silently. Eye-contact would give away the anxiety brimming inside him, so he kept his eyes on his plate and the wine and the sleeve of Martin’s sweatshirt, anything but Martin’s warm hazel eyes that he knew so well.

“Jon.” He could hear it in Martin’s voice, the gentle prompting. He could hear the worry, the confusion. God, it was going to happen wasn’t it? He was going to tell Martin and what happened happened and he couldn’t do anything to change that. “How was your day?”

“I-ah. Martin.” He said, voice jerky, unable to find a rhythm that felt right. “I have something to tell you.” The words fell from his mouth in a tumble.

“Oh?”

“I. I had a dream?” Martin’s eyes widened and he set his fork down. “N-not one of the Eye’s dreams,” Jon reassures quickly. He really wished dreams weren’t such a theme in his life. “Not a statement dream, but a… different kind of dream.”

“I…I don’t follow.” Martin was confused, eyes searching Jon’s face.

“A dream…about you?” he tried, unable to add the words “sex dream” into his vocabulary quite yet.

“Oh. Oh!” Martin understood at last, eyebrows raised and forehead that adorable, confused wrinkle. “That’s, well, nice, I guess?” Jon’s face must have given way to his thoughts, as Martin tried again. “O-or maybe not?”

“Martin,” Jon steeled himself. “I…I think I’m maybe not asexual.” The words rang sharp in his ears, grating; they didn’t feel right. But it was true, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what sort of explanation there could be.

When Jon dared to look into Martin’s face, he saw an expression he didn’t know how to parse. Furrowed eyebrows, eyes searching Jon’s face, head cocked slightly. “Okay. Because of the dream?”

“Um-kind of? But also…” Jon felt blood rush through his cheeks, was certain the Desolation had picked now to tear its way through him, and was grateful. “I’ve been thinking a lot. About you. In-in ways asexual people shouldn’t. A-and I thought you should know, because I didn’t want you to think I was lying to you and I don’t want to be having those thoughts without you knowing because that feels rude, in a way? Like I set a boundary but have been crossing it in my head this whole time?” Tears stung the corners of his eyes.

Martin’s voice was even, level, hard to parse as he spoke. “Jon, can I ask you a question? Only because you seem upset and I want to try to help you.” Jon was frustrated. Why wouldn’t he have the decency to be upset? At a nod, Martin’s chair scraped backwards, and Jon found Martin kneeling him beside him, hands on his knees as Jon swiveled to face him. Taking his pockmarked hands in his own, Martin rubbed Jon’s knuckles slowly, tenderly.

“Have you ever felt those feelings before?” Jon shook his head meekly, certain the lump in his throat would betray him. “Have you had those feelings the whole time we’ve known each other? Like, since the Institute?”

This time, Jon shook his head. “Not-not until after we were dating. The safehouse, maybe?”

“This one’s gonna sound a little rude, Jon, but bear with me. Do you think you’ve ever been as emotionally close to anyone else as you are with me?” He squeezed Jon’s hands warmly, adding: “And I am with you?”

Jon shook his head. Of course not. Martin was something new to him, something untapped in the world. A treasure, a diamond in the rough. There was nothing that compared to their relationship.

“Jon. I don’t want to tell you how you identify, that’s not my place, but I, I think you’re still asexual.” Jon’s eyes snapped to meet Martin’s; it was his turn to furrow his brow. “After you came out to me, remember? I started looking into asexuality. I wanted to be able to impress you at Pride this summer,” Martin ducked his head, wincing at the cheesiness of his words. “But did you know there’s a bunch of subtypes of asexuality?”

What? This was news to Jon. There’s wanting sex and not wanting sex, right? He shook his head numbly and felt a comforting, grounding squeeze of his hands again.

“There was one I researched a little extra, because it confused me, and I wanted to understand the difference,” Martin continued, moving a hand to stroke Jon’s cheekbone, to guide his face to meet his. “Demisexual, Jon. It’s a subtype of asexuality, and it’s when-” Martin’s eyes rolled back in his head, as they were want to do when he was struggling to recite something from memory. “-you don’t even have to option to feel sexual attraction until an emotional bond is established. And it’s not, like, a one-to-one thing, either. There was a woman talking about her experience on a forum and she basically explained it like sex being a door, right? And the door has a padlock on it. Emotional connection opens the padlock, but you still have to open the door.”

Jon’s mouth was agape. He…there were so many things to parse out here. “You…you looked all this up for me?”

Martin’s cheeks pinked slightly. “I wanted to make sure I understood asexuality. It’s a whole subgroup of its own; it was interesting.” Martin had been a Researcher for a reason, Jon supposed dimly.

“I. I want to research for myself, but demisexuality?” He rolled the word in his mouth as he spoke. It felt nice, weighty. “And it’s still asexual?”

Martin nodded, vehemently, pulling out his phone as he spoke. “Yeah! Its flag is the same colors too, just arranged differently.” He showed him the white and grey flag, divided with a smooth purple stripe and a black triangle on the edge. “A-and, I mean, if you realize you’re not asexual, or you’re something else, you know I’ll still support you regardless, right? I don’t love you because of your sexuality, or your identity. I love you because you’re Jonathan Sims, and everything else besides that is bonus.”

Jon exhaled, feeling the Choke release the hold on his chest. “Demisexual. I…Thank you, Martin. For listening and believing me. I love you too.” He pressed a kiss to Martin’s forehead, carding fingers through the tumbled curls. “Let’s eat, and maybe you can show me that forum afterwards?”

#cw: internalized acephobia #cw: sex dreams #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #georgie barker #fanfic to a tea #ace week #aspecarchivesweek #aspec archive week

[free--therapy]

The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment

We live in the age of distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that your brightest future hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present.

By Jay Dixit published November 1, 2008 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016

A friend was walking in the desert when he found the telephone to God. The setting was Burning Man, an electronic arts and music festival for which 50,000 people descend on Black Rock City, Nevada, for eight days of "radical self-expression"—dancing, socializing, meditating, and debauchery.

A phone booth in the middle of the desert with a sign that said "Talk to God" was a surreal sight even at Burning Man. The idea was that you picked up the phone, and God—or someone claiming to be God—would be at the other end to ease your pain.

So when God came on the line asking how he could help, my friend was ready. "How can I live more in the moment?" he asked. Too often, he felt, the beautiful moments of his life were drowned out by a cacophony of self-consciousness and anxiety. What could he do to hush the buzzing of his mind?

"Breathe," replied a soothing male voice.

My friend flinched at the tired new-age mantra, then reminded himself to keep an open mind. When God talks, you listen.

"Whenever you feel anxious about your future or your past, just breathe," continued God. "Try it with me a few times right now. Breathe in... breathe out." And despite himself, my friend began to relax.

You Are Not Your Thoughts

Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what's past. "We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence," says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. We're always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm.

When we're at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don't appreciate the living present because our "monkey minds," as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.

Most of us don't undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. "Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall," writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biomedical scientist who introduced meditation into mainstream medicine. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and, as Kabat-Zinn puts it, to "rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just being."

We need to live more in the moment. Living in the moment—also called mindfulness—is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. When you become mindful, you realize that you are not your thoughts; you become an observer of your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting your life go by without living it, you awaken to experience.

Cultivating a nonjudgmental awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with cancer. By alleviating stress, spending a few minutes a day actively focusing on living in the moment reduces the risk of heart disease. Mindfulness may even slow the progression of HIV.

Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.

Mindfulness is at the root of Buddhism, Taoism, and many Native-American traditions, not to mention yoga. It's why Thoreau went to Walden Pond; it's what Emerson and Whitman wrote about in their essays and poems.

"Everyone agrees it's important to live in the moment, but the problem is how," says Ellen Langer, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Mindfulness. "When people are not in the moment, they're not there to know that they're not there." Overriding the distraction reflex and awakening to the present takes intentionality and practice.

Living in the moment involves a profound paradox: You can't pursue it for its benefits. That's because the expectation of reward launches a future-oriented mindset, which subverts the entire process. Instead, you just have to trust that the rewards will come. There are many paths to mindfulness—and at the core of each is a paradox. Ironically, letting go of what you want is the only way to get it. Here are a few tricks to help you along.

1: To improve your performance, stop thinking about it (unselfconsciousness).

I've never felt comfortable on a dance floor. My movements feel awkward. I feel like people are judging me. I never know what to do with my arms. I want to let go, but I can't, because I know I look ridiculous.

"Loosen up, no one's watching you," people always say. "Everyone's too busy worrying about themselves." So how come they always make fun of my dancing the next day?

The dance world has a term for people like me: "absolute beginner." Which is why my dance teacher, Jessica Hayden, the owner of Shockra Studio in Manhattan, started at the beginning, sitting me down on a bench and having me tap my feet to the beat as Jay-Z thumped away in the background. We spent the rest of the class doing "isolations"—moving just our shoulders, ribs, or hips—to build "body awareness."

But even more important than body awareness, Hayden said, was present-moment awareness. "Be right here right now!" she'd say. "Just let go and let yourself be in the moment."

That's the first paradox of living in the moment: Thinking too hard about what you're doing actually makes you do worse. If you're in a situation that makes you anxious—giving a speech, introducing yourself to a stranger, dancing—focusing on your anxiety tends to heighten it. "When I say, 'be here with me now,' I mean don't zone out or get too in-your-head—instead, follow my energy, my movements," says Hayden. "Focus less on what's going on in your mind and more on what's going on in the room, less on your mental chatter and more on yourself as part of something." To be most myself, I needed to focus on things outside myself, like the music or the people around me.

Indeed, mindfulness blurs the line between self and other, explains Michael Kernis, a psychologist at the University of Georgia. "When people are mindful, they're more likely to experience themselves as part of humanity, as part of a greater universe." That's why highly mindful people such as Buddhist monks talk about being "one with everything."

By reducing self-consciousness, mindfulness allows you to witness the passing drama of feelings, social pressures, even of being esteemed or disparaged by others without taking their evaluations personally, explain Richard Ryan and K. W. Brown of the University of Rochester. When you focus on your immediate experience without attaching it to your self-esteem, unpleasant events like social rejection—or your so-called friends making fun of your dancing—seem less threatening.

Focusing on the present moment also forces you to stop overthinking. "Being present-minded takes away some of that self-evaluation and getting lost in your mind—and in the mind is where we make the evaluations that beat us up," says Stephen Schueller, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead of getting stuck in your head and worrying, you can let yourself go.

2: To avoid worrying about the future, focus on the present (savoring).

In her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend who, whenever she sees a beautiful place, exclaims in a near panic, "It's so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!" "It takes all my persuasive powers," writes Gilbert, "to try to convince her that she is already here."

Often, we're so trapped in thoughts of the future or the past that we forget to experience, let alone enjoy, what's happening right now. We sip coffee and think, "This is not as good as what I had last week." We eat a cookie and think, "I hope I don't run out of cookies."

Instead, relish or luxuriate in whatever you're doing at the present moment—what psychologists call savoring. "This could be while you're eating a pastry, taking a shower, or basking in the sun. You could be savoring a success or savoring music," explains Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California at Riverside and author of The How of Happiness. "Usually it involves your senses."

When subjects in a study took a few minutes each day to actively savor something they usually hurried through—eating a meal, drinking a cup of tea, walking to the bus—they began experiencing more joy, happiness, and other positive emotions, and fewer depressive symptoms, Schueller found.

Why does living in the moment make people happier—not just at the moment they're tasting molten chocolate pooling on their tongue, but lastingly? Because most negative thoughts concern the past or the future. As Mark Twain said, "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." The hallmark of depression and anxiety is catastrophizing—worrying about something that hasn't happened yet and might not happen at all. Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the future—and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying melts away.

The flip side of worrying is ruminating, thinking bleakly about events in the past. And again, if you press your focus into the now, rumination ceases. Savoring forces you into the present, so you can't worry about things that aren't there.

3: If you want a future with your significant other, inhabit the present (breathe).

Living consciously with alert interest has a powerful effect on interpersonal life. Mindfulness actually inoculates people against aggressive impulses, say Whitney Heppner and Michael Kernis of the University of Georgia. In a study they conducted, each subject was told that other subjects were forming a group—and taking a vote on whether she could join. Five minutes later, the experimenter announced the results—either the subject had gotten the least number of votes and been rejected or she'd been accepted. Beforehand, half the subjects had undergone a mindfulness exercise in which each slowly ate a raisin, savoring its taste and texture and focusing on each sensation.

Later, in what they thought was a separate experiment, subjects had the opportunity to deliver a painful blast of noise to another person. Among subjects who hadn't eaten the raisin, those who were told they'd been rejected by the group became aggressive, inflicting long and painful sonic blasts without provocation. Stung by social rejection, they took it out on other people.

But among those who'd eaten the raisin first, it didn't matter whether they'd been ostracized or embraced. Either way, they were serene and unwilling to inflict pain on others—exactly like those who were given word of social acceptance.

How does being in the moment make you less aggressive? "Mindfulness decreases ego involvement," explains Kernis. "So people are less likely to link their self-esteem to events and more likely to take things at face value." Mindfulness also makes people feel more connected to other people—that empathic feeling of being "at one with the universe."

Mindfulness boosts your awareness of how you interpret and react to what's happening in your mind. It increases the gap between emotional impulse and action, allowing you to do what Buddhists call recognizing the spark before the flame. Focusing on the present reboots your mind so you can respond thoughtfully rather than automatically. Instead of lashing out in anger, backing down in fear, or mindlessly indulging a passing craving, you get the opportunity to say to yourself, "This is the emotion I'm feeling. How should I respond?"

Mindfulness increases self-control; since you're not getting thrown by threats to your self-esteem, you're better able to regulate your behavior. That's the other irony: Inhabiting your own mind more fully has a powerful effect on your interactions with others.

Of course, during a flare-up with your significant other it's rarely practical to duck out and savor a raisin. But there's a simple exercise you can do anywhere, anytime to induce mindfulness: Breathe. As it turns out, the advice my friend got in the desert was spot-on. There's no better way to bring yourself into the present moment than to focus on your breathing. Because you're placing your awareness on what's happening right now, you propel yourself powerfully into the present moment. For many, focusing on the breath is the preferred method of orienting themselves to the now—not because the breath has some magical property, but because it's always there with you.

4: To make the most of time, lose track of it (flow).

Perhaps the most complete way of living in the moment is the state of total absorption psychologists call flow. Flow occurs when you're so engrossed in a task that you lose track of everything else around you. Flow embodies an apparent paradox: How can you be living in the moment if you're not even aware of the moment? The depth of engagement absorbs you powerfully, keeping attention so focused that distractions cannot penetrate. You focus so intensely on what you're doing that you're unaware of the passage of time. Hours can pass without you noticing.

Flow is an elusive state. As with romance or sleep, you can't just will yourself into it—all you can do is set the stage, creating the optimal conditions for it to occur.

The first requirement for flow is to set a goal that's challenging but not unattainable—something you have to marshal your resources and stretch yourself to achieve. The task should be matched to your ability level—not so difficult that you'll feel stressed, but not so easy that you'll get bored. In flow, you're firing on all cylinders to rise to a challenge.

To set the stage for flow, goals need to be clearly defined so that you always know your next step. "It could be playing the next bar in a scroll of music, or finding the next foothold if you're a rock climber, or turning the page if you're reading a good novel," says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who first defined the concept of flow. "At the same time, you're kind of anticipating."

You also need to set up the task in such a way that you receive direct and immediate feedback; with your successes and failures apparent, you can seamlessly adjust your behavior. A climber on the mountain knows immediately if his foothold is secure; a pianist knows instantly when she's played the wrong note.

As your attentional focus narrows, self-consciousness evaporates. You feel as if your awareness merges with the action you're performing. You feel a sense of personal mastery over the situation, and the activity is so intrinsically rewarding that although the task is difficult, action feels effortless.

5: If something is bothering you, move toward it rather than away from it (acceptance).

We all have pain in our lives, whether it's the ex we still long for, the jackhammer snarling across the street, or the sudden wave of anxiety when we get up to give a speech. If we let them, such irritants can distract us from the enjoyment of life. Paradoxically, the obvious response—focusing on the problem in order to combat and overcome it—often makes it worse, argues Stephen Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada.

The mind's natural tendency when faced with pain is to attempt to avoid it—by trying to resist unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and sensations. When we lose a love, for instance, we fight our feelings of heartbreak. As we get older, we work feverishly to recapture our youth. When we're sitting in the dentist's chair waiting for a painful root canal, we wish we were anywhere but there. But in many cases, negative feelings and situations can't be avoided—and resisting them only magnifies the pain.

The problem is we have not just primary emotions but also secondary ones—emotions about other emotions. We get stressed out and then think, "I wish I weren't so stressed out." The primary emotion is stress over your workload. The secondary emotion is feeling, "I hate being stressed."

It doesn't have to be this way. The solution is acceptance—letting the emotion be there. That is, being open to the way things are in each moment without trying to manipulate or change the experience—without judging it, clinging to it, or pushing it away. The present moment can only be as it is. Trying to change it only frustrates and exhausts you. Acceptance relieves you of this needless extra suffering.

Suppose you've just broken up with your girlfriend or boyfriend; you're heartbroken, overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and longing. You could try to fight these feelings, essentially saying, "I hate feeling this way; I need to make this feeling go away." But by focusing on the pain—being sad about being sad—you only prolong the sadness. You do yourself a favor by accepting your feelings, saying instead, "I've just had a breakup. Feelings of loss are normal and natural. It's OK for me to feel this way."

Acceptance of an unpleasant state doesn't mean you don't have goals for the future. It just means you accept that certain things are beyond your control. The sadness, stress, pain, or anger is there whether you like it or not. Better to embrace the feeling as it is.

Nor does acceptance mean you have to like what's happening. "Acceptance of the present moment has nothing to do with resignation," writes Kabat-Zinn. "Acceptance doesn't tell you what to do. What happens next, what you choose to do; that has to come out of your understanding of this moment."

If you feel anxiety, for instance, you can accept the feeling, label it as anxiety—then direct your attention to something else instead. You watch your thoughts, perceptions, and emotions flit through your mind without getting involved. Thoughts are just thoughts. You don't have to believe them and you don't have to do what they say.

6: Know that you don't know (engagement).

You've probably had the experience of driving along a highway only to suddenly realize you have no memory or awareness of the previous 15 minutes. Maybe you even missed your exit. You just zoned out; you were somewhere else, and it's as if you've suddenly woken up at the wheel. Or maybe it happens when you're reading a book: "I know I just read that page, but I have no idea what it said."

These autopilot moments are what Harvard's Ellen Langer calls mindlessness—times when you're so lost in your thoughts that you aren't aware of your present experience. As a result, life passes you by without registering on you. The best way to avoid such blackouts, Langer says, is to develop the habit of always noticing new things in whatever situation you're in. That process creates engagement with the present moment and releases a cascade of other benefits. Noticing new things puts you emphatically in the here and now.

We become mindless, Langer explains, because once we think we know something, we stop paying attention to it. We go about our morning commute in a haze because we've trod the same route a hundred times before. But if we see the world with fresh eyes, we realize almost everything is different each time—the pattern of light on the buildings, the faces of the people, even the sensations and feelings we experience along the way. Noticing imbues each moment with a new, fresh quality. Some people have termed this "beginner's mind."

By acquiring the habit of noticing new things, says Langer, we recognize that the world is actually changing constantly. We really don't know how the espresso is going to taste or how the commute will be—or at least, we're not sure.

Orchestra musicians who are instructed to make their performance new in subtle ways not only enjoy themselves more but audiences actually prefer those performances. "When we're there at the moment, making it new, it leaves an imprint in the music we play, the things we write, the art we create, in everything we do," says Langer. "Once you recognize that you don't know the things you've always taken for granted, you set out of the house quite differently. It becomes an adventure in noticing—and the more you notice, the more you see." And the more excitement you feel.

Don't Just Do Something, Sit There

Living a consistently mindful life takes effort. But mindfulness itself is easy. "People set the goal of being mindful for the next 20 minutes or the next two weeks, then they think mindfulness is difficult because they have the wrong yardstick," says Jay Winner, a California-based family physician and author of Take the Stress out of Your Life. "The correct yardstick is just for this moment."

Mindfulness is the only intentional, systematic activity that is not about trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, explains Kabat-Zinn. It is simply a matter of realizing where you already are. A cartoon from The New Yorker sums it up: Two monks are sitting side by side, meditating. The younger one is giving the older one a quizzical look, to which the older one responds, "Nothing happens next. This is it."

You can become mindful at any moment just by paying attention to your immediate experience. You can do it right now. What's happening this instant? Think of yourself as an eternal witness, and just observe the moment. What do you see, hear, smell? It doesn't matter how it feels—pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad—you roll with it because it's what's present; you're not judging it. And if you notice your mind wandering, bring yourself back. Just say to yourself, "Now. Now. Now."

Here's the most fundamental paradox of all: Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're already there.

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#savoring #savouring #living in the moment #now moments #savor the flavor #savour the flavour #mindfulness #joy #happiness #Psychology Today #free therapy #mental health #mental illness #mental wellness #you got this #you can do it #you matter #you're enough #you're worthy #keep going

[cdelphiki]

Was re-reading ‘In for a Penny’ when I read this sentence “if we do not rescue Damian today, “Clark said, finally speaking up, “I have a feeling we will one day face him in battle”and thought what if Bruce wasn’t able to find Damian, instead meets him again when he’s ten, how would he feel?What would happen? Damian holding a sword to the father he doesn’t remembers throat, dick finally seeing his brother again. Memories, baby things left untouched in the manor. Would love to hear your thoughts-M

The years since Damian’s kidnapping had not been kind to Bruce.

Dick left him. When he was barely eighteen. Packed up and moved to Bludhaven, where he still lived some six years later.  

Bruce couldn’t blame him. Not really. He’d not been much of a father, once Damian went missing.  

Then Jason came along, and Bruce had tried really hard for that boy. He’d worked on himself, worked on his availability. Adopted him, right from the start.

It hadn’t mattered.

Because in the end, Jason had left him, too. In the most painful way possible.

At least Damian was out there.

Somewhere.

Growing up, living his life.

Jason’s had been cut short.

After that, Bruce had sworn off kids. He wanted nothing to do with children ever again, because brining a child in his life just meant he’d love that child, and life didn’t let him keep the things he loved.  

He wasn’t sure how many more times he could go through that.

Those he loved suffered in the worst ways possible, and how could he do that to another child?

Then Tim came around. Kind of forced his way into Bruce’s life. Reluctantly, and completely against his will, Bruce had come to love Tim, as well. Had adopted him, when the opportunity arose, as tragic as it was.  

Talia had made herself scarce in the years since stealing Damian away from him. He’d tried to find them. Many times. But they always evaded him. Were always too well hidden.

He hadn’t… given up.

Per se.

But as Damian grew older, Bruce’s hope dwindled. He’d not even been two yet, when Talia took him away. There was no chance he’d even remember Bruce at five.

Or eight.

Or the ten he was now.

What right would Bruce have to swoop in and steal him away? Rip him away from the only family he remembered?

To him, Bruce was the absent father, living on the opposite side of the planet, and as much as he wanted to see his son, as badly as he wanted to hold his baby in his arms, he was a stranger to Damian.

He had no right over him any more.  

All he had left of his little boy were pictures and a stuffed cow.

He’d given away everything else. To Clark, when Lois was expecting Jon.

To Selina. When she was expecting Helena.

Damian was too old for baby things, anyway. And walking past a nursery was painful.

They’d turned that room into Jason’s.

It wasn’t any less painful, now.  

Bruce tried not to think about any of it. Tried not to think about Damian.

But it was hard, when Talia al Ghul kidnapped him while he was on mission in England.

Strung him up and got right in his face.

Hers was not a face he wanted to see.

“Talia,” he snarled, flexing his hands, testing his strength against the bat-thing that held him tight.

It would take a remarkable show of strength to free himself. He wasn’t sure he could. Even if he did, there were half a dozen more of the bat-things all around him. He knew himself outnumbered when he saw it.

He was just thankful Tim had taken the weekend off, rather than accompanying him on this trip.  

“What do you want, Talia,” he spat, when she came too close, running her fingers across his chest. He had no interest in her. And she should know that by now.

She had killed any chance of there being anything between them eleven years prior.

And then burned it to the ground when she stole their son away from him.  

“It’s nice to see you, too, Beloved,” she drawled, pulling away from Bruce and drawing her sword.  She toyed with it, staring at the blade in her hand, without saying anything further.

“What. Do. You. Want,” he ground out. Games were also not something he was interested in.  

“Hm,” she hummed, still toying with her blade for a moment before finally asking, “You remember our son?”

“How could I forget,” he growled. If she had merely kidnapped him to taunt him…

He might need to call in Clark to hold him back. He pulled at his arms again, and could feel the give in his captors’ hold. Knew, if he pulled his arms in just the right way, kicked his legs back at just the right moment, he’d be able to free himself easily.

“Hm. Yes, well,” she said, waving a hand at him, as if dismissing his anger, “He has grown wild. I can no longer control him.”

His sweet little baby?

Unlikely.

“What did you do to him?” he shouted, seriously contemplating calling in Clark. Because he was not sure he’d be able to control himself if he found out Damian had been mistreated in any way.

And he couldn’t think of a single other explanation for his Damian turning ‘wild.’ Not his sweet little baby who loved animals and was so gentle. So empathetic. So kind.

“Do not be so dramatic,” Talia snapped, “I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy about what.”

“He needs… taming,” she said, twirling her sword around, a little, before she sheathed it again, “He lacks discipline. I had hoped some time with his father would straighten him out.”

“Time with,” he started, only to fumble over his words.

Was she…

Introducing him to Damian?

Why… why would she… after all these years…?

What was her game?

“You’ll hear from me soon, Beloved, though I’ll imagine you’ll be busy. I intend to hold the whole world hostage.”

Bruce tried to look back up at her, to ask her what the fuck that meant, but his head was pushed forward by one of the man-bats, and the entire world seemed to freeze.

Because a small child had materialized before him.

A… boy.

His boy.

In the eight years since he’d seen Damian, he had changed so much, but at the same time, not at all.

He had the same nose. The same… little button nose he’d had, as a baby. The same bright green eyes.

The same scowl.

“Damian,” he whispered, looking Damian up and down, trying to commit every little detail to memory.

“Father,” Damian responded, pushing his sword forward, almost touching Bruce’s neck, “I imagined you taller.”  

“You-“ Bruce started, but had to stop. Because he was overcome with laughter.

The man-bats let go of him, and Bruce slumped to the ground, right to his knees, only keeping himself upright with his hands as his laughter turned a tad hysteric.

His little boy.

His little boy, was standing right in front of him. Was… Was within reach.

Was coming home with him.

“You are the great warrior Mother has told me about?” Damian asked skeptically, his sword now sheathed.

That was enough to pull Bruce back to the moment.  He sniffed, and sat back so he could get a good look at his little boy.  

“Hi, Damian,” he said, smiling a little, to force the overwhelming urge to weep to go away.

Damian scowled, a little, and shot Bruce as critical look. “How do you know my name?”

“What?”

Out of all the things Damian could ask…

“My name. Mother said you did not know of me. She did not tell you my name just now. How do you know it?”

“I- What?” Bruce repeated.

“You are not as intelligent as Mother claimed. Shame.”

“Damian,” he said, slowly, “You- you lived with me.  For almost a year, as an infant.”  

“Tt,” he huffed, rolling his eyes dramatically, “Now you are suggesting my mother is a liar. She has done a lot of things, but she has never lied to me.”

“Just, come here,” Bruce said, looping an arm around Damian’s shoulders and tugging him close, “I have missed you so much.”

Damian tensed in Bruce’s arms, but didn’t push him away. That is, not until Bruce started crying.  

Bruce didn’t blame him. He’d be uncomfortable, too, if a stranger claiming to know and love him started crying into his hair.  

They had so much ground to recover.  

- - -

Damian was a massive brat.

Bruce felt like a terrible parent for thinking such a thing about his own son, but Damian was downright horrible.

He did nothing but yell and scream and throw things around. He fought with Alfred. Fought with Bruce.

Hated Tim.

Considering the boy had attempted to push Tim off the top level of the cave, that first night Bruce brought him home, he couldn’t trust Damian anywhere near Tim.

And Tim hated Damian in return.

Or, at least, considered him to be the ‘son of satan’ and avoided him at all costs.

Bruce wasn’t sure how to make his family all mesh together. Wasn’t sure how to get Damian to calm down and give them all a shot.

All those years Bruce had imagined, fantasized with it would be like to get Damian back, never once had he considered he might not like the boy.  

He still loved him, of course. Loved him so much it hurt.

His son was finally home, and his home had been thrown into pure chaos.

Handing Damian the cow had been a difficult decision.

For eight years, that cow had been all Bruce had. The only physical reminder he had of the little boy he’d lost.

Damian and Cow had been inseparable, when he was an infant. Bruce had bought three more, the very second he realized how attached to the dumb toy Damian had become. He had four of those cows, and when Talia’s men took Damian, they’d taken none of them.

It’d been a stab in his heart, every time he looked at cow. Knowing how scared Damian would be without it. How upset.

Knowing Damian likely cried for weeks, if not months, for that stupid cow.  

And in the eight years since Damian’s kidnapping, Bruce had become a little attached to the cow, himself. It sat on his bed stand. Right next to his favorite photo of Damian. He pat cow’s head every night, as if doing so would be telling his own little boy ‘good night, I love you.’  

Just like he’d done every single night Damian lived with him.  

Handing Damian that cow was difficult.  Because Damian destroyed everything he was given. He was violent. He threw tantrums.

And he was, above all, not a child.  

But Cow belonged to Damian, and Bruce was unable to put it off any longer.

“Damian,” he said, knocking on his boy’s door, allowing it to creak open as he did, “I wanted to give you something.”

“What is it now,” Damian started, but paused when he got a look at the toy in Bruce’s hand.  Bruce walked over to the bed where Damian was reading and held it out, for Damian to take.

But instead, Damian just said, “That’s… Mr. Cow.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said, laughing a little to cover up the desire to cry.

Because Damian remembered.

“I—“ Bruce started, “He was yours. When you lived here. I’ve— I’ve kept him in my room, ever since you left. To remind me of you. But, he was yours, so I thought I should give him back.”

“Why,” Damian said, slowly, in the least snotty tone Bruce had heard yet, “Why do I remember a stupid toy but I do not remember you?”

Bruce sighed, and sat down on the bed next to his son. He placed Cow down in Damian’s lap, even though Damian made not move to take it.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He’d been a little distraught when none of the photos had jogged anything.

He hadn’t specifically expected Damian to remember things from when he was 20-months-old, but to have his own boy accuse him of doctoring the photos, just to “get into his head” and “paint his mother as the liar” had hurt.

“You were young. Most people don’t remember much from before the age of three, and you weren’t even two when you left.”  

“But I remember the cow.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, placing his arm behind Damian as he leaned back, “You couldn’t sleep without the damn thing. My guess is you cried for it every night for months, after you left. It probably stuck with you because of that.”  

“Oh.” Damian placed his hand on cow’s head and stroked. Just once. Before his cheeks flushed and he yanked his hand away sharply.

“I’m really happy you’re back,” Bruce said, moving his hand so it was sitting on Damian’s shoulder. Damian still didn’t let him hug him, but at least he didn’t shrug his hand away.  “I hope you know that. I want nothing more than to get to know you.”  

“Thank you, Father,” Damian said crisply, then faltered before adding, much less confidently, “I have always wished to… know you.”  

Bruce couldn’t help it. He pulled Damian in by the hand on his shoulder, and wrapped his arms around. “Well, I’m glad we have this chance, then.”

For once, Damian didn’t fight him. He did fidget, a little, with Cow started to fall, but he caught the little toy and held it a little more securely while Bruce rested his head down on Damian’s hair.  

And when Damian didn’t push him away for several minutes, Bruce started to think… maybe Damian wasn’t a hopeless case, after all.  

#this is your fault #also it turned a little sweeter than I first thought it would so :) #happy ending #i'll post this to ao3 in a couple days #or maybe tomorrow #idk #wanna put some time between the new chapter and it #damian wayne #bruce wayne #batman #robin #batfam #batfamily #fanfiction #c writes #pennyverse #sort of alt universe #remember i aged dick up for this fic #Anonymous

[dragimal]

now that s5 is over and I’m starting to wind down from the high of the finale, I think I can finally grasp *exactly* why I have mixed feelings on s5. to be clear, I absolutely ADORE TMA as a whole, and still consider it one of the best pieces of horror media I’ve consumed. but s5 left me feeling... not bad, but off, even when there’s plenty I still rly like abt s5

it mainly comes down to 2 things for me: 1) the severe tone shift, and 2) Martin being Fucking Weird for a lot of the season

a lot of ppl have talked abt how s5 just wasn’t as scary as the previous seasons for various reasons. one kinda inevitable reason was simply that a lot of the mystery of the horror had been revealed at that point, and a monster is never as scary once you can see it clearly. but I think the bigger reason is that the format shifted from horror anthology to.... sociology anthology. like, every statement of s5 felt like a sociology paper on fear and systemic abuse, rather than something meant to chill the reader

this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, honestly-- like I said, much of the mystery had been revealed, so I think it was an understandable move to try to shift the narrative somehow. also, I love sociology papers! I think they’re interesting to read, and s5 gave us some rly creative frameworks for some of them (the poetic carousel, Oliver’s professional assessment, Jared’s garden--)

however, I do think the tone shift was still a bit jarring, esp considering what the audience was used to up to that point. perhaps that’s an appropriate move, to match a plot point as game-changing as the literal apocalypse. BUT that doesn’t mean the tone shift still wasn’t a bit of a let-down, in terms of horror and tension

like, yeah a lot of the mystery was gone, but Hill Top Road ended up being the big mystery of s5... and we weren’t even fully aware of it til almost the end of the season? sure, there was plenty of fan speculation, but we were also considering SO many other possibilities, Hill Top was never rly a core theory until VERY late in the game. like, the mystery seemed to take a backseat to the sociology papers, if that makes sense, lmao

literally the ONE episode to give me chills down my spine like the good ol’ days pre-s5 was MAG196: This Old House. Annabelle vaguely threatening Martin, and ending on, “You have no idea who’s listening, do you?” fucking SUPERB, I was absolutely DELIGHTED by the possibilities of that one line! like, what did it mean? were we gonna go full meta??

but the last few eps after that were... frankly kind of a letdown from that spike of tension? I think those last eps are what rly cinched this idea for me-- that s5 was literally like reading a sociology paper. it rly all was just, arguing about the possibilities, considering the consequences, and making decisions. which, again, isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s not horror-- it’s a thought exercise with an apocalyptic garnish

EDIT-- I forgot to say, I think this is part of why MAG200 simply didn’t hit me the same way it hit others. it was intellectually satisfying-- it tied up loose ends, closed character arcs/relationships, left some delicious ambiguity-- but not emotionally cathartic, if that makes sense? like, I was expecting to cry, but I didn’t even rly get teary? I was grinning and delighted by all the satisfying conclusions, but I didn’t feel that emotional RELEASE that I was expecting and hoping for

as for jonmartin, I want to be clear here. I am NOT one of those ppl that thinks jonmartin came out of nowhere in s4-- I think the buildup pre-s5 was excellent, and their finally being together at the end of s4 was so so earned and rewarding. I’m also NOT one of those ppl that thinks arguments = abuse. I think when I briefly criticized jonmartin in s5 in the past, ppl got this impression that like, I think that jonmartin miscommunicating and having bad coping mechanisms... means that they’re bad for each other and abusing each other? and that’s just not the case?? 

I admit that my initial response to some of the jonmartin weirdness may have been a bit harsh, but even at the time I still loved jonmartin and was simply looking at their relationship with a critical but loving lens

what I have a problem with is that Martin pulls just as much bullshit as Jon in s5, and NEVER gets called out for it

this post I made a while back gets more into the details that bother me, but essentially, there’s always been this rly uneven “accountability scale” (idk what else to call it) for Jon vs. a lot of other characters-- in that, Jon always gets called out for his bullshit, while a lot of other characters don’t. now a lot of this is perfectly explainable as Jon being the main character, so we simply see his fuck-ups AND the subsequent consequences more often than any other character. and there are plenty of characters that I absolutely do NOT blame for going a bit overboard (I give Melanie and Tim in particular a ton of leeway here, given their respective situations. they more or less have full rights to bully Jon imo)

but, the problem is, there are also a LOT of moments where other characters say something absolutely horrific to Jon (namely Basira and Georgie in s4), like imply that he’s responsible for problems he had absolutely no control over, or fucking blame him for literally being groomed into an Archivist by people/powers he couldn’t even grasp... and those accusations are just left to sit and fester in Jon, completely uncontested

the nice thing abt s5 is that most of this is addressed-- like Basira’s completely unfair double-standards for “monsters”, and Georgie unknowingly blaming Jon for his trauma, etc.-- in very satisfying ways.

.... except for Martin.

without rehashing that linked post too much, Martin’s main problem in s5 is that his go-to response to trauma is denial. he denies the fact that he wants to kill avatars for his own satisfaction (which is a completely reasonable desire on its own tbqh!), and instead continues to lie to himself (for quite a long time) that killing avatars is actually helping anyone but Jon and Martin. he denies that Jon’s become a real full-fledged “monster”, and refuses to acknowledge all the baggage that comes with that

this denial unintentionally projects a lot of rly fucked-up messages at Jon, like: Jon is now a freaky horrorshow (even when he’s doing something completely innocuous, like talking casually about his powers); Jon’s fears over losing his autonomy/identity to the Eye, and his fears over his proven abilities to hurt others, are invalid; monsters inherently deserve to die, despite Jon technically being one; Jon not being able to use his powers “well enough” is some failure on his part

now, none of this is to say Martin’s characterization on its own is a bad thing-- I actually think it could’ve been interesting! it’s a perfectly reasonable trauma response, it tracks for Martin’s character pre-s5, and could have been a rly interesting perspective to explore.... if it was ever actually challenged by the narrative or other characters

I think the closest we got was Martin’s conversation with himself in his own domain, when his double calls him out for fantasizing a happy ending where Jonah is dead and Jon and Martin kiss (OUGH.... JONNY YOU HURT ME..), but that still never rly addresses the hurt that Martin’s denial causes Jon

and god, I was rly holding out-- Martin seemed to chill out on the denial a lot after the first third of the season, and I was hoping it might go a similar route as Basira, where it would just take a while to rly address Martin’s issues. but then Jon and Martin have their argument in MAG194, and I was fully on Martin’s side of it, UNTIL he said, “You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!” (in reference to Jon killing avatars), and when Jon calls him out, Martin just brushes over it! 

BOY when I tell you I went BALLISTIC.... FUCK YOU Martin, YOU’RE the one that went all Kill Bill and PUSHED Jon to feel the same way!! JESUS. like I get that that wasn’t the core of the argument there, but oh my god that one bit...

and once again, to make myself perfectly fucking crystal clear here, this is coming from someone who relates heavily to both Jon and Martin. I can see exactly where Martin is coming from for many of his decisions, and the trauma that’s led him to mentally protect himself like this. so it only makes me more frustrated to see him refuse to face his own issues, while still (understandably) expecting Jon to face his issues. yes, Jon pulls a LOT of bullshit in s5 that he deserves to be called out for (and called out he is!), but accountability goes both ways, Martin! you can’t demand responsible behavior from others if you’re not willing to extend the same courtesy!

#the magnus archives #shut up ashley #tma

[bigdaddib]

Gendry Who? pt2

So, lol, this is from like so so long ago and I didn’t update it cause it started getting so much longer than I ever intended it to. I did make a part 2 though, from Gendry’s pov. If anyone’s still interested, here ya go

“Arya’s recital is next week, you coming?”

 Gendry had long since conditioned himself to not respond too dramatically when her name was mentioned. Instead, he withdrawals so deep within himself even he couldn’t tell you where to find him. “Wouldn’t you be bringing Ygritte?” Gendry asked, not pausing as he shoveled down cereal and scrolled through his phone.

 “Yeah, but she invited you too, she just has to know so she can reserve us a seat.”

 This, however, Gendry did not prepare himself for. His spoon, just as it was about to enter his mouth, became so still not even a drop of milk spilled over the sides. His thumb hovered over his phone screen, eyes unblinking but not seeing anything around him.

 Sure, she had said she had forgiven him. And, sure, he had believed her because she was Arya. If she didn’t forgive you, if she harbored any negative emotions toward you, you knew about it. But he didn’t think her forgiveness would change anything, as much as he had hoped it might. He had played multiple scenarios in his head on how it might, he had no choice in the matter. Letting his mind wander meant fantasizing about seeing Arya again, eyes soft and caring as she opened her arms so they could simply pick up where they left off two years ago. Thinking of what it would be like to kiss her again, even if it were just for a second…

 Even if it were just on the cheek.

 Those cheek kisses were what he had lived on. He’d be anxious for the end of the night because he knew he had a kiss on the cheek waiting for him. He’d need that kiss, since it was all he had to carry him through until the next time he saw her, then the cycle would continue. It was so easy to get caught up in that routine again, just one kiss on the cheek from her and he was left pressing his fingers to that spot dreamily an entire month after. He was fully prepared to rely on that last kiss for the rest of his fucking life. Forgiving him didn’t mean taking him back, and he had no right to ask for her back, he barely had the right to ask for forgiveness. It was a blessing that he managed that, especially with the way he had went about it. Jerking her around, stuttering his stupid arse off, it was a wonder she understood him at all, he sure as hell didn’t understand himself. He never understood himself when he was dealing with her, never knew what the right thing to do was.

 Seeing her through the rain on the side of the road, angrily kicking her flat tire, the right thing to do was to help her out. When it turned out she was Arya Stark, famous rebellious daughter to Ned and Catelyn Stark, openly defying their wishes by pursuing ballet, the right thing to do was help her out and not expect anything in return. People must do things for her all the time, expecting some sort of favor in exchange. He wanted to show the small girl with wide grey eyes and soaked through dark clothes that he didn’t want anything from her, didn’t expect anything.

 Then she had kissed him on the cheek.

 “She…invited me?” was all he was able to say.

 Jon raised a brow. “Did something happen between you two?”

 Gendry’s overwhelming first instinct was to say “no!” Of course not! Why would he even think that?! Arya and him…they were nothing, he had helped her out with her car and her wifi and one time with her mysteriously broken bed frame and that was all they had to do with each other…

 But that sort of thinking was what had gotten him into this situation, wasn’t it?

 If he had simply answered these types of questions honestly, where would he be now? With Arya? Waiting outside her dorm room to take her to a quick lunch between classes? Walking hand in hand with her down the street, feeling her tucked into his side?

 Embarrassing her?

 He winced. He had to stop that. She wasn’t embarrassed by things like he was, she didn’t care, so why should he? If she was willing to let Gendry drag her down to his level, then he should be too. Whatever people said, whatever their questions and whatever their jokes, they shouldn’t bother him because he had her. He had her tucked in next to him, hand in hand, getting a sandwich before she had to head back to practice…

 Except he wasn’t, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself have her without thinking she would one day wake up and realize she had been wasting herself away on him. Realize all the shit and jokes she would have to take for him weren’t worth it and she would leave. So he had to leave first, he had to make sure no one would know what sort of loser Arya was running around with so that maybe Arya wouldn’t figure it out either.

 That wasn’t quite how things worked out though.

 “What do you mean?” Gendry said, finally putting the spoon into his mouth.

 “I mean…you guys never talk anymore, and you got kind of weird just a second ago.”

 Gendry cleared his throat, set his phone down. “No…I just…you know she knows ballet’s not my sort of thing. But, uh, yeah, I’ll go. If she wants me to.” Honestly, he’d go anywhere if she wanted him to.

 Jon nodded, grabbed his jacket and keys. He’d come over this morning to give Gendry his flat keys, but Gendry had said he didn’t need them. He trusted Jon enough to live with him for two years, he trusted him enough to keep a spare set of keys.

 “Then I’ll meet you there, yeah?” Jon turned to look at Gendry as he opened the door to leave.

 Gendry only nodded and didn’t move after Jon left.

 Did this mean she wanted to be friends? Or was she only being polite?

 No. If Arya didn’t want him there she wouldn’t invite him. That’s the way she was, she was blunt and straight forward. Which is why what he did to her was so difficult all around. The lying and sneaking around may have been fun for her the first month or two, but when they started getting into the “I love you’s” and holding each other all night, it probably got a bit redundant. He could feel it, he could feel her frustration with him, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Numerous times he found himself at her door with full intentions to simply give up and be with her, to not think about it so much. But then she’d open the door and he’d be struck by her smile and by her eyes and know deep, deep down, with everything in him, that he didn’t deserve her. He never would. No one did, but especially not him.

He’d never seen her dance before. Of course, he knew she did it professionally. The entire bloody world knew that. He assumed she was good at it. With her passion for it and the way she blatantly disregarded her parent’s wishes for her in order to do it, her skill was the last thing to questioned. He never felt he needed to watch her in action, he already knew everything he needed to know. Ballet, though he never took the time to watch anyone do it, was boring anyway. It must be, or else more people would say otherwise.

 Obviously, he was wrong.

 Although, he was biased. If it had been anyone else besides Arya dancing on that stage, he probably wouldn’t have been nearly as interested. But she was, and he couldn’t even find the time to blink. He had to watch the almost liquid way her body moved across the stage. Bent and twirled, leaped and stretched. Gendry knew Arya’s body well, probably better than he knew his own, and he liked to think he knew its limitations, but he never truly grasped its potential. What had he been doing, throwing her legs over his shoulders? Watching her back arch against a wall? What did any of that prove? He should’ve been driving her to practice, watch her dance every damn day. Not doing so was a fucking waste of time.

 He was confused when it was intermission, even more so when he saw Jon snoring peacefully next to him. Angrily, Gendry shoved at his shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” he barked.

 Jon blinked dazedly. “Sorry, you won’t tell her, will you?”

 Gendry rolled his eyes, feeling genuinely angry. How in all seven hells had Jon managed to fall asleep? Was he even watching? If Arya asked and Jon said she was wonderful, he would set the record straight. Besides, Arya was the one person he couldn’t lie to, not really. He could lie to Jon, he could even lie to himself, but not to her. Not to those big grey eyes.

 Gendry found he was too angry to hold up conversation with Jon, so he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

 The second half of the ballet seemed to be going just as good, if not better, than the first half. Gendry found himself leaning as far forward as he was able, watching as Arya’s body flowed just as easily and languidly as the silken dress they had put her in, knowing her very skin felt just as smooth.

 When she fell onto her right ankle it took everything in him not to climb onto that stage and carry her off.

 It took her two attempts to get back up, everyone around her kept up with the routine but it was all a bit awkward considering she was the lead dancer.

 Gendry’s knuckles turned white as he saw her wince for the first time since knowing her. It stirred something different in him, something protective and fierce. He’d felt something similar to it once before, seeing her cry for the first time.

 He hadn’t registered it at first, the single tear glistening down her cheek. He thought it was a trick of the light, a reflection off the window, anything but a genuine tear. Anything but a tear coming from Arya Stark’s eye. That simply wasn’t possible, Arya Stark didn’t cry, she couldn’t, wouldn’t let herself. But she was, and it was because of him. Fuck, if everything in him didn’t crumble into dust.

 Arya wasn’t crying now. She was getting back up, dancing on that ankle he was sure he heard crack. And she kept dancing, right up to the very end. Gendry hadn’t taken a solid breath the rest of the performance, holding it for something horrible to happen, and when it was finally over he stood up in an immediate search for her.

 Eventually, he found her in the dressing room, foot elevated and head in her hands. It was swollen an angry read, an ice pack rested on top of it. There was a man whispering in her ear, hand rubbing up and down her back. Gendry paused at the sight, Jon halting just behind his shoulder.

 “Arya?” Jon called out.

 Dejectedly, Arya lifted her head. Only her tired grey eyes visible. Gendry’s feet started walking toward her.

 “You’re Arya’s family?” The man straightened up, back straight and shoulders broad. If Gendry was making assumptions, he’d say he was one of Arya’s dance teachers.

 “We are,” Jon answered and Gendry’s chest tightened. He added nothing to contradict him.

 “She should be fine. We had the doctor come in and—”

 “I can speak for myself Jaqen,” Arya snapped. Jaqen’s only response was a sigh, brought his hand back to her bare shoulder.

 “I’ll check up on you later,” he whispered and Arya’s only response was to rest her head back into her hands. Jaqen smiled tensely toward Jon and Gendry before leaving.

 “Are you alright?” Jon was the first to ask, walking around Gendry and kneeling in front of her.

 “No. I fucking blew it,” she bit out. “No company will hire me now, its fucking over.”

 No one knew what to say, it was quiet for a moment. Then Jon tried, “You were beautiful up until then, Arya, I’m sure they’ll see that.”

 Gendry let him say it, she didn’t need to hear that Jon had actually been napping the whole time.

 “It’s fucking whatever,” her voice was violent, yet very tired. “I’ll just go to real college or something. The world is at my fingertips and all that. This is a sign I shouldn’t throw it all away,” she made it obvious she wasn’t serious about any of the words she was saying.  

 Gendry wanted nothing more than to go over and hold her as tightly. Maybe even let her cry on his shoulder, if she felt comfortable enough. He could feel it, her warmth pressed into him, her head nestled into his neck. Maybe it wouldn’t make her feel better, but he would.

 “Can you…can you just bring the car around or something?” Arya spoke up. “I just want to get out of here.”

 “Right. Right, Gendry, stay with her. I’ll text you when I’m out front,”

 Jon left and Gendry promised he wouldn’t be the first to speak. He wouldn’t push her.

 “Can you leave?” she whispered.

 His heart shattered. “…Wh—why?”

 “Because…because…” her voice cracked. She paused to release a heavy, shaky breath. “I can’t hold myself together around you.”

 Something close to hope warmed him, and he let that propel him to kneel beside her as Jon did. It was a reflex to smooth a hand over her temple. “What are you holding yourself together for?” he whispered.

 Arya shrugged in response.

 “I won’t tell anyone that you’re upset if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 Arya shook her head. “It’s not everyone else…I don’t wanna know.”

 Gendry took a second to collect her meaning. “You don’t want to know you’re upset?” he clarified.

 Slowly, Arya nodded.

 “Alright, I won’t tell you either,” he agreed easily.

 Arya’s shoulders shook in a dry laugh, revealing a dark, glistening grey eye. On the verge of tears. He rubbed a thumb over her brow bone. “Your secret’s safe with me,” he whispered. In movement a similar to the leaps she made on stage, she was in his arms. Head buried into his neck and fingers clawing at his back, she clutched him to her desperately.

 Her entire body shook with her sobs and he felt his shirt absorb her hot tears, he was proud to hold her through it. It’s what he should’ve done that first time. He should’ve held her, all night if that’s how long it lasted. How long had she cried? He wondered that often. Was it all night? Did it carry into the morning? Was it no more than a second?

 He himself found himself crying through an entire month. Alone in his room, often in the middle of his dreams. He’d wake up sniffling, laying on a wet pillow. That was different, though. He deserved it, she didn’t.

 He had cried into that voicemail.

 He wanted to ask about it, during the party. He wanted to know if she had gotten it, half hoping she hadn’t. He had immediately regretted it, once it was sent. A month later and he was still staring anxiously at his phone for a response, any response. A fuck off, an lol, anything at all, anything but that horrible silence. Because Arya Stark was never silent on things she cared about, and didn’t she care about him?

 He hadn’t brought it up, obviously, because what would she say? What could she say to make him feel better? That she hadn’t gotten it? Maybe, but in retrospect her knowing his pain was a different sort of comfort. He wanted her to know he had truly cared for her, wanted to be with her, he wasn’t simply jerking her around. Whether or not that changed anything between them didn’t matter, as long as she knew that.

 And if she had listened to it? What then? What more was there to say? She had heard him break and decided to leave him there and that was that. No response told him all he needed to know, no use in opening old wounds.

 Except now, holding her, all of his wounds were open and pulsing and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Gendry’s phone buzzed which was probably Jon telling them he was out front. They didn’t move.

 “I don’t suppose you’d let me carry you?” He tried, dreading watching her limp all the way to Jon’s car.

 “Actually,” her voice was breathless and ragged, voice raw from sobbing. “I really don’t think I can walk on it. I already overworked it.”

 Gendry was oddly excited. “I could…is there a back door or something? We could sneak out front.”

 Arya pulled back enough to gift him a small smile. Nodding, she said, “I’ll tell you where to go.”

#gendrya #Gendry Waters #Gendrya fanfiction #gendrya ff #Arya Stark #arya x gendry #gendrya au

[shiftytracts]

Stop Wanting More, part 2 of 2 (T/M/A fic)

In which season-four Jon tries to quiet his hunger for live statements by gorging himself on paper ones, and Daisy tells him what she used to do when she got shaky between hunts. Part one here.

Content warnings for this half:

Nausea, and brief descriptions of prior vomiting

Vague discussion of Daisy’s passive suicidality

Animal cruelty and death: Daisy talks about hunting rats for sport

—

“Statement of Alice ‘Daisy’ Tonner, regarding—”

“Shhhh! You’ll wake the tape recorder.” Her hand clapped over his mouth so hard his teeth buzzed like mugs in a cupboard. He did his best to say Ouch. The salt on her palm made his inner lips itch. Daisy sighed: “Too late; I can hear it hissing.”

At once the cushions began to lurch again, and his stomach contents with them. On her way past him off the couch Daisy managed both to step on his trouser leg and elbow him in the sacrum. Chills curled up in the shadows of heat she’d left on his forehead, stomach, legs. Her way back into her prior position went smoother, though. She even remembered how tightly to press his belly with hers. Why did returned warmth always make him shiver?

“Alright—skip the spiel. Just Ask.”

“What did you used to do when—” Daisy cut him off with a hollow laugh, which Jon seconded. As soon as he’d begun to speak the tape recorder clicked back on, as he’d suspected it would.

“Whatever; just do it.”

“You won’t be too self-conscious?”

She shrugged. “Won’t matter; I’ll be compelled.”

Jon bit down the wave of remorse and resentment her words stirred inside him. She’d agreed to this—cajoled him into it, even. He could examine those feelings later, when she’d gone to bed. When he was alone, and warm, and.

Unbidden into his head came the passage from Tristram Shandy about the “beds of justice.” He’d never read it before, having got through hardly ten pages of that book, and wondered now for half a second how Beholding could have thought this would help, until there thundered across his mind the words, I write one half full,—and t’other fasting;—or write it all full,—and correct it fasting;—or write it fasting; and Jon swallowed, as if that would make it stop. Less than a second later he could feel his stomach trying to expand around it.

Last week he’d tried reading an encyclopedia—vore-ing it, cover to cover. No good; he quit a third of the way in, when it bored him so much he caught himself fantasizing about its giving him a paper cut he’d have to get up to attend to. Eating fear-free trivia was like trying to fill up on tic tacs. Only when stuffed could he even feel it going down.

He told himself if he didn’t Ask her for her story now he’d only spoil his dinner with more useless facts.

“What did you used to do when you got shaky between hunts?”

“I hunted rats around my flat,” Daisy said at once, in the expressionless way of compulsion. In a voice more like her own, she went on, “Not inside, not at first, just—around the dumpsters. First my building’s, and then some nights the whole block. However long it took before I got too slow to enjoy chasing.

“Then one night I thought I saw one dart past in the corridor. So I left out bait for it, half hoping it’d attract more rats into the building. It worked; I found three in there that week.”

“What do you mean bait?”

Again her first sentence emerged as though she were reading it off a list. “Leftovers, mostly. Wasn’t hard—I didn’t have much appetite for” (in one-handed air quotes, with a huff of laughter) “'people food,’ anyway. I’d just make sure to leave a few bites unfinished, and stick them under the mat at the top of the stairs. Sandwich crusts usually, nothing gross. When I got Chinese takeaway I’d use the cabbage they put in the box.”

To make air quotes Daisy’d had to fish her hand out from under the blanket. Now she returned it to its slot on the side of his gut where hip gave way to bloat. Jon almost wished she hadn’t; he feared the reminder might weigh him down. He felt giddy and light, like if he stood and walked, hell, ran, it might not hurt his legs and chest. Like if he flapped his hands instead of wringing them he’d bump the ceiling. For Daisy to comfort his body he’d have to remember he had one.

“How did you catch them? It does—uh.” Whichever Watcher department took charge of compulsion seemed to know his question ended here, because Daisy responded before Jon could finish his follow-up sentence. (It doesn’t sound like you laid traps, he’d meant to say.)

“By the tail. I ran after them and stepped on their tails and then.” She paused for an entire second and closed her eyes tight, but by the time Jon realized what this meant she’d already concluded: “I snapped their spines with my shoe.”

That was all she said, but not all he learnt about it. The Eye let him—made him hear the crunch. For an instant it shared with him the satisfaction Daisy’d felt at the finality of that sound. It had been a sore spot for her, a then-recent wound, how many monsters didn’t die when you broke their necks.

Then her satisfaction left him, and he felt intensely sick.

“Stop—don’t say any more—I’m sorry Daisy, I didn’t—”

She snarled a sigh. “Yeah, I know. Guess I should’ve told you not to ask about that part.”

“Oh. No, it’s. I'm alright, I just meant, it looked like you… didn’t want to tell me that.”

“No I didn’t,” Daisy concurred, in a tone so flat he wondered whether he’d somehow compelled it.

“Is there anything else you don’t—er. What other questions about this would you prefer I didn’t ask.”

She shrugged. “Everything else is fair game.”

“Okay,” Jon said, wishing that answer reassured him more. “You don’t—need a minute, or?”

Again she shrugged. “Yeah, alright. You look like you might, anyway. How’s your gut feeling.”

It took him a moment to realize she meant his actual gut, not like. When he did he answered without thinking: “Not bad? Ignorable, mostly, but. That in itself is.” He looked down at his fingertips for some loose skin to peel. “I’m… stronger, now, already, my. My limbs feel like.”

Daisy nodded. “Like they could carry you without having to think about it.”

“Quite,” Jon agreed, though he wished as soon as the word left his mouth that he’d picked a different one. Something that sounded less like he wanted to talk about the phenomenon’s downside, its sinister implications. He very much did not.

“The rats, did you… eat them?”

“Ew, Jon,” she replied, like it was obvious. “Not literally, no. Didn’t have to. You don’t literally eat statements either, yeah? I just killed them and it… fed me.”

“But didn’t satisfy you,” Jon suggested.

“No. They didn’t make me less hungry, just made it easier to sleep. And they made my belly swell up like yours.” (She patted his; he huffed in pretended offense.) “That’s why I only did it after I’d gone home for the night: it made me slow. I’d know I’d had enough to go to bed when I couldn’t run after them anymore. When I tried to go without—I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. Soon as I stopped thinking about it, they’d fly open. Or at least, it never felt like I slept. Guess I must’ve done, though, ‘cause sometimes I’d find myself chewing on the bedding.” Daisy shook her head, with a sigh interpretable also as a laugh. “Think I’ve started doing that again. I keep finding holes in Basira’s sleeping bag.”

“Not yours, though?” Jon knew she and Basira slept with the edges of their two sleeping bags zipped together. (A frankenbag, Daisy called it.)

Daisy grinned: “No. Hers is a better texture.”

“Thought you said you didn’t remember doing it.”

“I don’t, but mine looks like it’d be grosser to have in your mouth.”

In reality, Jon had never seen her sleeping bag up close, but now Beholding showed him what it looked like. Once kelly green but now faded grayish, like a pond; the fabric was all over pills. It smelled like wood smoke, Ritz crackers, and the lone sock one finds at the bottom of every suitcase.

“That’s fair,” Jon allowed, hoping the strain in his voice would sound to her like a laugh. Somehow this piece of information, about the godforsaken sleeping bag, had brought his stomachache back way above the “ignorable” waterline. The nauseating smell, maybe? He tried to steady himself with a deep breath, but, well.

“You look sick.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“You’re not subtle, Jon,” she scoffed; “you gasp and writhe.”

Jon tried to shrug, tried to laugh. “I’m fine. It’s just… a lot. I’m alright, I’ve just never.” What, been this full? Compelled an eldritch snack after having already eaten his weight in paper? As if that weren’t obvious. He drew in breath to speak, but still hadn’t thought of an end to his sentence. Then he felt Daisy’s hands—both of them—start to dig shallow trenches, one up each of his sick sides. His breath came out in a shaky sigh.

“That help?”

“Yeah.”

Each time they reached his ribs—or, in the left side’s case, the place where his ninth and tenth ribs used to be—her hands turned back, in a slight arc so that they made narrow ovals, each a little closer to his stomach’s center than the last. Until they met in the middle, then worked their way slowly back out to his sides.

“Could you… keep doing that while I hear the rest of your.”

Her laugh had an edge to it that miiiight have been contempt? But she said, “Sure. What do you still want to know?”

“Uh.” He pretended to have to think about it. “Why don’t you hunt rats now?”

“I don’t want to kill things just because they’re weaker than me.” Daisy’s hands had frozen in place while she spoke these words; now they resumed. She sighed, but Jon wasn’t sure at what. “Rats are fine, they don’t need to die.”

“I wouldn’t say they’re fine,” Jon scoffed; “pretty sure they serve the Corruption. They spread hantavirus, ratbite fever, lymphocytic”—he paused to swallow a wave of nausea, hoping it was the ugliness of these facts and not their sheer bulk that sickened him. He hoped also that she’d assume his voice had caught on the pronunciation, rather than. He cleared his throat and continued: “Lymphocytic choriomeningitis, and leptospirosis. And the plague, of course, though not without help from.”

Daisy groaned, her teeth bared to the canines. Jon could feel her fingers curl into fists, though thankfully none of his skin got trapped between her nails and palms. “That’s exactly the kind of judgment I’m trying not to make anymore. They’re—they’re also good, okay? Rats. Had a friend with a rat once, when I was a kid.” For an instant Jon wondered if she meant Calvin Benchley. Then the Eye told him she did. “You can teach them tricks. Like dogs. His knew how to fetch, roll over, go through mazes to find treats. And they’re affectionate, friendly. The tails are weird, but—they have sweet eyes.”

A huff of laughter tumbled out of Jon’s nose. “All animals have sweet eyes. That’s a pretty low bar.”

“Don't flatter yourself.”

The Ceaseless Watcher seemed to side with her on this, showing him the eyes of lemurs, flies, goats, anglerfish (the regular kind).

“Either way, I hardly think that outweighs the plague.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Daisy insisted, still sounding querulous. She’d retracted her hands now, and held them balled together close to her chest—like Jon himself did when he felt too shy to stim outright. If they hadn’t been talking about rats the attitude probably wouldn’t’ve struck him as rat-like, but.

“It doesn’t always need to matter which one of those things is more important,” she went on. “It feels like it does, but—sometimes that’s just a habit we get into. Some things just are, okay? I like not having to think about it anymore.”

“Right, that makes sense, we can….”

“Besides. I didn’t care about any of that when I was hunting them. The diseases or whether they’re part of the Filth or whatever. I just knew they were gross, and that people were scared of them. That’s the main reason I killed monsters, too.”

“What if you just… caught them and let them go?”

“Monsters?”

“No, rats.”

“I don’t want a substitute, Jon. I’m alright going cold turkey.”

“But it’s not cold turkey, it’s—no turkey.”

Daisy looked at him for the first time in what felt like a while, and smiled, but furrowed her eyebrows. “Just what do you think ‘cold turkey’ means?”

“I know there’s no actual turkey,” Jon sighed, trying to ignore the Eye’s barrage of suggestions for where the phrase might have originated. God, his stomach hurt. He missed having her hands there to rub away some of this nausea and ache. Wondered what he could say to bring them back. Doing it himself at a time like this would’ve felt so. “I just mean, withdrawal is—different. It can kill you, but you’re still abstaining from something that people in general don’t need to live.”

“Aaaand you think people in general need the Hunt.”

“Of course not. I know you know what I’m getting at,” Jon persisted. “You’re talking about starvation—which, unless for some reason the Fears are too sentimental to throw their old husks away, means it will kill you. Not just—‘can.’”

“Maybe. Probably, yeah. If some monster doesn’t come around to kick me off the wagon first. I’ve told you that before, though.”

“…Okay. Yes, you have, that’s. Yes. So then—?”

“What?”

“Why are you giving me a statement!?”

“To commiserate,” Daisy recited first, in the flat tone of compulsion—and then, “Shhh!”

“Tape recorder’s already on.”

“Yeah but Basira���s out there; she might—be asleep. It’s not a statement,” said Daisy. “Just a story.”

As usual Jon let himself fall into the trap. Was it a statement? By Institute standards, maybe not; he wasn’t sure it counted as a supernatural encounter, except from the rats’ perspective. And most of the fear in it was the rats’, too. He supposed you could call it an encounter with her own changing nature? Statement of Alice ‘Daisy’ Tonner, regarding her supernatural hunger and how she.

“But why would you feed me a story when the answer you come to at the end of it is that it’s better to starve?”

This time he didn’t mean to compel her—was sure he’d phrased it indirectly enough not to. But Jon was surer yet Daisy wouldn’t have given the answer she did except under compulsion:

“Because I felt sorry for you.” Then she winced, bared her teeth, shook her head; Jon wondered if she’d felt that one. It seemed like people usually didn’t—just heard themselves speak words they hadn’t meant to, and surmised what had happened from that. But maybe after so many in a row she’d begun to feel the static.

“For what? Why?”

“For feeling evil. Because it reminded me of me.” In her own voice: “Think maybe I wanted it off my chest, too.”

So, what? The moral high ground was alright for her, but he was too weak for it? Or, or not, what, spiritually advanced enough to walk that plane? Because he hadn’t been conscious for his six-month limbo between life and death, like she’d been in the coffin?

“But you resist, so—? Why wouldn’t you think I should starve too?” On the ocean floor of his stomach something evil emerged from its hole. “Hhh—wait, don’t answer that, I’m—”

Too late. “Because eating the statements doesn’t hurt anything. The ones already written down—just recording them, it’s harmless. And you can’t give me bad dreams anymore, so—ugh.” Jon opened his eyes to find Daisy clawing at her temples. She shook her head, to the extent she could without knocking into his. “I told you I'm trying not to do that anymore.”

I’m not ready, Jon had meant to say. But seeing how little she liked having answered, he wished he could claim it was for her sake he’d tried to stop her.

He still wasn’t ready to hear or think or talk about this, really. The top half of his belly seared with such pain he couldn’t think straight; lower down it squirmed. He felt perilously sick. His whole body wanted so badly to curl into a ball that his legs wouldn’t quit twitching against Daisy’s. He pressed his elbows into his sides, while his hands hovered, pathetically he was sure, just over the top and center of a stomach he feared would pounce if he dared touch it.

But he felt like owed her some proof he’d been listening. “Do…?”

“Judge people. Decide what’s right for them.”

“I see,” Jon lied; that was all he could manage for now. In truth he needed a break before he could even parse what she had said.

“Turns out I can’t lie to myself under compulsion either. I didn’t think that was the reason?—thought I was just not judging you.”

“I think”—he pushed himself back from her, sure for a second that he was about to be sick. It passed, but his breath caught on it as on panic, so he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened.

Especially not since Daisy too shot upright, her nails loudly scraping the cushion behind her as she hurled herself against it. “Shit—turn around—not on the couch—”

“I’m okay, it’s.” He did turn around, just to ease her mind, but the motion required had quite the opposite effect on him. Jon heard the sounds of ragged breath and whimpering, then recognized his own voice behind them.

Daisy’s hands came to perch one on the back of his shoulder, the other on his side between rib and pelvis. “Don’t worry about it, just get it out. We’ll clean it up later—just like last time, remember?” The fingertips of the hand on his side twitched back and forth at his stomach’s very outer edge.

“N—o, I.” He swallowed. “I think I’m alright.” Tried opening his eyes. Nope, not ready. His breath shuddered again. Daisy’s hands vanished from his shoulder and side; he heard the flapping sound of a blanket being shaken out, then felt it flutter and settle on top of him. Must’ve got dislodged when he rolled over, though he was warm enough now he hadn’t noticed. Dimly he recognized this as a victory.

Her hand moved to stroke his back; she kept saying Shhh, but not in the harsh way she had earlier. “You, uh.” Again Jon swallowed, though what ailed him was a lack of spit rather than excess of it. “You weren’t nearly this nice last time.”

“What?” The hand on his back stilled. “I was too! I tied your hair back for you! I let you ruin my jumper by wiping your pukey mouth on it! I sat with you, on the cold hard floor, in front of the toilet, and let you babble all your egghead theories to me about vomit and the Corruption, even though I’d been sick not two days before, and could barely stand the smell even without you philosophizing about it—”

“No, I meant—the time before, when you. Never mind.”

“Oh—when I had to clean it up?” Jon nodded, hoping she’d be able to tell that from the back of his head. “Yeah, well. Guess I like you better now.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Me neither.” And yet she scooted closer to him, hooking her chin over his shoulder. Her hand came to rest on his belly again, its heel in the hollow at the edge of his pelvis. “This okay? You alright with touch right now?”

In response Jon felt around for her hand. When he found it he slotted his fingers between hers, pulled her hand to a sicker-feeling place a few inches higher up, and left his there on top of it.

“Right,” Daisy laughed—“my mistake.” She dragged their combined hands very gently back and forth across the place he’d brought them to. “This where you’re feeling yuckiest?”

His breath caught again, but with surprise and relief this time. With his free hand Jon covered his eyes, willing himself not to think about how ridiculous he must seem to her right now. “That’s, er. That’s perfect, yes.”

“Sure.”

“Though actually—do you think—maybe a slightly… longer stroke?”

Again she laughed. Her hand went limp under his. “Backseat driver. Alright, show me how it’s done.”

It took him a minute to determine that himself. He tried pulling her hand back and forth past his navel, but that grated against something sharp inside. Supposed he couldn’t consult the Oracle for this. Up and down, maybe? Yes, that would do. Or a circle perhaps. Anti-clock—? No, clockwise, definitely. Much better.

Once they’d got that sorted out, Jon said, “I wonder if… you’d let me Ask. One more question.”

“Seriously? I can feel how stuffed you are; how could you possibly want more? Five minutes ago you nearly puked.”

“I’m just—curious, alright? I won’t be sick, I promise.”

“Fine.”

“Did you ever… throw them up?”

“I didn’t eat them, Jon. Told you that already.”

“Alright, poor choice of words. Did you ever—” he tried to think how best to phrase it. “When you threw up regular… people food. Did something of the rats ever come up with it?”

“Yeah. I only got sick once in the time I was doing it, but, I think so, yeah. Thought I was just really out of it at the time though. They didn’t make me sick, I don’t think—just another stomach bug, like the one I gave you. One of those bugs where everything has to come out? And it came on me in the middle of the night, so the last thing I’d”—a pause to sigh; her hand slipped out of his, presumably to make air quotes, but then took it again before he could think of somewhere else to put it—“‘eaten’ was the rats. Not as many as usual; I was already feeling slow that evening. But, yeah. They… it wasn’t their actual bodies, though, okay? I thought I was just dry heaving at first—you know when you’re hanging over the toilet bowl because you know you’re gonna be sick—”

Jon squirmed, fighting a temptation to cover his ears. “Yes, thank you, I’m familiar with—”

“—but you can’t get anything solid up yet, you just retch and drool and cough into the bowl. Well it started then, and then, some of it got mixed up with my sandwich. It was like I… felt their fear, like I—became them, for a second. Each one of them.”

She’d been right; it was too much. God, please don’t make him be the rat! Jon bit his lip ducked his head to his chest curled his toes bent his knees, anything, trying to barricade the doors against the onslaught of information. He pressed his and Daisy’s combined hands hard into the place where his stomach jutted forth from ribs for fear if he didn’t try to equalize the pressure inside from without he might burst like a sheep in clover and flood this whole room in half-ruminated text, a cloud of serifed letters scuttling heinously all over himself and Daisy like half-formed spiders.

“I don’t know how I knew that’s what it was,” Daisy went on. “It wasn’t like I saw the scene again, or heard the crunch, or felt the. Anything like that. I just—was the rat. I was prey. Just for a second. And knew that I—me, as in.” Again her hand slipped out of his. “The Hunter, was about to kill me. And… then it faded and I was me again until the next one.”

Her hand returned to the dome at the top of his gut where he’d last set it, but its ghosts on his palm and between his fingers remained cold. She brushed the hand up and down his belly, airily—oblivious to how its muscles clenched and undulated. Jon panted and forced himself to focus on her hand and nothing else. How it bumped and shuddered when his stomach’s shape morphed under it. How at the end of his every exhale her touch became so light it tickled. This was the present Daisy, and the present Jon. Here on this couch in the Institute basement. Both thin, her bony ilium pressed closer to his sacroiliac joint than was quite comfortable. Warm, except up one leg where the blanket let in a draft.

The one who’d tried to prey on him was long gone. If anything he was the one feeding on her, now. And they just laid on the couch together, massaging her horrors into more comfortable shapes inside him.

“That enough?”

Jon grunted an incredulous huff. “Too much,” he admitted, unable to keep the strain out of his voice. “You were right—I, uh. Didn’t know stomachaches came this size.”

Her laugh sounded affectionate. The lines up and down his stomach morphed into circles around it. “Ha—look how much higher your belly comes up on this side. That must be where your ribs were.”

“Yes, I’ve. Noticed that before, thanks.”

“Think you’ll keep it all down?”

“Hope so.”

“Good luck. Wouldn’t want you to have to relive the rats again.”

Oh, god.

“The less said about it the—better I’ll feel, I think.”

“Well that’s a change,” Daisy mused, patting his stomach as though in summation. “I should get to bed. Be alright on your own?”

“Er.” No, no, no, god please no, not alone yet with all these? “Yes, alright. I should be fine.”

She laughed again. “I’ll stay til you fall asleep.”

--

(For Daisy’s take on “the time before,” when she had to clean up his vomit, see Abyss of Possibilities; to view the drawing in less-bad resolution, see this post)

#stuffing #hunger kink #nausea #stomachache #a shifty tract #nonsearchable tma tag #me: writes a story about eating information #also me: god why is this so LONG why did i have to go off on so many TANGENTS #uhhhhhhh hm let's think

[baby-brightmonster]

Leading Man: Chapter 4

It’s fine, he just thinks she’s pretty and that’s it...right? 

(A/N: there is a small NSFT scene involving Alex’s imagination in the shower) 

Yo @littledanette here we go! 

Caleb Paulson, age 28, has spent the last 8 years of his life, singing and playing bass in one band or another, he prided himself on his determination. He had known Maya for years, her tours sold better than his, her club shows always filled, but Caleb rationalized its because she was hot. A woman in hard rock is treated like a novelty until further notice, if she’s good looking it’s impossible to surpass on talent alone. Having Alice Cooper on her resume certainly helped. When he met her, he noticed her ass first and then he got to know her and she was actually nice to him. So, they sang together, they worked together. He never wanted to pursue anything with her, because, as they reminded themselves, Fleetwood Mac. The universal cautionary tale of bad ideas to date your bandmates. But now that she was slated for a musical, things were different. 

As for Maya, she  always thought he was the sweetest thing, if not a little bashful. He had a big black beard and bright blue eyes, he had broad shoulders and a tattoo on his forearm of evergreen trees. He had wide hands and Maya often thought in passing about how good it would feel to have them grip her ass.

“Hey, Maya,” he said after the spent the day mixing in Jon’s studio. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure thing,” she said.

“I was wondering if we could grab dinner, like a date?” He asked, Maya thought. What the hell? It’s not like she could have the one she wanted, and Caleb was sweet, she was not about to put her whole life on hold because of a stupid little girl’s crush. So she said okay, Caleb’s bright eyes lit up at her acceptance.  

April 9, 2018:

Mean Girls opening night!

Maya wore emerald green, the dress hung off of her as her hair tumbled down her back. Her silver sparkled off of the camera’s flash as did her sparkling eyes. The exhilaration of opening night was one he knew well. She looked like a star, the dress made her stand out from the pink background and Alex caught a glimpse of a, no two, tattoos on her. 

As he scrolled through the photos, he noticed she stood there next to a guy in a suit who was holding her hand. In another photo he had his arm around her and was kissing her cheek. She beamed and waved, her wavy black hair, was pushed to one side as it cascaded down her shoulder.  The contrast of the pink carpet that they put everyone on, as she hugged her co-stars and the comments were going wild, they asked her if she would get a tattoo for the show to which she said “I’d rather be me” would go somewhere on her body. When he found himself wondering where, he exited the app and got in the shower all but throwing his phone out of the window. 

She took a date 

What did you expect? 

She’s just pretty, right? 

Who’s the guy? 

Doesn’t matter 

She’s just a pretty girl. 

It’s natural to fantasize, he rationed as he let himself feel the hot water, trying to get a shock to the system. Trying to wash her off, the very thought of her, singing in his ear. Trying to get her black hair, bright green eyes, and her violet perfume out of his head. The water ran down his back, he closed his eyes imagining the warm droplets were her gentle kisses, not that he would know. It's natural to fantasize

Her giggle played in his head, her smile the one she showed on opening night was different from the one she gave him.  When you very astutely informed her, that her dress had pockets like a drooling moron.  He reminded himself. She asked you if you wanted to wear it.  

That dress, he recalled how the neckline accentuated her breast, that dress touched her in the ways that made him jealous.

He thought about undoing her dress…slowly pulling down the zipper kissing the exposed skin.

She probably wore black lingerie underneath, thinking about the smile she gave him. The giggling, the way she touched him, and God, she had pulled his hair.

He started touching himself thinking about her in the shower with him, stepping out of that green dress getting in behind him.  

Gentle kisses on his neck, shoving him against the wall as her mouth moves down his chest

A whimper escaped his mouth as he tipped his head back. His strokes quickening wondering if she would leave any of her pretty red lipstick on his cock while she would suck him off. Eagerly cupping him grabbing his ass.

It was a girl he barely knew…He was jacking off in the shower like a teenager. Now was not the time to analyze.

“Maya, oh my God,” he whispered gripping it tighter, the very thought of those pretty green eyes, looking up at him, he bit his hand to keep quiet. He would grip her hair, she would be so desperate to please him, “that’s a good girl,” would she gasp his name? Wrap her beautiful legs, around his waist, dig her nails into his shoulders, scratch him down his back while he pounded her. He bit his hand to keep quiet. “Maya oh, fuck." He spilled all over his hand.

It is normal to fantasize.  

#simp respectfully #god help me im a grown ass woman #leading man fic #stay tuned for flirting via twitter #Alex Brightman

[athina-blaine]

Jon goes on a business trip.

Chapters: 1/1 [Complete]

Words: 1,692

Tags: Established Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Long-Distance

~

Jon threw his backpack onto the hotel bed and slumped into the desk chair. It boggled him how he could even think about sitting after being trapped in an uncomfortable airplane seat for the last 12 hours, but he just didn’t have the energy to stand. 

Weak, grey lighting wormed through the ratty curtains, washing out the already muted yellow walls and doing nothing to lift the temperature of the room. The second hand of the analogue clock twitched in place.

You get what you pay for.

Martin had insisted he would stay up late waiting for Jon's call, but guilt still twisted his stomach as he dialled his number. He wished Martin would have chosen to get some sleep instead, but, then again, the thought of going another day without hearing from him didn’t feel particularly good either.

The call clicked.

“Hello? Jon?”

“Evening.”

“I believe you mean, good morning."

"Shut up."

"Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting around for ages.”

“I told you I wouldn’t be getting in until around 7. If anything, I’m ahead of schedule.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just kind of hoping you were exaggerating how long it would take. You know, so if you get there a bit early, it’s like a nice little surprise.”

“Martin, if you’re expecting an airport to ever being running ahead of schedule, I’m sorry to say, you’ve already lost.”

Martin’s laugh was staticky in the receiver. “So, what’s it like? Sample any cuisines? Are the locals friendly?”

“Yes, I’ve had a bagel sandwich from a coffee shop at the airport, and the cab driver who escorted me to the hotel shouted at me.”

“What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did something?”

“Ah, well, you know, you can be a bit— And it’s not your fault! You’ve just been in a flying metal box for the last day, so it’s totally reasonable to be grumpy. But you can be a bit tetchy at times.”

Jon sighed. “I suppose I was a bit more aggressive expressing my umbrage at the way he handled my bags than was strictly necessary.”

“Jon.”

“My laptop was in there! He threw it.”

“Of course, dear.”

Jon curled up in his chair, wrapping his arm around his knees. “So, what have you been doing?”

“Oh, nothing interesting. Just rewatching old episodes of Emergency Contact. Couldn’t you have at least waited until Monday to fly across the world so we could watch the new one together? Kathy is finally going to find out what happened to her fiancé.”

“I'm sorry, eldritch fear monsters have very little respect for broadcast network scheduling.”

“Pity.”

“You don’t have to wait for me, you know.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. What’s the point of knowing some big secret if you don’t have anyone to talk to about it? And don’t just try to know it, either!”

“That would be a terrible misuse of my abilities.”

“Since when did you give a toss about that?” Martin yawned, smacking his lips gently. “Well, I guess I should let you go. You must be exhausted.”

“Not really.” Jon didn’t sleep much these days. “But you need to get up early for work, so …”

Martin hummed. The second-hand of the clock continued ticking pointlessly. A film of dust was beginning to settle on the back of Jon's throat. What a terrible hovel this place was.

“Oh, wait, before you go, I wanted to tell you, you won’t believe what Melanie found while digging around for the Davis case.”

“What is it?”

“Okay, so, you know how the guy was acting super weird and it’s, like, yeah, he definitely killed his ex-wife, right?”

“Yeah?” Jon said, pulling the thin blanket off the bed before settling back down.

“Well, guess what Melanie found in the storage closet of his mechanic’s shop?”

“Her dismembered corpse?”

“What? No, his toolbox. What’s the matter with you? You’re so morbid.”

"Oh."

“That’s a joke, I’m joking. Melanie didn’t find anything, was talking my ear off all day yesterday about it. Absolutely exhausting. I mean, I get it, Brighton isn’t exactly close, but remember when I had to go all the way to bloody Plymouth?”

Jon did, but he let Martin remind him anyway, and closed his eyes.

 Snow crunched under Jon’s feet as he limped through the street, a packet of files tucked under his arm. The custodian at the Federova Research Centre had been furious at the hour with which he asked for one of their documents, but she had quickly reconsidered when she helpfully told him about the gambling ring she was running.

He still felt terribly guilty about it, but it got a little easier every time. He didn’t know if that made it worse.

A gust of icy wind sliced through his coat, chilling his bones. His nose burned as he breathed down the arctic air. He had been entirely unprepared for this miserable weather and fantasized about his dry hotel and a cup of hot coffee.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling off his glove with his teeth, he took it out and opened the screen.

>aaahhhh!! im burning up!!! help!!!

Attached was a picture of the sun shining in the middle of a blue sky. Smiling, Jon typed a response, the tips of his fingers already uncomfortably numb.

>Be sure to wear plenty of sunblock

He angled his phone at the night sky, blanketed in thick, dreary clouds, taking a picture and sending it.

>oh, yikes. you sure im not the one on vacation?

>You know this isn’t a vacation

>yeah, going on vacation would require you taking that stick out of ur arse

> ):<

>im sorry, it’s a nice stick

>Thank you

>also why are you awake??

>Research. Need I remind you that you were the one who texted me?

>i was expecting you to see it tomorrow!! go to bed!!

>Yes, darling

A light snowfall had begun. Wild animals skittered by in the distance, dark shadows in the corner of his eyes. Tucking his phone away, he continued his trudge, the bruises on his left leg throbbing.

He’d go to bed once he got these documents sorted.

 The black ooze caught Jon’s foot and he crashed to the ground, shoulder crunching under his weight. The creature crept up to his knee, squelching as it latched onto his other leg, gelatinous and soggy. Hissing sharply through his teeth, he clawed the dirt, pulling himself forward. His foot had grown numb.

The creature had reached his waist and his fingers sluiced through the wet soil, his body too heavy to move. Pins and needles crawled up his legs before he lost feeling in them entirely. Though it had no mouth, the creature groaned, the sound of satisfaction one might make as it bit down into their meal.

He grabbed his phone before it ate his pocket and made a call. It rang.

It went to voicemail.

The desperate words died on his tongue. He shut his eyes tightly, pressing his face into the ground and breathing in the musty earth.

“Um, hello.”

A slimy tendril crawled along the back of his neck, leaving a damp trail in its wake before creeping into his hair. It would never wash out.

“Just wanted to see if you were awake. Of course, you aren’t, it’s like 4 AM. Not your fault. Nothing new on my end.” The creature squeezed, pressing his ribs against each other. “No, no, that was a lie. I’m currently being attacked by some kind of blob monster. Didn’t want to worry you, sorry. That was stupid of me.”

The scent of sweet organic fumes struck him, and he stiffened, stomach churning.

“I am trying very, very hard not to die right not, but just in case, figured, should give you a call. Seemed like the right thing to do.” He chuckled, which turned into a splutter as the thick sludge began filling his mouth and his nose. “I’m sorry.”

He ended the call, hand falling limp, still cradling his phone. It was swallowed shortly after.

 The airport was fit to burst as Jon worked his way through it, suffering bumped shoulders and crying children the whole way. The lingering smell of floor cleaner and cigarette smoke made his world spin on an axis, but he pressed on.

He was home. He was home, and he’d be in his bed within the hour. He pictured changing into his pyjamas and crawling under his cosy bedsheets, being held, as he was shoved through customs by sour faced security guards who wanted to be there even less than him and wanted him to know it.

When he reached the airport lobby, something barrelled into his chest.

“Finally,” said Martin, squeezing Jon hard enough to make his eyes pop. “You were supposed to be in two hours ago.”

“I told you it was delayed,” Jon said, resting his cheek on Martin’s shoulder. He inhaled the scent of his own lemon detergent and had a vision of Martin cycloning through their flat in a cleaning frenzy. “You said you were going to wait at home.”

“I lied and you knew it.”

“I did not."

Martin looked up, a gentle smile on his lips. It trembled, his eyes growing misty, before it cracked. “So, um, I know this is going to sound really crazy, but …”

“Yes?”

“Do you think you could just, you know, never, ever leave again? Ever?”

He looked so small and scared as he said it. Jon had done this to him. Again.

Jon pulled him back into his arms. “I can’t promise that. But it sounds nice.”

“Yeah.” Martin sniffed. “And I don’t mean just these little jaunts to the other side of the flippin’ planet where you try and get yourself killed. If you go to Tesco, I'm gonna be on your arse. Right? Got it?”

“Of course.”

“You can still go to the bathroom by yourself, that’s okay.”

“Perfectly reasonable. You're dizzying me.”

Martin pinched his arm and pressed his mouth against Jon’s, slow and hungry, before dragging them towards the exit gate.

“Come on, let’s get you in bed.”

#the magnus archives #tma #themagnuspod #jonmartin #jonathon sims #martin blackwood #fic #fanfiction

[becausewerebatfam]

Our Future (1)

Jason Todd x Reader

After a failed mission you and Jason are being left behind to care for a kid while the rest of the team look for Duella Dent.

Warning: Language and maybe suggestive content.

A yellow portal opened in the middle of the street prompting everyone’s attention. Batman scowled knowing exactly what was going to happen. He readied himself for the threat to come when the portal sparked and grew to stable conditions.

“Sh*t-” a smallish boy groaned as he fell out of the portal and landed on the ground face first. Lucky for him he had a full helmet to protect him from any serious damage. As soon as he was out the portal shrank until it had completely vanished. The boy shook his head a few times trying to recalibrate himself. “Well f*ck this-” he pulled the helmet off when he noticed half of his vision was compromised by large and small cracks alike.

“You look a little young to be using that kind of language.” Batman guessed the boy to be around preteen age after seeing his face.

The boy’s eyes widened when he saw who he was in the presence of. “Holy sh*t it’s really you Batman!” This Batman was wearing a cape, not a trenchcoat. He had made it to the right place or time to be exact.

+++

“I would never sleep with you! Not even in a million years you-you-” 

“Handsome jerk?” he offered with a playful smirk. Jason admitted he would cross the line often when it came to you. It was just a natural instinct for him to flirt with and or around you just for the attention. He didn’t care if it was negative or positive he just wanted your attention at all times.

“Grrrahhh!” You stormed out with a frustrated semi-groan scream combo. If you stayed any longer you probably would have given in. 

While some girls fantasized about a sweet, romantic gentleman who treated them like princesses you preferred the rugged, confident guys with cocky attitudes. You never knew that was your type but you fell in love with Jason who was all those things so you figured it out along the way. 

There was shock mixed with confusion on Wally’s face as he and the others watched your retreating figure. “What was that?”

“Todd’s attempt at courtship.” Damian had been witness to this and many similar scenes between the two of you. 

Jason sat back with a triumphant smirk. He had waited all day for this moment of satisfaction. While others were content seeing their loved ones smile Jason looked for a more explosive reaction.

“Courtship?” Wally asked thinking he had to have misheard the young Wayne because Jason looked way too happy for someone who just got turned down. 

Wally and Jon looked at each other with mouths agape when Damian nodded. They shrugged wondering what the heck he was so happy about. Jon was particularly glad to finally have someone else around who thought the interactions between you two were strange. 

Dick laughed and explained the unique situation between you and Jason. "Y/N is just as stubborn and headstrong as Jason.” Neither of you wanted to admit it but you liked each other. Jason would chase away any guys who dared go near you even if they were just friends. While you would sabotage his flirting or act out physically by hitting him. “She says it’s accidentally but-”

Everyone became silent as the Batmobile came into the Batcave at full speed. Bruce emerged asking for you by name.

“She’s not here,” Jason immediately got up getting a bad feeling from Bruce’s entrance. 

“We need to find her.”

Jason didn’t need to be told twice to go look for you. He was already thinking of all the places you could be. If he hadn’t pissed you off you would still be there waiting for Bruce to brief you on your next case. But because of him you left fuming. 

He got on his bike and sped out of the cave missing the moment when Bruce let out his new young companion from the Batmobile. The young boy starred in awe at the distant Red Hood.

“Really Bruce another one?” Dick joked.

“Father, when will you stop picking up orphans?”

“I’m no orphan!” The young boy quickly turned around to face the small crowd of heroes. Upon recognizing Damian he stood up to him with an evil grin. The boy was younger than Damian but taller. “Mom wasn’t joking when she said you were a small fry.”

Damian practically growled at the comment. He would have attacked the boy if it weren’t for Jon holding onto his cape. “Small fry is easy to upset,” Jon warned. He gave the kid one of his signature smiles and like a properly educated child introduced himself. “Hi, I’m-”

“Jonathon Kent, I guess right now you’re still Superboy.” He then turned to the others and correctly identified them. “Tim, Wally, Dick- I know all of you so there’s no need for introductions.”

“Great,” Dick smiled warmly to the kid. “Maybe you should introduce yourself then.” 

Damian didn’t like the know it all kid. “Tell us who you are this instant!” 

The kid wasn’t easily intimidated. He kept his cool knowing Damian wasn’t a real threat to him. “Chill the f*ck down.” The boy crossed his arms, unwilling to disclose his identity to them.

Behind the kid, Bruce stood holding his helmet. It was an exact replica of Jason’s with a few aesthetic differences. The main one being that it was black with gold details and had bat ears like the cowl, reminiscent of your costume. It also had a gold bat symbol on the button that latched the helmet. 

Gasps filled the cave along with Damian’s signature, “Tt”. The symbols, the colorway, the language... it was all adding up in everyone’s mind except Wally. “What?” he asked. 

“His name is James Todd.” Bruce disclosed the nine-year-old's name. “He’s Y/N and Jason’s son from the future, Bat Hood.” On the ride to the Batcave James had disclosed various information to Bruce. 

He still saw him as his loving grandfather but clearly, it was time that made him soften to the Bruce he knew. “Hey!” James didn’t want anyone else knowing the specifics. Time travel was a very complicated thing with many rules and consequences. He was afraid his mission would be compromised but most importantly...his life was on the line. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone.” 

“I lied,” Bruce deadpanned.

“G-pa Bruce would never lie to me!”

“G-pa!” Tim and Dick heartily laughed.

“I’ll make a note of it.” Bruce pulled out James utility belt and holster with two handguns strapped to it. “I’ll also make sure to keep you from getting your hands on fully loaded guns.”

James groaned in annoyance, "I’m very safe AND an awesome shot.” It was true. He had been taught since he was young, well younger, and had earned both yours and Jason’s trust in wielding the weapons. “Besides those are just blanks.”

Bruce crushed one of the bullets in his hands releasing a powdery substance. “Then what is this?”

“That’s classified.” James quickly turned away trying to avoid Bruce. 

“We can test it right now and find out.”

“Doubt it,” James smugly smiled. “The programming software needed to identify all the compounds in that drug hasn’t been built yet.” His eyes darted to Tim who would be the one to invent it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tim narrowed in on James. Like the good detective he was, Tim figured out he was being given a hint.

Bruce didn’t care for all that, he had already gotten his answer. “So it’s a drug.”

“Sh*t...” he sighed. “You really are good.”

Damian saw all the bad had been rolled into one package. “Guess Todd is as good a parent as I expected.” James seemed to be left to do as he pleased during his childhood. 

But it was strange. 

You also had your bad qualities but one thing Damian knew for sure was that you were strict and often disciplined Jason for his language. “But Y/N...”

“Hey, my old man and mom are the best!” James defended his lineage, letting everyone know that it wasn’t a lack of rules that had him a little on the rebellious side. For the first time, the boy seemed to act his age. He began to look vulnerable and small. “My mother was killed by the Joker and my father is in a coma.” 

The silence that fell on the room was quickly lifted by his next remark. 

“I live with you now UNCLE Damian.”

Damian’s eyes widened, did he really have to put up with such a brat? Is that what his future held? 

“I-I took down the Joker,” he proudly proclaimed. “This time for good... I didn’t kill him.” James was quick to clarify knowing Bruce’s moral compass would immediately be triggered. “I told the doctor’s at Arkham to test out the drug Tim and I made. It’s an anti-psychotic especially made for him.”

"But you’re just a kid,” Jon pointed out.

“I got it from a future where I was in my early twenties.” James had been visited by his future self to prevent the death of his parents but it was too late. The Joker had gotten to them there too. “Apparently, I become a pharmaceutical scientist.” He had some difficulty repeating his profession but they understood what he was trying to say. 

“Dent is traveling through time searching for this timeline to kill my parents before I’m born. She was the only one who didn’t like the new sane Joker so she’s trying to get rid of me by making sure I’m never born.” 

Now it was up to his nine-year-old self to travel even further back and stop her. “Obviously I can’t let her do that.”

Dick was the first to approach James and give him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry kid, we’ll help you.”

Damian saw the silver lining of this whole ordeal. “I will help and free myself of becoming a guardian to a brat like you.” Even though he said that Damian was actually worried for the kid.

“Thanks,” James felt relief wash over him. He wasn’t too sure he could get anyone to believe such a ridiculous, yet, true story.

“Can I just say, we definitely need to look into limiting the means of time travel in the future.” Wally found it unbelievable how many people were able to do so. “Seriously did you also invent some sort of time travel device Tim?”

+++

As Jason sped down the streets of Gotham he spotted you fighting in a poorly lit alley close to his apartment. A couple of scared women ran out from there clutching onto their bags. He figured you were on your way to his place when you stopped to help.

There were six or seven guys, one seemed to be out of the fight now. You had beat him up badly enough for him to sit out. Anger fueled your rampage on the men who were trying to rob and take advantage of women at night. “So you can’t get a date with those ugly mugs and decide to force yourselves on a lady?”

“Those b*tches were asking for it, wearing those short skirts-”

He couldn’t finish his sentence, your fist wouldn’t let him. “You can’t control yourself when a pretty woman walks by so she’s to blame? Pathetic!” At the moment you put your attention on the big mouthed creep the others tried hitting you from behind but were stopped by Jason.

“That’s no way to treat a lady,” Jason hit two of them with the back of his guns knocking them unconscious. He proceeded to point them at the last ones standing, “Now do you prefer to join your buddies or wait for the cops like good boys?”

They raised their arms in fear of being shot. “We’ll wait.”

“Good.”

When the cops rounded up the men Jason picked you up and threw you over his shoulder. “Now you are coming with me.”

“What the- Jason!” You protested when he sat you on his bike. 

“Don’t fight it Babe. We both know you were on your way to my place.” The blush on your face could not be hidden even in the dark of night. He knew he was right. “What were you gonna do? Were you going to keep the bed warm for me?”

“In your dreams Jason!”

He smirked, “In my dreams, we never make it to the bed.”

Yes, you were going to his place but you were only going to wait and apologize for letting your jealousy get the better of you. You knew your last mission together went wrong because you let your emotions get the best of you when Rose Wilson got too close to Jason. 

Jason sat in front of you waiting for your arms to wrap around him. It was always a good excuse to keep you close. He loved riding with you and vice versa.

The fact that he knew how it riled you up only made you angrier. He always did things to make you mad. You just wished he would admit why he did it, then maybe you could tell him how you really feel. You leaned forward staring at his broad shoulders as your arms snaked around him. “F*ck you Jason,” you let your head rest on him and smiled.

He smiled, content and happy to have found you. “You too Babe.” 

You were his everything.

+++

James became still as he saw Jason pull up with you in tow. The laughter of his father was just as he remembered it.

“I found Y/N getting her ass kicked by some drunk sleazeballs,” Jason informed them trying to bring light into the situation. Perhaps it was the darkness of the cave but everyone looked as if they had gotten bad news.

The moment was gone, you were back to hating his guts. “I never asked for your help!”

“Didn’t have to Babe; I saw you were in danger and jumped in.” Whenever Jason gloated he would put his hands on his hips and strike a classic Superman pose with his chest out, leaving himself open for attack. 

So you attacked, “You’re a real hero huh tough guy?” Your elbow dug into his stomach as you walked past him.  

He broke the stance, doubled over with a mix of laughter and pain.

“Are you sure those two are your parents?” Wally asked James in a low whisper only loud enough for him to hear.

The two of you stopped your fighting when Bruce called your names. That’s when you noticed the boy in the black military style cargo pants and boots. His plain black tee and gloves combo made it seem like he was a black ops agent ready to go out for night training. 

Jason similarly looked at the kid with question. “Who’s the kid?”

James smiled when he caught you looking at him. You were younger but you still looked like the mom he knew and loved. It had been long since he last saw you which made him want to run up to you, hug you and never let go.

“His name is James. He’s from the future, he’s trying to stop Duella Dent from killing his parents.” Bruce was careful not to give you and Jason any of the details. With how complicated you two were he figured it was best to let you two figure things out on your own. Clearly, time was the key for you two because as you were it didn’t seem James was a likely outcome. “You two will be watching him while the rest of us gather information.”

“Babysitting?” Jason was very disappointed. 

“I haven’t forgotten of your last mission,” Bruce warned. 

“That was her fault!” Jason pointed at you earning a kick to his well-toned ass.

“It was your fault and you know it!”

Bruce scowled at you two for behaving like children. “We’ll discuss who’s at fault later.” You three were the target so keeping you out of harm’s way was ideal. “Do not leave the cave.”

“But-”

You sighed placing your hand on Jason’s arm, effectively silencing him. “Maybe he’s right Jay, we don’t want to mess things up for James.” 

Seeing you had managed to placate Jason allowing Bruce and the others to proceed with their departure.

It was hard for you to sit on the sideline as well but this time there were far more important factors. Your ego and his were outweighed by the importance of the young boy’s parents. You couldn’t make the young boy return to his time without accomplishing his mission. If that meant you had to sit this one out then so be it.

Jason groaned, “Fine.”

Approaching the boy with a smile you reached out to him. “Hello, I’m Y/N.” The boy nearly knocked the air out of you. His arms wrapped around your waist hugging you tightly. 

Realizing what he had done, James backed away. “Sorry.”

You shook your head with slight laughter, “It’s okay.” The kid was too young to be tackling such problems. You were sure he needed comfort and proceeded to hug him this time. 

James hid his face in your stomach as he felt on the verge of tears. It was so unreal to be back in his mother’s arms.

Jason narrowed his eyes, "Hey kid what did you say your name was?”

“James.”

“Cool name,” Jason took his helmet off and set it on his bike. “I’m Jason.”

I know, it’s so good to see you awake old man.  “Cool name,” James smiled repeating his father’s line. 

-end-

pic credit; found it on Pinterest.

A/N: This is a two-shot so the next part will be out as soon as I finish. For now I just wanted to see if you all found it interesting to read ^^ Let me know.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x roy harper #jason todd #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood x you #Red Hood X y/n #batman #jason todd scenarios #jason todd imagines #jason todd fanfic #jason todd fic #jason todd fanfiction #red hood scenarios #red hood imagines #red hood fanfic #red hood fic #red hood fanfiction #batman scenarios #dcu #DC Universe