#and. Jonah didn’t like how tense their relationship was | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ally-writes-many-things · 3 years ago

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You’re not God (Evan Buckley)

Summary: You take Chimney’s spot in the Hero Complex episode. You are Captain Nash’s daughter, and you are dating Buck.

Words: 3K

Requested: No

Warnings or A/N: this is probably gonna do shitty but oh well. A Buck full length fic coming to your screens soon! Also comment what season Buck do you love? I love this seasons Buck the most. He's grown so much since the first season.

You were standing in the middle of the apparatus bay talking to Buck and Hen about the new guy, Jonah, that was filling in for Chimney. You and Hen had worked closely with him and Hen didn’t like him all the much but you didn’t know him enough not to like him. You didn’t care enough to know him for that matter. Chimney was gonna come back sooner or later and you didn’t want to waste your energy getting to know another paramedic that was only gonna be temporary. “You’re telling me, you don’t feel that there is something wrong with this guy?”

You turned your gaze onto Buck for a second before turning it back on Hen. “I haven’t. To be honest, I hadn’t even given him a second thought. I just work with him on the shift and then as soon as we walk out of those door after shift, he’s out of my thoughts,”

“She has something better to think about,” Buck said, kissing the top of your head. “Right babe?”

“You know it,”

“Everybody upstairs. Rundown in five. I’ve got some announcements to make,” Captain Nash said, climbing up the stairs.

“You know what announcements your dad is gonna make, yn?”

“I have no clue,”

Ravi walked up to you three. “Hey, what was the deal with Eddie at the bar the other night?”

You looked at Ravin, confused. “Wait. He was there? I didn’t see him,”

Buck nodded. “I texted him. I just..I thought he was a no-show,”

“Well, I saw him in the parking lot, and he just kind of blew me off,” Ravi said walking up the stairs.

“Weird,”

You shrugged as you followed Buck up the stairs and grabbed his arm. “Wonder what’s going on,”

You finally made it upstairs and you saw Jonah standing right next to your dad. You could see Hen get tense. “Why do I get the feeling that man is one of the announcements?”

“We've had some great people fill in, but I think it's time to stop the revolving door. You all know Jonah. He's been with us for a few shifts. He's done an excellent job. And he'll be our new paramedic,”

“Damn it,” Hen said under her breath.

“Thanks, Captain. I'm really happy to be here and be a part of the team,”

“Doesn't seem so bad. He'll probably be a good partner,”

“What are you doing right now?”

“I'm looking on the bright side,”

“Well, stop it,”

You laughed quietly as Ravi asked the next question. “Who's gonna be the other one?”

“Someone you also know, just not as well,” Your dad said pointing behind you and you saw the firefighter from the other day that helped with the freeway incident. “Lucy Donato Welcome to the 118,”

It’s been a few hours since your dad had made the announcement. You were at the back of the rig helping Hen stock up as you saw Lucy talking to Buck. You eyed her as you handed Hen a box of supplies. “Yeah and I’m the crazy one here,”

You tore your eyes away from Lucy and Buck and placed them on Hen. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you death glaring at Lucy,”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,”

“She’s not gonna go after Buck. Even then Buck is crazy about you and on top of that if he cheats or breaks your heart, he’s gonna have to go through Bobby,”

“Trust me, I’m not worried about Lucy. I’m not even worried about Buck. I feel very secure with my relationship with him. Just wondering how Lucy got transferred so fast. Also, Dad’s not the one I’d worry about. Athena is the one I’d worry about,”

Hen didn’t even take a second to respond to that. “True,”

You both laughed as Jonah walked up to you two. “What are we laughing about?”

“Nothing,” Hen said walking off.

Jonah turned and looked at you. “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

“It’s not that she doesn’t like you It’s the-”

“It’s that she missing Chimney,”

“Yeah, they are two peas in a pod,”

“How about you?”

“How about me, what?”

Jonah placed his hand on your wrist and smiled. “Do you like me?”

You moved your arm back to get Jonah’s hand off you. “I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion of you,”

Jonah reached out to touch you again. You backed up a little. “We can change that,”

“I do not want to know you that well. Now, listen to this part carefully, Touch me again without my consent, I will have your ass thrown out of this firehouse before you can even realize that is happening,”

You shut the door to the rig and walked up to Buck and Lucy. “Fucking creep,”

Buck turned and looked at you. “You okay?.”

“Yeah, just Jonah tried to put the moves on me,”

Buck’s whole demeanor changed at the sound of that as he took a couple steps towards the direction of Jonah. “What? He did what?”

You placed a hand on Buck's chest to stop him. “Babe, it’s fine. I set him straight,”

“Babe? You two are dating?”

Before you could say anything, Buck beat you to it. “Yep. For the past year,”

You saw her eye your last name on your shirt. “Nash? Are you the captain’s daughter?”

“I am. So you better watch it,”

Lucy looked between you and Buck. You could see Lucy slightly freaking out. “I’m kidding. You had nothing to worry about. I’m sure you’ll be a great asset to the team,”

“Ambulance 12 Unresponsive male….”

You turned and kissed Buck. “I’ll see you in a few,”

Buck kissed the side of your face. “I love you,”

“I love you too,’”

It’s been a few days since Jonah and Lucy had joined the team. Jonah had been let go as Chimney and Maddie had come back. Hen was more than happy about it. It had also been a busy few days. There had been a fire at the dispatch center and your step sister was trapped in the fire along with another dispatcher. Your step sister May, was okay and safe but the other one was fine when you and Hen left her with Jonah. He had rode with her to the hospital and she had coded on the way and sadly passed away.

You were awoken by the sound of knocking at your door, you opened your eyes and saw that it was six a.m. You rolled your eyes and silently prayed that they’d go away but the knocking continued. “Ugh, who is knocking at someone’s door at six a.m?”

Buck groaned as he got up and threw on hoodie before walking down the stairs to answer the door. “Uh, hi. Is everything okay?”

“We need to ask Yn a favor,”

“Babe! Hen and Chim need to talk to you,”

You threw the blanket off yourself and threw on the shirt that Buck had worn last night over your chest. You weren’t naked persay. You had on a bra and some shorts but you were walking downstairs to talk to Hen and Chim without no shirt on. You walked downstairs as Buck was shutting the door behind them. “Sorry, we know it’s early,”

“It was even earlier when she woke me up,” Chimney said in his defense.

Buck walked around them, next to you and snaked an arm around the small of your back. “It’s okay. What’s the favor?”

“Are you still friends with that reporter?”

“Taylor? Yeah, why?”

“We were hoping that, uh, we could watch some of her footage from the call center fire,”

“I can ask her but she’s gonna ask why?”

“Theoretically, I want to see what happened before Claudette coded,”

“The dispatcher who died on her way to the hospital?”

Buck shifted on his feet. “I-Is something going on, did the family make a complaint?”

“Yeah, it’s-it’s fine, Buck,”

You nodded. “Let me go get my phone and I’ll call her,”

“Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll let you know,” You said, hanging up the phone.

You placed your phone on the table in the dining area, grabbed your laptop, took it into the living room where the others were, and placed it on the table. “Well?”

“She said she’d send me the footage but she made me promise that if there is a story, I’d tell her,” You said opening up your laptop and then your email.

The email from Taylor was the first one on your email list and you clicked it. You sat and watched all the footage. Jonah and Claudette were both laughing and she was fully conscious and then she just coded. “That’s weird. She seems fine,”

“Yeah…wait a minute. Can you rewind?”

You nodded and rewinded the footage until she told you to stop. Jonah was injecting something into her IV. “What do you think that is? Potassium?”

“I’m not sure,”

You and Buck looked at each other, confused. Buck looked at Hen. “O-okay, come on, guys, wh-what’s going on here?”

“We’re not sure,”

“We’re not gonna tell anyone, right?”

Buck looked at you. “Of course. Don’t worry. I never tell Taylor anything even if she asked me for it,”

“Claudette was alert and converstand. Her BP and her heart were stable.“Protocol dictates that only treatment necessary in that case is respiratory, to treat the smoke inhalation,”

Buck was clueless as to what that meant. “Meaning?”

You sighed. “Meaning Jonah had no reason to push drugs of any kind. They’re suggesting Claudette’s death wasn’t related to her injuries,”

“Whatever drug Jonah was pushing on that video caused her heart to stop,”

“What…on-on purpose?”

“Maybe,”

“Come on, Hen, I..I-I know you didn't always like the guy, but he-he’s still one of us, you know? It cou-it could’ve just been a mistake,”

You looked at your boyfriend. "Babe,"

"What?"

Hen shook her head. "Buck, did that look like a mistake to you? He injected her with something, and she had a heart attack,"

"How-how can you be sure?"

Buck has a good heart but he placed too much hope in people.

"Claudette wasn't the first time. Other people have died on his watch under suspicious circumstances,"

"Okay, so-so, maybe he's a-he's a bad paramedic,"

"Or maybe he is a serial killer,"

"We need to show this to Cap and Athena and see what they have to say about it,"

"You'll probably see me there not long after. I'm having breakfast over there,"

"I'm not sure what was in that syringe but it sent her into cardiac arrest and it seems like the guy's got a history of this,"

Your dad look at the scene. "It's not that I don't believe you guys, but these are huge accusations. Do you think there's a way we can prove it?"

"Claudette's autopsy. The toxicology report is still pending. If we can get it expedited, we can see if there was anything in her blood that shouldn't have been there,"

Athena was the one who asked the next question. "You think this is some kind of angel of mercy killing? Putting people out of their supposed misery?"

"I think it's more complicated than that. This guy's bringing people to the point of death and then using his skills to bring them back. Whe-When he was a kid, he... he got to play the hero. Now he wants to play God,"

Athena looked at you who was sitting across the table from her. "Interesting way to start breakfast,"

"They woke me up at 6 am this morning,"

"I would've not answered the door,"

"I didn't. Buck did,"

Athena mouthed ah and took a sip of her coffee. You saw your dad walk back into the kitchen but Athena beat you to it before you could even think. “What did the chief say?”

“They’ve opened an investigation into Claudette’s death. Jonah’s been put on light duty pending the results,”

Hen sighed. “That's a relief. Thanks, Bobby,”

“Hen, be careful. If Jonah is who you think he is, he won’t take kindly to being exposed,”

Hen nodded. “Yeah. I better get going,”

“Why don’t you say and have breakfast with us?”

“Thank you but I really shouldn’t,”

“Okay. Be safe,”

“Yeah, babe. I’m on my way home now. Maybe about twenty or so minutes,”

“Okay, I love you,”

“I love you too,”

You were only supposed to stay at your dad’s house for breakfast but you ended up staying there for the entire day, helping your dad go through some of his old things. You two just talked about everything. You guys hadn’t had the chance to catch up and talk outside of work lately so you were glad for that time. After you were done at your dad’s house, it was probably about five in the evening but you remember that you needed some stuff from the store.

You were putting the items in the car when you felt a sharp pain in your neck and the next thing you knew, you were out.

HEN’S POV:

Hen slowly woke up from passing out. “Hey there, Glad you could join us,”

Hen couldn’t make out who that voice belonged to as she was still groggy. “You were out slightly longer than I expected. I guess I was just a little too generous with propofol. I’ll try to be more careful next time,”

She realized then that it was Jonah. “Why are you doing this, Jonah?”

“I guess the easiest answer is because I can. You can get anything you want on the Internet these days. Medical equipment . Drugs. THe real answer is..you gave me no choice. Snooping around, checking up on me? We're supposed to be on the same team, Henrietta. We're definitely not on the same team. Oh, I think we are. Now, you and her? I don’t think you are,”

That’s when she looked down at the table and saw you laying on the table hooked up to IVs. You were laying there unconscious. Your shirt had been ripped off you but you weren’t fully exposed.

“We don't put our patients' lives in danger just for our own ego,”

“You put your hand inside someone's chest, for Pete's sake. If that's not ego, I don't know what is,”

“The patient would have died if I hadn't…:”

Jonah had held up one finger and walked to the side where the IV was going into your arm. “One sec,”

Hen started to panic. “No, J-Jonah, please. No,”

“Relax. It's just a little adenosine,” Jonah said as he pushed the drug into your IV.

“You're stopping her heart,”

“Don't worry, I'll get it back. Nothing some epinephrine can't fix,”

Hen gasped as the monitor started to flatline. “No, no! Please, no. Oh, God. No!”

Jonah grabbed the paddles from the AED. “Guess we got to shock,” He said, shocking you.

“Oh! Come on. Come on, ynn, come on,”

The monitor starts to show normal heart rhythm again. “There's nothing like it, right? The rush of watching someone walk right up to death's door and snatching them right back? It's like being God,”

“We are not God!”

“Aren't we?”

Hen was fighting back tears as she spoke to Jonah. “Jonah, listen. Your beef is with me, okay? She has nothing to do with this. At all. She doesn’t even know anything. Plea-Please let yn go. Please,”

“Okay,” Jonah pushed more of the adenosine into your IV.

“What... No, no, no, no. Jonah,” At this point Hen was crying. She couldn’t hold them back any longer. “Jonah. Jonah, please. No, plea-please, please, Jonah. Please,”

“Oh, I thought you wanted me to let her go. My bad. Let's-let's get him back,” He said before he shocked you for the second time.

Hen was snobbing. “Yn, Come on, yn,”

She watched the monitor as the machine kept showing flatline. Jonah was watching the machine as well. “I’ve got nothing,”

Hen cried out as she watched the machine.

“Let's give it a go again. Clear,” Jonah said, shocking you for the third time.

Hen let out a breath of relief when the machine showed once again a normal heart rhythm.

“I really don't know what you see in this guy. You need a partner who's more your speed,”

That’s when she saw you starting to wake up and move around. She had to keep Jonah distracted while you were waking up. “You... You really think you're my speed? You're sloppy,”

“I'm not sloppy, don't say that,”

“Even if I wanted to do some of the horrible things, horrible things that you did, you really think I would have let myself get caught? You killed people,”

“It wasn't on purpose. They weren't supposed to die. I was gonna save 'em. I'm a hero,”

“You might have been. Once, when you were a child. But not now. All you are is a murderer now!”

Jonah got up from where he was sitting on the table, walked up to Hen and grabbed her face. “No, I'm not,”

“Then why is Yn not breathing?”

Jonah looked over at you as the machine flat lined again. Jonah let go off Hen’s face and walked over to the table and as soon as he got close to you. You shocked him with the paddle which knocked Jonah out.

Your POV:

The paramedics carried you out in a gurney just in time to hear your dad and Athena. “Slow down, some down,”

“We need to get in there. We need to get in there,”

That’s when your dad saw Jonah, walked straight up to him and punched him square in the nose. “ You son of a bitch, I trusted you. I invited you into my house and you attacked my crew? My daughter?”

Athena pulled Bobby back from punching him again. “Enough. He's not worth any more of your time,”

Your dad noticed you and came rushing to your side. “Hey dad,” You said weakly

“Hey sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

“Like a million bucks,”

Your dad chuckled. “Thank God you guys are alive, I am so sorry about what happened,”

You didn’t say anything but Hen did. “I’m just glad he got caught, and in the act. Hopefully this evidence will be more concrete than what we were working with earlier,’”

Athena looked at Hen. “With this evidence, that man will be going away for the rest of his life. He won’t ever hurt anybody ever again,”

“Then it was worth it. How were you guys able to get the police here so fast? I thought we were out here on our own,”

“Karen called, told us everything she knew. You know, you're a lucky woman to have a wife like that,”

“Don't I know it,”

“We're gonna contact Karen and Buck, let 'em know what hospital they're taking you to, and we'll be right behind you,”

You were sitting on a hospital bed with wires attached to you so they could monitor your vitals. “I don't think I need to tell you how lucky you are,” The doctor said, walking in.

“I know ma’am,”

“We're keeping you overnight for observation, Ms. Nash,”

“I figured this as much,”

“We just need to make sure you don't have arrhythmias or any other permanent damage. You'll spend the night on the cardiac floor, then we'll send you home with a Holter monitor for a couple days,”

“Thank you,”

It wasn’t long after the doctor left that you saw Buck running into the room you were in. “Yn! He said, running to you and pulling you into a hug.

“Buck,” You said, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck.

“You’re okay. You’re safe,” He said just low enough to where only you could hear.

“I am,”

He loosen his grip on you and placed his forehead against yours. “Wh-When you didn’t show up, I called your-your dad and he told me what happened and I-I just- I don’t know what I would’ve done it I lost you ,”

“Hey, you’re not going to lose me. Listen to me, you’re not,”

Buck kissed you for a second before wrapping his arms around you again. “I love you,”

#evan buckley #evan buckley imagine #evan buckley imagines #evan buckly x reader #evan buckley x you #buck x reader

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jonahlovescoffee · 3 years ago

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One Last Time | J.M.

a/n: hi im back with a new fic even tho it kinda sucks (???) because my skills are rusty but y’all better still love me <3

summary: after countless painful heartbreaks, jonah swore to never love again but for you, he might give it one last try.

warnings: angst with fluff in the end hehe

word count: 2250

Jonah was perfectly fine with living alone in LA. His career took flight after his last breakup and he was free to live his life as wildly as he desired without having silly romantic relationships tying him down. He moved out from his old house and chose to settle in a cozy little apartment with his pet cat for a new start; he went to every single party he was invited to and usually ended up kissing way too many girls, getting way too drunk or waking up the next day with way too many gaps in his memory of the previous night; he got to put all his focus into making more music now that he had no girlfriend to put as his number one priority. Life was never better for the 23-year-old singer and he had never been happier. He was thriving on his own and he definitely didn’t need to…

“Can’t sleep again?”

…head to the neighboring apartment—your apartment in the middle of the night just because he couldn’t sleep. He was strong enough to deal with the inner demons that kept him up at night by himself.

Yet there he was anyway, doing exactly that and falling into your arms the moment the door opened wide enough for him to pass through. You weren’t the least bit surprised with his actions though, since it wasn’t unusual for him to engulf you in his tight bear hugs at the most unexpected times. Or visit you, that is.

He was grateful that you never complained about them.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, his voice muffled with his head buried in the crook of your neck. He couldn’t stop himself from inhaling a lungful of your scent. It wasn’t until then he realised how much he missed you, although the last time he saw you was this morning when you were about to leave for work and him for Daniel’s house. Hours apart felt like eternity when you weren’t around. “You?”

“Lost track of time while working, nothing new,” you admitted, rubbing his back in familiar strokes that put him at ease.

“Who the fuck works on a weekend?”

“Your favourite girl is a workaholic, apparently,” you joked and a smile involuntarily spread over his face and against your skin.

“Are you sure you’re my favourite girl?”

“I better be, or I’m kicking you out of my home right now,” you tried to make your threat sound less serious by adding a light laugh but Jonah knew you weren’t joking this time. You meant everything you just said (you never gave blank threats) so to some people you might be come across as intimidating, perhaps, but to Jonah, well…have you seen how small you were compared to him? He doubted you could do anything to make him leave your home if he didn’t want to. But you wouldn’t have to do anything because…

“Yep, you’re definitely my favorite,” he chuckled and felt how your body tensed when goosebumps started to form on the side of your neck where his hot exhales caressed.

Right. “Just friends“ equals personal space unless you say otherwise. He reluctantly removed his head from its previous comfortable resting spot on your shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I was too close—“

You shook your head. “It’s fine,” your hands found their way onto his face, cradling it between them gently, the simple gesture knocking his breath and all his problems out of him. God, he loved the way you touched him. “I like it when you’re close to me. It’s just that…”

“I know,” he said when you trailed off, unable to say your thoughts out loud. He understood what you meant. It’s just that it hurts when he does all these things to pull you closer, further blurring the line between friends and lovers, only to let you down again and again in the end. He resisted the urge to apologize once more, knowing that you’d merely brush him off with another ‘it’s fine’ if he did. You put up with his bullshit too much. He wondered why you hadn’t blocked him out of your life after all the emotional distress he had bestowed you. Yet.

A beat of silence passed with him watching you as you studied his face. He knew what you’d see. Tired eyes, unshaven beard and disheveled hair. In short, a mess. He hadn’t bothered to make himself look presentable lately. He wanted to but he couldn’t find the energy to. To be honest, he had been too emotionally and physically drained to do anything lately.

He knew you’d notice and a selfish part of him desperately wanted you to fuss over him. He was an asshole, really, for wanting and taking everything from you but not giving you anything back in return. The thing was, you didn’t want just anything. You wanted his love and he didn’t think he was in the right state to give you that. You deserved the special kind of love that would last for a lifetime, not a pathetic one coming from a broken heart that was still in the process of healing like his.

Guilt ate him away bit by bit, especially as you did exactly what he yearned for.

“When was the last time you slept well, Jonah?” you asked softly, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. All traces of playfulness were gone from your eyes and were replaced by concern, worry and everything else of the sorts.

“Can’t remember,” he admitted frankly, licking his lips and taking a gulp for extra courage before adding, “Been traveling a lot lately and sleeping in foreign hotels aren’t the same as…sleeping by your side.”

It was true. He didn’t know whether it’s the domesticity of preparing for bed together and the shared ‘goodnight’s before heading on a journey to dreamland, or maybe it’s the soothing feeling of your body pressed flush against his that made it easier for him to shut all the negative thoughts out, just for the night. Either way, he ended up growing addicted to holding you in his arms as he slept, which was why the nights without you had been torture for him.

A faint blush dusted your cheeks at his confession. You were oh so beautiful, he thought to himself. It scared him sometimes—how much he adored and wanted you even when he shouldn’t. “Glad you missed me.”

You sounded glad, relieved even. It was as if…you really thought you meant nothing to him.

“I always do, Y/N,” every second of the day until I’m back in your arms. He hated himself for not having the guts to say his true thoughts out loud.

You shook your head while smiling as if you found his reply incredulous. “You’re tired. C’mon, let’s get you to bed.”

“I meant every word I said, Y/N,” he insisted. “I didn’t say that because I was delirious.”

He received no answer but he noticed how your smile seemed forced after the words left his mouth.

At this point, you probably knew better than to let yourself believe in any of his sickeningly sweet but honest words. He didn’t blame you for that.

“Thanks, I’m flattered. Now, sleep time.”

He watched as you built your defenses up around you again. It was one of the most painful things he’d ever witnessed, that’s for sure.

“Alright.”

The bed dipped, followed by the rustling of the comforter, before a familiar warmth hit Jonah as you nestled against his chest. This wasn’t the first time you had done this, nor would it be the last time, but the effect your action had on Jonah would never cease.

Eruption of butterflies? Check.

Increase of heartbeat rate? Double check.

Suddenly having the overwhelming urge to make you his? Triple fucking check.

Habitually, he wrapped an arm around you, his hand casually resting on the curve of your waist. He could stay like this with you forever, he realised and he didn’t like it one bit.

The last thing you needed in your perfect life right now was a dumb, broken man for a boyfriend. One who only knew how to turn his life experiences into songs and getting led on by girls with bad intentions because he craved the feeling of loving someone and being loved in return, even if it’s fake.

But God, it was impossible for him to not fall harder for you each day when you were the one who lights up his world with your smile, the one who’ll drunkenly blabber about how big your crush on him is in the most adorable way after accidentally having too many drinks, the one who is always there to help him catch his breath whenever he feels like drowning and most importantly, the one who sees all his flaws but doesn’t love him any less because of them.

You don’t deserve her, a voice in his head said as he silently looked at you. Yet why were you here, resting in his embrace?

It must be another sick joke made by the universe to taunt him. To show him how close you were to him yet still so unreachable. Even if he did manage to reach you in the end, then what? All his past relationships either ended with him accidentally breaking his significant other’s heart or the other way round and he wasn’t going to risk it with you.

He didn’t want to lose you like how he did with them because…he wasn’t sure if he could ever recover from that loss.

Instead of continuing to lay on his side, he shifted his sleeping position so that his back was fully pressed against the mattress, with your head remaining on his chest.

Your bedroom was dead quiet save for the sounds of your breathing and the soft swish of the curtains that were slightly billowing in the chilly night breeze that entered through the opened sliding doors that led to the small balcony. You always slept with the curtains drawn because it let you get a clear view of the wide expanse of the night sky and if you’re lucky, you got to see stars that were littered across nature’s dark canvas. They were your only company during the lonely nights before he came along, you had once mentioned to him.

Now that he slept on the side of the bed that blocked your view of the outside world, the only thing in your line of vision was his chest, his neck, or if you tilt your head a little more upwards, his face.

Which was exactly where you’re looking at now.

“What’s on your mind?” Your voice was soft but it cut through the silence all the same, tearing his attention away from his racing thoughts.

“You,” he answered swiftly, offering you a weak smile that you didn’t reciprocate, causing his to eventually falter.

“For someone who said he wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship when I confessed my undying love for him, you sure think about me far too much,” you tisked and he couldn’t quite tell whether you meant your words in a teasing manner or were they pure sarcasm?

“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything for you, Y/N,” he was as torn as he sounded. One part of him yearned for you whereas the other wanted to push you away, to keep you safe. From his mess of a life and the pain it might inflict on you. “I just…don’t want to hurt you.”

“But you’re hurting me now by not letting me in, you know that?” You sighed. “Look, Jonah,” “I can’t wait forever for you to make up your mind.”

“Because it hurts like hell to be this close to you,” you reached up to run your thumb across his jaw, “but not being able to call you mine. And if the pain gets too unbearable one day, who’s to say I won’t leave?”

He hated that you were right.

So for a moment, he let himself picture what it would be like in a world where you belonged to him and vice versa; where he could have slow, lazy mornings in bed that consisted of intimate kisses, touches, and words that warmed hearts; where he’d be able to return to a home that wouldn’t be empty anymore due to your bubbly present; where he could keep you close in public with an arm securely looped around your waist or a hand holding yours without worrying that paparazzis would spread rumours that you were dating because it was true. You are his.

Life still wouldn’t be perfect, but at least it’d be complete with you in it and he’d definitely be happier than he was before.

That was when he realised he was a coward for spending too much time fearing what could go wrong, instead of thinking of all the beautiful things that could go right.

Sure, he had messed things up in the past and hurt the people around him in the process but his relationship with you was the present.

That should mean something right?

Maybe…just maybe…the only way to truly mend his shattered heart was by learning how to love again. By giving love one more chance. One last chance.

So with a shaky breath of nervousness, he admitted, “You’re right. I’ve kept you waiting for too long.”

“But not any longer.”

Then he closed the remaining distance between your lips.

And nothing had ever felt so right.

@chilling-seavey @neralondon @mia-marais @randomlimelightxxx @hopinglimelight @kvd963 @cutiebandlover202 @savspersonalproperty @slowdownatthelotusinn @hollandsangel @freakshows199 @my-fangirling-outlet @the-girl-who-cried-wolf @sadbitchfangirl @hopinglimelight @onlyangelavery @lokiandbuckylove @hometothecanyonmoon

#wdw #jonah marais #why dont we #why don’t we #corbyn besson #daniel seavey #fic recs #jack avery #zach herron #wdw imagines #jonah marais x reader #jonah marais fluff #jonah marais imagines

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years ago

Text

the before, the after, the in-between

Chapter Six: mixed reunions Words: 4.2k

Relationships: Jon & Daisy, Jon/Martin, Daisy & Basira Tags: Post-Canon, Scottish Safehouse, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mute Jon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies

Work Summary:

There was no knife, no blood, and Jon was not dead. And when he heard a strangled noise from beside him and looked over to see Martin standing in the doorway of the safehouse, flung open and letting in the frigid bite of near-winter and sunlight, there was sunlight, he felt such a dizzying, intense wave of relief that he could hardly breathe around it.

Then, he opened his mouth to say Martin’s name, and nothing came out, and all of the relief fell away in an instant.

Jon wakes up in the safehouse in October of 2018, alive and well but without the Eye and without his voice. In the days that follow, he finds himself confronted with a world that has reset itself in space and in time, a version of himself that is no longer the Archivist, and the fact that death during the end of the world had not been so permanent as it had seemed.

Chapter Summary:

Basira seems happy to see you, Jon writes.

Daisy exhales slowly. “Yeah. She does.”

Jon waits for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t, he sighs, taps his pen on the paper a few times, and writes, And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Daisy stares at the page a long while. Just when Jon thinks she’s not going to answer him at all, she says, “It’s… good. Just odd. Feels… like she shouldn’t be.”

Read on Ao3 (link in source)

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(cw for mentions of gun and knife violence, mentions of death/murder, mentions of blood)

Stars are just beginning to fill the sky when there comes a knock at the door—two crisp taps, unhurried, but with a heavy insistence that has Martin standing from the couch quickly, mumbling, “I’ll get it,” and crossing the room while Daisy and Jon watch from where they’re still sat on the couch.

“Hel—oh, yes, come in,” Martin says as he opens the door and Basira immediately pushes past, her eyes scanning the room in front of her with a firm intensity. “Nice to see you too,” he mutters as Basira’s eyes find Daisy, and a wide-eyed expression crosses her face so quickly Jon can’t pin down what it’s meant to be.

“Daisy,” Basira says, and then she’s across the room and standing in front of Daisy, hand halfway outstretched towards her. “It’s… it’s really you?”

Daisy’s hand twitches where it’s clasped in Jon’s. He gives it a subtle, reassuring squeeze. “It’s really me,” she says quietly.

Basira’s eyes scan Daisy’s face, the outline of her body, as if searching for imperfections. After a moment, her eyes find Daisy’s again and she nods, as if confirming something for herself. “Right,” she says, retracting her hand and dropping it to her side. Next to him, Jon can feel Daisy tense slightly, though her face remains carefully calm. Basira takes in a deep breath, lets it out, then steps forward and wraps her arms around Daisy’s shoulders, bending down at an awkward angle to do so.

Daisy goes rigid for a moment before softening. Her hand slips out of Jon’s as she tentatively returns the hug, her hands ghosting across Basira’s shoulder blades and her fingers tracing the hem of Basira’s hijab. Basira exhales again sharply, gripping Daisy a little tighter as she does so, and says, “I thought you were gone.” Her voice is even, but there’s a layer of desperation underneath it that makes it sound choked at the edges. Jon suddenly feels very out of place, and he tries to subtly shift towards the other end of the couch to give them space.

“I was,” Daisy says, voice muffled by the fabric of Basira’s hijab. “But now I’m not.”

Basira laughs a bit unsteadily. “Right,” she says again. “I… I wondered if you were back. Didn’t want to think about it too hard, though. Just in case.”

Daisy is quiet for a moment. Then, so quietly Jon almost doesn’t hear, she says, “I’m sorry, Basira.”

Basira grips her tightly for a moment more, then pulls back so she can study Daisy’s face. “Don’t be. You didn’t force me to do anything. I made you a promise, and I kept it. That’s just how it was.” She exhales slowly. “Besides, none of that matters now. You’re back, and that’s a good thing. God knows there’s enough that’s wrong in the world right now.”

Daisy sits very still, a strange sort of tension keeping her rigid. “You’re… not angry?”

Basira frowns. “No. It was hard, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t you, Daisy. You were trying to be better, before, but you did what you had to, and so did I. It’s just how it was; no point in being upset about it.”

Daisy looks down at a point just beneath Basira’s eyes. “Yeah. No point,” she echoes. After a moment, she says, “You’ve been… okay, then?”

Basira’s lips purse. “I’ve been managing. Finding my own way. Dealing with…” She waves her hand in the air, an encompassing gesture, and Jon doesn’t miss the way her eyes flick over to him. He’s not particularly fond of it, though he fights back the scowl. “It’s been a mess.”

“You said it’s been bad,” Martin says, coming up behind the couch with four mugs of tea carefully balanced in his hands. He passes the first one to Jon with a thin-lipped smile, then to Daisy and Basira in turn. “What does that mean?”

Basira sighs and blows across the surface of her tea in an attempt to cool it. “Well, after you… reset the world? Which we’re going to have a long conversation about, by the way.” She looks pointedly at Jon, who looks pointedly back and takes a sip of his tea to hide his glower. He’s still a bit irritated about the whole… group decision situation. Maybe more than a bit. “I woke up in the Institute, still sitting at the same bloody desk I’d been working at when everything went to hell. I knew something was off straight away, because that feeling of being watched? It just wasn’t there. Didn’t matter how, didn’t matter why—it just wasn’t. So I assumed that the plan worked and the Fears were gone, but I didn’t know yet that we’d been thrown back in time or whatever. Got up and started looking around, trying to figure out where Georgie and Melanie went. Yeah, it was weird that everything looked the same, but I’d seen weirder.”

Basira takes a long sip of her tea. Out of the corner of his eye, Jon sees Daisy shift, setting her still-full mug on the side table and tapping her fingers on her thigh in a rhythmic pattern. He thinks, for a moment, about reaching out, but instead, he just curls his fingers tighter around his own mug. “The place was pretty empty,” Basira says finally. “Before the change, the blood and stuff was all cleaned up about a week after that last attack on the Institute, and then it was just me and a few others. Rosie, a couple of people from Artefact Storage. The people who’d survived and who weren’t smart enough to just… stay away. Rosie was still at her desk. She looked like she’d seen… well. She looked like she’d seen what the rest of us had seen. And…”

Basira exhales slowly, and for the first time, she looks… hesitant. Like she’s not sure she should continue. After a moment, Martin says, “And what, Basira?”

Basira looks down into her tea, her jaw set. “And him. Elias. Jonah. Whatever. Just… sitting behind his desk when I opened the door to his office. Like nothing had even fucking happened.”

A shock of something simultaneously icy cold and red-hot laces up Jon’s spine, and he nearly drops his mug. He looks at Basira with wide eyes, even as he thinks that it makes sense, of course it makes sense, everyone who died while the world was wrong came back, of course he would too, why would it be any different. He remembers the sensation of the knife tearing its way through Jonah’s throat, the heat of the blood as it had dripped down his hands and wrists, tries to juxtapose the image of Jonah lying dead on the Panopticon floor with the image of him sitting alive and well and breathing behind his desk once again, and feels sick. He doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until the exhalation rips its way harshly out of his throat like it’s been punched out of him. He barely feels Daisy’s hand as it wraps around his, barely feels it as she takes the mug of tea from him and settles it on the floor so it won’t spill. He registers the brush of another hand against his arm, and he hears Martin’s voice from beside him, saying with concern, “Jon? Breathe, love. It’s all right, just breathe.” Then, to Basira: “Christ. He’s alive?”

��Was alive,” Basira corrects, and just like that, all of the air crashes back into Jon’s lungs and he takes a deep, rattling breath, his eyes focusing on her face as it twists into something that might be called a smile if one were being generous with the definition. “I… I didn’t really think. Just pulled my gun and pointed it at him. No Eye, no contract. No reason not to kill him. I wasn’t planning to shoot him, not really, but then he started rambling about- about apotheosis and failure and second chances, trying to convince me that there was no need to be hasty, that we could work something out. Called me Detective again. Just the same slimy bullshit, but without all the bravado and without the collateral.” Basira sighs and looks up from her tea, glancing at Jon with something unreadable on her face. “Melanie was pissed that I didn’t let her stab him.”

Jon makes a choked noise that he thinks, after a moment, might be a laugh. It’s devoid of any amusement, though, and might be bordering on hysterical. Beside him, Martin says quietly, “Shit. Well, uh. That’s… that’s good, at least?”

Basira grimaces. “Sure. It’s great that the bastard’s dead—again, I guess, assuming that you did kill him before everything went back to normal—but things are still a disaster back in London. I’ve been trying to keep them from tearing down the whole Institute, though don’t ask me why I even care about the place after all this. People are angry.” Basira taps her fingers on her thigh in thought. “It’s… probably for the best that you guys ended up out here, actually. Things haven’t been good for the people in charge of domains. They got ahold of Simon Fairchild, and it… it wasn’t pretty. There’s been some chatter about leniency towards the less actively malicious former avatars—I think that came up after they found Callum, actually, which… yeah, that’s a whole thing—but…”

Basira shrugs. But people wouldn’t be so forgiving towards the person who ended the world, Jon thinks with a wry, twisting feeling in his stomach. He fiddles with the notebook where it sits on his lap, but he doesn’t open it. After a moment, Basira continues, “So that’s the state of things, basically. Even though everything’s technically fixed, there’s still a lot of damage, and Georgie, Melanie, and I have been handling it as best we can. Though I think Melanie’s of the opinion that we should just let the entire Institute burn. She’s probably right, but…” Basira shrugs. “It’s just a building full of scary stories now. Might be able to make some use out of it.”

“Right,” Martin says with a sigh. “That’s… a lot.”

“Yeah,” Basira says, sounding weary. “It’s… it’s nice to have a break. To just appreciate the fact that everything’s better now, you know?”

Better for us, Jon thinks bitterly, and he can feel the edges of his mouth twitching into a scowl that he forcibly represses. He doesn’t think pointing out that they’ve condemned an infinity of other worlds to suffering for their own peace of mind would be beneficial, given they’ve already driven that argument into the ground and then some. Besides, he thinks as he rubs his thumb over the spine of the notebook, that would require him to open the notebook and writing it down, and Basira doesn’t know about his voice yet. He’s too tired to hear whatever surface-level pity she might be able to conjure up for him.

“I’ve missed you, Daisy,” Basira says, an increased vigor in her voice as she turns to face Daisy. She looks like she wants to reach a hand out towards her, but she doesn’t. “It’s been… hard. Being alone with all of this. I’ve had Melanie and Georgie, but I… I could use my partner.”

Daisy stares at her for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is slightly more hoarse than usual. “You want me to come back to London with you.”

Basira nods, a slight frown forming on her face. “Do you… not want to?”

Daisy is quiet for a long moment. Her eyes stare down at the floor, focusing on nothing at all. “I don’t know,” she says finally, the words tense and choked, like the honesty of them pains her. “I… I need to think.”

Basira watches her for a few seconds, something stiff and rigid on her face. “All right,” she says at length, a touch of surprise and resignation lacing her voice. “That’s fine. I can’t stay past tomorrow, though—I have to get back and deal with what’s going on back in London. If you don’t want to…” Basira’s mouth flattens into a line. “It’s fine. I’ll understand.”

“It’s not—” Daisy cuts off with a frustrated noise, almost a growl. “I just need to think.”

“All right,” Basira says again, more placating this time. “I… won’t rush you.”

It’s quiet in the room for a long moment. Finally, as if at a loss for anything else to say and falling back on instinct, Martin offers a tentative, “Would… anybody like something to eat? You’ve been traveling all day, Basira, I don’t know if you’re… er, hungry or not.”

Basira stares at Daisy a moment more. Then, she sighs and says, “Sure, why not.”

“Great!” Martin says, sounding relieved. “Let me just… I’ll see what we’ve got that’s quick.”

He stands, and Basira stands in tandem with him. “I’ll help,” she says. “I’ve got some… things I want to talk to you about. And then after we eat, we’re going to discuss…” She gestures in the general vicinity of Jon and Martin. “Everything.”

Jon curls in on himself slightly. Martin just sighs and says, “Come on, then.” They disappear into the kitchen, and then Jon is left with Daisy on the couch, the faint clatter of cupboards opening and dishes rattling settling into the background.

Now that they’re alone, Jon reaches over and bumps his hand against Daisy’s, a silent question. When she turns her hand over, he takes it in his, threading their fingers together and squeezing firmly. With his other hand, he awkwardly flips the notebook open, ignoring Daisy’s sound of amusement as he clumsily takes his pen in hand and balances the notebook at the same time, and writes, Are you okay?

Daisy pauses for a few seconds before responding. “Yeah,” she says simply.

Jon waits for her to elaborate. When it becomes clear that she’s not going to, he writes, Basira seems happy to see you.

Daisy exhales slowly. “Yeah. She does.”

Again, Jon waits for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t, he sighs, taps his pen on the paper a few times, and writes, And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Daisy stares at the page a long while. Just when Jon thinks she’s not going to answer him at all, she says, “It’s… good. Just odd. Feels… like she shouldn’t be.”

Jon raises an eyebrow and gives her hand another gentle squeeze. After a moment, Daisy continues, “Even after the coffin, there had been this… weight, between us. I knew she was glad I was back, but I could also tell she was disappointed. She tried to hide it but, heh, she’s always been easy to read for me. She wanted the person I was before, and I knew that, deep down, she was frustrated that I wasn’t that person anymore. I was never… angry with her about it. I understood. Basira’s practical, always likes to have the upper hand. And me choosing to ignore the Hunt… it wasn’t practical. Not for her. She was happy to see me, but she also wished it was a different me. It just… feels weird that it’s not the same now. I’m different, and Basira doesn’t like different. She doesn’t like change.”

There’s been a lot of change lately, Jon writes. Then, while Daisy’s reading his words, he continues, She went through a lot after you were gone. With everything that’s happened, the world the way it is, I

Jon pauses, and Daisy waits as he taps the pen on the paper, leaving little half-formed dots of ink where it makes contact. After a moment, he sighs and finishes, I think she’s just glad that you’re back. Whatever version of yourself that may be.

Daisy looks towards the kitchen. There’s the gentle murmur of voices, too quiet to make out any words above the sound of things sizzling in pots and pans. “Maybe. I… don’t know.” There’s a pause, and then she says, quieter, “Maybe she’s just glad that I’m not a monster anymore.”

When Jon goes to write, she squeezes the hand of his she’s still holding tighter, shaking her head. “Don’t. It’s… complicated.” She’s quiet for a long moment, looking away from Jon and focusing on the faint light streaming in from the kitchen. “The parts of me that she valued the most,” she says at length, “the ones that made me a good partner, that made me strong—they were all that was left by the time she found me after the change. They were all Hunt. And I knew when she looked at me, when she pointed her gun at me, that she saw me. Not the Hunt, not some… monster. Me. But I don’t… know if she believes that it was really me.”

Daisy grimaces, like she’s not happy with the words. Carefully, giving Daisy time to stop him if she wants, Jon writes, You don’t know if she accepts that all the worst parts of yourself are still yours.

Daisy is quiet for a moment. “Something like that,” she says finally. “She… she said it wasn’t me. That the person she hunted through the apocalypse wasn’t me. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell her that it was. That it is. It feels like…” Daisy blows out a breath. “Basira’s good at compartmentalizing. It makes her a good partner, a good… hunter. But if I go with her to London, and she just… puts everything that happened during the change behind us, I don’t think things are going to last.” Daisy huffs out a laugh. “She’s stubborn. I like that about her. Can also make things… difficult.”

Jon laughs through his nose and writes, Yeah, Martin’s like that too sometimes. He hesitates, then continues, So what do you want to do?

Daisy studies his face for a moment. “What do you want me to do?” At his look of surprise, she continues, “I can see it on your face. You have an opinion, so just… spit it out. Write it down. Whatever.”

Jon scowls. I do not, he begins to write, before his hand stills, leaving the sentence incomplete. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and scratches the words out with a bit more force than is strictly necessary. Next to them, he writes in thick, dark lines, I want you to stay. Then, quickly after: But you should go with Basira.

Daisy reads the words and hums. “Why?”

Because she’s your partner, Jon writes, irritation and a strange sort of sadness mixing in him and twisting his lips into a grimace, and because she needs

“I meant,” Daisy says, bumping her knee against Jon’s to cut him off, “why do you want me to stay?”

Jon blinks at her, surprised. He looks down at the paper, holds the pen tightly for a moment, and then writes in careful, neat letters, Because I like you. Does there have to be another reason?

Daisy hums and, after a moment, shakes her head. “No. I guess not.” She bumps her knee against Jon’s again, a bit firmer this time. “Thanks. But you’re wrong, you know. About Basira.” Daisy looks at the kitchen again, where the sizzling has stopped and there’s the faint clattering of dishes. “She doesn’t need me. She’d be fine without me. Always has been.” She sighs. “And so would you.”

Jon nods and squeezes her hand. I know, he writes.

Daisy sighs again, leans her head back against the couch. “I think,” she says after a moment, “that… I have to do what’s right for me. Not me and Basira, just… just me.”

Jon is about to ask what that entails when Martin’s voice floats over from the kitchen, telling them that the food’s ready. Daisy doesn’t say anything more as she stands, snorting softly as her maintained grip on Jon’s hand pulls him to his feet as well, and together, they head into the kitchen.

The first half of the meal is spent in relative quiet. Basira keeps shooting looks at Martin, who returns her gaze with something firm and unyielding. Jon shifts in his chair and nibbles on his cheese toastie, trying very hard not to grab his pen and start tapping it on the table just to fill the tense, awkward silence between them all. Finally, Basira finishes her sandwich, looks at Martin again, sighs, and says, “Martin filled me in on what happened.” Then, at Martin’s glare: “What? I’m not talking about it. I’m just… acknowledging it.”

“Good,” Martin says, pinching his toastie just a bit too firmly between his fingers. “Because there’s not much to talk about. Which is why we agreed not to talk about it.”

Irritation washes over Jon, and he tries to squash it down. He can’t help the way his knee starts bouncing under the table though, and he takes a sullen bite of his toastie. Not much to talk about. Sure. For a moment, he entertains the thought of dropping the sandwich unceremoniously, grabbing his notebook, and scribbling out, Thanks for asking for my input before telling Basira your version of events and saying that there’s nothing to talk about, but he pushes the thought away and takes another, bigger bite to distract himself. It’s fine. Martin’s… Martin’s right, it’s not the time.

(He’s still upset that he didn’t even get the slightest say in the matter. It’s fine.)

Rationally, Jon knows that Martin is just trying to avoid what would probably turn out to be a long, spiraling, extremely upsetting conversation-turned-argument. Irrationally, he wants to push the words we’ve condemned a thousand realities to hell; are you happy now? into Basira’s face and watch her try to defend herself. Was it worth it? he wants to ask. Was it fucking worth it, just so you can have your happy ending?

He doesn’t ask. He knows what her answer will be, and he doesn’t want to hear it right now.

It’s fine.

“So,” Basira says, not so much breaking through his thoughts as driving a battering ram through them, “the Fears are gone. For good. And they took your voice with them.”

“Basira,” Martin hisses.

“Just making sure I’ve got all of my bases covered,” Basira says defensively.

Jon glares at his plate. He sets his sandwich down, suddenly no longer hungry. He takes a deep breath, looks up at Basira, and nods. His fingers itch towards his notebook; he keeps them still.

“Hm.” Basira taps a single finger on the edge of her plate. “That… that makes sense, I guess. What with Annabelle’s whole… thing.”

Jon’s stomach squeezes. Throat tight, he nods again, looking away. His eyes land on Daisy, who’s sitting beside him and watching Basira with something unreadable on her face. Her toastie is sitting on her plate in front of her, completely untouched. Then, stiffly, as if preparing herself for a difficult truth, Daisy says, “I... know a little bit of BSL. Picked it up back when I was still a PC. It’s not much, but… it’s something.”

Basira looks at Daisy, her finger stilling on the side of her plate. When she speaks again, it’s quiet, and she doesn’t sound surprised. “You’re not coming with me, then.”

“Sorry,” Daisy says roughly. “Just… need a bit of time. Soon, I promise, just…”

“… just not now,” Basira finishes. “It’s… all right. I understand. Honestly, with things the way that they are out there right now, it… it might be for the best. Just until things settle down.”

“Yeah.” Daisy picks at the edge of her toastie. “You’ll… be safe, though?”

Basira takes a deep breath, and when she lets it out, her lips settle into a smile, thin and bordering on humorless but still warm in its own way. “Always am.”

Daisy laughs a little, just an exhalation of air through her nose. “Right.”

It becomes clear that none of them plan to eat more, so Martin and Jon clear the plates and stack them in the sink while Daisy and Basira sit at the table. Basira says some things to Daisy in hushed tones, and Daisy responds under her breath, and Jon takes wet dishes from Martin and wipes them down with a towel and stares out the window into the darkened sky and focuses on the sensation of cloth under his fingertips so he doesn’t lose himself in the inky black swirling thoughts that are threatening to drag him down.

“Hey,” Martin says quietly by his side, letting their fingers brush as he hands him another dish. “You all right?”

No is probably the honest answer. Jon is sure that Martin can see it on his face even as he nods and busies himself drying the plate in his hands. To his eternal gratitude, Martin doesn’t push, even as his mouth flattens and he continues scrubbing the dishes in the sink with careful, methodical motions. Jon is sure that, at some point, something will crack and Martin will push. Push until it all breaks and shatters and crumbles into a million tiny, sharp pieces. But for now, Jon dries dishes and scratches his thoughts into the back pages of his notebook where they’ve begun to pile up into messy tangles of words and emotions and focuses on the fact that, when Basira leaves in the morning, Daisy will still be here.

That, for now, he thinks, will have to be enough.

#tma #the magnus archives #jaisy week #jonathan sims #daisy tonner #basira hussain #martin blackwood #my writing #my fic #before tag #4.2k... how did this chapter get so long ;___;

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chilling-seavey · 3 years ago

Text

Seasons Change (d.s.) - TWENTY-TWO

↳ A/N Y’all didn’t like that I left the last chapter so angsty and open-ended...I’m afraid to say this might not be the calm break or resolution you’re looking for...

↳ Summary: Everyone knows everything about everyone in this small rural town in east Connecticut and the handsome single father who owns the farm down the main street seems to always be the talk of the town. Balancing the care of his acreage, raising his school-age son, and coaching the local boys’ hockey team keeps Daniel busy; but his mind never strays far from the expansive and vibrant flower gardens planted outside his farmhouse.

↳ Word Count: 2755

↳ Warnings: This story touches on topics such as loss of loved ones and grief. Nothing too detailed but read at your own discretion x

As July was starting to progress, the potato crop was growing nicely. Daniel had to start to return to the fields almost bi-weekly to freshen the soil with fertilizer and tend to the plants. Despite the near tranquility that being the fields always seemed to bring Daniel, his mind was anywhere else.

Lennox was never a quiet boy but over the previous five days he barely uttered a word to Daniel – and especially not to Blythe. He spent his days over at Jonah’s or Jack’s to play with his friends or busied himself on the driveway with his hockey net and nothing else. Daniel tried to be patient and respectful to his son who obviously needed his time to go through this change but his sudden violent outburst at the previous hockey game was lingering in Daniel’s mind. The memory of Lennox’s fist swinging messily at the other boy’s face almost chilled him. He tried to talk to him, to sit down and see how he was feeling, but Lennox would always get up and walk right out without a look back.

Daniel’s patience was wearing thin.

He wondered how Blythe did it: keeping such a cool composure when she was so obviously the least favourite person of the eight-year-old of the house. Daniel never had to be this patient with his son before. He hardly recognised him anymore.

After Lennox rose his out-of-character personality over the prior few days, Daniel and Blythe kept their relationship quiet around him for his own sake. It was hard and things were tense but they were set on giving him time to process everything until he was ready to talk to Daniel. He would come around eventually.

Lennox was busy with his hockey net and road hockey stick on the driveway, practicing a few haphazard shots under the midday sun. His mind was blank, perfecting the art of pretending no one else existed, and focused on his shots on net. Daniel lingered on the front porch, watching him for a moment before he had to head out into the field. Lennox caught his eye from across the lawn but he looked away expressionlessly and slapped another sharp shot into the net.

With a sigh, Daniel stepped off the porch and went to find Blythe as she was busy bustling around the island gardens throughout the large property, leaving Lennox to his usual lingering silence.

Being the first few days of their relationship, Daniel and Blythe were still in that shy little honeymoon phase – only made difficult by Lennox’s hostility – and she blushed as his fingers danced up her back and over her shoulder as she worked in the gardens. He crouched down beside her.

“Hi.”

“Hello.” Blythe glanced over at him. “How’s it going?”

“Good. I’m going out to the fields but I thought I’d say hi first since there’s no one else to talk to in this house.”

Blythe smiled softly, “That’s true.”

They let the silence linger a moment before Daniel stood up again with a sigh and she followed him to her feet. His eyes found his son in the near distance and he set his hands on his hips in exasperation.

“You’re stressing yourself out, aren’t you?” Blythe pointed out gently.

“He’s stressing me out.” Daniel replied.

She chuckled lightly and slid her arms around his body, “Do I need to lock you two in a room together?”

“I dunno.” Daniel whispered as he stared back at her, dancing his fingers up her arms, “If you leave me alone with him, he might punch me in the face.”

They shared soft laughter, making the best of their situation, and he gently stroked the line of her jaw with his finger.

“Okay, get to work.” Blythe ordered lightheartedly and patted her hands against his back.

They both leaned in at the same time, sharing a quick kiss – or three – before they were letting go and stepping away from each other to get back to work. Lennox glared at them from where he had been watching from the driveway, near nausea stemmed from how upset he was bubbling up inside him. Daniel headed to the fields without another look to his son.

Lennox watched him walk away and then turned to Blythe who was wrists deep in soil once more. He never wanted anything more than he wanted her gone. He dropped his hockey stick to the ground and hurried off towards the barn before he could second guess that plan that flickered through his mind.

Around the back of the barn was the start of the fenced in pasture and he climbed the fence and hopped over the wood and onto the fresh green grass. The two horses were grazing across the pasture, tails flicking and perfectly content in the summer sun. Lennox had been raised around the horses – his parents had the horses around even before they had him after all – and they were just as much his pets as Sidney was and he was very comfortable around them.

Apollo and Venus were full grown horses and stood tall compared to the eight-year-old that approached them, shielding him from any on lookers – especially his father who was working in the fields a straight line of sight from the pasture. Lennox’s mind was whirling and he greeted the horses with gentle pets along their sides and they snorted pleasantly at him.

“You gotta help me get rid of Daddy’s new girlfriend, guys.” Lennox whispered to them, “We can’t let her take Mommy’s spot here, right?”

He took the flicks of their tails as agreement.

Lennox clicked his tongue and urged the horses to follow him towards the far gate at the end of the fenced in pasture. They followed the little boy obediently and as they reached the fence, Lennox stepped up onto the bottom wood slat to reach the clasp. He opened the gate and eased it open.

“Don’t go far, okay?” Lennox whispered to them and patted them each on the behind to urge them out of the pasture to run free. The two horses ran off quickly away from the property and Lennox hightailed it back towards the barn.

At eight-years-old, Lennox didn’t think much through and especially not when it came to the vast wilderness of crazy emotions he had been feeling since Blythe came to town. That being said, he didn’t think anything was wrong with his plan to blame the horses’ disappearance on Blythe (who was still busy working on the other side of the property).

“Daddy!” Lennox screamed as he ran over to the edge of the field.

Daniel, who had barely heard his son speak in days, looked up quickly from his work. The panic in the little boy’s voice nearly had his heart in his throat and he stood up among the growing potato plants to locate Lennox standing at the edge of the rows of crops.

“Daddy! Come quick!” Lennox shouted again.

Daniel dropped his tools and hurried through the rows of plants towards his son, asking worriedly, “What is it, Spud? What’s going on?”

“Blythe let the horses out!” Lennox said, pointing towards the empty pasture, “They’re gone!”

Daniel wasn’t a stupid man by any means and his little boy-who-cried-wolf didn’t necessarily have much on his side. He expected it to be a bit of a prank but, sure enough, the pasture gate was open and the two horses were nowhere to be seen. Daniel looked back down at his son who stood in front of him with a cunning little smile hinting behind his feigned concerned expression and the thin line of patience he had left simply snapped.

“What is wrong with you, Lennox Blake?”

Lennox’s face fell at his father’s sudden volume and the fact he called him by his real name.

“I have been so patient with you these last months but I am sick of your…your stunts you’re pulling here! You are eight-years-old! You know better than this!”

“I didn’t do it!” Lennox protested, his voice wavering, and he didn’t sound very convincing at all.

Daniel side stepped him and hurried for the barn to grab his line of rope and tack for the horses, still loudly scolding his son as he went, “I didn’t raise a liar and I didn’t raise a son who was this disgustingly rude to everyone! Your mother would be completely ashamed of you, Lennox.”

Lennox’s eyes brimmed with tears as he stood in the doorway of the barn, “You don’t listen to me!”

Daniel glared down at him as he slid his cowboy hat on, “I have been nothing but open with you and willing to talk and willing to listen and all you’ve done is act up. Breaking a Lego castle is one thing but letting out your mother’s horses is inexcusable. And for what? To blame Blythe who’s done nothing but respect you?”

Daniel hurried past him and out of the barn and Lennox rushed after him, desperate to have his father understand, screaming up at him as tears spilled down his cheeks, “I don’t want her here! I don’t want her in the gardens and I don’t want her in Mommy’s spot and I…I don’t want her kissing you!”

“You are my child, Lennox Blake. You are not my partner or my friend.” Daniel turned back to him quickly, “I was more than willing to have a grownup conversation about everything with you and maybe find a compromise but you are obviously too young to have any opinion in this matter.”

“I don’t want her taking you! I don’t want her here! Why don’t you listen to me?” Lennox shouted, hitting his hands against Daniel’s stomach.

“Because you’re being a brat!” Daniel retorted loudly, grabbing his son’s wrist with his free hand to keep him from hitting him again, “You are violent and rude and I don’t even know who you are! I don’t want to listen to a kid who acts like you do!”

“I don’t want her here! I don’t want you to kiss her!” Lennox screamed through his tears, voice breaking with his strong emotions that flowed through him. “I hate you!”

“Do you want to be benched for the next game, Lennox Blake Seavey? Keeping screaming at me!” Daniel yelled back.

“Mommy never would have brought someone else over here and kissed them! She’d never be mean like you!”

“If that’s what made Mommy happy then she would! There is so much that you don’t know, Lennox! So much you will not be told until you are older and so much you will never be told because that’s between Mommy and me and not you. Not everything is about you and especially not this. Get your nose out of grownup’s business!”

“I hate you!” Lennox ripped his hand from Daniel’s grasp.

“And I hate that you let your mother’s horse out of the pasture and now I have to go chase them down who knows where! You know how much Venus meant to her and you probably just made her very, very sad! You are one selfish little boy.”

“You’re selfish!” Lennox snapped back as Daniel started off towards the property line again. The eight-year-old grabbed at the back of Daniel’s shirt and yanked at him and threw a few weak punches against his back, trying to let out his anger. “I hate you! I wish you died instead!”

Daniel spun around and grabbed Lennox by the arm, the seriousness in his expression halting Lennox’s thrashing and he spoke loudly and firmly down to him, “You’re on the bench next game.”

“Daddy!” Lennox sobbed in protest, stomping his foot and trying to pull his hand from his snug grip.

“And you’re grounded for a week. Go to your room. Right now.” Daniel snapped.

“That’s not fair!” Lennox wailed.

“We need to end this attitude right now. I mean it, Lennox Blake. I’m sick of it. To your room. Now.” Daniel let him go and Lennox stomped off towards the house. Daniel called after him, “And you better pray to God and to your mother that these horses are found or it’s going to be a very long boring summer for you!”

The front door was slammed so loudly that it nearly echoed across the entire property. Blythe was standing by the gardens, having watched – and heard – the entire argument from where she stood but Daniel just turned and hurried off towards Jack’s house. She let him go.

Jack was working in his barn when Daniel hurried up the path.

“What do I owe the pleasure?” Jack asked with a smile, wiping his hands with a cloth as he stepped out to greet him.

The look on Daniel’s face was enough of an answer and Jack frowned in concern at the obvious anger that was flushed across his best friend’s cheeks.

“Lennox let the horses out. Can I borrow one of yours to go after them?” Daniel sighed.

“Shit. Yeah, do you want help?”

“Sure.” Daniel followed Jack into the barn and they each took one of Jack’s own horses and tacked them up.

They galloped off of Jack’s property and past Daniel’s and farther towards the vast expanse of empty land that laid beyond Lincoln to the north. Jack didn’t prod over Daniel’s obvious change in mood and they looked for his missing horses together in silence. The uncertainty of where they could even be had Daniel with a knot in his stomach; the two horses that Daniel and Marigold first bought while on their hunt for their dream farmhouse.

At least the ride through the warm afternoon sun was a way for Daniel to calm down and ease the hot anger that was still boiling inside him. He tried not to let the words that Lennox threw at him hurt him but they did. It was a daily thought to himself; wondering if he was even good at being a father on his own. He never doubted that Marigold could have pulled off the single-parent title but him? He felt like every day was a struggle. Especially now.

Thankfully, the two horses were spotted just beyond the forest line, still together and munching on wild grasses. Daniel readied his lasso just in case and cantered towards his horses, clicking his tongue to avoid startling them and managed to tack them each up with a simple lead. Jack took one for him and Daniel took the other as they made their way back towards town.

The silence still lingered between the two friends as they headed up the path on Daniel’s property and across to the barn. Daniel put his horses securely away and gave them each a pat before thanking Jack honestly.

“Of course.” Jack nodded, taking the lead for his second horse in hand, “Hang in there, okay?”

Daniel nodded stiffly and waved him off.

He returned to his house and moved slowly up the front porch and as he took off his boots. Blythe lingered at the end of the hallway.

“Horses are back.” he said.

“Good.” she sighed with relief. “Lennox is still in his room.”

“Thanks.” Daniel started up the stairs but stopped on the first one as the warm scent of food wafted across his senses, “Are you making dinner?”

“Just lasagna. Is that okay?”

“That’s great. Thank you.” Daniel said honestly, thankful to have an extra task taken care of for him.

He continued upstairs and down the hallway, knocking on his son’s bedroom door before opening it and he slid off his hat. Lennox was curled up on his bed facing away from the door and clutching his baby blanket to his chest.

“The horses are back.” Daniel said flatly.

There was no response.

“I expect an apology before the charity hockey game tomorrow or you won’t be coming to watch.”

Lennox draped his blanket over his head as if to shut him out.

“Did you talk to Mommy?”

Lennox nodded from under his blanket.

“Good.” Daniel lingered in the doorway for a moment, “I’ll bring you dinner when it’s ready.”

Lennox glanced back at him before he could close the door again, “Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

Lennox chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before finally mumbling a half-honest, “I’m sorry.”

Daniel let his eyes linger on his son and his tear streaked cheeks for a moment, looking just as innocent and sorrowful as he did as a toddler with a scraped knee and he nodded stiffly, “Thank you.”

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bubonickitten · 3 years ago

Text

Fic summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Full chapter text & content warnings below the cut.

Content warnings for Chapter 29: discussion of Jon’s & Daisy’s restrictive diets & associated physical/mental deterioration (and potential parallels with disordered eating etc.); arguing & relationship disputes (that are not immediately resolved in-chapter); self-harm (burning oneself with a lit cigarette); cigarette smoking; discussion of suicidal ideation; panic & anxiety symptoms; discussions of grief & loss; cyclical mental health issues (post-traumatic anniversary reactions; related self-loathing, internalized victim blaming, & survivor’s guilt; generally speaking, Jon’s relapsing into self-isolating, worse-than-usual headspace, esp towards the end of the chapter); depiction of parental neglect/rejection (Martin's mother). SPOILERS through S5.

There’s also a Hunt-themed statement that contains descriptions of indiscriminate violence & unprovoked warfare against a civilian population. Oh, and a cliffhanger.

Let me know if I missed anything!

_________________

“Statements ends,” Jon says, somewhat breathless as he fumbles to stop the recording.

“You alright?” Daisy asks.

“Fine.” The word is punctuated by a click and a whirr as the recorder resumes spooling.

“Are you, though?”

“Yes.” Scowling, Jon jabs his finger at the stop button – only for it to keep recording.

“It’s the Hunt, isn’t it.” Daisy sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. “Sorry it’s been so prominent for the last few. I’m… not quite scraping the bottom of the barrel yet, but–”

“It’s fine, Daisy.”

“Still, I–”

“I said it’s fine–!” Jon winces at his sharp tone. “I’m sorry, that was… I’m just – on edge, I suppose.”

Which is an understatement, really.

Because it’s September. It’s September, and after September is October, and October is–

Well. These days, he can’t even look at a calendar – can’t even look at the time and date on his phone – without icy dread coursing through his veins.

Sporadic flashbacks have become an everyday occurrence, set off by the smallest of stimuli: a dropped glass shattering on the breakroom floor becomes a window bursting inward into shards; a thunderstorm heralds a fissuring sky, marred by hundreds upon thousands of greedy, unblinking voyeurs; his own voice is a doomsday harbinger, a key crammed into a lock he can’t keep from unbolting. The memories are too immediate, too vivid to feel past-tense.

It’s to be expected. Studies, common knowledge, and anecdotal evidence all point to the impact of anniversaries on mental health. He knows what a textbook post-traumatic stress response looks like. Monster or not, in this particular sense he remains overwhelmingly human. No matter how much he rationalizes it, though, intellectually understanding a psychological phenomenon does little to soften the lived experience of it.

And it does nothing to temper the chilling knowledge – bordering on conviction – that it may happen again.

“Would be worrisome if you weren’t stressed out, considering… you know. Everything.” Daisy leans back in her chair, stretches her legs out in front of her, and rolls her shoulders. “Speaking of the Hunt. Any new developments?”

“I mean… nothing since yesterday? Everything I know, Basira knows.”

“Basira… isn’t keeping me updated,” Daisy says, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“Ah,” Jon says, with tact to spare. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

Daisy sighs. “She thinks that I think she’s wasting her time.”

“And do you?”

Daisy gives a jerky shrug. “Don’t you?”

“Not… necessarily,” Jon hedges. Truthfully, his answer to that question is as mercurial as his moods these days, shifting from hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute. Daisy gives him an unimpressed look. “I won’t lie and say I’m optimistic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.”

“You sound like Martin.”

“Well, he spent ample time drilling it into me,” Jon says with a wry smile. “I don’t have the same capacity for hope as he does, but improbable doesn’t mean impossible. If I’d had it my way, I’d have lain down and died ages ago. I’m only here now because of him.”

“Mental health check,” Daisy says automatically.

“Not thinking of hurting myself,” Jon replies, just as rote. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I’ve told you, I’m physically incapable of killing myself even if I wanted to.”

“That doesn’t stop you brooding.”

“Anyway, I wasn’t referring to anything recent.”

“Weren’t you, though?” At his blank look, Daisy gives an impatient sigh. “It hasn’t even been a year since you woke up, Sims. Up until six months ago, you were wandering an apocalyptic wasteland–”

“…I found myself utterly alone. Facing down a room full of nothing eyes, willing myself to take action. I never did, though–”

“–I wanted to act, to help, to do something, but – my mind had all but seized up, and I felt helpless to do anything but watch as events progressed–”

“–there was nothing I could do to save him – he died – so did any hope I had of – doing good in the world–”

“–there’s a sort of numbness that you adopt after months or years of bombing–”

“–I did spend a lot of time just… slumped in despair – had no reason to think it would help, but I could see no choice but waiting for death–”

“–hoping against hope that – it wouldn’t be forever–”

“Hey!” Daisy’s voice finally breaks through the rush of static. Or perhaps it was the pressure: Jon looks down to see her bony fingers caging his own in a bruising grip.

“Sorry,” he says, catching himself as he starts to list woozily.

“Not to say ‘I told you so,’ but…” Daisy gives his hands another light squeeze. “You sort of just proved my point there.”

“I’m well aware that I’m – traumatized, or whatever–”

“Not ‘or whatever’–”

“–but I’m not a danger to myself, so could we please just move on?” Jon mumbles, averting his eyes. “You wanted a Hunt update.”

Daisy scrutinizes him for a long moment before she allows the conversational pivot to stand.

“Basira said you’ve heard back from that Head Librarian,” she says, “but she blew me off when I started prying.”

“Zhang Xiaoling,” Jon says, his shoulders relaxing. “She was able to confirm some of Jonah’s intel. They do have a statement about a book matching that description in their records, and she agreed to forward a copy once it’s been digitized. They’re further along in their digitization process than we are–”

Daisy snorts. “Probably because they’re actually working on it.”

“That, and they have the benefit of a Head Librarian who actually has a background in archival studies,” Jon says drily. “In any case, they have a large archive, so it’s a work in progress. She’s processed our inquiry, though, and she says she has someone on it. We should hear back by tomorrow at the latest.”

“Huh,” Daisy says. “Sounds…”

“Like a functioning archive?”

“I was going to say ‘streamlined,’ but sure.”

“The wonders of a hiring process that prioritizes job qualifications as opposed to a candidate’s apocalyptic potential.”

“What are the chances their institution is also led by a centuries-old corpse with a god complex?”

“Non-zero, I imagine.”

Daisy wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, don’t say that.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have evidence one way or the other.”

“It doesn’t. Does she know about…” Daisy waves her hand vaguely. “All of this? The Fears, Rituals… Jonah?”

The question gives Jon pause. He thinks back to his meeting with Xiaoling all those years ago – well, last June, from her perspective.

“Some of it, I think,” he says slowly. “She seemed familiar with some of the Archivist’s abilities. There were parts of my visit that struck me as odd at the time. I didn’t realize until later that she had been speaking both Chinese and English at different points in our conversation.”

Daisy frowns. “She didn’t clue you in?”

“She didn’t, no. But…”

Elias made a good choice, the Librarian’s voice echoes in Jon’s mind. I did offer him someone, but he thought the language might be too much for him.

It does tickle me, Jonah’s voice chimes in, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose.

“I don’t know if she’s aware of Elias’ true identity.” Jon swallows with some difficulty, his mouth suddenly dry. “Or his intentions.”

“So is it really smart to trust her?”

“If she’s in communication with him, there’s nothing she can tell him that he doesn’t already know. We’re just following up on information he gave us. And he’s likely spying on our correspondence whether she’s in contact with him or not. Not much we can do about that.”

“She could have her own ulterior motives,” Daisy says.

“True enough, but… I got the sense that her primary interest is curation. Studying phenomena, building a knowledge base–”

“In service to cosmic evil,” Daisy says pointedly.

“W-well, yes, but – I don’t think she has delusions of godhood herself, and I don’t think Jonah has tempted her with the idea.” Jon huffs to himself. “He wouldn’t want to share his throne.”

“Hm.”

“I’m not saying we trust her or the Research Centre as a whole. I had reservations about their motives then and I still do. It’s not unthinkable that they’re a front for something more sinister in the same way that the Institute is. But… I don’t think there’s any especial danger in utilizing their library.”

“Sims,” Daisy sighs, “your danger meter is broken beyond repair.”

“In my defense,” Jon says, bracing one arm on the desk to leverage himself to his feet, “at this point, everything is just differing degrees of dangerous.”

As the two of them leave the tunnels, Jon’s phone buzzes in his pocket. When he glances at the screen, he sees a text notification from Naomi – in addition to two missed calls. He frowns to himself. The two of them text regularly, but she rarely calls.

“What’s up?” Daisy asks, her brow furrowing in concern.

“Naomi,” Jon says distractedly, already returning the call. Naomi picks up on the first ring.

“Jon?” Naomi’s voice sounds thick and tear-clogged.

A cold weight settles in Jon’s stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“I j-just” – Naomi pauses to clear her throat – “just needed to hear a familiar voice.”

“What happened?” Jon asks – and realizes too late that in his urgency to discover the source of her distress, he’s poured too much of himself into the question.

“Nothing.” What starts out as a self-deprecating little laugh quickly deteriorates into a half-sob. “Nothing new, anyway. It’s always like this, this time of year. Evan and I didn’t have an exact date planned, but we’d talked about an autumn wedding. Thought it would be fitting, since we met in September, you know? Tomorrow is our anniversary, actually. Or – or it would’ve been. A-and then by the time I’ve picked myself back up, the holidays will have crept up on me, and that’s always hard, and – and then before I know it, it’s March, a-and that’s its own kind of anniversary, and it’s just… it’s a lot.”

“Oh, I – Naomi, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s fine,” she says with a sniff. “Don’t think I would’ve been able to get it all out, otherwise.”

“S-still, I–”

“It’ll be three years this March. And it still feels like it was yesterday. I spend six months out of the year feeling like I’m still stumbling through that cemetery, and I just…”

This time last year, Jon thinks with a lurch, I was still the monster in her nightmares.

And even now, he still pulls her there whenever they’re both asleep.

“When does that stop?” Naomi laughs again, a desperate, pleading thing. “When does the healing come in?”

“I… I don’t know,” Jon says truthfully. “Anniversaries are… they’re hard enough on their own. It doesn’t help that… well, it’s difficult to heal from something when you’re still living it.”

“What do you mean? Evan’s dead,” Naomi says, her voice breaking on the word. “He’s not coming back. It’s… it’s over.”

“There are still the dreams. The narrative might have changed, but the stage dressing is still the same.” Jon draws his shoulders in, one arm pressed tight to his stomach. “Keeping the memory fresh.”

“It’s not so bad.” Naomi sniffles again. “Better than being alone.”

“‘Alone’ or ‘nightmares’ shouldn’t be your only options.”

“I have my own nightmares, you know,” Naomi counters, sounding slightly annoyed. “When I’m asleep and you’re not. And they’re worse, because in them, I actually am alone. Nothing supernatural about it. It’s just… me.” She sighs. “This time last year – and the year before – I didn’t have anyone. And I just… I didn’t – I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not,” Jon says. “Not anymore.”

“I – I know, but I…” Naomi takes a breath. “I was… I was thinking – maybe tomorrow I could come by.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says gently, “truly I am – but it’s not safe. Especially for you, especially right now. Not with Peter here.”

Naomi is already the equivalent of an unfinished meal to the Lonely. That, together with her association with Jon, is more than enough to mark her as a potential target should Peter take notice of her.

“Feels safer than being alone,” Naomi says. “The Duchess helps – a lot – but I…” She lets out a fond but tearful chuckle. “I can’t expect her to grasp the nuances of… grief, or loneliness, or what have you.”

“How about this,” Jon says. “We tell Georgie what’s going on – as much or as little as you’d like, even if it’s as simple as ‘I don’t want to be alone right now.’ I doubt she’d be opposed to having you over.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose. I mean, I – I’ve not spent much time with her outside of just… spamming the group chat with cat photos. I like her, but she’s your friend. I’m just… a friend of a friend.”

Nestled between the words is a familiar sentiment, unarticulated and nonetheless resounding, echoing all of the earnest conviction it had when first she made such a confession: All my friends had been his friends, and once he was gone it didn’t feel right to see them. I know, I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded, they would have said they were my friends too, but I could never bring myself to try. It felt more comfortable, more familiar, to be alone…

“People can have more than one friend,” Jon says. “I can’t speak for Georgie, but she wouldn’t go out of her way to talk to you if she didn’t like you.”

Indeed, that might be the reason Jon was able to open up to Georgie in the first place. He observed early on that she had no qualms disengaging from people whom she had no interest in getting to know. Whatever Jon might have felt about himself on any given day, the simple fact of the matter was that Georgie would never have let him get so close if she hadn’t seen something redeeming in him.

And she likely wouldn’t be letting him stay close now if she didn’t still see something worth salvaging.

“It’s up to you, of course,” he says. “I won’t pressure you. But I think Georgie would be more receptive to friendship than you expect. And I think – I think you’d get along with Melanie, too.” Naomi is silent on the other end of the line. “At the risk of overstepping, I… I know being alone feels like the natural state of things, but it doesn’t have to be. If you want, I can talk to Georgie. Lay the groundwork. I won’t give her any of the details – it’s not my story to tell – I’ll just let her know that you’re feeling alone and could use some companionship.”

“Okay,” Naomi whispers. “Just… let her know she’s not obligated.”

“I will. On the extremely off chance she says no, or if she’s busy tomorrow, I can keep you company remotely. We can spend the whole day holding up the office landline if you want.”

“It’s a Friday.”

“And?”

“It’s a work day?”

“Naomi, my job is wholly comprised of monologuing to any tape recorder that manifests within a six-foot radius and doing my utmost to render my department as counterproductive to both the Institute’s professed and clandestine organizational objectives as humanly or inhumanly possible.” Naomi barks out a startled laugh. “I won’t be fired no matter what I do – which is a shame, seeing as it became my foremost professional development goal somewhere between finding out my boss murdered my predecessor and virtually dying in an explosion at a haunted wax museum. Barring a sudden and unexpected apocalyptic threat – which, admittedly, is unlikely but not unthinkable– I’ve already cleared my non-existent schedule for you.”

“Okay.” Naomi makes a sound somewhere between a sniffle and a chuckle. “Thanks. Really.”

“Any time.”

_________________

The statement is an unnerving, circuitous thing: a firsthand account from an unnamed member of the Drake-Norris expedition in 1589. In many ways, it’s eerily similar to the last statement Jon accessed from Pu Songling’s archives: Second Lieutenant Charles Fleming’s shellshocked, guilt-fueled confession of atrocities committed under orders.

The historical record is rife with accounts of Francis Drake’s cruelty, Jon knows: his role in the transatlantic slave trade, the unprovoked massacres committed in his name, the preemptive strikes that incited further bloodshed. The statement giver speaks in awestruck horror of the bloodlust lurking in the man’s eyes, the vitriolic fervor with which he undertook his campaign to seek out and destroy the remnants of the Spanish fleet – and the depths of his rage when his efforts ended in defeat. Humiliated, he turned his vengeful eye to the Galician estuaries.

The writer tells plainly of his own complicity in the sacking of Vigo, razing the town to the ground and slaughtering its inhabitants with indiscriminate zeal. For four days Drake’s men carried out their rampage, retreating only when reinforcements arrived to stem the tide.

“You may ask yourself,” the Archivist reads on, “how it is that a man born into the reign of Good Queen Bess sits before you today, some four centuries past his due?

“You see, as we left the shores of Galicia that day, I heard from behind us a vicious braying, as if someone had set loose a great host of hounds. They were close – close enough for me to sense their stinking breath hot on the back of my neck. Such a thing was impossible, for we were by that time far from shore, having already rowed half the distance between the beach and the waiting armada. That did not stop me dreading the dogs lunging and tearing into me at any moment.

“I am not ashamed to admit that I let out a whimper.

“As the seconds ticked by and the pack failed to descend upon us, my curiosity grew to outweigh my terror. I turned to look – and was thus ensnared. It was, I realize now, the instant at which I became beholden to the blood. My greatest folly.

“Perhaps I oughtn’t have been so surprised to see no hounds surging toward us atop the waves, but you must understand that the proximity of their snarling was far more convincing than their visual absence. In looking behind us, though, I was able to appreciate the havoc we left in our wake: the great plumes of ash rising from the smoldering rubble, backlit by a flickering orange glow, and wails of despair so profound as to combat the noise of the wind, the waves – even the discordant shrieking of the hounds.

“It was a scene of such devastation as I had never seen before or since. Looking back, I think upon the acrid stench of charred flesh on the breeze with horror and… indescribable remorse. It shames me now to admit that at that time, I had never felt such… rapture.

“That was when a motion caught my eye. Between the distance and the billowing smoke, it should have been impossible to discern such detail, yet there he was: quarry I had left for dead, emerging from the debris and staggering away from the ruins of his… wretched life. As he looked out to behold our retreat, I could see the grief playing on his face, the fury, the fear – but what most set my blood to boiling was the spark of relief I saw in his eyes.

“It awakened something in me – a famished and merciless thing, composed of tooth and claw and a mind beginning and ending and utterly encompassed by the call of the pack. With a roaring in my ears and a single-minded violence supplanting my sensibilities, I deserted the rowboat and swam to shore. A chorus of howls carried me forward, and I let them be my wings, steering me down the swiftest, straightest path to my target.

“I slowed for nothing, and I made certain my prey did not live through the night.

“As you can likely guess, the chase did not end there. Those baying devils who had so called me forth continued to hound my steps, nipping at my heels, spurring me ever onward to the next quarry. Those who once knew me would scarcely have recognized what I became. Whenever I dared look into a mirror, I would see in myself a dogged, seething violence so akin to that which had lived in the eyes of my former commander. A cruelty that once had frightened and repulsed me had become the blood and breath of me.

“For a time I sought to refrain from the chase. The longer I refused the call, the weaker I became. The hounds’ breath on my neck grew hotter; their braying swelled louder. I found myself wasting away: always hungry, never sated. Eventually my faculties began to slip. I would lose myself to such… bestialimpulses, and only the stain of blood on my teeth would return to me my reason. It pains me to confess to you now that it did not take long before I ceased my resistance entirely.

“It was at the turn of the sixteenth century that I happened upon the artefacts now in your possession. Their previous owner was a formidable adversary. I spent nearly a fortnight tracking him before I managed to run him down, and he fought like a tempest before he fell.

“Ordinarily I did not linger after a kill, instinct hastening me ever onward to the next great game. As I turned to leave, though, I was overcome by the sense that the hunt was… unfinished. Troubled, I reached down to check the man’s pulse. I was reassured to find him quite dead, but as I drew back, I noticed the brooch.

“It was a simple thing made of tarnished copper, fashioned into an incomplete ring, the ends of which resembled the heads of dogs. The moment my fingers brushed that ornament, I knew it was meant for me. It went into my pocket with nary a conscious thought.

“The itch of the hunt was still crawling down my spine, though; the frantic snuffling of phantom hounds yet filling the air all around me. I continued to search his person until I found what was calling out to me: a thin volume bound in leather. Curiosity ever my folly, I opened it.

“Up until that point, I had never learned to read nor write Latin with any degree of mastery. Yet I could understand the text within with perfect clarity. The script did not transform to English before my eyes, nor did the book render me proficient in the language. No, I simply… beheld the pages, and the meaning flowed into me.

“The story tells of Herla, legendary king of the Britons, who visits the dwarf king’s realm. Upon leaving, he is gifted a hound and warned not to dismount his horse until the dog leaps down. When Herla and his men return to the human world, they discover that not days but centuries have passed: all those they had known have long since perished, and the Saxons have taken possession of the land. In their distress, some of the men dismount, whereupon they turn to dust. Herla warns the survivors to stay in their saddles, to wait until the dog leaps down.

“‘The dog has not yet alighted,’ the author tells us, ‘and the story says that this King Herla still holds on his mad course with his band in eternal wanderings, without stop or stay.’

“The next several pages are unreadable. The language resembles none I have ever encountered, and I have yet to find a soul who can decipher it. I can however attest its hypnotic qualities. I have spent many hours mired in those words, but I could not for the life of me tell you what I saw there. Others to whom I presented the text found themselves either enthralled or agitated, though none could recall such episodes once lucidity returned to them. I expect you mean to unravel its secrets, but you may do well to let its mystery stand.

“The final passage – a single page, this written in English – tells of Herla’s escape: how, weary and driven to despair, he casts the dog from the saddle and into the River Wye. The instant the hound hits the water, Herla and his band crumble into dust, at last meeting the same fate they spent so many hundreds of years trying to outpace.

“I have had hundreds of years of my own since first reading the tale to digest its message, and that is why I come to you today. Although I have killed several times since these items came into my possession – it should come as no surprise that there are those who covet them – I have not sought out a single hunt since I vanquished the man who yielded me these trinkets. The hounds at my heel have not ceased their clamoring, but so long as the brooch is on my person, they cannot sink their teeth in me. I am always hungry, yes – but I am no longer starving.

“But I am also weary. I have come to understand that even as the hounds can never catch me, they will never leave me. In my four hundred years, I have played the role of both the hunter and the hunted, and have learned that they share the same ultimate plight. Whether I be predator or prey, I am trapped in the throes of an endless pursuit. So long as I should live, my blood shall never quiet.

“And that is the key: so long as I should live. Even now, the fervor in my blood insists that the hunt is eternal, but I know now that one cannot outrun one’s end forever. Much like my constant, howling companions, Death will always be nipping at my heels. In that sense, he is perhaps the ultimate hunter. Just as I have delivered to him so many souls, neither can I escape his judgment. If ever I am to rest, I must bow to his supremacy.

“And so, like Herla, I shall cast the dog away from the saddle. I leave it in your care now, and the book. I should be so lucky to exit this life with the dignity I denied so many others, though I fear I shall be found undeserving of such a swift end. I can only hope that, whatever my comeuppance should be, I shall have the grace to accept it without complaint.”

With a heavy exhale, Jon depresses the stop button on the recorder, then puts his head in his hands, putting pressure on his closed eyes.

“You alright?” Basira asks.

“More than I’d like,” Jon mutters.

“If I thought there was any chance this guy was still alive, I wouldn’t have given you the statement to read.”

“I know. Just…” Jon waves his hand vaguely.

“Unpleasant, yeah.”

And rejuvenating, Jon thinks bitterly. It’s only been a few days since his last statement from Daisy, and already he had begun to feel famished.

“They sent along some supplemental records,” Basira says, rifling through printouts. “The statement is cross-referenced with two objects in their Collections Storage – here.”

The document she slides across the desk contains two catalog listings:

Item No. 9820702-1

Description: Pennanular brooch, copper alloy. Geometric and interlace motifs. Confronted zoomorphic terminals (canine profile). Moderate surface oxidization and patination. Dimensions: 5.5cm x 4.5cm body; 12.5cm pin. Artefact dated ca. 500–700 CE.

Properties: Primary subject (Case No. 9820702) reports mediating effect on the Hunter’s affliction (unverified). Item implicated in subject’s alleged abnormal longevity (unverified). Further study suggests dormancy and/or lack of reactivity to unafflicted subjects (see associated Investigation Log).

Storage: Special Collections – Inorganic Storage, Container Unit No. 982-05. Acid-free board housing, etherfoam packing. Environmental parameters in brief: maintain stable temperature (16-20°C); relative humidity, 32-35%; light levels, <300 lux. Handling protocols as per Acquisitions & Collections Policies and Procedures §3.5.3: Artefact Preservation – Metals – Copper and Copper Alloys.

Access: Upon request. Curator approval required prior to initial visit. Applicants may submit statement of intent to Acquisitions & Collections Department Head Curator for clearance. Terms, procedures, and degree of supervision subject to Curator’s discretion.

Provenance: Surrendered 2nd July, 1982 upon receipt of accompanying statement (Case No. 9820702), subject name unknown. See also Item No. 9820702-2.

Appendices:

· Investigation Log No. 9820702-1;

· Supplemental Documents Nos. 9820702-1.01 through -1.03.

Cross-reference:

· Case No. 9820702;

· Item No. 9820702-2;

· Acquisitions & Collections Catalog §3.6.4: Antiquities – Adornments and Jewelry (Inert).

Item No. 9820702-2

Description: Bound manuscript. Front and back covers unembellished leather (source undetermined) stretched over wood board (source undetermined). Leather cord binding (calf, bovine). Paper and parchment leaves. Ink corrosion and paper degradation present but minimal (fair condition inconsistent with age and media). Dimensions: 8.8cm x 14.0cm x 2.5cm. Artefact dated ca. 1190–1450 CE.

Contents: Eighteen (18) pages total, one-sided.

· Title page (1) iron gall ink on parchment (sheepskin): Gualterius Mappus – De nugis curialium – xi. De Herla rege

· Pages two (2) through four (4) iron gall ink on paper (hemp pulp, linen fiber): Medieval Latin (ca. 12th century) script.

· Pages five (5) through sixteen (16) ink (chemical composition undetermined) on paper (cotton fiber): alphabetic script (unknown roots); refer to Supplemental Document No. 9820702-2.03 for comparative linguistic analysis (inconclusive).

· Page seventeen (17) ink (chemical composition undetermined) on paper (cotton fiber): Middle English (ca. 15th century) script.

· Page eighteen (18) parchment (sheepskin): blank.

Transcripts and translations (where possible) provided in Supplemental Document No. 9820702-2.01*.

Properties: Primary subject (Case No. 9820702) reports total comprehension of Latin portions of the text despite lack of proficiency. Text alleged to diverge from source material (De nugis curialium – Map, Walter, fl. 1200). Both claims verified upon further examination (see associated Investigation Log). Probable association with the Hunter’s affliction.

Storage: Special Collections – Secure Storage. Environmental parameters in brief: maintain temperature at 20-22°C; relative humidity, 32-36%; light levels, ≤50 lux. Housing and handling protocols as per Acquisitions & Collections Policies and Procedures §2.5.5: Document Preservation – Premodern Inks – Iron Gall and §9.2: Special Precautions – Occult and Esoteric Texts.

Access: Restricted.

Provenance: Surrendered 2nd July, 1982 upon receipt of accompanying statement (Case No. 9820702), subject name unknown. See also Item No. 9820702-1.

Appendices:

· Investigation Log No. 9820702-2;

· Supplemental Documents Nos. 9820702-2.01* through -2.07;

· Incident Report No. 9930214.

Cross-reference:

· Case No. 9820702;

· Item No. 9820702-1;

· Acquisitions & Collections Catalog §2.1.1: Archival Media – Occult Books (Active);

· Interdepartmental Bulletin No. 9941002, “The Library of Jurgen Leitner: Lessons Learned.”

*Addendum, 16th February, 1993:Supplemental Document No. 9820702-2.01 reclassified as Restricted Access. Direct all inquiries to Pu Songling Research Library Head Librarian or Acquisitions & Collections Department Head Curator.

“So?” Basira prods. “What do you make of it?”

“Well, assuming the statement is a reliable account, it seems…”

“Promising, right?” Basira says, her eagerness tinted with relief. “If we can–”

She stops abruptly as the tape recorder on the table clicks back on.

“I think that’s our cue to move this conversation elsewhere,” Jon says.

Not that it will stop the tape recorders from listening in, but he has no desire to make Jonah’s surveillance any easier for him.

_________________

It takes some hemming and hawing, but Jon manages to convince Basira that this really ought to be a group discussion. As she recaps the statement and shares her own remarks, Jon keeps a close eye on the other two people in the room. Martin is listening attentively, leaning forward slightly but otherwise at ease. Daisy, though… she’s all corded muscles and jittery legs, taut and precarious on the edge of her seat.

All the while, Basira appears impervious to the storm brewing in Daisy’s eyes, even as Martin catches on and begins chewing on the inside of his cheek, darting nervous glances between the two of them. By the time Basira finishes her overview, the tension in the air is palpable, nearly electric.

For several seconds, no one speaks.

“So,” Martin says, his voice a bit pitchy. He clears his throat before continuing. “Magical, Fear-resistant brooch, huh?”

“It wouldn’t be unheard of,” Jon says. “Remember what I told you about Mikaele Salesa?”

“The apocalypse-proof bubble? Yeah.”

“That camera of his didn’t just protect him from the Eye, it hid him from the Powers in general.”

“What was the catch?” Daisy asks pointedly. “Got to be a catch.”

“Does there?” Martin asks. His hesitant smile falls at Daisy’s blank stare, and he tilts his head back with a sigh. “Yeah, alright.”

“It’s… not entirely benign, no,” Jon says. “In Salesa’s statement, he called it a ‘battery’–”

“–charging itself on all the quiet worries that come from living in hiding, and then when the sanctuary collapses, all that fear flows out at once. No doubt, if my oasis breaks before I die, the Eye will get quite the feast from me, but in this new world–”

“That’s enough of that, I think,” Martin says, resting a hand on Jon’s arm.

Jon bites his tongue, shuts his eyes, and takes a deep breath in, only daring to speak once the tingling on his lips subsides. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” Martin offers him a reassuring smile. “Just didn’t want you getting bogged down.”

“That’s one term for it,” Jon says, not quite under his breath. It’s true enough, though. Sometimes it feels like the Archive is pressed up against the door, watching for the tiniest crack, waiting for any opportunity to surge through and drag him under. Lately, Martin has grown uncannily adept at sensing when to interrupt these lapses before they spiral out of control – likely because they’ve been growing more frequent.

“That’s what I thought,” Daisy says. Puzzled at the apparent non-sequitur, Jon glances at her, but she isn’t looking at him. All of her attention is focused on Basira. “This thing is probably the same. It’s not some… some harmless miracle solution. If we mess around with it, it’s bound to blow up in our faces sooner or later.”

“I’m… not sure about that, actually,” Jon says. “The brooch didn’t free the Hunter, it just made it so he couldn’t be caught. I think that’s what it was feeding on – the Hunter’s gradual awareness that he was no different from the hunted, that sensation of being perpetually stalked from the shadows by a greater predator. It spent centuries charging itself on that fear, and it culminated in the realization that he would never escape it. He would always be waiting for the axe to fall, and Hunt was happy to keep him as perpetual prey. If he wanted the chase to end, he had to give up the artefact – and once it was no longer keeping him in stasis, he had a choice to make.”

“Go back to hunting, or let it catch him.” Daisy breathes a humorless laugh. “The Hunt, or the End.”

“But it would keep you alive,” Basira says. “It would buy us time to find a way to free you for real.”

“What about the Leitner?” Martin asks. “That’s what Jonah sent us after in the first place.”

“Turns out it’s not actually from Leitner’s library,” Jon says. “No bookplate, and it seems the statement giver had it in his possession since the 1500s. It’s… difficult to tell from the statement whether it had any significant effect on him. He called it ‘hypnotic,’ but he was already a Hunter by the time he found it. I imagine it might have different effects on someone not already under the Hunt’s influence.”

“He sort of alluded to that.” Basira takes a moment to peruse the statement, running her finger along the page until she finds the relevant line. “Here – they ‘found themselves either enthralled or agitated.’ A bit obscure, but… he says it like it’s an afterthought. If it outright turned anyone into a Hunter, he probably would’ve said so.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous,” Daisy says.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Basira replies coolly. “The record references a transcript, so I assume they had someone read it at some point. And it also mentions an incident report.”

“What was the incident?” Martin asks.

“Don’t know,” Basira says. “They didn’t provide any of the supplemental documentation, just the catalogue listing and the statement itself. But they acquired the book in ‘82 and didn’t make the transcript restricted until ‘93, so… either it was dormant when they first studied it and became active later, or they didn’t study it closely enough to activate its effects, or it doesn’t affect everyone the same way, or – or maybe their workplace safety guidelines just changed and they decided not to risk studying it anymore.”

“Jonah did say something about its effects varying depending on how much of it a person reads, right?” Martin asks. “Though who knows where he got that from.”

“There might be some truth to that,” Basira says. “The catalogue entry does describe what’s on the title page, so I’m assuming that part at least is safe. I’m most curious about the untranslated chunk in the middle.”

And I’m a universal translator, Jon thinks, fidgeting with the drawstring of his hoodie. Basira’s eyes flick to him, as if reading his mind.

“I… suppose I could–”

“No,” Martin and Daisy say simultaneously.

Jon scowls. “You didn’t even let me finish the–”

“You threw yourself into the Buried – twice – to save me,” Daisy says severely. “You can’t keep sacrificing yourself at every opportunity.”

“I wouldn’t be–”

“What, re-traumatizing yourself by reading a Leitner?” Jon shuts his mouth, pressing his lips tightly together. “It’s not worth it, Sims.”

“Daisy,” Basira begins, but Daisy cuts her off.

“No. I’m not having him throw himself to the wolves just because you’re curious.”

Basira flinches, hurt momentarily crossing her face before her expression goes stony.

“You really think that’s what this is about?” she says, her voice shaking. “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake? Me being curious?”

“You can’t tell me you’re not,” Daisy says, and then her expression softens. “And I love that about you, I do – you’re brilliant, Basira – and driven, and passionate, and…” She sighs. “But sometimes… sometimes you need to let things go.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jon notices Martin cross and uncross his legs, his lower lip captured between his teeth. When Jon catches his eye, Martin jerks his chin minutely at Basira and Daisy, a grimace on his face. All Jon can offer is a helpless, equally awkward shrug. Near as he can tell, Basira and Daisy seem to have momentarily forgotten that they have an audience, and judging from their locked eyes and thunderous expressions, he doubts either of them would appreciate a reminder right this second.

“Let you go, you mean,” Basira says tersely. “When you say ‘it’s not worth it,’ what you really mean is that you’re not worth it.”

“Well, I’m not.”

The cavalier tone is the last straw, it seems.

“Why won’t you just let me help you?” Basira slams her hand down on the rickety table, straining its wobbly legs. “You’re just so ready to–” She lets out a frustrated groan. “You never used to give up this easily.”

“Maybe should’ve done,” Daisy says flatly. “Might’ve lowered my body count.”

“Giving up Hunting doesn’t have to mean giving up on living,” Basira says. “I might have finally found an alternative, and you won’t even consider–”

“I’m not doing anything that’s going to hurt someone, and that includes exposing Jon to a fucking Leitner.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Jon mutters testily, the friction finally getting the better of his nerves. “Don’t I get a say?”

“No, you don’t,” Daisy says, rounding on him. Now that all of her brimming agitation is funneled in his direction, he regrets saying anything at all. “Because lately, whenever I ask you if you want to hurt yourself, the best you can give me is ‘it doesn’t matter because I can’t die anyway.’”

“Jon?” Martin says urgently, his eyebrows drawing together.

“Th-that’s not what I–”

“You’re not thinking rationally,” Daisy speaks over Jon’s stammering. “You’re thinking like a condemned man with a rope around his neck and something to prove, and I’m not going to be the noose you use to hang yourself with.”

“Will you listen to yourself?” Basira says heatedly. “You get on my case about double standards–”

“That’s enough!” Martin bursts out. “This isn’t helping. Daisy’s right, Jon. You’re not going anywhere near that book – I don’t want to hear it,” he adds before Jon can retort. “Not now, anyway. We’ll talk later. But Basira’s right, too,” Martin says, turning his attention to Daisy. “You can’t make amends by dying, and you can’t do better going forward if you’re not alive to try.”

“Who says I deserve a chance?” Daisy says.

“Whatever you think you ‘deserve’” – Martin gives Jon a meaningful glance as he says it – “you’ve got a chance, and people who want to help you through it, and you ought to consider that before you assume you’d do more good dead than alive.” He exhales a sharp breath. “Anyway, forget the Leitner, and forget what Jonah said about it. The brooch seems like the more promising option here.”

“I agree,” Jon says, cowed. “Between the book and the brooch, the statement giver credited the latter with keeping the Hunt at bay. And perhaps my bias is showing, but truthfully I – I’m not inclined to see those books as anything but tragedies waiting to happen.”

“What’s the difference?” Daisy says flatly. “It took a decade for something bad enough to happen for them to make the Leitner’s transcript restricted. The brooch could be just as much of a time bomb. Just because it doesn’t have any ‘incidents’ connected with it now doesn’t mean it never will.”

She isn’t wrong. Looking back, Jon had found it infuriating that Leitner would continue meddling with the books even after he witnessed the horror they wrought, all while claiming to have learned from his hubris. Just because this particular artefact isn’t a book doesn’t make it any less ominous.

And yet…

“I think it’s already shown its more sinister side,” Jon says slowly.

“You think,” Daisy scoffs.

“It doesn’t give a Hunter strength, it makes them perpetual prey. It… won’t be pleasant for you, I’m sure,” Jon admits, “but Basira’s right – it could keep you alive while we search for a better solution.”

“There might not be a better solution,” Daisy says stubbornly.

“Which is what I said before you browbeat me into taking statements from you,” Jon counters.

“I didn’t browbeat–” Jon raises his eyebrows. Daisy gives a flustered groan. “It’s just – it’s different, okay?”

Much as Jon wants to disagree, he knows better than to argue. They’d only end up talking in circles.

“I think it’s an avenue worth pursuing,” he says. “Given the alternatives.”

“Please, Daisy,” Basira says. “Just… consider it, at least.”

The for me remains unspoken, but Jon can hear it loud and clear. As can Daisy, it seems – the defiant set to her jaw falters for a moment before she tenses again.

“Fine,” she says grudgingly. “But if it starts to go south–”

“If it manifests any new properties, we’ll prioritize containing it over interacting with it,” Jon says.

“You promise?” Daisy asks, but she looks at Basira when she says it. It takes a moment, but Basira does nod.

“Do you think Pu Songling will let us have it?” Martin asks. “Seems like their protocols are…”

“Rigorous?” Jon supplies.

“You’d almost think they were running an academic institution or something,” Basira says drily.

“Yeah, but treating the artefacts like museum pieces, it’s… it’s weird, isn’t it?” Martin says. “It’s not as if they’re fragile, right? They’re held together by… nightmare alchemy, or whatever.”

“I suppose it’s to be expected,” Jon says. “I know the Librarian has a degree in information science. And I recall her telling me that the Curator is an historian with a background in museology. But you’re right – it would be nice if Leitners were as delicate as the average old manuscript.”

“At least they’re flammable,” Daisy mutters.

“We spoke with the Head Curator,” Basira says. “She’s willing to work out a trade.”

“A trade?” Martin asks.

“Knowledge for knowledge,” Jon says. “An artefact for an artefact. I get the impression that the Librarian and the Curator are both very… collections-oriented. True to their titles, I suppose.”

“Hold up,” Daisy says. “‘The Librarian,’ ‘the Curator’ – are those just job titles, or are they, like… Beholding Avatar titles?” Jon blinks at her, perplexed. “I mean – the way you keep saying them, it’s sort of like…”

“What, ‘Archivist’?” Jon gnaws on his thumbnail as he pauses to consider. “I… don’t know, actually. I wasn’t really doing it consciously? It just…” He shrugs helplessly. “It felt right.”

“Is it coming from the Eye, then?”

“I have no idea, Basira.” Jon leans forward, props his elbows on his knees, and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Hm.”

“In any case…” Jon exhales slowly, forcing himself to sit up straight again. “They seem to take the research and curation aspects of their roles to heart. They aren’t reckless with their pursuits, they take ample precautions, but the scholars at Pu Songling do study the items that come into their possession. And from what I understand, the Curator takes avid interest in adding to their collection. Same as the Archivist’s role is to record stories. To what extent her efforts are driven by her connection to the Eye versus her own innate curiosity, I couldn’t tell you, no more than I can make that distinction in myself.”

“Sort of a chicken-or-egg situation, then,” Daisy says.

“From an evolutionary perspective, the egg came first,” Jon says automatically. “Amniotic eggs have been around for over three hundred million years. Birds originated in the Jurassic, true galliforms didn’t evolve until at least the Late Cretaceous, phasianids don’t appear in the fossil record until about thirty million years ago, and chickens as we know them were only domesticated about eight thousand years ago–”

“Oh my god,” Daisy groans, putting her head in her hands.

“What?” Jon says, heat rising in his cheeks as Martin muffles a snicker beneath his hand. “I’m not wrong.”

“Pu Songling’s Collections Department is larger than our Artefact Storage,” Basira interjects, “but the, uh… Curator has a shortlist of artefacts she’s been on the lookout for. I checked our records and found a match. A ring – probably belongs to the Vast, based on the reports surrounding it. Looks like the Institute purchased it from Salesa in 2014, shortly before his disappearance. The Curator considers it an ‘equitable exchange,’ but she still wants to assess the ring in person before making the trade.”

“And we still have to talk to Sonja,” Jon adds. “On the one hand, she likely wouldn’t object to being rid of an artefact, but on the other hand… I imagine she won’t be keen on letting it out into the world.”

“I think it would be a harder sell if you were just going to swap it out for another artefact – something unfamiliar that they’d have to develop all new protocols for,” Martin says. “But yeah, even if you won’t be making the brooch her problem, she’ll probably still want to know what we want with it. And I can see her pressing the Curator on why she wants the ring when she gets here.”

“The Curator won’t be coming here,” Basira says evenly, casting a surreptitious glance at Daisy to gauge her reaction. “Says she’s too busy to travel.”

“So you have to haul the ring up to her,” Daisy says.

“I mean” – Basira breathes an uneasy laugh – “it’s a ring. Not much hauling involved–”

“Oh, don’t start–”

“–and there are precautions I can take. Looks like Artefact Storage has relatively thorough documentation for this one.”

“‘Relatively’?” Daisy repeats, unimpressed. “You were just complaining about how sparse their records are. ‘Relatively’ isn’t saying much.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing.” Basira rubs at her face. “I have to do this. Just… trust me.”

“You know I do–”

“Then let me have your back,” Basira says, practically pleading. “Let me help you.”

“Fine,” Daisy mutters, her posture going slack. “Do what you want.”

It’s not exactly a resounding endorsement, but it’s as good as they’re likely to get.

_________________

Despite Daisy’s lack of enthusiasm, Basira immediately throws herself into making arrangements. The Curator at Pu Songling is more than accommodating, seemingly as eager as Basira to make the trade. The real challenge is the Head of Artefact Storage.

It takes over a week of cajoling, lengthy justifications, and a concerted, collaborative effort from Basira, Jon, and Martin before Sonja finally, albeit reluctantly, agrees to discuss the matter with the Curator. Over the following days, Basira and Jon facilitate negotiations between the two: mediating a fair amount of (professional, but nevertheless pointed) verbal sparring early on, and later arbitrating the terms and conditions of the trade.

“You’d think that in the course of dealing with literal supernatural evil on a daily basis,” Basira gripes at one point, “bureaucracy wouldn’t be the biggest priority.”

“I’ve found that the bureaucratic process gives me ample time to make assessments,” Sonja says, unruffled. “Red tape has a way of bringing out the worst in people. Sometimes that’s a procrastinating student who woke up this morning, realized their deadline is next week, and ‘needs access to our materials, like, yesterday,’” she says, complete with finger quotes and a mocking tone. “And sometimes it’s some shady rich snob who’s been consistently cagey about his motives, and eventually he starts to go from impatient and entitled to desperate and frustrated, and that’s when the red flags start popping up crimson. After a while, you learn to distinguish the mundane sort of desperation from the more sinister sort.”

“Huh,” Jon says, smiling to himself. He knew Sonja was clever, but he never knew she was so calculating. It seems Jonah made the same mistake with Sonja as he did with Gertrude – overestimating a person’s curiosity and malleability, underestimating their prudence and pragmatism, and then promoting them to a position where they were free to act in a decidedly un-Beholding-like manner.

Once Sonja is sufficiently assured that the Curator has no intentions of utilizing the artefact or allowing it to venture beyond the secure confines of Pu Songling’s Collections Storage, the process starts to go a bit more smoothly. As expected, Sonja is amenable to the prospect of having one less piece of malignant costume jewelry, as she puts it, provided the Archival staff take full responsibility – both for the ring once Basira signs it out and for the artefact they receive in exchange.

“The ring has a compulsion effect,” Sonja tells them. “Makes people want to put it on – and once it’s on your finger, it’s not coming off until you hit the ground. Luckily it’s not a particularly active artefact, at least not compared to some of the other things we have here. I wouldn’t call it safe, obviously, but” – she raps her knuckles on the wooden beads of the bracelet on her opposite wrist – “it’s never breached containment.”

The how and why become abundantly clear upon seeing the closed ring box, so caked in earth and grime that it’s impossible to make out the color or material underneath.

“Buried, I take it,” Basira murmurs, giving Jon a sidelong glance.

“Yeah.” Jon grimaces at the phantom taste of soil on his tongue. “An artefact to contain an artefact.”

“Looks like the Curator is getting a twofer,” Basira says.

“Fine by me,” Sonja says with a nonchalant shrug. “That’s the box it came in, actually. Don’t know why it works, but it does, and that’s all I care about. So long as you keep it closed, the worst you’ll get is vertigo. As far as we’ve observed, anyway. There’s always a chance that an artefact has more secrets than it lets on at first glance. Assuming you know everything there is to know is a good way to end up in a casket.”

“We’re well aware,” Jon says. “Believe me.”

“Seriously, though – if this goes tits up, I don’t want to hear it,” Sonja says sternly, all but wagging a finger. “And if you call up here a few months from now to tell me that you’ve got a rogue artefact wreaking havoc in the Archives, and I’ve got to put my people at risk to contain it, I will unleash unholy hell.”

The funny thing is, Jon believes her.

_________________

Despite the progress they’re making on obtaining the Hunter’s brooch, dissent continues to simmer within the group – particularly where Daisy is concerned. As the escalating tension in the Archives becomes ever more tangible, Martin begins to feel claustrophobic under the weight of all the things left unspoken.

Daisy is consistently ill-tempered: bellicose in one moment and taciturn in the next, frequently seeking out solitude whenever her agitation gets the best of her. Martin suspects that her volatile mood has as much to do with her deteriorating condition as it does to do with her lingering aversion to the rest of the group’s efforts. Although she and Basira haven’t had another row – so far as Martin is aware, anyway – there’s been an undeniable friction between them. On the worst days, Basira keeps to herself, burying her head in her research while Daisy slinks off to some dark corner of the Archives to brood until Jon comes to drag her away from her thoughts.

Not that Jon is much better. He’s been sullen lately, growing more withdrawn, sleeping less and jumping at shadows even more than usual. Martin often catches him in a trance, staring vacantly into space and droning horrors under his breath. More and more he lapses into statement clips mid-sentence, regardless of how recently he’s had a statement. Sometimes, all it takes is a momentary slip for Jon to lose his footing and devolve into a frenzied litany of back-to-back, fragmentary horror stories. On a few recent occasions he’s lost his voice entirely, though luckily it’s only been for an hour or two at a time.

(So far, Jon says morosely after each episode.)

Most unsettling, though, is the chronic faraway look in his eye, like he’s seeing something else. Like he’s somewhere else, lost across an unbridgeable divide.

Martin is well-acquainted with the sensation of feeling alone in the presence of others. That doesn’t make it any less distressing. It’s not that Jon intends to be distant. He might not even be aware of it; would likely be mortified if he knew just how much that detachment stirred Martin’s longstanding fears of isolation and abandonment. Jon’s still affectionate, after all. Although he seems reluctant to actively seek out comfort these days, he’s still prompt to take an outstretched hand, to lean into a kind touch, to accept a proffered embrace. Still makes a concerted effort to muster, however feebly, a soft smile whenever Martin enters a room. Still attempts to be present and attentive and open.

But sometimes it feels like Jon is out of reach, separated from the rest of the world, watching it pass him by through layers of frosted glass. Martin knows the feeling. What he doesn’t know is how to fix it.

Before long, Basira is set to leave for Beijing, an artefact of the Vast nestled away in her luggage amidst assurances to Sonja that, yes, under no circumstances will Basira attempt to take it on a plane or into the open ocean because, no, Basira does not have a death wish, thank you very much.

Martin half-expects another quarrel to break out on the eve of Basira’s departure, but Daisy is oddly subdued. Perhaps she just doesn’t want to part ways with angry words and unresolved arguments, or perhaps she’s simply come to accept the rest of the group’s decision to move forward with the plan. Considering the dark circles under her eyes, though, it’s just as likely that she’s simply too fatigued to start a fight.

A few days later, Martin descends the ladder into the tunnels to find Jon standing at his makeshift desk, staring down at the map unfurled across its surface – the product of the group’s ongoing efforts to survey the sprawling tunnel system of the former Millbank Prison. The blueprint-in-progress is an equally sprawling thing: sheets of mismatched paper layered one atop the next and taped together, its irregular borders comprised of haphazard angles and dog-eared edges.

The hand-drawn map on its surface is chaotic, reflecting the penmanship of four different authors. Jon’s contributions might be the messiest – the burn scar contracture on his dominant hand renders his lines shaky at best, and his handwriting has always been a tad chickenscratch. Daisy’s isn’t much better. Conversely, Basira’s additions are the neatest, her strokes as steady as the persona she tries to project to the world. Martin’s are passable, if only because, unlike Jon or Daisy, he actually has the patience to use rulers and book edges to trace straight paths.

To be fair, it would probably look a mess no matter how painstaking they were in constructing it. The tunnels are as labyrinthine as expected: a vast network of arterial corridors with offshoots along their lengths, branching into three- or four-way forks, most of which lead to dead ends. Occasionally, they find a path that loops back around and connects other parts of the maze, creating a series of meandering, convoluted closed circuits. It’s difficult to tell just by looking, but they are (Martin hopes) making progress. At the rate they’re going, they have to be on track to find the Panopticon before the winter solstice.

In any case, as Martin approaches the desk, he sees that familiar vacant look on Jon’s face, as if he isn’t actually seeing what’s in front of him. The effect is underscored by the cigarette burning away in his hand, hanging limp and forgotten at his side. Martin clears his throat lightly, in deference to Jon’s hair-trigger startle reflex. He doesn’t count the fact that Jon doesn’t jump at all as a success. If anything, it’s cause for concern.

“Jon?” Martin tries. There’s a slight delay before Jon glances over, giving Martin no acknowledgment aside from a sluggish blink before lowering his head again.

“I, uh…” Martin offers a weak smile, attempting to keep his tone light. He gestures at the cigarette. “I thought you quit?”

Jon shrugs, refusing to meet Martin’s eyes. “Not like it’ll kill me.”

“Might catch up with you later, though,” Martin says, scratching at his neck. “You know, once we find a way out of here.”

“There is no ‘out’ for me,” Jon says mulishly.

“You don’t know that. Or Know it.” Jon’s only reaction is to press his lips tightly together, like he’s biting back a retort. “Look, I’m not trying to nag you, I just wor– Jon!” Martin yelps as he watches Jon put his cigarette out on the back of his hand.

Martin lunges forward, grabbing Jon’s hand and yanking it close to inspect the damage. It’s the same hand that Jude shook, already textured and pitted with webs of hypertrophic scarring. Somehow, Jon managed to plant this newest burn on a patch of previously-undamaged skin, sandwiched between two bands of knotted tissue.

The contours of her fingers, Martin recognizes with a queasy lurch – followed by another when he thinks to wonder whether Jon sought out that scrap of healthy skin on purpose just now.

Jon barely reacts, staring into space with wide eyes and dilated pupils. Martin looks down again to see the circular singe mark already knitting itself back together, leaving only a small, shiny patch of discoloration ringed with a dusting of ash. In all likelihood, even that will be gone by morning.

If only all wounds would heal so easily.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Martin hisses, fighting to keep his voice even. He brushes a soothing thumb over the spot, as if to apologize to the abused skin on Jon’s behalf.

Jogged out of his reverie by Martin’s sharp tone, Jon stares daggers at him, his mouth open as if to unleash a scathing reprimand, the set of his jaw so reminiscent of those early days in the Archives. An instant later, though, he withers, cringing away and fixing his eyes on the floor.

“I wasn’t,” he mumbles, at least having the decency to sound contrite. “Wasn’t really paying attention.”

It’s not the first time Martin’s witnessed a self-inflicted injury. When pressed, Jon always claims that it’s not a deliberate, planned form of self-punishment, but rather a reflex reaction that kicks in when he starts feeling adrift in time. Somewhere along the line, it seems, he convinced himself that physical pain is as good a shortcut as any – a sort of panic button to bring him back to the present when he needs grounding.

Whatever his intentions, though, and no matter what rationalizations Jon wants to dole out, it’s not a healthy coping mechanism. And it’s difficult for Martin to believe that self-punishment doesn’t factor at all, considering Jon’s obsessive guilt spirals and his blasé attitude towards being hurt.

“‘S already healed,” Jon says with a spiritless shrug. He drops the snuffed-out remainder of his cigarette on the floor and unnecessarily grinds it under his heel.

“That’s not the point.” Martin doesn’t realize how tightly he’s grasping Jon’s hand until Jon winces. Although Martin relaxes his grip somewhat, he doesn’t let go. “It doesn’t matter how quickly your body heals, or that you’ve had worse, or whatever other justifications you want to make. You’re still getting hurt. That’s not okay, and – and if it were me in your shoes, you’d be telling me the same thing.”

“I’m sorry.” Jon’s hair falls to cover his face as he ducks his head.

It’s fine, Martin almost says – except it’s not, is it?

“Come on,” he says instead, guiding Jon to sit in the nearest chair before taking a seat next to him. Where before Jon was all stiff limbs and rigid spine, now he looks like he’s given up the ghost, drooping like a wilting flower.

Though he allows Martin to keep hold of his hand, Jon doesn’t return the pressure. And Jon’s skin is freezing – no doubt partly due to the damp chill of the tunnels, and partly because he has, by his own admission, always had shit circulation. Combined with his limp fingers and loose grip, though, the overall effect is far too reminiscent of those months spent keeping vigil over Jon’s hospital bed, his hand nothing but cold, dead weight in Martin’s.

It took too long for Martin to admit that he had been foolish to hope that Jon was still in there somewhere, aware of Martin’s presence, fighting to regain consciousness. The whole time, Martin was just keeping his own company. Jon wasn’t just unreachable – he wasn’t there at all.

(Martin had been wrong about that in the end. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever forgive himself for not being there when Jon woke up.)

Martin bites his lip as he formulates a response. He’s learned over the years that when Jon is like this, it’s best to strike a careful balance between docility and defiance. Push too hard too fast, and Jon will dig his heels in; approach him too tentatively, and he’s liable to interpret concern as pity; force him to talk about his feelings, and he’ll bolt; smother him with tenderness, and he’ll balk.

Granted, Jon has become much more receptive to tenderness over the years. Most of the time, anyway. When his skewed self-worth and convictions about what he does and doesn’t deserve don’t get in the way.

“At the risk of being a nag–”

“You’re not a nag,” Jon says softly.

“When’s the last time you had a statement?”

“A few days ago.” The response is too quick, too automatic.

“A few days ago,” Martin repeats, allowing a bit of disbelief to seep into his voice.

Jon nods stiffly. “Monday, I think.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“I–” Jon cuts off his own retort, turning to blink owlishly at Martin. “Is it?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, his heart sinking. Jon must be losing time again. “So you had a statement yesterday?”

“No, I – I don’t…” Jon squints up at the ceiling, wracking his brain. “I don’t think so? It’s – I think I would recall if it had been shorter than one day.”

“So, last Monday?”

“I don’t – I don’t know,” Jon says, growing testy. “I suppose. Must’ve been.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry.” The admission is devoid of all the simmering agitation that had been there only moments before. Now, he just sounds tired.

“Well… I think you might be due for one.” Although Martin had been striving for gentle suggestion, there’s a harsh edge to the words. Rather than get Jon’s hackles up again, though, he seems to crumple under what he doubtless reads as an accusation.

“You’re right,” he says hoarsely. “And I’m sorry. I know lately I’ve been…”

“Tetchy,” Martin offers, just as Jon says, “a bit of a prick.”

“Your words, not mine,” Martin says with a tentative grin. Jon returns his own feeble half-smile, but it quickly falters.

“I’ve almost exhausted Daisy’s catalogue,” he confesses. “Only a handful left now. I’ve got to make them last until the solstice.”

An apprehensive chill runs down Martin’s spine at that. “And then what?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

There’s virtually no chance that Jon, prone to rumination as he is, hasn’t been dwelling on it.

“Basira said she has a few statements, right?” Martin asks. “Which… if you already have a statement about an encounter, can you still get nourishment from other statements about it, so long as it’s coming from someone else’s point of view?”

“Probably.” Jon shrugs one shoulder. “The factual details of the encounter are less important than the subject’s emotional response. Different perspective, different story, different lived experience of fear.”

“Then… you have my statement about the Flesh attack, but there’s still Basira’s. And – and maybe Melanie–”

“I’m not taking another statement from Melanie,” Jon says tersely. “She’s been tethered to me for too long without say, and I’m not dragging her back in.”

“But if it’s consensual–”

“It won’t be, because I don’t consent.”

“If the alternative is literally starving–”

“I’ll find another alternative. Or I won’t. But I’m not asking Melanie for a statement.” Jon keeps his head bowed, but he looks up at Martin through his lashes. “The first time she quit, I was worried that she might show up in my nightmares again, but she didn’t. I don’t know if her severance from the Eye will keepher out of my nightmares if she gives me a new statement, and… I can’t risk it. I can’t do that to her. Even if the nightmares weren’t an issue… I’m not going to ask her to relive yet another traumatic experience for my benefit–”

“–I shall choose to die rather than take part in such an unholy meal–”

Jon claps a hand over his mouth, a panicked look in his eye.

“…nor shall I take my own life, whatever extremity my suffering may reach,” he tacks on, too much of an afterthought for comfort.

“Which means we need to plan for the future,” Martin says, forcing calm into his voice despite the way his heart picks up its pace.

“But it can’t involve Melanie,” Jon says – gentler than before, but still firm.

“No, you’re – you’re right,” Martin relents. “It wouldn’t be fair to her. But we could still ask Basira.”

Jon makes a noncommittal noise, his expression rapidly going pinched and closed off again.

“Lately,” Martin says, licking his lips nervously, “lately it feels like you’ve been shutting everyone out again. It isn’t healthy–”

“Healthy?” Jon’s glare could burn a hole in the floor. “I don’t need to be healthy, I just need to be whatever it wants.”

Once, Martin might have been daunted by Jon’s scathing tone. By now, he knows that Jon is all bluster – and that the brunt of it is turned inward, against his own self.

“Please, Jon. Tell me what’s going on. You’re worrying me.”

Those, apparently, are the magic words, because Jon finally capitulates.

“It’s October,” he tells the floor.

“It… is October, yeah.” Bewildered, Martin waits for elaboration. When a minute passes with no response forthcoming, he prompts, “Is that… bad…?”

“Historically, yes, it has been,” Jon says with a tired, frayed-sounding chuckle.

“I… Jon, I need you to help me out here,” Martin says helplessly. “I can’t read your mind.”

“October is when it happens, Martin.” Jon glances at Martin once, quickly, before returning his gaze to the ground. He’s twisting one hand around the opposite wrist now, fingers curled tightly enough to blanch his knuckles. “The eighteenth. When everything goes wrong.”

“You mean…”

Jon’s sharp inhale becomes a choked exhale, which in turn abruptly cuts off as the Archive takes its cue.

“…what settled over me wasn’t dread; there wasn’t enough uncertainty for that. It was doom. I was certain that some sort of disaster was on the horizon–”

“–something bad. Something unspeakable. And I would have helped make it happen–”

“–the fear never really went away. I’ve heard that being exposed to the source of your terror over and over again can help break its power over you, numb you to it, but in my experience it just teaches you to hide from it. Sometimes that might mean hiding in a quiet corner of your mind, but–”

“–soon enough, I could no longer fool myself–”

“–the calm I had been getting accustomed to had been torn away completely, and where it had been was just this horrible, ice-cold terror–”

“–that – we can’t escape the ruins of our own future–”

“–a future where – humanity was violently and utterly supplanted, and wiped out by a new category of being–”

“–there are terrible things coming – things that, if we knew them, would leave us weak and trembling, with shuddering terror at the knowledge that they are coming for all of us–”

“–I think in my heart, I have been waiting for this moment. For the final axe to fall–”

“–we create the world in a lot of ways. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that, when we’re not being careful, we can change it–”

There’s a breathless pause before Jon continues, in a nearly inaudible whisper: “What could I have chosen to change? Would a different path have been possible?”

“It is,” Martin says firmly, “and we’re on it. What happened last time won’t happen again. We won’t let it.”

Jon doesn’t acknowledge the reassurance.

“I should’ve known,” he says with a quiet ferocity, in his own voice this time. “It was too peaceful. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to last. And – and on some level I did know – I knew it wasn’t over – but I just… I didn’t want to be the one to shatter the illusion, I suppose.” His expression goes taut. “Didn’t much matter what I wanted, in the end. But I still should’ve seen it coming. Can’t let my guard down again.”

“How could you have known?” Martin doesn’t intend for it to come out as exasperated. He tries to reel it back, to gentle his tone. “You’ve said yourself that you can’t predict the future–”

“No, but I knew Jonah had plans for me. And I knew nothing good could come of feeding the Eye, but I kept on anyway.”

“It’s not like you were doing it for fun, Jon! You needed it to survive, and Jonah took advantage of that. Or…” No – that makes it sound purely opportunistic, doesn’t it? In reality, it was all part of Jonah’s long game from the start. “He made you dependent on statements specifically becausehe wanted to take advantage of that.”

“I made choices,” Jon says tonelessly. “I can’t absolve myself of responsibility just because Jonah was nudging me in a particular direction.”

“You were manipulated,” Martin insists, “and I’m not having you apologize for surviving it. For not starving to death.”

“You don’t understand,” Jon says, growing more distressed, reaching up with both hands and tangling his fingers in his hair. “When that box of statements finally arrived, I… I couldn’t shoo you away fast enough. I was hungry, yes, but I wasn’t starving yet. I could’ve waited longer, but I just… I wanted one–”

“–should have fought harder against the temptation – but my curiosity was too strong–”

“You shouldn’t have to wait until you’re literally on death’s doorstep before you fulfill a basic need,” Martin interrupts.

“I should when that ‘basic need’ entails serving the Beholding,” Jon says heatedly. “And I – I should’ve known better – should’ve known not to jump headlong into the first statement that caught my eye. I’d known for a while that the Beholding leads me away from statements it doesn’t want me to know. It logically follows that it would lead me towards statements that would strengthen it. If I’d had any sense, I would’ve been suspicious of anything in that box that called out to me. It didn’t… it didn’t feel any different, but I – I suppose that somewhere along the line I just got used to… to wandering down whatever path I was led. I didn’t think, I never stop to think–”

“If anything, Jon, you overthink. You’re overthinking right now.”

Martin has known for a long time now that Jon will latch onto the smallest details, allow his thoughts to branch into an impossible number of routes and tangents, tie together loose threads in countless permutations in the interest of considering all possible conclusions, no matter how outlandish. He will apply Occam's razor in one moment before tossing it into the bin, only to fish it out again: lather, rinse, repeat. His mind is a noisy, cluttered conspiracy corkboard, and he’ll hang himself with red string if given half a chance, just to feel like he’s in control of something.

“It’s easy to look back and criticize your past self,” Martin says, “but he didn’t know what you do. If we knew the outcome to every action, maybe we wouldn’t make mistakes, but we’re only human–”

“Not all of us.”

“–so we just have to do the best with what we have in the moment,” Martin continues, paying no heed to Jon’s grumbled comment. No good will come of guiding him down that rabbit trail right now. Anyway, Martin has a more pressing concern–

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this sooner?” he blurts out, immediately wincing at his lack of tact. “That came out wrong–”

“Why didn’t I tell you how quick I was to chase you out of the house and sink my teeth into a statement the moment temptation presented itself?” Jon scoffs. “Because I’m ashamed. Why else?”

“No, not–” Martin scrubs a hand over his face. It’s a struggle, sometimes, not to grab Jon by the shoulders and shake him until all of that stubborn self-loathing falls away. “About the fact that you’ve got a – a post-traumatic anniversary event coming up, I mean. You haven’t been well, and I thought I understood why – thought it was just… all of it, in general. But here I come to find you’ve been agonizing over the upcoming date of the single worse day of your life–”

“One of the worst,” Jon says quietly.

“What?”

“I didn’t lose you until much later.”

Martin’s breath catches in his throat at that, a sharp pang shooting through his chest.

“Well… you’ve got me now,” he says meekly. “So – so you don’t have to suffer in silence, is what I’m saying. What happened to you – no, what was done to you – it was horrible, and it wasn’t your fault. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth.”

“Either I’ve always been caught up in someone else’s web, passively having things happen to me with no control over my life–”

“–the Mother got exactly the result she no doubt wanted, one that would lead to a fear – so acute that I could later have that horror focused and refined into a silk-spun apotheosis–”

Jon bites down on one knuckle, eyes shut tight as he waits for the compulsion to subside.

“Or,” he says after a minute, “or I do have control, and I can change the outcome, which makes me culpable. I don’t know which prospect I hate more. Which probably says some unflattering things about me.”

“It’s not that simple–”

“It is,” Jon says viciously. “If there is another path, then I should’ve found it last time!” He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes a steadying breath. When he speaks again, he’s no longer bordering on shouting, but there’s a quaver in his voice, a fragility that Martin finds more disconcerting than any flash of anger. “The way I see it, there are two options. One, what happened in my future was inevitable and nothing I could’ve done would’ve changed it – which certainly doesn’t bode well for this timeline. Or, the outcome can be changed, in which case my choices matter, and had I just made better choices, maybe I could have prevented all of this from ever happening in the first place.”

“You’re not being fair,” Martin says, his hands clenching into fists – but Jon isn’t listening.

“Doesn’t make much difference, I suppose. The consequences are the same either way–”

“–billions of – people making their way through life who had no idea what was right above their heads–”

“–would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters–”

“–minds so strange and colossal that we would never know they were minds at all–”

“–idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing–”

“–there, caught up in a series of events that I didn’t understand but that terrified me – I did the stupidest thing I’ve ever done–”

“–running was pointless. To try to escape from my task would only serve to fulfill another. I finally understood what I needed to do–”

“–I don’t know if you have ever drowned, but it’s the most painful thing I have ever experienced–”

“–I do not suppose I need to dwell on the pain, but please know that I would sooner die than endure it again–”

“Would you?” Martin says abruptly. Jon won’t look at him. “Jon, I need to know if you’re feeling like hurting yourself.”

“What would it matter if I was?” Jon still won’t look at him. “I’m categorically incapable of hurting myself in any way that matters.”

Martin blinks in disbelief. “Okay, that’s blatantly untrue.”

Jon has been a glaring portrait of self-neglect for as long as Martin has known him. That simple lack of consideration for himself, together with compounding survivor’s guilt, was the perfect stepping stone to active self-endangerment. Now that Jon’s convinced himself he’s invulnerable to a normal human death, he’s all the more careless with himself.

“I don’t want to die,” Jon whispers. “That’s the problem.”

“What—?”

“Before, I was unknowingly putting the entire world at risk by – by waking up after the Unknowing, by crawling out of the Buried, by escaping the Hunters, by continuing to read statements like it was – like it was something routine, as unremarkable as – as taking tea. Now, though – now I know better. I know what Jonah is planning, I saw what I’m capable of, and still I… I don’t want to die.”

“Well… good,” Martin says. “You should want to live–”

“It doesn’t much matter what I want–”

“–I never wanted to weigh up the value of a life, to set it on the scales against my own, but that’s a choice that I am forced into–”

“–doesn’t get to die for that – gets to live, trapped and helpless, and entombed forever – powerless–”

“–a lynchpin for this new ritual – a record of fear–”

Shit, Martin thinks the instant he recognizes the statement. It’s the worst of them all, virtually guaranteed to send Jon spiraling.

“–both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you – a living chronicle of terror – a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom–”

“Okay, okay, stay with me–”

“–the Chosen one is simply that: someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck–”

“Jon, can you hear me? Jon–”

“–I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but my god, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was–”

Martin reaches over, taking both of Jon’s hands in his own and squeezing tightly. The pressure seems to do the trick: lucidity sparks in Jon’s eyes and he takes a deep, ragged breath, as if coming up for air.

“There you are. Are you okay?” Martin rubs both thumbs over the backs of Jon’s hands in rhythmic, soothing motions. “Hey, it’s–”

“I don’t want your kindness!” Jon snaps, jerking backwards and snatching his hands out from Martin’s grip.

Both of them lapse into a stunned silence. As mortification dawns on Jon’s face, Martin can feel the color rising in his cheeks. It only takes a few seconds for the blood rushing in his ears to be drowned out by another voice.

Martin can remember with cutting clarity the days prior to his mother’s departure to the nursing home. She had been in (somewhat) rare form, her already-short fuse dwindled down to nothing, sniping at him around the clock, full of caustic observations and spiteful accusations.

I don’t want your help, she had sneered as she entered the cab, swatting his hand away.

It was one of the last things she ever said to him.

“Well, tough,” Martin bites out, “because you deserve it, and you never should’ve had to go without it, and you’re not going to change my mind about that, so you may as well stop trying!”

“Martin, I – I – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

He saw, Martin realizes all at once, his skin crawling with humiliation.

“I’m going to go make some tea,” Martin says, rising to his feet.

Jon reaches out a hand. “Martin–”

“I just need a breather, okay?” Martin says, a pleading note to his voice. His lungs are constricting, his chest is tightening, there’s a lump in his throat, and he really doesn’t want to have a panic attack in the tunnels – or in front of Jon. “I’m not – I’m not angry, okay, I just need some air.”

Jon opens his mouth, then immediately closes it, clutches his hands to his chest, and gives a tiny nod that Martin just barely glimpses before turning to flee.

_________________

“Stop crying,” Jon hisses at himself, furiously scrubbing at his face as the tears slide down his cheeks. “Stop it.”

He plasters the heels of his hands over his closed eyelids. It does nothing to stem the flow, only brings to mind images of pressing himself bodily against a door to hold it closed, only for the crack to continue widening, millimeter after millimeter, the flood on the other side trickling through the gap, rivulets swelling into rivers, frigid eddies biting at his ankles, a whitewater undertow threatening to drag him below the waves–

“Enjoying our own company, are we?”

Once, Jon might have been humiliated to be caught mid-breakdown, raw-voiced and puffy-eyed, especially by Peter Lukas of all people. Several lifetimes spent in thrall to cosmic horrors have a way of putting things in perspective.

“What do you want?” Jon says with as much ire as he can muster.

Peter hums to himself, starting a slow, back-and-forth pace in front of Jon. “It occurred to me that I’ve been derelict in my duties as far as the Archives are concerned–”

“That’s just now occurring to you?”

“–and, as such, I thought it was high time that I met the infamous Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.”

“Well,” Jon scoffs, gesturing at himself, “you’ve met him.”

“I must admit, I was expecting something a bit more… hm.” Peter taps a finger against his lips. “Formidable.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” The scathing sarcasm is rendered pitiful by an ill-timed, involuntary sniffle. Jon can’t bring himself to care.

“The state you’re in, you hardly seem fit to work.” A pause. “Have you ever considered taking some time off?”

“A six-months hospital stay has a way of eating up your PTO, oddly enough. I’m told that payroll already has already had to make special exceptions for my ‘unprecedented’ circumstances.” Jon chuckles to himself. “On multiple occasions. Did you know the Institute considers a kidnapping in the line of duty to be an ‘unexcused absence?’”

“I think you’ll find that Elias and I have different management styles,” Peter says mildly. “I’m open to making allowances – particularly since your department can function so smoothly in your absence. Your assistants have proven themselves to be quite capable of working independently – and seeing as your approach to supervision borders on fraternization, I imagine they would be more productive without excess drama to distract them.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Jon says acerbically.

“No need.” Jon squints at him, and Peter stare him down. “It’s not a request, Archivist. It’s an order.”

There was a time, not long ago, that sneaking up on the Archivist would have been difficult. Only Helen had consistently managed to ambush him, and that was because she didn’t waste time sneaking – she manifested and launched the jump scare in the same instant, giving him no chance to See her approach. Readjusting to a binocular point of view had been a process, but rarely does he find himself yearning for the panoramic field of vision that had been foisted upon him during the apocalypse.

Occasionally, though, there are moments when 360° sight would come in handy. Too late, Jon realizes this is one of those moments.

By the time he notices the tendrils of encroaching fog, they’re already curling around from behind him, pooling at his feet, ghosting across the back of his neck, affixing themselves around his wrists.

“It’s alright,” Peter says placidly, almost soothingly. “You can let go now.”

Jon shivers as his heart pumps ice through his veins, fingers and toes going numb as he struggles for breath.

No. No, no, no, no, no–

“I am not Lonely anymore,” Jon gasps out through chattering teeth.

“No,” Peter says with an air of nonchalance. Then he smiles, sharp and cold and cruel and the only detail Jon can still discern through the fog. “But you will be.”

___

End Notes:

Daisy: hey siri, google what to do if i suspect my bff has been possessed by the ghost of a fussy paleornithologist Jon: why are you booing me????? i’m right

Pretty sure this is the longest chapter yet? Probably bc of the statement. I could’ve split it into two, but, uh. I like that cliffhanger where it is. >:3c (Sorry for that, btw.)

Quite a bit of Archive-speak this chapter. Citations as follows: Section 1: 122/124/011/007/047/155. The Xiaoling quote is from MAG 105; the Jonah quote is ofc from 160; the Naomi quote is from 013. Section 3: 181. Section 5: 058 x2; 144/130/086/143/121/149/134/144/143/069; 147; 017; 147; 057/160/106/111/067/121/129/098; 155/128/160; 160 x3. Section 6: 170, of course.

I’m taking wild liberties with Pu Songling Research Centre’s whole deal. I’m conceptualizing their spookier departments as being like… actually academia-oriented, instead of “local Victorian corpse with illusions of godhood throws a bunch of traumatized nerds with no relevant archival experience into a basement, what happens next will shock you”. Xiaoling is out here like “our digitization is still a work in progress, I’m sure you know how it is” and Jon Sims is like “digitization who? i don’t know her”. (Listen, he tried once. Tape recorder was haunted, he got kidnapped a bunch, there were worms and things, he died (he got better), his boss used him as a battering ram to open a door to Fearpocalypse Hell – it was a lot.)

Likewise, we didn’t get much info about Sonja in canon, so I’m having fun envisioning her as a certified Force To Be Reckoned With (and a bit of a Mama Bear wrt her assistants). Most of the Institute is leery of the Archives (& especially Jon) but Sonja’s seen a lot of shit and Jon Sims doesn’t even rank on her list of Top Spooky Scary Things.

re: the statement – it’s not clear in-text, but I want to clarify that I’m not conceptualizing Francis Drake as being influenced by the Hunt. Fictionalizing aspects of history is tricky, and I’d feel personally uncomfortable chalking up Drake’s real life atrocities to supernatural influence, even in fiction. In the case of this particular fictional member of his crew, he was (like Drake’s real-life crew) complicit in following Drake’s orders for entirely mundane reasons and was only marked by the Hunt at the point in his statement where he first recounts hearing the Hunt chasing after him.

At some point in writing this chapter, I had 137 tabs open in my browser for Research Purposes and like 20 of those were bc my dumb ass seriously considered writing that statement in Elizabethan English before going “what are you DOING, actually.” If I’d tried, it would have come off as inauthentic at best, if not ridiculous, bc I’m unfamiliar with English linguistic trends of the 1500s, and I’d basically be badly mimicking Shakespearean English, which isn’t necessarily indicative of how everyone spoke at the time, and I don’t know what colloquial speech would look like for this particular unnamed character I trotted out as exposition fodder, and it was probably unnecessary to formulate a whole-ass personal history for him for the sake of Historical Realism for a single section of a single chapter of a fanfic, and… In the end, I decided that this pseudo-immortal rando can tell his life story in modernized English, as a treat (to me) (and also to those of you who don’t think of slogging through bastardized Elizabethan prose as a fun endeavor).

Speaking of research – shoutout to this dissertation that had an English translation of the Herla story in Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, and if you want to read the whole story, you can find it on pages 16-18 of that paper. I feel it’s important for you all to know that IMMEDIATELY after Map dramatically proclaims, “the dog has not yet alighted, and the story says that this King Herla still holds on his mad course with his band in eternal wanderings, without stop or stay,” he goes on to say in the next breath “buuuut some people say they all jumped into the River Wye and died, so ymmv. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ anyways, can I interest you in more Fucked Up If True tales?” (Herla throwing the dog into the river wasn’t in the original story though. I made that part up.)

Thank you so much for reading! <3

#the magnus archives #tma #tma fic #long post #tma spoilers #magnuspod

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iceeckos12 · 4 years ago

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tma fic recs

I’ve seen a couple of fic rec posts floating around. since ive been reading so many excellent fic recently, i thought that id make one as well! please note this list is going to be 99% jonmartin. also buckle up, because this is going to get long.

Completed

the umbrella by Wildehack (tyleet)

"And to think—all of Jonah Magnus’ carefully laid plans, the centuries of scheming, the murders, the sacrifices, all of that work could have been completely undone if Martin Blackwood had gone back for an umbrella" - holdthosebees

Notes: This is probably my go-to fic if i want an apocalypse never happened scenario. The jonmartin is wonderful, as is the h/c.

Diary and Prenon-nous la main by luftballoons99

Diary summary:

Not for the first time since they ran away together, a camera reel of all the things they don't know about one another whirs behind Martin's eyes, and he can't help but look at all the sprawling magnetic tape and wonder if they’re going to wind up a romance or a tragedy.

or: Office parties, garage bands, and the joy of being known.

Prenon-nous la main summary:

They still haven't talked about it, any of it, not even to pass the time on the long train ride to Scotland. Instead, Martin fell asleep in the seat next to him, pressed into his side from shoulder to knee, and Jon thought about love confessions and verb tense and how the two fit together when you think you're dying.

or: Good cows, mediocre poetry, and other crucial topics of discussion.

Notes: Do you love impeccable safehouse jonmartin characterization? do you love characters grappling with the mortifying ordeal of being known? do you love softness so tender that it makes you want to weep? please read these fic. im begging you.

i’ll tell you about all the times i’ve smiled because of you by cryptidkidprem

Summary:

Martin thinks about their shoes, sitting beside each other on the floor by the bed. Thinks of the way Jon wears Martin’s cardigans more often than he wears his own, the way Martin’s started keeping elastics around his wrist because Jon always forgets his own when they go out.

He thinks about all the gentle touches and fussing over each other they’ve done, and how much is still to come over the next… however long Jon will have him.

They have a long way to go, an entire life to build out of the wreckage Jonah Magnus and Peter Lukas left them, but laying together in a comfortable, sleepy quiet, Martin thinks they’ve got a good start going.

Or, Jon quits the Institute, saves the world, and it turns out to be exactly what he needs in order to heal and start moving forward towards building a life with Martin.

Notes: how many times have i reread this fic? more than i can count. jon quits the institute and it’s just full of soft jonmartins. they get married! god i love them.

go softly by doomcountry

Summary:

And there is nothing else besides this.

Notes: every time i remember this fic i reread it. please heed the tags because martin is blinding jon, but he’s like. blinding jon in the most heartbreaking way possible. idk how the author made this so tender but i know i was certainly crying so!

The Reverb in These Holy Halls by Wolftraps (AlwaysBoth)

Summary:

Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.

Notes: Do you like time travel fixits? i sure like time travel fixits. reverb is an excellent one. heavy on the h/c, I wanted to hug jon so so badly.

Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey

Summary:

"Who the hell are you?" Jon could feel his hands shaking. The man laughed, taking a step forward and raising a hand to point at him. "I'm you, from the future!" he said, then swayed, eyes going unfocused, and collapsed to the floor in a dead faint. -------- Post-season-four Jon and Martin time travel back to the season one Archives.

Notes: Yet another time travel fixit! also excellent. the teasing was HYSTERICAL. also Im just going to say this now - CirrusGrey in general writes incredible tma fic. You can’t really go wrong.

unassigned supplementals by bibliocratic

Notes: I won’t put in a summary just because it’s a long series of oneshots, but bibliocratic’s writing is amazing. Again, you can’t really go wrong with one of their fic!

let the soft animal of your body by autoclaves

Summary:

Standing in the warm kitchen, slats of sepia light filtering through onto the counter in front of him, Martin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He half expects them to go through the countertop entirely, glossy and solid as it is. He isn’t used to any of it, yet. The safehouse. Jon. Beams of sun pouring into his hands. After being deprived of everything of significance for so long, the longing that crashes over him is almost painful in its tangibility. He wants to laugh, to sob, to scream and hear it echoed back against the neat, square walls of the safehouse.

In the end, he doesn’t do any of these things. He makes eggs instead. He can do that, can’t he? Use his hands for something simple and plain and good.

(Or: In the safehouse after it all, Martin starts cooking.)

Notes: this fic really speaks to me a) because i project on martin like crazy and b) because food is also my love language. this fic is incredibly soft and it’s all about cooking!

“Have you tried turning it on and off again?” by shinyopals

Summary:

I hope you find your new role as Head of the Institute as rewarding as captaining the Tundra, wrote Elias Bouchard, to Peter Lukas. There are so many people working there: all with their own interesting lives, and all desiring your attention and support. I'm sure you will relish the challenge it will bring and enjoy every moment spent with the fine men and women of the Institute. In time I'm confident they'll become like a family to you.

The Magnus Institute has a new boss. The Magnus Institute also has a new tech support technician. These two facts are unrelated, except they both happen at the same time.

Meanwhile Jon's woken up from being dead for six months and for once he's trying his best. He just wishes Martin would stop avoiding him and answer his messages...

Notes: if you’re looking for a good laugh, this fic is SO SO SO FUNNY. i was dying. basically the magnus institute being an absolute bureaucratic nightmare.

hello my old heart by firebirdsuite

Summary:

Peter’s wrong, of course. When it’s all over, Martin does still want to tell Jon everything. It’s just—well, there’s a few things they need to work through first before they can get there.

Martin and Jon find each other again in Scotland.

Notes: it’s all about the yearning. and trust me, the yearning in this fic? im just. i sure do love jonmartin, and this is such soft, loving jonmartin it just makes you want to cry

two ships passing by pyrites

Summary:

Gerard Keay is 10 years old the very first time he tries to run away from home, right around the time that Jonathan Sims has just come into possession of his first Leitner.

Or: One dropped stone can change the way the whole ocean moves.

Notes: again, JONGERRY. MY GOODNESS. this fic is beautiful, the writing is absolutely breathtaking and it owns my heart. im so in love with it. the author said you’re going to have emotions about jon and gerry and jongerry and i said OKAY

Terminal Sight by viv_is_spooky

Summary:

Spider silk weaves through the visions of two Seers. Monstrosity is dawning on them both.

Notes: I’d never read a gerryoliver fic before this, but the execution is EXCELLENT and now im sold on the ship forever. This fic has wonderful prose and great characterization and i love it a whole lot.

Incomplete

assistant archivist au by PitViperOfDoom

Notes: I won’t put a summary since I’m reccing an entire series, but. it is absolutely no secret that i adore jongerry. pit’s assistant archivist au slapped me over the head with some gorgeous jongerry oneshots and then gave me the gift of the main fic (which is still in progress) about head archivist martin. i love this au so so much

dustsceawung by callmearcturus

Summary:

Martin had always been favored by the summer courts, and moving up north to the little village of Lacuna is a difficult adjustment. It's rainy and lonely and everyone seems to have a strange, distant relationship with the local faerie court.

However: there is a strange man in a cloak who walks past Martin's remote little cottage every few days.

However: there is a moth that keeps getting stuck in Martin's house during the rain.

These events are not as disconnected as they first appear.

Notes: you ever just read a fic that you didn’t know that you needed until after you read it? yeah. featuring the fae and moth jon and excellent characterization.

Illicio by ThatOneGirlBehindYou

As the new Archivist debates between life and death, the Eye ponders on what to offer him in order to avoid an encore of the unfortunate situation with his predecessor.

-----

Gerard Keay opens his eyes at what feels like fuck-ass in the morning, inside a room with far too little space and far too much dust.

Notes: This is also the moment where I reveal that im a sucker for jongerrymartin. please read this fic. gerry is brought back from the dead in s4 and everyone is far better off for it.

where there’s a will, we make a way by bubonickitten

Summary:

"So, what does happen if an Eye learns to See within itself?

What happens is this: the Archive Beholds the Watcher – and the Watcher blinks first."

________________________

Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Notes: this time travel fixit is shaping up to be an absolutely incredible read. i love the way this author writes jon so so much, and the characterization is spot on. this whole fic just satisfies some little part of me. god. also!! bubonickitten’s writing in general? beautiful. please check out their other works.

The Timeline of Theseus by Applea

Jon tries to force the Spiral to send him back, but the Sprial's corridors never twist things quite the way you want them to. Back in 1996, Elias has no idea why or how the Eye made such a powerful Avatar out of an 8 year old, especially when said 8 year old doesn't actually know he has any powers at all. Clearly such a child cannot be left outside the Institute's care.

Notes: This fic is legitimately brilliant. The author manages to capture the big ADHD mood and the precociousness of baby Jon while managing to write a wonderful storyline. Time travel! Elderly lesbians! A Jonah who is wildly in over his head but was walloped over the head with paternal instinct! Baby Gerry! What more could you possibly ask for?

rooms full of people who do not love each other yet by seaer

Summary:

“Wanted to ask about a book.” The boy has his hand on the counter, and he leans into it, nonchalant. The library is air-conditioned, but by no means frigid, and Jon can’t help but feel sweaty just looking at the layers he’s wearing; what looks like old leather over an olive-green Magnus pullover over his school shirt. “Do you have A Journal of the Plague Year?”

Jon says, tetchily, “We’re about to close.”

“I know. Do you have A Journal of the Plague Year?”

Notes: I am so in love with this author’s writing style and the way they write the characters!! The jon and gerry friendship is PERFECT and the character interactions are all darling.

if you read these fics please send the authors some love, they definitely deserve it!!

#tma #fic recs #ill update this as i read #seriously some very very good stuff on here #long post

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hopinglimelight · 4 years ago

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Loss (D.S)

A/N: What is up? Tis I, the magical Hope. Did I schedule this to post really early so I didn’t have to get nervous at the reactions? Yes! But then I was a sucker and wanted to surprise you all with it tonight instead! I’ll have to do format editing tomorrow, but the text will stay the same! I hope everyone has tissues to wipe away their tears of frustration or a pillow to squeeze out their emotions with. Enjoy 😈 -Hope

A year has passed since I revealed to Daniel that I was pregnant. At the time I was 12 weeks along. It had its ups and downs, but our relationship would eventually end. We both would make promises, mistakes, and other things that would eventually lead to our tragic ending. Let me catch you up.

After I told Daniel that I was pregnant, I noticed that his drinking was beginning to slow down a little. The binge drinking, however, has almost completely vanished. He also seems to be taking our relationship more seriously. When I had to deal with morning sickness, he was always there with me. He’s been to every appointment so far. He also carries a picture of our chicken nugget, due to my most frequent craving, with him in his wallet.

“Hey, Jonah! Want to see the little lemon?”

By the time he made his way over to Corbyn, I was getting a bit embarrassed. But Daniel wasn't; he would run like a mad man for the baby. Maybe that's what caused him to break.

His little fruit names kept going for a while. Each new week, little nuggie and I awakened with their new nickname.

“Good morning my little apple.” I giggled as he pressed a kiss to my stomach. I didn't have a bump yet, but it was starting to get obvious that I was pregnant.

“Are you going to change the fruit to match me every week?”

“You bet baby.” Now kissing me on the lips.

Daniels' pride when we found out that we were having a little boy would always make me smile for years and years to come.

“Okay, so you guys are just in luck! Baby is in the perfect position to find out the gender, that is if you want to know today.”

I looked over to Dani and he nodded. “Yes, please.”

“One moment.” I held my breath as the doctor finished looking. She quickly wiped off the gel so I could sit up. “Congratulations on your baby boy!”

I jumped off of the table straight into Dani’s arms. He picked me up gently as I squealed.

“A boy. We’re having a boy.” He whispered.

“Are those tears in your eye Dani?”

“No.” He giggled and quickly wiped his eyes.

So by the time I was seven months, what used to be an old guest bedroom was transformed into a nursery. A neutral grey was painted on the walls. Daniel built a crib, put a few shelves, and I went shopping for little onesies and baby blankets. Two weeks before I turned nine months, the boys showed up with little gifts. Zach got him an elephant, Corbyn had a little astronaut, Jonah was with a cup of coffee, and Jack got him a little guitar. Everything was perfect…. Until my water broke. With the boys still in the house.

After over 7 hours in labor and an extra 15 minutes pushing all 8 pounds and 7 ounces of our baby. Two days later, Daniel and I got to go home with little Alexander Thomas Seavey. And then, after a few months, Daniel went back to his old ways.

After leaving for the evening with an “I’ll be home later.” Daniel did indeed come home later. Daniel dragged his ass home absolutely wasted at 3 am. He was lucky he had tried to sneak in and didn’t wake Alex.

“Where the fuck were you Daniel,” I asked as calmly as I could.

“I told you.” He shrugged. “Out.”

“Whatever. I left a blanket, pillow, and trash can by the couch for you. Good night. Or should I say good morning?” I huffed and went up the stairs. I quickly stopped into the nursery to make sure the baby was sleeping. I would have to get up at six to feed him again and deal with Daniel.

By the next month of this, and one too many “I thought we were past this!” our relationship was tense. We were at Corbyn’s house and letting Alexander hang out with his other favorite uncles.

“I’ll get it! It’s Kora and Alexander!”

“Wow, I’m here too,” Daniel mumbled.

I didn’t get to respond to him because Corbyn opened the door, very quietly.

“Hi Kora, Daniel. Ah, Alex! It’s me. Chev your favorite uncle.”

“Corbyn, don’t tell my son that that’s your name. Please and thank you.”

I smiled at everyone else as we walked through the door.

“Besides.” Zach grinned. “Everyone knows that I’m the favorite uncle!”

“Really, Z? You look like Kora gave birth to you yesterday.”

“Nice one, Jack.” I gave him a fist bump of approval as Zach groaned in the corner.

Within an hour, Corbyn was offering around drinks. I didn’t even bother telling Daniel off. I guess I was just so used to it by now that it didn’t even phase me anymore. Daniel was completely wasted, while almost everyone else had a similar buzz to them. Yes, Zach is underaged but he knows I’ll cut him off if I think he’s had too much to drink. I noticed how Jonah didn’t have a single drink. Yes! Now I have someone to leave my baby with because it’s absolutely not going to be his father in the state he’s in.

“Jonah, can you take the baby? I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Yeah, all good Kora!”

It was all good until I was on my way back from the bathroom. I heard Daniel’s loud voice which wasn’t a surprise since he was drunk. It was the words he was saying.

“I love her so much.” He smiled. “But I don’t want to be in a relationship… let alone married. I probably would have left but she had my baby four months ago!” He laughed, and I took a step back. No one knew I was around the corner.

“Daniel… that’s pretty messed up.” Jonah frowned and Daniel just laughed some more.

“No. What’s really messed up was I fucked some girl in Maui.”

“Daniel!” Corbyn yelled. “That was like 24 hours after you got married!”

“I was drunk.”

“It’s always that same excuse.” I practically leaped from the corner, the other four boys flinched. Not Daniel. He sat there with a smile as he acknowledged my presence.

“Hey, baby! How long have you-”

“Don’t ‘hey baby’ me, Daniel James! I heard you. A girl? In Maui! Fuck you. I’m taking Alex and we’re going home. You can stay here tonight.”

“Jonah, give me my baby.” He handed over my child with a very apologetic smile on his face.

Daniel didn’t come home the next day, he came home after two. I know Corbyn told him what he said. When Daniel came home, it wasn’t to me. It was to an empty home, mine and Alexander's stuff cleared out. I left two things for Daniel, I left the divorce papers I found in the bottom of his dresser on the dining room table. My name is already signed. Besides the tear-stained papers, was an envelope. Daniel tore it open to find a letter

“Dear Daniel,

I found these in your dresser. So it was true? I’ll text you a time and place to meet up to take your name off of Alex’s birth certificate. I wouldn’t want to burden you.

P.S I hope you enjoy your present.

-Kora”

Left inside of the envelope, was Kora’s engagement and wedding ring.

Daniel hated himself. How could he have been so stupid? He just let the two greatest things slip away from him. And it was all Daniel's fault. Well, him and the alcohol. If only he had listened to Kora. His friends would begin to distance themselves from Daniel. They thought he was stupid as well. And oh would he pay.

Daniel would never get over it. Every woman he would see would remind him of the foolish mistakes, his poor choices that would lead him to his greatest loss.

TAGLIST: @chilling-seavey @hiya-its-amber @jocelyntheduckie @randomlimelightxxx @stuffofseaveyy @the-girl-who-cried-wolf

#daniel seavey fanfic #why don’t we fanfic #daniel seavey #corbyn besson #jonah marais #jack Avery #Zach Herron #wdw Daniel #wdw jack #wdw Zach #wdw Jonah #wdw Corbyn

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seachanqe · 4 years ago

Link

Jon pulls open the box, and nestled within some white tissue paper is a ring: a simple dark black band. For a split second he studies it, utterly bewildered, before it clicks. Martin's here, nervous, presenting him with a ring. Martin's proposing to him.

I FINALLY wrote the fic based on the ace ring proposal post I made forever ago.

And, it happened to fit in nicely with the prompt "Misunderstandings" for The Magnus Writers h/c week!

Read on AO3 through the link above, or under the cut.

"Martin," says Jon fondly, when Martin comes back into their bedroom for the fourth time in a row without a word or an apparent reason, "Just tell me whatever it is already. Please?"

"Mm, what?" Martin asks, even though he was looking directly at Jon when Jon spoke to him. Martin's brow is furrowed in thought, his body tense with anxiety.

"Really, Martin, spit it out." Jon shakes his head but can't hide the warm smile on his face even if he tried. Things between them for the past week since they had arrived at the safe house had been good, wonderful even, as they tested out and fell into the habits of a new relationship.

Martin had gotten back from a trip to town not too long ago, and had seemed on edge about something since. But Jon isn't worried; he Knows there were currently no threats around, so whatever is bothering Martin is something they could solve together. He has no shortage of faith in that.

Now that he has Martin in the room for more than 3 seconds, he can see Martin is holding a small, black hinged box, like a jewelry box.

"What's that?" Jon asks lightly, nodding towards the box, compulsion held back like a breath.

"Oh!" Martin bites his lip, and glances down at his hands as if he's surprised there's something there. "This? Hah. Well, um. I, er? Got you something."

"Like… a gift?" Jon asks, bewildered. The word feels foreign on his tongue. He… can't remember the last time someone gave him any sort of present. Well. Maybe Prentiss' ashes. Jon cocks his head at it. What could it be this time? Some sand? Dust?

"Yeah, a-- a gift." Martin has a queer sort of look on his face, like he can't quite believe it either.

After several moments of quiet, Jon cannot stand the wait any longer. "You... said it was for me, right?"

"Yeah! Sorry, hah, here you go." Martin hands the black box over to Jon. Jon traces his thumb over the box as he takes it, enjoying its texture of smooth velvet.

"What's the occasion?" Jon asks, still studying the small box, before glancing up at Martin. Martin's brow is pinched and he worries his lower lip between his teeth.

"No occasion," he replies with a shrug. "Just saw something at a shop earlier today when I made the trip into town for groceries, and, uh. I thought of you?" Martin takes a deep breath, as if readying himself. "Listen, you don't have to keep it or wear it or whatever, especially if it makes you uncomfortable, and I--I hope this isn't inappropriate or--"

" Martin ." Jon steps forward, putting a hand on Martin's arm, steadily catching his gaze. "You're an incredibly thoughtful person. I'm sure I will love it."

Martin nods once, swallowing, and slips his arms around Jon's waist. "R-right. Thanks?" his voice wavering. "You haven't even opened it though," he says with a hint of reproach.

Jon sighs before leaning in to press a kiss to Martin's cheek, then immediately pulling back to admire the lovely flush of color that's spread across Martin's face. With some regret, he steps back to be able to open Martin's present; he'd rather spend more time in Martin's arms.

Jon could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he gazed down at the ring. He'd… actually never really thought about marriage before -- at least not in these terms. Marriage had always seemed for people in love, people who had things figured out -- normal couples that didn't include him. But, now, when he examined his future, all he saw was Martin.

He wanted Martin to be with him always, forever, and isn't that really what marriage was? Or should be? He wanted to wake up every morning and see Martin lying there beside him, be greeted by Martin's warm, soft, sleepy smile, have Martin in his arms. He wanted to be able to care for him, be cared for by him. He wanted to make sure Martin was happy like how happy Martin had made him. This past week had been like a dream, and now that he had a taste of what his life looked like with Martin in it, he couldn't go back. Sure, it may be a little hasty for this, but when had either of them done anything conventionally? Jon had already made Martin wait long enough. Jon could see the beauty in a spontaneous proposal, the romance, but what really spoke to him was making sure, no matter how much or how little time left they had together, with whatever Jonah was planning, Martin knew how much he cared for him, how much Martin meant to him, and how seriously he took their relationship.

"Uh, Jon?" Martin asks, nervously.

"Oh!" Jon gives himself a little shake out of his thoughts, excitement finally settling in. He had been keeping Martin waiting.

"Yes," Jon responds solemnly, but is unable to keep back a small smile as he gazes back at Martin. Though slightly uncertain about convention, he decides to just go ahead and put the ring on. He slips it on his left hand on his ring finger; it's slightly loose but, all things considered, fit rather well.

Jon holds up his hand to admire the black ring on it. "I'd be honored to marry you."

Martin makes a choked sound and turns bright red; Jon steps forward immediately, concerned.

"Martin, what is it?"

Martin is still sputtering, his mouth opens and closes but no words come out. Jon isn't sure if he's ever seen Martin this flustered and… well, that's saying something. Especially after the other day when they were both rather wine drunk and Jon shared with Martin a number of affectionate ramblings, such as that Jon hadn't seen a more beautiful man in his life than Martin, and that Martin smelled good, like home.

Jon bites his lip, anxious dread settling low in his gut that he had done something wrong, messed this up somehow, to upset Martin like this. "Did I-- are you, are you happy? Martin," Jon pleaded, "what is it, please?"

Martin inhales sharply at Jon's beseeching tone, shaking his head rapidly. "Sorry, sorry! I'm just. Surprised?" his voice pitched higher than normal.

Jon frowns at this, trying to push aside the hurt uncurling in his chest. Surprised? Did he… expect Jon to say no? Did he think Jon wasn't the type? Or did he think Jon wouldn't want to ever marry him? But then why ask in the first place?

"I don't understand," Jon says slowly, cautiously, afraid his voice would waver. He pulls his arms to his chest and wraps them around his middle, his hands clinging to his sides tightly.

" Jon," Martin says, pained, hushed, apologetic. He sighs heavily. "The ring… it was meant as an--an ace ring. I thought I'd show support, you know? For you. I saw that ring at the shop, and it looked about your size, and I thought of you. I had done some reading after our talk last week, and this seemed… like fate or--or whatever. It felt right . To give it to you. I--" Martin swallows, before taking a shuddering breath, "I'm sorry that it was misleading, I love you, Jon. And…" Martin stops, brow furrowed, pensive.

As he listens to Martin speak, Jon swallows past the pin-pricked tightness in his throat, fighting the urge to flee. An ace ring was nice, lovely even. He had never owned one, had never gotten around to it. He already felt safe and assured in Martin's quiet but eager acceptance of him when he explained his asexuality to Martin last week, but this…this was everything. A wonderful, thoughtful gift. Despite this though, his face still burns with embarrassment that his initial thought when being presented with a ring from Martin was marriage, how utterly stupid could he be?

"O--oh. Right. I'm sorr--," Jon begins, after several seconds goes by without Martin saying anything else, and Jon does his best to sound unaffected, calm, nonplussed.

"No!" Martin interjects, holding out his hands, as if reaching for Jon, but stops short. " Please don't apologize, Jon, never. I think… now that you mention it--I, I would be honored," Martin's voice wavers, thick with emotion, "to marry you too."

"I--" Jon starts before Martin's words catch up to him. He blinks, trying and failing to process it all.

Martin finally, finally, bridges the gap between them, taking Jon's hands in his. Jon feels Martin's thumb pass over Jon's new ring, bumping up against it. Martin's hands are warm, his smile tentative and kind. Martin's always been kind though, even when Jon didn't deserve it.

"I love you, Jon. And if you think you'd be happy married to me--"

That jolts Jon into action. "Now hold on," he says indignantly. "'I think' nothing. I know I would be happy married to you. No, not happy. Joyously ecstatic and immensely lucky to be your husband."

To his pleasure, Martin is finally blushing again.

"Jon," Martin says, fondly exasperated.

"Martin. I mean it."

Martin let out an exaggerated sigh. "Fine," he says, smiling, squeezing Jon's hand. "If we were to do it, how would we go about it? I mean." Martin bites his lip. "Everything I know about weddings comes from movies, or…"

"Books?" Jon finishes with a wry smile. "It's the same for me. Hm. We can contact the registrar tomorrow… where is the nearest registrar?" he asked no one in particular before the information came to him with a hint of static. "Ah, perfect. There's one a town over, I bet we can call for a cab, or--"

"T-tomorrow?" Martin sputters, eyes wide.

Jon laughs, breathlessly giddy. "Well, we did already sort of elope, didn't we?"

Martin huffs a laugh back. "I guess… So are we really doing this? Are you being serious?" Martin said with a smile, tone carefully lighthearted, but Jon could hear and understood the fragile cautiousness underneath. They had both spent too long being hurt by the world.

Jon let go of Martin's hands, instead cupping Martin's face with one hand, the other wrapping around Martin's waist, drawing him close. Martin blinks rapidly as he scans Jon's face for a hint of a rejection, or a sign that Jon's joking, or something that would tell Martin that he wasn't wanted. Jon made sure he found none of that, as he calmly, resolutely stared back, thinking how lucky he really was to have Martin's love after everything they both had gone through.

"Martin, I--I can't see my future without you in it. I can't think of anything I'm more serious about."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Let's get married," Martin says, though he looks like he could still barely believe it.

Jon can barely believe it either after the emotional roller coaster of the past quarter hour. His heart and mind races, and he can't recall the last time he felt such combination of quiet contentment and near euphoria. As he starts mentally running through everything they'll have to do--like a cake! They can't have their wedding without a cake--Jon realizes a small issue.

"Just one problem." Jon pulls back slightly to look down at his left hand, where the black ring rests on his ring finger.

"Hm?" Martin quirks his head, bemused.

"Should I keep wearing this on my ring finger or move it to where ace rings are supposed to go?"

"Oh," Martin says with a laugh, looking a bit relieved. "Think of it as an engagement ring, but put it on your middle right. We don't do things traditionally anyway, do we?"

"No," Jon murmurs, finally leaning all the way forward so his head rests on Martin's shoulder. Martin's arms envelop him and hold him close, like he's something precious, and Jon takes a deep breath, relishing being surrounded by Martin (his softness, his scent, his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest, his warmth, his love) and the feeling of safety that brings. Jon thinks back to how many times over the years they had carefully danced around each other, going on lunch not-dates, quiet evenings of tea, emotionally laden looks and words, but, finally, here they were after years of folly, pain, and misfortune, together, navigating their relationship, no matter how unconventional it had progressed and came to be. "No, we don't."

#tmahcweek #the magnus archives #jonmartin #my writing #FINALLY ace ring proposal fic

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joonietonin · 5 years ago

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Ethan Ramsey's Character Development (Open Heart, Book 2)

Throughout Book 1, Ethan had made a slow but impactful progress. Come Book 2, and as MC herself says, "We've got ourselves a brand new Ethan Ramsey" this statement holds true, not only referring to his droolworthy beard and his new jacket but also to his growth in character. So.. yeah, this is me analysing the changes in his character, which, if I may say so, has so much depth and progression to it. [My MC is female, pronouns: she/her]

• He literally went to another continent for two whole months to get over MC. He is truly, madly and deeply in love with her. I will not take no for an answer.

• He is trying not to call her 'Rookie' anymore. Well, I personally want him to call MC as a Rookie because I think we all find it very endearing but ever since MC told him how she's not a Rookie anymore, it's kind of really sweet that he's trying to call her by her first name.

• He is still trying to spend time with her. Although he claims that they cannot be romantically involved anymore, he is desperately trying for some one on one time with her. He's really really not over her huh? Even after being gone to the literal Amazon for two months, he still is very much in love with her. So much so, even when MC kisses him in Chapter 1, he doesn't pull away. He leans into her touch, her kiss. And when MC says he can tell her if he doesn't want to kiss her anymore.. it pains him to admit the truth that, "It has nothing to do with want. I can't. And if I give a damn about you, I won't." The statement is such a bittersweet confession of how much he cares about MC. He proclaims that he does want her and he needs her but he cannot be with her, rather will not be with her to push her to become the best doctor she can be. Also later in Chapter 2, during the gym scene if MC chooses to stretch with Ethan he's very open to offer her help to stretch knowing very well that they'll be in close proximity with each other.

• He reassures MC about her actions. Throughout Book 1, MC has made quite some controversial decisions and if there was one person who has always supported her decisions no matter how crazy they were, it was Ethan Ramsey. Similarly, in Book 2 Ethan reassures her that when she defended the girl from Dr. Thorne's unwelcome advances, it was the right thing to do. Even if your MC chooses to say it wasn't the right thing, he reassures by saying that it should be. He supports her,"What you did just now was brave. You've always been brave in the face of disaster and death, of course.. But it's different when you're facing down a superior. To stand up to them for what's right." So yeah, we stan a supportive husband.

• He admits his flaws and let's his guard down in front of MC. If you know Ethan Ramsey, you know he has the tallest concrete walls built around him letting no one, I repeat no one, see him at his vulnerability. Except for MC, of course. Slowly but surely MC broke down some parts of those walls and he didn't seem to mind it. If this were someone else he would have never let them even take one brick out of his tall walls. With MC, it was different. In Book 2, Ethan admits his flaw. He let's his guard down when MC praises him for being so brave to travel across the Amazon fighting a deadly epidemic. He let's her know the real reason why he went away,"That wasn't bravery.. I.. needed space.. I needed to reset before.." and almost immediately MC knew what was up. So yeah, it's really nice that we get to see the vulnerable and soft side of the usually tough, strong and brave Ethan Jonah Ramsey.

• He knows MC like the back of his hand. He knows when something's wrong. He can sense if MC is tensed or worried or just sad. He has always been very heedful of MC's feelings like the time (in Book 1) he took her out to the opera when she was feeling miserable. Similarly in Book 2, when MC feels overwhelmed by the quick working in the diagnostics team, Ethan takes one look at her face and knows what's up. He let's her know about all the work she has to do as a second year resident but his authoritative tone changes into a more comforting one when he asks her, "Is everything all right, MC?"

• He still provides her with advice that she needs and fulfills his role as a mentor without shutting her out completely. Given the complexity of their relationship and Ethan's fear that they could cross the line, it wouldn't be surprising if he shut her out completely but that's not the case in Book 2. He's very mindful of her needs, especially as his mentee. He gives her the advice that she needs and eases her worries. And he even asks her about how she felt about the diagnostics team and they get a few laughs out of it. He's tender when she puts her hand over his. He stares at her hand, gently rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb letting her know how much he wants her but he can't.. so when MC gives him reassurance, he tells her, "We'll be okay. We'll make it work." That sentence itself is almost foreshadowing their future where they *maybe* will find a way to be together as well as work efficiently.

• He is kind and gentle these days. If we all know Ethan Ramsey, we know that he does not waste an opportunity to retort MC, be it describing her as 'a colossal pain in the ass' or that time he tells her how 'amazing it was that she didn't kill the patient' referring to her amateur skills. But now? He doesn't retort when it comes to her. He's kind, gentle and understanding. Therefore, when MC tells him that she feels like a clueless intern all over again, he tells her calmly, "Because you are clueless, comparatively speaking." MC thinks he's making fun of her but Ethan quickly corrects her saying, "It wasn't an insult." So yeah, Ethan Ramsey is a softie. Next!

• MC's wish is his command. Ethan does not really need approval from anybody to do something. He's never the one who has needed validation yet when it comes to MC, he needs, and I mean needs, to know what she thinks about his new look. Be it his jacket. Or his beard. Depending on your choices, if your MC chooses to let Ethan know that she misses his famous jawline, he drops in next morning with a shaved face. Similarly when MC keeps staring at Ethan and he asks her what's wrong and if your MC lets him know how she can't see his eyes with his glasses on. He immediately takes them off proclaiming, "If you insist... There. Happy now?" As I had said in a previous post, had this been any other person he would not have bothered to ask their opinion on his new look let alone change his look for them. Bottom-line is: HE IS WHIPPED.

• He doesn't shy away from praising MC. It is rare to get a compliment out of Ethan Ramsey so it's really sweet that Ethan has been so vocal about how great a doctor MC is. He does not shy away from telling others how proud he is of his wife MC. Be it to her own intern when he tells her, "Well, Dr. Ortega.. Dr. MC is one of our best. Consider yourself lucky." Or the instance where MC correctly diagnoses the Governor's son and the Governor states how lucky the hospital is to have a doctor like MC. Ethan is quick to reaffirm her beliefs by saying, "We certainly are." Also, during the dinner scene, the Governor says how Ethan had mentioned MC as the "bright future of Edenbrook" I mean, this man is a whole damn supportive husband material.

• He considers how helpful MC is when it comes to social situations. It goes back to that scene in Book 1 where Ethan asks for MC's help during his meeting with officials at the baseball game. MC had proved how resourceful and well-spoken she can be in an important social situation. Ethan certainly remembers that.. therefore when the Governor insists she come to dinner with Dr. Banerji, Dr. Emery and Dr. Ramsey, Ethan lets her know, "I could really use your help with the Governor. You know I'm no good at this political stuff." In the past year they've come close enough to know each other's strengths and vulnerabilities hence it's really cute that Ethan chooses to ask for her help rather than pretending to be good at something he's not.

• He does really love her very very much. While MC impresses the Governor with her thoughts on how important the community is for a town like Boston to grow and prosper. His knee touches MC's as a sign of approval and pride over what she had just said even though he made it seem like an innocent mistake. It is also very thoughtful and cute that he dropped Harper first and then turned his car back to drop MC even though MC's apartment came first in the route. He really wanted to spend some alone time with her. Hence after a few jokes about how she should have skipped the fifth course and how the rich live a disgustingly lavish life... He also assures her about whether or not they convinced the Governor by saying, "Thanks to you, yes. I think we did." Therefore when MC chooses to scoot closer and rest her head in the warmth and comfort of his shoulder, Ethan can't help but smile his heart out wanting that peace and privacy to never end. Also when MC jokingly suggests how Ethan would not come up for a nightcap at her apartment he just smiles ruefully and says goodnight. So.. all I'm trying to prove is that Ethan Jonah Ramsey is whipped. Period.

• He doesn't hide his problems from her anymore. Remember the time Ethan told MC about Dr. Banerji only because our curious MC found Dr. Banerji in the empty wing? Yeah, so that's changed. Ethan knows that he can trust MC with his life. Therefore when MC senses something is wrong with Ethan as he looks outside the window solemnly, he does not try to hide what's happening from her. He knows that he can confide in her and let her knowing how Edenbrook was in trouble. It's like he knows he doesn't have to fight his battles alone anymore and that MC would be there for him every step of the way.

So yeah, that was it. Feel free to add more points you might have noticed in Ethan's behaviour. I've been wanting to write this for a long time but didn't really have to courage to continue on given how longgggg this post would be but here it is! Thank you if you have read it till here, I'm grateful. Also I'm very hyped about today's chapter and also a bit mad at our dumb MC now that we know she has done something really really stupid to enrage the entire hospital! But that's something we'll have to deal with later! For now let's just bask in the joy of knowing how whipped and in love Ethan Ramsey is. (≧▽≦)

#open heart #playchoices #choices: open heart #open heart 2 #dr. ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc

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terrm9 · 4 years ago

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CHAPTER 9 - Light

Words count: 5 000 + Warnings: cursing, hints of sex Author’s note: 1) I am sorry for The Queen references, it was not planned at all but I got carried away 2) Chiara has Ethan saved as “Jonah” in her phone, because she always forgets her phone at nurse’s station and E.R. and Donahue’s, everywhere, and so to decrease the chance of exposing them, it’s Jonah 3) I didn’t check the mistakes yet, so I am sorry for them. ENJOY!

------------- LIGHT ------------

For the first time ever, their lips met in a kiss that didn’t taste like regrets, doubts and sorrow.

For the first time ever they kissed with hope and promises and happiness.

Their lips met in a newfound feeling of odd security, something that has never happened before, as the threat of regrets always hung over their heads. The kiss started out as almost shy, Ethan’s lips brushing Chiara’s ever so softly, afraid of ruining the sacred moment if he allowed his yearning to take a full lead. But soon it was Chiara who opened her mouth slightly, inviting him to make sure that she still tasted like the Chiara he kissed at Mass Kenmore all those months ago.

The concept of time long forgotten by the couple of doctors as they discovered their new normal, kissing until the air around them changed, until the heat their bodies produced was enough for them to finally break the connection. With their cheeks flushed, hair dishelved, the buttons of Ethan’s shirt undone, they looked at each other intensively while catching their breaths.

„I think we should stop here,“ Ethan broke the silence at last.

„Are you already stepping back?“ Chiara asked with a teasing smile, which was supposed to hide her tremendou fear that Ethan actually was stepping back.

He chuckled at the question and took her hands into his, slowly running his thumb along her knuckles.

„I screwed up a lot in the past. I simply want to make things right this time. And taking you here at my couch when two hours ago I didn’t believe you would ever want to forgive me again, that doesn’t feel right. We still have a conversation to make. And I would like to at least make you a dinner before we take the… next step.“

„Good old fashioned lover boy, huh?“ she couldn’t help but tease him again.

„Are you seriously quoting Queen on me now? You know I am Under Pressure.“

„You know Queen lyrics?“ she laughed and decided to continue the little game. „That is, indeed, Miracle.“

„You underestimate me, Rookie. The show must go on.“

„Oh, Ramsey, you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into with this little Queen references competition. My dad loved Freddie Mercury. I know every single lyrics. Don’t stop me now.“

„I am afraid I have to. We seriously need to talk. But you are still my Killer Queen,“ he smiled as he kissed her forehead.

He leaned back into to couch, pulling Chiara towards him, until her head rested on his lap and he could play with her hair. Her hands rested in her own lap, fingers nervously fidgeting at the thought of another serious talk. No matter how hard she tried to trust him completely, the little part of her was simply too afraid to do so. Tha little part expected to hear that it was a mistake and they needed to be professional again.

Ethan observed Chiara’s furrowed brows and her slightly shaking hands and how she kept biting her lower lips and he hated himself, knowing that she was this nervous because of him. Because he hurt her and left her and pushed her away so many times, that she couldn’t trust him fully anymore. He hated every part of his own self and he knew he deserved the hate.

„As I said previously, I want to make things right this time, Chiara. Which means that we need to talk even about uncomfortable things and that I want to stand by your side every step of the way and that I never want to hurt you again. Never in my life have I felt this way, not with Marial, not with Harper, never. And honestly, Chiara, it terrifies me. These feelings, I am so scared. I have always believed that I know who I am, that nothing can surprise me anymore and then you walked into Edenbrook and… well, I was fucked. I found out that I couldn’t recall who I was anymore, because I was changing and as a man who hates change, I fought it all I could. Until I could. And I can’t anymore, I can’t fight against you, but this new reality, it still scares me.“

His voice was trembling now, thick with emotion. He wanted to say so much more, he wanted to tell her how sorry he was that she had to deal with this broken piece of man, that he knew he would hurt her again despite his best efforts to not to. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her. So desperately did he wish he could just express how he felt, but all the words got stuck in his throat and so he just stared at the black screen of television in front of him and hated himself even more.

Chiara wasn’t staring at the ceiling anymore, rather watching Ethan’s expressions as he finished his speech. She reached his left cheek with her hand and caressed him softly.

„I am here, Ethan. No matter how scary it gets, I am here, okay? You don’t need to tell me everything now. Or ever, for that matter. I know.“

Finally he looked down at her and the intensity of compassion in her stare made him want to cry.

How did I ever deserve a woman like you?

He cupped her hand on his cheek and leaned into her touch, closing his eyes to compose himself.

Clearing his throat to make sure he wouldn’t actually start crying, he decided to start the uncomfortable conversation.

„I want to be with you, Chiara. With my whole being, I wish to be with you. But your career is only starting and you are more than just brilliant doctor. You are destined to be the best one of your generation.“

He felt Chiara tense in his lap as she opened her mouth to fight him.

„Just let me say this, okay?“ he stopped her before she could say anything. „Being with you is not illegal. It’s not even fobidden and we both know that Naveen would never disapprove of our relationship. It’s unprofessional and probably unethical, but that doesn’t matter. If we decided to go public, it wouldn’t cost you – or me – the job at Edenbrook. And as someone who has worked there for eleven years now, it would hardly affect me anyhow. But you, Chiara, your reputation…“ Ethan ran his free hand through his hair before continuing. „At the moment, everyone at the hospital knows that you are amazing doctor. Fellow residents, nurses, even attendings, they respect you, because you earned it. But if they find out about us, no matter how hard you worked to earn that respect, it will be forgotten. You will be the resident that’s dating Dr. Ramsey and therefore gets the special treatment. And nobody would give a damn about the fact that I am harder on you than on anyone else. Nobody would care, because rumours are rumours and all the respect that you earned, it would be gone. I don’t care what they have to say about me, but you are young and promising and I can’t let my need to be with you officially stand in the way of your progress. Obviously, I am not letting you go either and so one of the options is for us to be in a secret relationship until your residency is over.“

Chiara raised her eyebrow at him and asked: „One of the options? I don’t think there are any other options.“

„Of course there are. I get that keeping this a secret will be hard, that it wouldn’t be the relationship you deserve. So if you are not willing to do that, which I absolutely understand, I will transfer into another hospital.“

„What?“ Chiara all but shouted and abruptly sat up, looking at him with wide eyes. „You would never do that. Edenbrook is the best hospital in Boston. It’s your life. You belong to Edenbrook.“

„I like to think that I belong to you, Chiara,“ he smiled. „Yes, Edenbrook has been my life for the past eleven years, but it’s caring about the patients that brings me joy, not the hospital itself. And there are patients in other hospitals in Boston. Nothing in Edenbrook makes me feel as happy as you do, Dr. Ray. Just say a word and I’ll be gone.“

Since when are you such a softie, Ramsey?

„That would be so stupid, Ethan. It’s just a year and half until my residency is over. I think we are both capable of keeping things secret for that long. Iť’s not like we would make out in the waiting room anyway.“

Ethan let out a whole-hearted laugh, tension leaving his shoulders. He was serious when he said that he would leave Edenbrook because of her, but knowing that she didn’t want him to, that she respected his career as much as he respected hers, brought him soothing sense of relief.

„There is one thing, though,“ Chiara said. „I am okay with keeping things secret with most people, but if it’s alright with you, I feel the need to tell my friends. My roommates and Bryce. They are the people I trust with my life and I know that they would never spread the rumours. It would be much easier for me if they just knew, if I didn’t have to make up excuses about where do I spend my evening or a weekend. But only if it doesn’t bother you.“

Ethan shrugged, not surprised by her suggestion. Her friends were her supporting net and ever since the accident, he could see just how much they meant to each other. And for that, he was happy.

„I honestly believe that they already have their ideas about us. If you trust them, then it’s okay by me.“

Chiara smiled at him and raised from his lap, so that she could kiss him. With one hand on the back of his neck she straddled him, her free hand drawing teasing circles on his bare chest. His grip on her hips got stronger and his resolution to make it right this time was slowly decreasing with every swirl of her tongue in his mouth.

„Do you want to stay a night?“ he whispered when he pulled back, his voice raspy.

Chiara laughed softly and shook her head, wanting to ask him if he would cook the dinner now, so that they could finish what has been started.

„Sienna would go crazy with fear if I didn’t come home tonight and I don’t want to tell her I am staying with you through the phone. They all have a day off tomorrow, I’ll tell them at brunch we have planned.“

„Yes. Sure. That’s… reasonable. I am working tomorrow, but I have a free Sunday, so what do you say about me picking you up tomorrow evening, making you a dinner and you staying here for the night and then on Sunday?“

„That definitely sounds like a plan,“ she grinned and crashed his lips with hers once again.

The brunch was reaching its end, all the spinach quiche has been eaten, mini chocolate tarts made by Sienna in the hands of young doctors and Chiara still couldn’t find her courage to tell them. By the look Sienna gave her last night when she got home, Chiara knew that she was waiting for some kind of explanation and as much as she trusted them to be supportive and happy for her, she felt extremely nervous to drop this bomb.

„Guys, I.. uhm, well.. I kinda have to tell you something. I’ve got some news.“

„Are you moving out?“ Jackie raised her eyebrow.

„Don’t tell us you are transferring to Mass Kenmore too,“ Elijah added.

Chiara laughed and looked at Sienna, who – with a smug smile on her face – nodded softly, sign of encouraging her to simply say it.

„No, I am not moving out and I am not transferring. It’s about Dr. Ramsey.“

„What about him? Is he transferring?“ Elijah gasped again, eyes wide with shock.

„You really haven’t gotten past my transferring E, have you?“ Aurora chuckled.

„He is not,“ Chiara took a deep breath. „Last night he gave me a ride home from the party and we had a chance to talk about… lot of things and we decided to give it a shot. To give a relationship a shot, I mean. We have had feelings for each other for some time now and he never wanted us to be more than collegues but now he kinda changed his mind? However, it needs to be a secret until I am an attending, but I needed to tell you because I can’t keep secrets from you and I love you and I just want you to know that I am dating Ethan Ramsey.“

She expected them to be shocked. Maybe to tease her. She expected the long stunned silence she knows from movies. Despite her hope, she even expected them to be angry or to despise her. What she didn’t expect was their soft laughter and Jackie’s question: „Okay, and now the news? I thought you wanted to share some news with us.“

„That is the news!“ Chiara exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

„Oh,“ she breathed out and then added. „I think I am saying this for all of us Chiara – coming clear with your feelings and making things official between the two of you, that’s great. Really, good for you. We are happy. But saying that it’s news? Pleaaaase, we all have known for some time now that you two had something going on.“

„She is right,“ Aurora nodded, grinning.

Chiara sat there with her mouth open, looking from one face to another and really, they all simply smiled knowingly, without a sign of surprise or anger.

„We are really, really happy for you, Chiara. You deserve to be happy and so does Dr. Ramsey, I guess,“ Sienna smiled and hugged Chiara tightly.

„But if he ever hurts you, I am going to kick his balls,“ Jackie couldn’t help but add, joining the hug. Soon, they were all hugging and suddenly, it wasn’t about Chiara and Ethan at all, it was about the friends that support each other through thick and thin, it was about the love they shared.

Chiara couldn’t suppress the smile that spread across her face as she read that one text over and over again.

She would swear that Ethan didn’t really have to get back to work and only wrote that so that he wouldn’t have to carry on with the conversation. She could just imagine how hard it must have been for him to write those words to her and was pretty sure that his cheeks blushed the bright pink colours she adored so much.

As he promised, Ethan parked his car outside Chiara’s apartment at six and since all her roommates have already known about them, he decided to pick her up instead of just calling her to come out.

No matter how many times he told himself that it wasn’t such a big deal, that she spent the night at his place already, he still felt incredibly nervous. What if she didn’t like the dinner he would cook? What if she realized that she actually didn’t want to spend her night and Sunday with him? What if she started to feel the same hatred he felt for himself, because he wasn’t capable of telling her how he really felt while looking into her eyes?

Shaking his head abruptly to get the thoughts out of it, he knocked on the door, hoping that it would be Chiara who opened them.

It was Sienna.

„Dr. Trinh,“ he nodded towards her and seeing her expression, he corrected himself. „Sienna. Good evening.“

„Nice to see you, Dr. Ramsey!“ she smiled. „Come in, I’ll go tell Chiara you are here.“

He stepped into the apartment, watching her back as she walked towards Chiara’s room. Before she could step in, she turned at him once again and added: „I am really happy for you two, Dr. Ramsey.“

„Ethan is just fine, Sienna,“ he said, right corner of his lip lifting softly. „And thank you.“

Soon, Chiara stepped out of her room and smiled oh so brightly when she noticed him standing in the hall. Before she approached him, she hugged Sienna quickly and whispered something into her ear, at which Sienna grinned mischievously.

„Shall we?“ he asked as he pressed his lips against her temple. Chiara simply nodded and followed him into his car, suppressing the need to pinch herself to make sure that any of this was real.

After they finished the dinner – Georgian stuffed chicken, which he promised her all those months ago – they found themselves tangled on his couch, glasses of fine wine in their hands. Chiara insisted on talking about work and Ethan insisted on talking about anything but work.

Before they could argue about why they should or shouldn’t talk about work, they weren’t talking about anything anymore, using their lips for much more pleasing activities.

Covering her petite form with his body, Ethan broke the kiss only to continue pressing his lips on her jawline, on the spot behing her left ear that he knew would make her moan and then sucking on her neck gently. His hands roamed her torso under the sweater she was wearing and just as he was about to tuck the sweater up, Chiara opened her eyes and pushed his hands away.

„Don’t,“ she whispered, shame written all over her face.

Ethan’s brows furrowed at the sudden change in the mood, but of course he immediately stopped in his tracks.

„Sure. Yes, I am really sorry, Chiara. I didn’t intend to be inappropriate. I am really sorry.“

„It’s not that, Ethan,“ she breathed out, her voice so small he almost missed what she was saying. „It’s not about me not wanting… you. Just… well, the accident and then the surgery left me terribly scarred. There are hideous scars all over my stomach and some on my chest too and I don’t want you to see how ugly it all is.“

His chest tightened at her words and he caressed her cheekbone so softly she felt like she was making the touch up.

„Oh, Chiara,“ he whispered. „Don’t ever say something like that ever again, okay? Nothing on your body is hideous. Could I see them, please?“

She nodded and closed her eyes as he rolled her sweater up to her breasts, not wanting to see his expression when he’d see how destroyed her body was.

Keeping her eyes shut, she couldn’t tell if he even looked at her at all, but the fact that for a moment there was no movement around her and no sound that would break the heavy silence of the room was enough for her to think of the worst.

He is disgusted by how I look.

The light warmth of his fingers on her stomach made her open her eyes.

Ethan’s gaze, fixed on her abdomen, was so intense and so adoring it brought tears into her eyes. He traced every single one of her scars with his thumb so softly, so gently it almost tickled. After observing her, he lowered his head and put a feather-like kiss on the first scar while whispering „you are beautiful“. Then the second one („and you are beautiful“) and the third one right over her left breast („and you are beautiful“).

„And you are the most beautiful,“ he whispered as he raised his eyes to look into Chiara’s green ones. She had to close them again, overwhelmed by the gentlesness in his voice and his actions.

Returning to kissing her fiercely, Ethan ran his hand up and down her thigh while sucking and biting the soft flesh above her hip.

„That’s going to leave a mark,“ Chiara all but moaned.

„Nobody will see it here,“ Ethan murmured, not concerned about her words at all. „Or will they?“ he added quickly, looking back at her, his eyes dark with lust and also… was it possiblity of jealousy?

Shaking her head, Chiara got rid of her sweater and started to work on the buttons of Ethan’s shirt, not patient enough to be teased without feeling his skin on hers.

Taking a clue, Ethan ceased the movements of his mouth on her hips only to take her into his arms and bring her into his bedroom, so that they could finish what they started in the comfort of his king-sized bed.

Monday morning came all too quickly for their liking and as excited as Chiara was to get back to work, the comfort and security of Ethan’s apartment were enough for her to complain when she had to leave it.

Ethan and Chiara drove to the hospital together, however once they’ve gotten to the parking lot, Chiara decided to leave the car first while Ethan waited some time longer, so that they wouldn’t raise a suspicion. Once seated in the diagnostics office, Chiara sent a quick message to Ethan that it was safe for him to come to work now.

The door opened after a while and in came both male doctors of the team, Ethan’s expression neutral, while Baz Mirani almost jumped of joy when he noticed Chiara behind the round table.

„Oh, my favourite doctor is back! I am so happy you are here now, Chiara, working with those two grumpies without you was a torture!“

„Excuse me?“ Ethan raised his eyebrow at the remark.

„I am happy to be back too, Baz,“ Chiara laughed, ignoring Ethan’s (pretended) offended expression and stood up to hug Baz tightly.

„You still have a cane?“

„Yup. hopefully not forever, though. It’s more an accessory now,“ she grinned.

„Cool!“ Baz exclaimed. „We should call you Dr. House while you have it! Right, Ethan?“

Ethan’s confussion – unlike his offended face – wasn’t an act when he innocently asked: „And why would we do that?“

Chiara and Baz exchanged an amused look at Ethan’s hopeless unfamiliarity with mainstream hospital dramas, while he watched them both with his brows furrowed, knowing too well that they would tease him for it for days.

˜ Weeks turned into months and by March, Chiara felt as if the accident happened years ago. She didn’t need the cane anymore – which made Baz both happy (for her) and sad (because the Dr. House jokes had to stop) – and with the amount of nights she’s been spending with Ethan, even her nightmares have seemed to disappear.

„Dr. Ray,“ Ethan acknowleged her presence as he reached the nurse’s station. „I was about to page you. We have a patient to see.“

Without saying a word, Chiara followed him to the room, listening to the information he was sharing with her: „Ellie Barnes, five years old. Losing weight, severe headaches, stomach cramps. Her mother brought her here this morning with fever.“

With the list of possible diagnoses in her head, Chiara walked into the room, ready to talk to the little girl. However, before she could open her mouth, Ethan approached the bed Ellie was laying in and smiled down at her.

The little gril with wide smile and curly blonde hair, dressed in pink pajamas with Rapunzel on top of the shirt, was hugging her princess doll tightly, while her mother kept stroking her hair gently.

„Hello, Ellie. I am Dr. Ethan and this is Dr. Chiara. We will take care of you while you are here.“

„Are you my prince?“ Ellie asked immediately.

Ethan laughed softly at the proposition, but shook his head.

„I am afraid I might be too old to be your prince, but I could be your knight. What do you say about that? I will be the night that will fight all the bad things that are making you feel sick now.“

„Okay,“ Ellie shrugged. „Knight sounds good.“

„In that case, Princess Ellie, we will need to draw some blood so that we can discover the villain in your body and fight it.“

„Will you hold my hand, Dr. Knight Ethan?“

Kneeling next to her bed, Ethan took her small hand into his huge one and smiled even wider at the princess girl.

„Of course I will. And Dr. Chiara here, she could be the fairy in our story, hm? Well, she will draw the blood and talk to your mom, okay?“

Ellie nodded, hugging her doll even tighter with one hand, while Ethan rubbed the other with his thumb.

„You were pretty good with her,“ Chiara said as they left Ellie’s room to run the tests.

„I am pretty good with all my patients, Dr. Ray,“ Ethan grinned.

„Well, yeah, you are, but you know what I mean. I have never seen you with kid patient before, I guess. It just surprised me to see how natural you were with Ellie.“

„I like kids.“ Ethan shrugged, not knowing how to react to Chiara’s compliment.

And I can never give them to you, she thought bitterly, biting her lip so that she wouldn’t ruin their day by the remark if she said it aloud.

That evening, Ethan found himself sitting on his couch with Jenner’s head in his lap, reading a medical journal, when the comfortable silence of the apartment was disturbed by ringing of his phone.

„Chiara? Is everything alright?“ he picked it up, horror audible in his voice.

„Yes, sure. I am fine. I was just wondering if I could come in tonight?“

„Aren’t Tuesday nights reserved for your roommates?“

„Yeah, but they decided to have a group date night and since Elijah is taking Phebe and Sienna is taking Danny, I can’t bring you with me and I don’t feel like going alone. So, um.. I thought that maybe you wouldn’t mind if I came?“

„Of course you can come. Do you need me to pick you up?“

„Nope. I’ll be there in an hour.“

„Okay Ethan, I need you to tell me what’s wrong. Did I interrupt your peaceful evening? Should I go home?“

Chiara’s been at Ethan’s place for more than an hour now and his mood was only getting worse. Not wanting to talk about it, he left her in the dark, only guessing what was wrong.

„No, don’t go home, please,“ he finally responded. „It’s not about you. Just… argh, I am just so angry.“

„With me?“

„No! With myself. With circumstances. With life.“

„Did something happen at work?“

Ethan sighed, running a hand through his hair. Wearing a gray Henley t-shirt with dark jeans made him look younger, more relaxed and yet, at this very moment, Ethan Ramsey looked simply… defeated.

„After you called me, I had to think about what you said. That you can’t bring me with you because there are people who don’t know about us. And it got me thinking, it made me admit the one thing I’ve been so afraid to admit.“

„What are you talking about?“ Chiara asked gently, taking his hand between hers.

„I am so scared that you will sooner or later realize that you could have so much better than me, Chiara,“ he whispered, voice heavy with fear and vulnerability. „That you deserve so much more. You deserve a relationship in which your man takes you out for a dinner and holds your hand in public and kisses you in the middle of the street. You deserve to be able to bring your boyfriend with you when meeting your friends. You deserve so much more than sneaking around and having dinner at my apartment, making sure that nobody sees us holding hands or being careful to not to stare at each other for too long in the hospital halls, because that would be suspicious. And I can’t give you what you deserve. Lahela could give you that. Aveiro could give you that. Goddamnit anyone could give you that, anyone but me. And I dread the day you realize all of this and leave me. Because neither of us got what we deserved. You’ve gotten much less with me than what you deserve. I, on the contrary, have gotten so, so, so much more with you, than what I deserve. And it’s not fair.“

There was a long silence. All Ethan could hear was his drumming heart in his ears.

„I knew what I’ve gotten myself into when we agreed to give us a try, Ethan,“ Chiara broke the silence at last, her voice barely above whisper. „I know who you are and I am very aware of what we can and cannot be. I am also aware of what I could have with other boys. I am a grown woman, Ethan, I can make my decisions and I realize the consequences of them. And I need you to listen to me now. I want to be with you, Ethan Jonah Ramsey. I would rather sneak around with you and hide in your apartment than hold my hands in public with anyone else. I chose you and I keep choosing you every day. You need to start believing that you are good enough. Not only for me, for everyone. Because you are enough, Ethan.“

The next moment, Chiara felt like she was being crushed by the force with which Ethan hugged her. She could swear she felt his tears moisten the skin under her hair, however before she could confirm her suspicion by looking up at Ethan, he cleared his throat and gently pulled away, standing up from the couch.

„I’ll be right back,“ he murmured and left the living room.

When he got back, he played with his antique phonograph for a while and as the room was filled with gentle tones of one of Frank Sinatra’s songs, he lit up three candles and switched the lights off.

Only then he approached Chiara, still sitting on his couch and with almost shy expression that adorned his face, he asked: „Can I have this dance?“

With a brught smile, Chiara stood up and took his hand, the other one landing on his chest.

„I would never believe that Ethan Ramsey owned candles,“ she teased him.

„In fact, I like candles very much. I enjoy staring into the fire and since this apartment doesn’t have a fireplace, I light up the candles from time to time and just look at them while listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.“

She smiled at the picture forming in her head, Ethan’s relaxed form with glass of whiskey in his hand, softly humming into the tones of violin, thoughtfully looking into the small flame of a candle.

They slowly swayed in the middle of the room, Chiara’s head resting just under Ethan’s shoulder, while he kept kissing the top of her head, his eyes closed.

How did I get this lucky?

The thought ran in Chiara’s head over and over.

What did I do to deserve this? was the one Ethan kept replaying in his mind.

„Thank you. For having me,“ he whispered into her hair.

„Thank you for letting me have you.“

#open heart #open heart choices #open heart fanfiction #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #pixelberry

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