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discoveriesofbishmont · 6 years ago

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restless (bishmont, 1x04 fic)

@kuningatarmirka prompted matthew helping diana through a nightmare.

set during 1x04. i added in scenes where matthew calls miriam and hamish because i love them. will probably write a series of fics with diana and matthew comforting each other in the future. one post 1x06 where diana has a panic attack is already in the works, and also one where matthew has a PTSD episode for @begins-with-an-absence-of-desire

AO3 Link Here or you can just read the tumblr post...

Matthew waited until Diana’s heart rate had slowed enough to indicate she was deeply asleep in the upstairs room of his tower before exiting his study, traipsing down the staircase out back into the main keep of Sept-Tours. The vampire had work to do and phone calls to make, and he didn’t want to risk Diana waking up and overhearing. He still had his senses tuned to her so he could be able to hear her even on the other side of the castle.

The witch was napping after their morning ride together, still exhausted and weary after the events in Oxford over the last couple of days; she was especially worn out after the revelation that her parents had been killed by witches, not humans. Although she’d run off at first, understandably upset, he’d returned to the tower to find her there and nearly dead on her feet.

He headed towards his father’s office. The study would provide a quiet, calm space with stronger vampiric scents that would hopefully get the alluring smell of Diana out of his nose. Despite feeding only at the weekend, being around the witch was making his blood thirst much harder to control. Matthew would take whatever break he could when it come to getting away from Diana’s scent. While he loved spending time with her, he didn’t want his craving for her to overshadow his feelings - even though he was still in denial.

Matthew opened up the office and stepped inside. It had barely changed over the centuries - bookcase cabinets lined the walls, filled with de Clermont memoires, with old hunting scene paintings decorating the cobblestone walls. The mahogany desk and its accompanying chair had piles of old account papers on top of them and the candle stubs had been burnt down. The air was stale but Matthew could detect both his mother’s and Marthe’s scents within the room. His father’s scent was no longer detectable.

Clearing the chair, he brushed off the gathered dust before sitting down and pulling out his phone. After some debating, he chose who to call.

“Matthew,” Miriam greeted him shortly down the line.

“Miriam,” he acknowledged. “How’s Oxford?”

She began answering questions he hadn’t even asked yet. “Knox isn’t aware Diana is out of the country, although we think he is searching for her. Marcus and I moved into the Old Lodge and made sure a trail with Diana’s scent was left behind from New College to Woodstock. There don’t seem to be any creatures suspecting you took Diana to France - at least, not yet. Everything seems to have quietened down for now. How’s Sept-Tours?”

“Fine. It’s going to take a while for my mother and Marthe to get used to a witch living within the castle walls.”

“I can imagine it must be quite a change. For Ysabeau, Marthe, and Diana, to be living in a house full of vampires.”

“Diana is adapting well,” he relayed.

“So Ysabeau hasn’t ripped her head off yet?”

“Nor do I think she plans to.”

“Marcus owes me twenty pounds then,” Miriam said, satisfied.

“You had a bet about whether or not my mother would attempt to kill Diana?” he asked disbelievingly, some anger seeping through into his voice.

Miriam switched the subject tactfully. “Marcus has been acting as my lab assistant since you left, mostly due to the fact that he wants his own blood analyzed quickly so can find out why his siring attempt with James failed.”

“Any news with that?” he asked.

“I ran his bloods and have the results. Marcus has some of the markers we’ve seen before in cases of failed sirings,” the female vampire sighed. “I’ve emailed you copies of the gel x-rays. When you have the time, can you look at them for me?”

“Of course.” He paused. “You want me to tell him?”

“I think he’ll take it better from his father.”

Matthew nodded. “That might be better.”

Miriam went quiet on the other end of the line again. “Are you scared?”

“Of?”

“Diana.”

“Of Diana - no. But for her? Yes.” Matthew ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t even want to imagine what Knox and the Congregation might do to Diana if they get their hands on her. Accidental elemental magic, witchwind… her parents’ bloodlines obviously carry power that the witches were jealous of, which is probably why they were killed. Then there’s the entire situation with Ashmole 782…”

“Marcus thinks you’re being stupid taking Diana to Sept-Tours,” Miriam said. “I think you’re being smart. If Diana is powerful, but has no control, and there are witches after her because of the manuscript or her magic, maybe both… there’s no place safer for her than with you and your mother in France.”

Matthew exhaled. “Thank you, Miriam,” he answered sincerely.

“Tell Diana to give me a call anytime if she wants somebody else to talk to,” was the last thing the female vampire informed him, before hanging up.

Before Matthew could put place his phone down on the desk, it pinged with a text.

From: Marcus - So… you might want to call Hamish :/

“Merde,” Matthew muttered.

What exactly had Marcus told Hamish about Diana and their trip to Sept-Tours? Spinning around in the chair, the vampire swiped up his phone and thumbed through it for a moment, wondering whether or not it would be a good idea to call his best friend when he knew it was likely he was just going to get lectured.

In the end, he just sighed and placed the call. Hamish picked up in under two seconds.

“I tell you to take a step back from Diana Bishop and what do you do? The exact opposite.” Hamish said sharply. “And then I have to hear from your son that you’ve partially mated to this witch and you’ve taken her home to France?!”

“Diana and I are not mating,” he countered immediately. “And I’m sorry, Hamish - things took a turn for the worst concerning the manuscript and Diana was being threatened by other witches. I had to act fast. I would have called you if I’d had the time. I’m sorry. You were right - I care about Diana and I can’t let her get hurt. I’m in too deep now and I’m not sure if I want to get out of it.”

“Dammit, Matthew,” the daemon bristled. “You make it so fucking hard to be mad at you, you know that?”

The vampire smiled. “I would let you punch me if you were here.”

“And you’d deserve it.” There was a pregnant pause and then Hamish commented, “Marcus told me he had to talk you down from directly attacking the Congregation.”

Matthew sighed. Of course, his son would have snitched on him to Hamish about that. “I wasn’t going to attack the Congregation - I was going to hunt down Knox. He’s made it clear that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get his hands on Diana and the Book of Life, even if that means threatening and manipulating her. Diana can no longer trust her own people to protect her, which is why she needs me.”

“From what I’ve heard, it sounds like she can protect herself,” Hamish said dryly. “Witchwind?”

“Marcus really needs to learn to keep his mouth shut,” the vampire growled.

“It’s good that she can defend herself, Matthew. That means she’ll be able to fend off Ysabeau when she eventually strikes.”

“Why does everybody think my mother is going to attack Diana?” He hand tightened around the phone. “She’s not. She promised me. She won’t go back on her word.”

Hamish hummed thoughtfully. “If she swore, then she’ll keep to it. Ysabeau de Clermont might be many things, but dishonorable is not one of them. Now, tell me more about the manuscript. Marcus mentioned that Diana tried to recall it, but failed. What happened?”

Matthew was about to respond when his enhanced hearing picked up a faint whimper from the direction of his tower. He froze, switching all of his attention from Hamish over to Diana. Seconds later, a pained scream split the air. He dropped his phone onto the desk with a clatter, ignoring his best friend’s frantic demands to know what was wrong on, and the vampire full-out sprinted from the office back towards his tower. He was running at such speed that he actually cracked some of the stone walls when slamming into them, struggling to get around the corners fast enough.

He wasn’t ashamed to admit he was panicking. Diana sounded as if she was in agony, and although he couldn’t scent any strangers within Sept-Tours, there was always a possibility that somebody might have broken in. As soon as that thought entered his mind, his anxiety transformed to anger, fear, and guilt; Matthew had promised Diana she would be safe at his home.

Taking the tower steps five at a time, he was at Diana’s bedside barely a minute after hearing her initial scream. To his relief, she wasn’t being attacked or harmed. It appeared that she was trapped in some sort of intense nightmare. The witch was trembling all over, her limbs shaking with the effort of flailing as sleep paralysis gripped at her. Matthew could feel his heart clenching as he saw the tortured expression on her face.

“Wake her up, Matthew.”

He turned, tensing when he saw his mother and Marthe framed in the doorway. They were respectfully remaining on the staircase and hadn’t entered the tower, as that would be an invasion of his territory. Ysabeau had been the one speaking to him, her voice unusually soft, although her eyes were as cold as ever.

“She is suffering a cachavièlha,” his mother continued. “It would be cruel to let her sleep on.”

Sitting down on the bed beside her, Matthew gently placed his hand on her nearest shoulder, wincing when she flinched at his touch. “Diana, wake up,” he urged. “You’re just having a nightmare. Whatever you’re seeing is not real. You’re safe and I’m here with you. Wake up!”

The witch jolted upwards so suddenly that all three of the vampires startled, Matthew in particular jerking away slightly. Her breathing short and uneven, Diana’s hands were like vices as he gripped onto Matthew’s forearms, her eyes wide with alarm and fright. The vampire stared directly back at her, his own hands grasping her elbows securely.

“Matthew?” she breathed. The frantic, haunted look on her face as she glanced desperately around the room told him that Diana wasn’t sure whether this was real or not. “Knox… he was just…” She placed a shaking hand over her heart, as if remembering some past pain.

“He’s not here,” he shook his head. “It’s just you, me, and my mother and Marthe. You’re safe.”

Something in his expression must have reassured her, because Diana crumpled and threw himself at him, wrapping her arms around Matthew’s neck and burying her head into his shoulder with a broken, relieved sob.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, embracing him to her tightly. “I’ve got you. It was just a bad dream. It wasn’t real.”

“It was definitely real,” Diana murmured, voice trembling. “Knox was looking for me, chasing me… no matter how far and fast I traveled, he was always there right behind me, ready to strike me down. And then you were there helping me get away but Knox was still hunting us.”

Matthew shushed her and stroked over her hair soothingly. He met Ysabeau’s icy eyes and Marthe’s warm, sympathetic ones over the top of the witch’s head. “He can’t get to you here.”

“He got to my parents.” Diana’s hand fisted his shirt. “They were on the run and the witches got to them despite that. What makes you think they won’t find me here?” Her breathing was speeding up and she began to hyperventilate, on the verge of a panic attack. Her shaking only intensified. “Oh god, Matthew.”

He shot his mother and their housekeeper a sharp look, silently ordering them to leave. Marthe dipped her head and vanished down the staircase, and after one last narrow-eyed glance between her son and the witch, Ysabeau departed as well.

As soon as they were gone, Matthew scooped Diana off the bed and slipped underneath her, lying down so he could settle her against his chest. Encasing her in his arms, the vampire sighed when her ear rested over his heart and fingers hooked onto his shirt collar. He reached down to tug a blanket over them both, aware that Diana was still shivering. After a minute or so, the trembling stopped and the witch lay on top of him quietly.

"I'm here," he whispered, dancing his fingertips over her back. "It's all right."

“No, it's not. Knox’s looking for me,” she said, sounding dazed. “He’s using a location spell. But you have to use a map and the one he’s working with is only of the UK. But soon he’ll realize that he needs to search further out and then he’ll find me.”

The glazed-over look in Diana’s blue eyes told Matthew this was not just an educated guess of hers; she was utilizing some kind of witch power. Perhaps she was using seer abilities. “Even if he does discover you are here, he won’t come to find you,” he promised. “You’re safe here.”

Turning, she propped her chin on his sternum. “I’m safe with you.”

Matthew stared at the ceiling, swallowing down the suddenly erupting burn at the back of his throat as he heard the witch’s blood begin to hum in her veins due to their proximity. “I don’t deserve your trust,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what I ever did to earn it in the first place.”

Diana leaned up and brushed her lips against his tenderly. His body stiffened and he reminded himself that such relations between a witch and vampire were forbidden, trying to find the inner strength to push her away. But sensing how unresponsive Matthew was beneath her, Diana pulled away and slid off him, curling up at his side with a sigh.

She was asleep again within seconds.

“You smell like her,” Ysabeau muttered with a disgusted wrinkle of her nose when Matthew eventually forced himself to part from Diana’s side, heading downstairs to his study where Marthe was stoking the fire and Ysabeau was sitting in the chair beside it. “I can deal with one witch who smells like fresh grass and morning dew, but I will not have my son smelling the same way.”

“Diana is fine, thank you for asking,” he responded flatly.

His mother looked away dismissively. “I knew she would be fine the moment you woke her up. Nightmares have no lasting effects on witches.”

“I’m not so sure that was a nightmare Diana was suffering from.” Matthew frowned, cracking open a decade old bottle of wine from the vineyards down the road.

“La sorcière est une voyante?” Marthe asked.

“She is a seer?” Ysabeau snapped, unintentionally translating what their housekeeper had just questioned.

Matthew inclined his head. “Perhaps. I doubt she knows what she is capable of when it comes to magic.”

His mother stood abruptly and left. Marthe finished adding firewood to the grate and hurried out after the other female vampire.

Matthew sighed. He needed to return to his father’s study to fetch his phone, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the tower in case Diana suffered another nightmare or vision, and needed him to comfort her. Instead, Matthew gathered a couple of books so he could work upstairs sitting beside the bed; that way he could watch over the witch while she slept for a couple more hours, before he would wake her mid-afternoon for a late lunch, so she could get some of her own work in before dinner with Ysabeau later on.

He had no idea whether Diana would remember her nightmare or her actions when he’d woken her up. The idea of her forgetting kissing him caused a twisting sensation in his chest.

As long as Diana was safe, though, Matthew would be happy.

#ADOW #a discovery of witches #ADOW fic #mine #bishmont

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burberrycanary · 6 years ago

Note

👻💍

👻- 2 or 3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet

She knows he’ll be able to hear.

He’ll hear the lap of the water against the sides of the tub, the way her heartbeat changes and the breathy exhales that he has always wanted to draw from her even when he had been conflicted about so much else.

Diana touches herself under the water. The motion sends ripples out across the surface.

He could be anywhere in the house and hear this.

—from The Careful Boundaries We Draw and Erase (ADOW, Bishmont)

💍- your most underrated story

This is a tough question since I’ve recently gotten lost in a maze of writing fic that I know no audience exists for just because I like Matthew Goode in some obscure role. (So these stories are equally obscure but rated about as they deserve.)

So I’ll go with Amor Fati, which is a fluffy fix-it to explain in Watsonian terms why on earth Matthew and Diana go horseback riding. ADOW has moments where ticking off genre boxes feels very Doylist—genre is as genre does, and this is ADOW performing one of its most throwback romance genre tropes just ‘cause.

As much as I like how the horseback riding scene is shot (and it is beautiful) and adore the sexualized breathing mixed into the audio track and Matthew’s joy in seeing Diana happy, which you can pry from my cold dead hands—it’s all lovely stuff—but seriously, show. What the fuck?

Diana is at the start of destroying a career she’s spent her entire adult life building; she’s on the run from people who want to coerce or hurt or kill her; she has pressing things she needs to deal with. But, no, hey. Let’s go horseback riding. Some part of me was haunted by the need for an in-universe and character-based explanation that connects this genre-driven moment back to the specific story being told with these characters.

I called this story Amor Fati, to love one’s fate, because both Matthew and Diana here are struggling to accept these fated changes that are irrevocably transforming their lives, love and magic, which come with such risks and costs.

Rakasa butts up against Diana’s shoulder with a snicker and Diana presses her forehead against the horse, whispering hypnotic reassurance in the same soft voice. “Shh, yeah, I know, I know. You weren’t made for a pen.”

Diana doesn’t take the step back that he expects, which means that he should. He should, but he doesn’t.

But it was also a way for me to nudge this conventional genre moment within ADOW’s storyline towards something that made emotional and psychological sense to me for the characters in this situation, rather than being a half eyeroll, half guilty pleasure moment I accepted as simply fated within the genre.

So I think this fic was me solving a pain-point for myself (and for @village-skeptic) that most people don’t view as being a problem in the first place :)

But hey mutual pining and UST are two great tastes that always taste great together and are at the heart of Amor Fati.

Thank you for the asks!

Send me a writer’s ask →

#magicalandfullofhopes #adow #bishmont #adow meta #diana bishop #matthew clairmont #on writing #asks #amor fati #the careful boundaries we draw and erase #genre and its discontents #otp: which fall of carthage #otp: magic is desire made real #matthew clairmont trainwreck murder son #diana bishop tiny sunshine murder daughter

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