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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years ago

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Spilled Pearls Extra 3

Summary: Wen Ruohan, who is still a work in progress, confronts Qingheng-jun over Lan Qiren (set between Chapter 21 and 22)

- ao3 -

To cultivate is to go against destiny: this was something all cultivators knew.

That destiny was what tied all of nature together, uniting all things within one path to flow together along the same stream to the same ocean, and that to fight against that current was to fight alone – this, no one knew better than Wen Ruohan.

Excluding perhaps only those secluded cultivators that resided in their mysterious mountains, never seeing the light of day, there was no cultivator in the world like him. The years since his birth numbered a century and more, yet his face was youthful as it had been in his twenties; all those around him, being neither so talented nor so lucky nor even so ruthless, were born and lived and grew old and died even as he remained the same – the same, and yet not unchanging. Surrounded by short-lived mayflies, he existed beyond their understanding; by now, he had learned to look down upon them all as if looking upon ants, or else he might go mad for loneliness.

It was easier to be indifferent. Better to be frozen through and through despite all the flames of his fiery cultivation style, to ignore their meaningless cries and meaningless lives and focus only on himself alone. Sometimes Wen Ruohan wondered whether he had actually died when his normal lifespan was meant to have ended and that he now existed only as a ghost, full of resentment: it was far easier to be resentful of those living creatures around him that seemed to instinctively understand one another in a way he no longer did, to ignore them or to treat them with disdain, to allow their pain to be his own reprieve from his own endless ennui – a small child pulling the wings off of flies to amuse himself and remind himself that these creatures before him were actually alive.

Hatred was easy. Living was hard.

Why should he burden himself with the effort of living – with anything other than amusing himself?

He still hadn’t figured out the answer to that, but apparently some part of the answer was plain old irritation.

Lao Nie was too high ranked to be ignored, as Wen Ruohan did care for his sect if he cared for nothing else, and unlike everyone else he refused to be ignored; he had forced his way into Wen Ruohan’s life and made him feel things once again whether he wanted to or not. Mostly what he felt was anger: anger at being treated the way he treated others (for only he was real, and the rest of them fake, and for that reason only he deserved all the good things in the world), anger at being bothered by that interminable pestilence of a man, anger at – feeling things.

Remembering things.

Wen Ruohan was unwillingly reminded of the brother who had loved him and betrayed him and left him behind with a blood-soaked gift he’d never wanted, a cold corpse so long in the ground that he had undoubtedly been completely consumed by worms; he was reminded of those children he had so greatly cherished, so long ago, the ones he would have been willing to die for but instead had to bury. The memories, and the feelings that came with them, had driven him to distraction, feeling at first as though there was nothing to be found in Lao Nie’s immensely irritating brand of affection but needless pain, but somewhere along the line that little spark of irritation had become more than just that.

It hadn’t just been irritation, but curiosity – curiosity, interest, humor, affection…even a feeling of indulgence, a desire to spoil someone and treat them well for no other reason than in order to see them enjoy it, feelings he hadn’t felt in decades. And somehow that mixture of irritating and curiosity had led him not only to Lao Nie, who sent himself quite happily to his bed, but had driven him in a moment of impulse to set up a trap and net himself a brand new brother of his own.

That, too, was to Lao Nie’s credit…or perhaps fault.

Wen Ruohan had tried for years and years now to deny that he felt affection for Lao Nie, and yet it hadn’t helped him one bit in diminishing that affection. Even if the man were acting very odd as of late, almost as if he did not realize what a rare prize he had won for himself through his endless persistence – it wasn’t that Wen Ruohan needed to be wanted, of course, but it was rather irritating that the man who had stuck himself to his side like a burr that wouldn’t be peeled off would promptly disappear the second it turned out Wen Ruohan actually did want him there – it was still there, unchanging.

It might be affection now, but it had started, at first, with anger, that emotion that the Nie sect knew as well as their own hearts.

It was anger that Wen Ruohan felt now.

Not at or about Lao Nie, for once, nor for his sect, one of the few things he cared for. He certainly wasn’t angry any longer at the shining pearl he had snatched away from the Lan sect all those years before, their vision averted and distracted by the glittering but ultimately insubstantial sparkle of Qingheng-jun – he’d found that he could no longer feel anger when he thought of Lan Qiren, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he reminded himself that it had been Lan Qiren who had turned away from him, distraught and upset on behalf of those meaningless flies.

Lan Qiren, who had, despite it all, missed him.

Who thought of him perhaps as often as Wen Ruohan thought of him in return – affection again, that insidious emotion, and Lan Qiren hadn’t even been the one to be persistent this time. Ridiculous, really, and even more ridiculous that it had been Wen Ruohan who had been the first to bend.

He had condescended to come to the Cloud Recesses to find him, all on the strength of an extremely implausible rumor, knowing even as he flew over that he was being a fool – there was obviously no way that Lan Qiren had actually done what he’d been accused of by the wagging tongues of inferior men, and so his trip to the Cloud Recesses was obviously an excuse to go see him and make up with him.

He hadn’t even removed the tongues of the people he’d heard it from, as a gesture of good faith.

He’d come to the Cloud Recesses for Lan Qiren, and he’d found –

He’d found –

Wen Ruohan was often angry after Lao Nie had forcefully pulled him out of the frozen torpor that was the depth of his hate, but he had not been this angry in a very, very long time.

He moved slower than usual, his rage deadening him like a snake in winter. His anger was not like Lao Nie’s, which burned hot and then snuffed itself out, restoring at once to the usual good humor, but rather lasted and lasted, glacial and slow and inexorable. The angrier he was, the slower he moved; if all his years upon the earth had taught Wen Ruohan anything, it was that he needed to keep a clear head when he was truly angry.

Even if only so that he could fully enjoy taking his inevitable revenge.

Wen Ruohan had used a technique to coax Lan Qiren into a deep sleep, meant for healing, and handed him over to a few of his most trusted associates with instructions to see to his injuries and take whatever steps necessary to reduce his pain in the short term. That the cost and effort expended was immaterial did not need to be stated, of course.

Once that was done, he had gone to the rooms of the Lan sect leader, step by slow step, and as he’d hoped, Qingheng-jun was there by the time he arrived, waiting to speak to him.

For all its loneliness, he reflected, there were many benefits to power.

“You’re in the wrong place,” he told him, seeing that, as he’d suspected, the Lan sect rooms were all oriented the same way.

Qingheng-jun frowned at him, clearly not understanding. “Sect Leader Wen –”

“You should take a few steps to the right,” Wen Ruohan clarified, gesturing, and making clear as he did that there would be no conversation until he was obeyed.

This, too, was the benefit of power.

Confused, Qingheng-jun did as he said, moving over until it matched up with the image Wen Ruohan had put together in his head on the way here: the stories told by his spies and the marks left on Lan Qiren’s body both, a hazy image of two brothers standing in a room that was laid out just the same but which was nothing alike.

“Perfect,” he said, and, curling his fingers into a fist, he punched him deep in the stomach.

Qingheng-jun’s complaint stuck in his throat as he gagged, the air expelled out of him by force – Wen Ruohan’s strikes were enough to shatter stone, and Qingheng-jun, however talented a cultivator, was not strong enough to be able to disregard them. He staggered, and Wen Ruohan caught him by the collar, slamming him against the wall and holding him up.

Just the way Qingheng-jun had done to Lan Qiren, just some few days before.

“How dare you,” Wen Ruohan snarled, and felt it again, that anger that was unlike any other anger. Anger that burned hot, not cold; anger that was like a furious flame, not the bright but unfeeling rays of the sun. Anger for someone, rather than against them…anger that was born of affection, rather than hate. “How dare you touch Qiren! He’s your brother!”

He’s my brother.

“He’s no brother of mine,” Qingheng-jun spat, vicious and bitter. “He hasn’t been in years, not since you stole him away and made him value you over his duty to his ancestors. The only brother he is, is yours – isn’t that how you want it?”

It was, of course, but that wasn’t the point.

Wen Ruohan sneered. “Do you think I do not know about you?” he asked. “You, the gifted child, talented and shining, whose world fell apart when your younger siblings died – your father forced you to take on the burden of keeping him intact, told you that you were the only reason he had to live, that you were perfect and therefore had to remain perfect, no matter the cost to you. In his grief he told you that it was because your brother was born that your mother died and you lost everything, and in your grief you believed him; in your rage you lashed out at him, and found that no one would stop you from doing so…it was easy to blame him, wasn’t it?”

Qingheng-jun glared at him.

“It was,” Wen Ruohan said. “You were a child: it was easy to hate where your father hated, to blame where your father blamed, and to lead everyone in the sect to hate right alongside you. You even convinced yourself that you were justified, when in fact you were only jealous – you had to be perfect, while he could be anything at all.”

He casually slammed his fellow sect leader into the wall once more.

“But you knew better. You knew. You had friends, you had allies, you even had Lao Nie, who knows more than most about righteousness – even if you were blameless for what you did as a child, led on by those failures that were your elders, the same cannot be said for you as an adult. You have learned morality and ethics, and yet you chose to continue that hatred, to rely on that crutch – to take the easy route, the selfish route. Why bother to do the work to improve yourself?”

Why bother indeed.

For some reason, Wen Ruohan was suddenly reminded of Lan Qiren’s eyes at the Fire Palace, full of horror and heartbreak, the way he looked as though his world had shattered even as he’d fled – as if leaving Wen Ruohan behind were the hardest choice he’d ever had to make, rather than a betrayal.

It’s easy to hate, he suddenly thought, his own words echoing back at him. The easy route, the crutch…

Wen Ruohan frowned instinctively before casting the thought aside to be examined at a later time.

“You should have done better,” he concluded. “You should do better?”

Qingheng-jun laughed in his face. “Why should I?” he asked savagely. “What use is he to me?”

“Use?” Wen Ruohan asked, and somehow found himself surprised by the question. Not a pleasant surprise, the way it had been when Lan Qiren had effortlessly resisted his compulsion as a child, or when he had turned out to be a thoughtful and oddly charming conversationalist, passionate about his interests and willing to share them as if he were handing out pieces of himself; it was merely that old familiar surprise that there were people this stupid in this world. “Do treasures need to be useful to be valuable?”

“You do not understand,” Qingheng-jun said, and that was the most absurd thing Wen Ruohan had yet heard: of course he understood. He understood far too well the darker emotions of humanity, the way they failed people and twisted people into terrible things – even Lan Qiren had his faults, his temper and his inflexibility; Wen Ruohan did not deceive himself into thinking that his sworn brother was a saint.

But he was himself, and that was worth something.

Even if someone like Qingheng-jun could not see it.

Wen Ruohan listened with only half an ear as Qingheng-jun spoke, seeking to justify himself and his behavior. It didn’t really matter what he said, not really; it was only excuses, in the end.

Instead of listening, Wen Ruohan recalled to himself the distant past: the madness of the Lan sect of his father’s generation, the chaos and terror of the wars they had begun – the miracles and atrocities they would and did commit for the sake of a loved one. They loved so deeply, these Lans; deeply and wholly and blindly, every one of them. To be the subject of their love would be to be their entire world, and even Qingheng-jun’s mad infatuation with the girl He Kexin was merely a pale echo of that love, though he did not know it. He loved the freedom she represented to him, not her: if he had loved her, he would have valued her happiness over his and let her go, no matter how he felt.

Put their happiness over your own, think first of what they would want, what would be better for them rather than what you wanted – only the madness of denying yourself for the sake of another was love.

A strange thought, although a useless one.

He was not a Lan, after all.

Still, however old, the memories of that past still lingered, leaving their mark on his heart all these years later – of all the sects in the cultivation world, Wen Ruohan was most wary of the Lan.

“I’m taking Qiren back to the Nightless City with me,” he interrupted Qingheng-jun.

“Good!” the other man shouted. “Keep him!”

Wen Ruohan somehow hadn’t expected him to say that, and for a moment he felt seized with glee.

Yes, he thought to himself, suddenly pleased. Yes, I will keep him; is that not what I want from him, what I have long wanted from him? I have thought of him every day since he has gone, dreamt of him every night; there is a poison that has sunk within my veins that wears his face and torments me endlessly, and he himself is the only cure I can think of for it. I even have an excuse now, his own sect leader’s word – I don’t have to give him up any longer. I can keep him for good!

And then, in the midst of his joy, he suddenly had a useless thought:

…he won’t be happy about that.

Truly a useless thought. What did Wen Ruohan care about that? Nothing mattered – nothing ever mattered, nothing but him and what he wanted, his wishes and his desires.

He was the only real thing in the world, him and only him, standing alone.

All good things in the world ought to go to him, be with him. It would make him happy to have Lan Qiren with him, to keep him by his side; what did it matter what Lan Qiren, that mayfly only a little more interesting than other mayflies, would prefer? What did it matter that Lan Qiren loved his sect, which did not value him as it should? What did it matter that Lan Qiren still loved his brother, who did not return it?

Wen Ruohan would take him away from it all, keep him by his side, and Lan Qiren would be better off for it, no matter what he thought he wanted.

It was as simple as that.

“You will never cause him trouble again,” Wen Ruohan said, even though it was pointless: if he wasn’t going to let Lan Qiren return, then such warnings were unnecessary. “Or else this will not end so lightly.”

Qingheng-jun sneered at him.

Wen Ruohan sneered back and dropped him, turning back to the door.

He would carry Lan Qiren back to the Nightless City himself, he decided. He would carry him in his arms as he flew on his sword, and make sure that he was untroubled throughout the entire journey.

His shining pearl.

He’d take good care of it.

#mdzs #wen ruohan #qingheng-jun #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls #since so many people were asking for it #some context for WRH's eureka moment in chapter 23

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 4 years ago

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Dream SMP Recap (March 17/2021) - Ranboo’s Story

Everyone is building on the Dream SMP today. Phil works on his projects in the Arctic, Foolish continues construction on the massive mansion, Niki works on her underground city.

Ranboo takes some time to do something else: tell his entire story as it stands so far, in preparation for what’s to come.

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VOD LINKS:

Ponk

Hbomb94

Foolish

Tubbo

Philza

Ranboo

Hannah

Niki

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- Ponk meets Niki at the Community House. She notices his red eyes.

- Niki leads Ponk to her haven city for a tour. Ponk thinks it’s a pyramid scheme. Maybe a cult.

- Ponk asks if there’s a jail in this city.What happens if someone does something bad? Niki explains that they just get thrown out. She’s friends with some powerful people.

Ponk: “Look. With friends come conflict, Niki. Just remember that. Wilbur was Tommy’s friend, look what happened! ...So I’d be careful who you trust. But I may be coming back here soon, maybe to join you.”

- Ponk says his goodbyes and leaves the city. Definitely a cult.

- Tubbo visits Michael and decides to plan out what rooms he wants for the mansion. He speaks with Foolish to discuss the layout.

- Tubbo and Foolish work on the mansion

- Hbomb logs in and chats with Niki as she works on the underground city.

- Phil works on the Syndicate room.

- Ranboo shows Phil the infested stone he collected

- Quackity whispers to Phil “Look Gorgious” and leaves

- Phil keeps working. Foolish calls him over to Snowchester.

- Foolish tells Phil the mansion is for Michael and Phil points out Michael is tiny.

- Foolish shows him the list of requests

- Phil gives Foolish “fool’s gold” (honey)

- Phil visits Foolish and puts on his canonical glasses (shaders)

- They go back to the Prime Path and put on creeper heads to become Sam.

- They briefly visit L’manhole and Phil tells Foolish he used to live there.

- They go scouting around Eret’s castle and then head back to the Arctic.

- Before Foolish can come into Phil and Techno’s territory, Phil asks Foolish how he feels about government. Foolish says he’s neither pro nor anti. He’s never been a part of a government, since all that ended before he joined the server.

- Foolish does his shift dance. Phil throws him some real gold.

- Foolish leaves and Phil continues working

- Phil does acid (shaders) in L’manburg

- He explores the bottom of the crater. Phil feels no regret about what happened.

People can’t be replaced, but things can. As someone who’s been around for a long time, who’s seen people pass over hundreds of years, people are so much more important than possessions as a result of that.

- He’s lived for so long he’s forgotten for how long, but at least hundreds of years.

- Phil’s known Techno since Techno was young.

- Foolish returns to the mansion. He speaks with Tubbo about the layout again.

- Foolish commits arson on James

- Niki accidentally dug into the Kinoko Kingdom library while working on her city. It will either be the spark of a beautiful friendship, or a war.

- Her Syndicate name is Nemesis

- After more work in the Nether, Phil goes to Niki’s underground city for a visit.

- Niki gives him a tour, and Phil drops off the quartz

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Ranboo’s Lore Recap: The Story So Far

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Ranboo logs in at Spawn. He went outside, punched some trees, got killed by Dream a couple times (non-canonically), got a tour from Niki.

The next day, he got a tour from the President of L’manburg, who asked if he was going to run for President. Ranboo decided to live in L’manburg. He shaped Ranboo’s beliefs at the beginning, that L’manburg was good. They went to the Nether and found Michael, and put him in a boat.

Then, they were approached by Tommy, who told them about his plan: to grief George’s house. As they walked over, Niki and Puffy (on their date) were there. Ranboo and Tommy asked for Niki’s armor and went over to George’s house to do it. They ran off after burning it down by accident.

Niki and Puffy knew it was them and asked, but Ranboo realized…he didn’t remember.

Dream started building a wall around L’manburg, and they didn’t know why. He showed them George’s house. It got blamed on Tommy.

During the trial, Tommy stood up for Ranboo and so Ranboo didn’t take the blame, as he had bad memory.

They decided to meet with Dream and created the Meeting Hall, and for the meeting, Ranboo became the minutes man of L’manburg.

There was a pig guy watching them during the meeting.

The meeting didn’t go well; Tommy used Spirit as leverage to get Dream to take down the walls, but then Dream stopped and told them he didn’t care about Spirit, only the discs.

There was another meeting set up. Ranboo realized writing stuff down to remember it was a good idea, so he created the first “Do Not Read” book.

He watched from the ground as the cabinet met with Dream on the wall. Ranboo saw Tommy being taken away for some reason — he’d been exiled. Ranboo felt guilty.

Back in L’manburg, things were going great! Ranboo had a house now, pets…but the guilt remained. Ranboo visited Tommy in exile a couple times, and things seemed off, so Ranboo wrote letters to him to try and help.

One day, while writing in his book, starting an ice cream shop with Fundy…he was approached by this fellow named Quackity. Quackity told him about this wanted pig guy, Technoblade, the reason everything was gone — Techno was a traitor, and Quackity had plans to get Techno and bring him to justice.

The first Butcher Army meeting was held. Ranboo was a bit confused, but decided to help, because betraying someone’s pretty bad. So they all went off to fight Technoblade. Quackity got a horse named Carl, and Techno surrendered, and though Ranboo thought there’d be a fair trial, there was just an execution. Techno miraculously survived, ran off, and Quackity was killed.

While this was happening, Phil — who had saved him from lava one time when he was trapped — was apparently helping Techno, the traitor. So L’manburg put him on house arrest, and he wasn’t happy about that. Ghostbur called Ranboo an “Aaron Burr” and went with Ranboo on a trip to then snow…to Techno’s place.

Ranboo still had Techno’s armor, Techno tried to kill him, then Ranboo gave all his armor back. Someone else was there was well — Tommy.

Ranboo wrote all of this down in his Memory Book and returned to L’manburg, told them that he had no idea where Techno or Tommy were…at which point Ranboo realized…he’d just betrayed the entire Butcher Army.

The next few days, Ranboo kept seeing Techno and Tommy around with a lot of dogs. He continued to write things down, being kind of on both sides. Ranboo decided he couldn’t choose and instead would help everyone.

Things were going fine. L’manburg was planning a Festival to kill Dream, as Dream would finally respect the laws of L’manburg and attend with no armor. Ranboo made a trident game.

At some point, Ranboo created a fake memory book that got burnt by Skeppy around Christmas during Skeppy’s sister’s visit.

Before the Festival, Ranboo realized he’d lost his Memory Book. He found it in a chest…but that wasn’t where he’d put it. How did it get there?

Ranboo created a panic room out of obsidian, a place to reckon with his morals, a place to think. The water created white noise that helped him think. It was there that he decided to stop choosing sides, and start choosing people.

The day of the Festival, Ranboo secretly met with Techno and Tommy in Purpled’s Skull Base. Dream arrived and started building the wall again.

Dream led them all over to the Community House, and they all saw that it was completely destroyed. It was apparently Techno and Tommy, who shortly arrived. Tommy and Tubbo fought, Dream asked for Techno’s help to blow up L’manburg the next day. Then, Dream told them that Ranboo was a traitor. He gave Tubbo a little book — the first Memory Book.

Ranboo thought he had the Memory Book on him. How could it have been switched? He opened up the one he had, but…all that was left was a smile. And that smile symbolized his betrayal. This was the second Memory Book, the replacement.

At the announcement of Doomsday, everyone somewhat banded together. Ranboo gave a speech, that if they kept trying to save L’manburg, it would just keep causing problems. People were looking at Ranboo, the eye contact made him aggravated, he lashed out at his friends.

He went back to the Panic Room, started talking to himself, thinking about what he would do. Would he help or not? It was at that point that he began to hear something — something that was Ranboo…a voice. A voice that sounded like Dream. It told Ranboo the last thing he wanted to hear: that by trying to help everyone, he’d betrayed everyone. Ranboo didn’t believe him, thought he’d only given the armor to Techno. The voice left, and Ranboo decided the best thing he could do was help. Help the people who helped him: L’manburg.

He was still missing something: the first Memory Book.

It was time for Doomsday. The dogs, the Withers, the explosions all started, and L’manburg went. The people who’d been for L’manburg suddenly switched. But out of all of this, Ranboo heard something. He heard Techno ask, “What’s this ‘Do Not Read’ book?”

Ranboo ran to Techno, who gave it to him and told him to run. Techno showed him mercy.

Ranboo talked with Fundy after, he’d hurt Fundy. Ranboo talked with Quackity, who seemed to forgive him, because he’d read Ranboo’s Memory Book. He’d been the one to have the book, and he read it.

Ranboo visited the Panic Room, not knowing what to do…

Someone came and asked if he was okay: Phil. Phil offered him a home with himself and Techno, and they got along.

He thought he was safe, and everything was good, and that’s when he heard a disc: Mellohi, from someplace very far away. It was from the Panic Room, so he went back. He took out the disc, and an old friend came back: the voice. This time, the Dream voice told him that he was more of a traitor than he thought. It told him that he’d been helping Dream this entire time, he just didn’t remember. It told him he blew up the Community House. But the voice wasn’t Dream, Ranboo figured it was just a voice trying to fill the gaps between his memories. It told Ranboo to mine a block, behind which were two pieces of TNT.

Ranboo kept chilling with Techno and Phil, build himself a place to live. It was at this time that Tommy and Tubbo were planning on trying to get their discs back.

For a while, Ranboo lived in solitude. For the first time in a while, he was happy. He decided he was done living in fear of the Dream voice, and went to confront it, to tell it that there’s no way he helped Dream. The Dream voice told him he had one of the discs. Ranboo thought there was no way, so he went back to his house and searched, and dug up a chest with the Cat disc inside.

Ranboo realized that something was going on. He realized he’d been sleepwalking, of sorts.

Something happened: Tommy and Tubbo were going to fight Dream. Everyone thought they were probably going to die, and…what happened after that?

Dream was put in prison, Ranboo started to be able to pick up blocks, and Ranboo decided to call this state: Enderwalking.

Everything seemed fine, besides the giant Egg. The prison was open for visitation, and Ranboo had a good idea: what if he visited Dream? Everything went normally, except Dream told him exactly what he didn’t want to hear: that apparently, he and Dream had been talking in his Enderwalk, and Ranboo was one of Dream’s best friends. Dream handed Ranboo his own Memory Book. The entire chest was full of Memory Books. The prison started to crumble, Dream disappeared and then…Ranboo guessed the entire visit had just been the Dream voice but…worse. He decided to keep his head down for the time.

Ranboo needed to visit the prison again, but for real this time, to actually get closure. He went up to Sam, made his way to the lobby, and told Sam it was his first time visiting — which he thought it was. Sam thought he was joking around. Sam told him that he’d visited before…the Enderwalk. Sam showed Ranboo the books, and they were written in Enderman.

Sam told Ranboo he had a book on him — Ranboo now had a third Memory Book, but there was nothing in the books about any visit.

There must have been a fourth book.

Ranboo, to this day, still does not know where that fourth book is. This fourth book…it wasn’t a Memory Book. It was a book of the Enderwalk.

So for the time being, Ranboo tried to work against the Enderwalk, but nothing worked. So…he was just kind of living. His beacon disappeared, his tools kept getting to low durability randomly. He didn’t know why. He just decided to stop getting involved in things and just keep living.

Ranboo visited Snowchester, he did cool things with Techno, he was happy.

Then, he got married for tax reasons and decided to build a hotel to rival Tommy’s with Tubbo.

Then, one day, after saving Michael, after everything, they received news: Tommy had died. And Sam had just let it happen.

Another day, in his house, Ranboo decided he should just relax. He saw Niki outside and wondered what she was doing there. Techno offered him a place in an anarchist organization called the Syndicate. Ranboo decided to join, he told them that Tommy died.

Then Tommy was alive. Somehow he was alive.

Ranboo was brought to a room with two shrines and a hallway with a place for everyone's treasured items. He started to remember, started to hear things. Dream had a revive book. Tommy and Tubbo didn't die because everyone went there and saved them, but Ranboo didn't remember this.

Ranboo realized that Dream had to be stopped before he brought back the villains, and...then he'll finally be happy. He has Michael to protect now.

He was hanging around with Tubbo when they were approached by Tommy, who had the same idea. Ranboo agreed. They began to build a watchtower, Ranboo spoke with Ghostbur, who didn't seem like he wanted to go.

And now? Ranboo is trying to figure out a way to kill Dream. But there's also a larger issue to figure out.

He figures that Dream gave him a set of instructions while he visited the prison in the Enderwalk, and Ranboo needs to find a way to stop the Enderwalk.

It hasn't happened in a while, right? Maybe he already has.

So now, Ranboo is figuring out the Enderwalk and protecting Michael at all costs, even if he might have to lose a little bit of life…

And that is the story so far.

[This story was told as c!Ranboo — not really, but if Ranboo could collect his entire story and tell it. So some things have been left out.

For example, Sapnap giving Ranboo the message…]

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Upcoming events remain the same.

#dream smp #dream smp recaps #long posts

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lacrimosathedark · 4 years ago

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Hamilton Inaccuracies/Corrections (because why not?)

Okay so, I saw a post on reddit that was like, “what’s some inaccuracies in Hamilton off the top of your head?” and I got a whole bunch...and then I had to double check to make sure if I was right...and I’m pretty long-winded...and now I have this 5,000ish word monstrosity. And apparently you can only post 1000 characters at a time on reddit. Laaaaame. So here’s some Hamilton facts I’ve gathered in my brain. Since it was kinda off the top of my head despite being so long, it’s kinda vague in some places, so if anyone wants to expand on anything (or correct me if I oopsed somewhere) please do! Though nicely please.

Also I am also awful at citing things, but I know I learned some of this from @john-laurens and @ciceroprofacto so thank you.

LET’S BEGIN!

Act 1

Rachel Faucette was not a prostitute, but she was a “whore” in the sense that she did what she fucking wanted with her body. During her first marriage she may or may not have been sleeping around, but she refused to stay with John Lavien, her husband, anymore. So he had her arrested. And he could do that. Because patriarchy and theocracy. And she was essentially put in solitary confinement. You can see why she tried to leave, right? She tried to get their marriage annulled or get a divorce. I forget what the issue was but she couldn’t and eventually she just moved to another island where she met James Hamilton.

The intro song makes it seem like Alexander was an only child. He actually had an older brother, James Jr., but he kinda fucked off after their mother died, working and taking care of himself. They also had an older half-brother Peter Lavien, but I don’t think they really knew him other than as the son of their mother’s abusive ex who took everything from them when she died. John Lavien was able to do that because when Rachel was with James Hamilton, she had not been able to get legally divorced from him so she wasn’t really married to James Hamilton, so James Jr. and Alexander were illegitimate ie bastards. He was an asshole. I don't think Peter had anything against the Hamiltons, but I think he grew up to be a Loyalist so. He actually made some trouble in South Carolina for Henry Laurens, John's dad! But I think I read somewhere he also left money for Alex and James Jr. In his will, which is sweet.

This is more visual since it’s not specified in the song, but in the show, Hamilton’s cousin mimes hanging himself. Peter Lytton’s cause of death if I recall was inconclusive, but he was in his bed and there was a lot of blood. So, yeah, he didn’t hang himself.

Alexander did not punch the bursar. However he did return to Princeton later during the war and blew a canon through the school and apparently decapitated a painting of King George lololol. He was under orders, but yknow. Probably felt pretty good after he was rejected for accelerated courses. He wasn’t the only bastard rejected, though! Ben Franklin’s bastard son was too. The guy in charge of admissions, Witherspoon, hated bastards as a concept and Princeton was a very religious school at the time I believe.

It may have been the plan by Aaron and Esther Burr for Aaron Jr to graduate Princeton, but like, he couldn’t really be sure of that? He was like 2 years old when they died, and his older sister Sally was 4 I believe, maybe 5.

Hercules Mulligan met Alex in 1772. His older brother Hugh knew Alex’s old employer in St. Croix and helped him get to mainland America. Alex and Hercules lived together for a long while, and Hercules is actually who got him interested in the revolution.

John Laurens was in England in 1776. He wouldn’t meet Hamilton and Lafayette until he accepted his post as Washington’s aide-de-camp upon his return in August of 1777.

Lafayette couldn’t have met Hamilton before August 1777 because that’s when he met Washington, and he was appointed as a volunteer to the Continental Army only a week prior, and before that he had been in France. But Lafayette later declared their relationship to be like that of brothers, Alexander his closest connection in the states besides Washington.

Lafayette admired and absolutely adored Laurens and they were besties, but neither of them knew Mulligan. They may have met in passing, or heard about him from Hamilton, but nothing more.

“Lafayette” was actually a nickname based on his title of “Marquis de la Fayette”. In his autobiography, he wrote: “It’s not my fault I was baptized like a Spaniard, with the name of every conceivable saint who might offer me more protection in battle.” I’m glad he thought it was funny at least. His name is Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de la Fayette.

Hercules Mulligan is not known to fuck horses.

The Revolution had already sorta started. Actually, Hercules and Alexander had been part of local militias before 1776.

This is more of a miscommunication since the actors are close in age, though the lyrics try to get it across. There’s a reason Mulligan says he’s got the others “in loco parentis”. In 1776 Hamilton and Lafayette would have been 19, Laurens would have been 22, and Mulligan would have been 36.

I think we all know “Laurens, I like you a lot” does not cover the scope of their relationship but that’s rather self explanatory so unless someone asks I’ll leave it at that. And for other clarifications. But at the very least I’ll share this: Anyone who saw them knew they were like attached at the hip (without knowing how attached *winkwonk*) and you could almost always contact one through the other. Laurens was notoriously bad at answering letters, to Hamilton too (and Alex did bitch about it because he is insecure and needs love), but it became quickly known he got back to Hamilton fastest so people would be like “Tell Laurens I said hi!” or “Hey, I need to get these to Laurens, you send them to him.” Which is hilarious. I just imagine Alexander going, “Why me?”

While all of them are Revolutionaries, Laurens is the only one you could solidly call an abolitionist, and Mulligan’s even shaky on the manumission part. He was supposedly part of the Manumission Society Hamilton helped start, but Mulligan also personally owned slaves and was never known to have freed them (One helped him with spy shit. His name was Cato!). In fairness, Hamilton and Lafayette wholeheartedly agreed with Laurens, and Hamilton was the biggest supporter of his battalion plan, and both of them did try to continue working towards equality after the war, but it was never the top priority for either of them and their lives kinda went to hell, so it fell to the wayside. Lafayette actually did some nifty stuff worth looking at, and Hamilton might have tried to keep one of John Lauren’s freed men from Henry Laurens! But as slavery stuck around for a while, it clearly wasn’t anything significant.

Angelica would meet and befriend Thomas Jefferson in Europe, but she would never manage to convince him to put women in a sequel because he’s a huge misogynist and told her in multiple letters that politics isn’t for women and I think he deserves a shoe up his southern backside. Side note, it always bothered me that Lin played up the misogyny in the musical. I mean, yeah, all of them would be misogynists compared to us, but for their time, Hamilton wasn’t so bad. If there was anyone to play up misogyny with, it was Jefferson, because he would tell Angelica for years and years that politics could never make women happy, and that the women in France were foolish for trying etc.. Hamilton would actually discuss politics with Angelica frequently and openly. And there’s a proto-feminist in the cast that was never recognized—Aaron Burr! He respected Theodosia Sr. as an equal and she was his most valuable political ally, and he made sure Theodosia Jr. got the same education any boy of her time would have. He actually respected women to a decent degree. Not to say he wasn't as much of a ho as Hamilton cuz yeah that's accurate (but they were both disaster bisexuals more on Burr's sexuality later)

Farmer Refuted was an essay Hamilton wrote arguing against Samuel Seabury's posts. They weren't shouting in the public square(but Lin got the sass right. I love his face when Hamilton and Seabury are fighting over the podium). Seabury was also really really old, not young and cute like Thayne, hence the line about "mange". Blech.

General Montgomery didn’t take a bullet in the neck, it was a grapeshot from a canon in his head (and his thighs), but close enough I guess. Side note: Burr actually served a short interim on Washington’s staff, but only for like 10 days because they hated each other lolol.

Alexander didn’t bring Laurens, Mulligan, or Lafayette to Washington. Lafayette joined up with the Continental Army in 1777 and quickly convinced them he wasn’t like the other French nobles; he was a glory-seeking kid with a boner for America (for some reason???). Laurens was requested by Washington to join his military family and he arrived also in August 1777 just after Lafayette. Like previously stated, Mulligan was doing shit even before Hamilton did.

Alexander would not have been in charge of spy shit (though may have been somewhat involved). Washington had people like Mulligan for that, who actually saved Washington a few times. But also, the "King’s men who might let some things slide" was the tactic Mulligan used. He was actually very charming, and his wife was very high in British society and he was a skilled tailor, so they were thought of well among the redcoats, and he got a lot of information through chatting with his customers. He also could usually smooth-talk his way out of trouble. Actually, Mulligan blended in so well, when the war was over, people in the city wanted him out cuz they thought he was a Loyalist. So George fucking Washington paid him a visit and commissioned I think a coat from him, and that cleared that up. He got a LOT of business after that.

Alexander would not be Washington’s right hand man, or at least, not his only one if Lin was using that to mean aide-de-camp. In that case, Laurens would also be Washington’s right hand man, along with many men not named in the musical.

John Laurens may have been reliable with the ladies (comes with the territory of being hot, rich, and a perfect gentleman), but he most certainly didn’t want to be. His father noted, rather proudly at the time, that as a young teenager he expressed no interest in girls. John was also married by 1780, and at least Alexander knew. (he told John he'd found out in the well-known April 1779 letter. You know... “Cold in my professions...find me a wife...the length of my nose...” That one.) Because John apparently didn't tell people he was married. Laurens. Sweetheart. Get. Your. Shit. Together.

John also would not be at this ball. February 1779 to March 1780 he is fighting down south, and this ball was early 1780.

The tomcat thing may be half true. Martha Washington did supposedly name a cat Hamilton, but it was an affectionate thing. The slang tomcat meaning ho wasn’t a thing at that time, so it couldn’t be named to tease Alex for his promiscuity. I believe this was one of the many things John Adams made up to slander Hamilton.

Hamilton and Eliza had met before 1780. They had met once two years prior at a dinner her father had hosted. Also, Hamilton had been courting her friend Kitty Livingston, and his friend and fellow aide Tench Tilghman had been attempting to court Eliza, and they’d actually done at least one sort-of double date (which is adorable). So this shouldn’t have been the first time they’d seen each other. Could still be when they fell in love, though, since they started courting after this. Which is cute to think about.

Speaking of Tench and Eliza! I don't remember when this took place but Tilghman journaled it, he went out on something of a hike with a few ladies and they got to a cliff. Of course, he had to help the girls climb up. Except Eliza who started climbing by herself like a natural to the bewilderment and likely horror of the other ladies. Elizabeth Schuyler was a bamf okay?

Of course everyone knows by now, Angelica was married before Eliza. During the Winter’s Ball, she’d already eloped with Jack Carter aka John Barker Church and run away to Boston.

Their courtship was not that fast. Not like, weeks. More like months. Fun fact, Eliza is the only of the five (yes FIVE) Schuyler sisters who didn’t elope and actually got her parents permission! But here’s a heartbreaking fun fact: while Alex was courting Eliza, Laurens was taken prisoner and then on probation. He wasn’t allowed to leave the state of Pennsylvania. He was mentally in a very dark place. Alex kind of procrastinated telling Laurens about Eliza, didn’t say he was courting anyone until they were already engaged.

I can't leave this alone if I'm sad you have to be too. Alex was hella depressed during this time too. Of course he was a soldier so he couldn't see Eliza as much as he'd have liked. On top of that, he kept pushing for an exchange for John and kept getting rejected because they couldn't show preference for him. And then Laurens was sending him very few letters, of course, and the ones he did send were very depressed, even suicidal sounding. He had to work while dealing with that. He had to keep begging Eliza to write to him to be reassured that she still liked him.

No one could show up for Hamilton for the wedding. Some sources say fellow aide James McHenry showed up, but he’s the only one. Alexander even invited his deadbeat dad, offered to pay all his travel expenses and everything, guess how that turned out. So Eliza’s side of the hall was packed and his was empty. God, can you imagine how sad that is?

Another heartbreaking fun fact! John Laurens was out of probation and could have made it to the wedding, was invited (Hamilton, I kid you not, jokingly invited him to a threesome with his new wife in a letter: “I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation.” (emphasis is original to Hamilton. As is the misspelling of Pennsylvania. Yes, seriously.)) and John did not go. Instead he went back to work trying to talk his way out of getting sent as an envoy to France and suggesting Alexander to take his place. You know. His boyfriend who just got married. Sure, he was right that Hamilton was better equipped for the job, but yknow. Another fun fact, one of the guys who voted for John to be the one to go to France was John’s ex-boyfriend Francis Kinloch. Who was a turncoat, and had been a royalist when he and Laurens split. How’s that for some twisty bullshit.

Sorry, this one isn’t about the musical, it’s a tangent, I just got excited about that quote. Both that style of innuendo and the misspelling of Pennsylvania are consistent in Hamilton’s writing. Listening to john-lauren’s podcast about the April 1779 letter can really help you understand how Hammy uses innuendo but also I just love listening to it it’s insightful and hilarious and I love John Laurens but y u do this and my heart hurts for Hamilton but he is also a ho but aNYWAY. As for Pensylvania...well, he kinda made that mistake on an important document. ...It’s The Constitution. He misspelled Pennsylvania on The Constitution. No big deal. Not like something that could haunt his legacy forever. Oh my god I’m so sorry.

Philip Schuyler did have sons. Five in fact. Two of them died pretty young though I think, considering there are three kids in a row named John Bradstreet Schuyler. The other two were named Philip Jeremiah and Rensselaer.

Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan were all married before Hamilton. Hercules Mulligan married Elizabeth Sanders in 1773. Lafayette married his beloved Adrienne in 1774. John Laurens was regretfully obliged to marry Martha Manning in 1776.

Sigh. Again with the misogyny. Anyway, I wanted to comment on the marriage as a loss of freedom. From what I can tell, Elizabeth helped Hercules with his spy work at home. John was literally fighting a war across the ocean from his wife, and probably having an illegal affair with Alexander (though to be fair to him, he was kind of running away from Martha because he didn't marry her for love, gosh, there are no winners here). Lafayette absolutely adored his wife but still was also fighting a war an ocean away, and had multiple affairs, at least one with his wife’s blessing. So yeah, losing your freedom with marriage? Bullshit.

Despite where it is in the musical and Eliza singing the beginning, Stay Alive is roughly about Valley Forge, which would be December of 1777 through June of 78. So before the ball and wedding. (Fun fact! A lot of people theorize Valley Forge as when Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship may have escalated into romantic and/or sexual territory. They may have had more privacy, as small temporary buildings were being made to better withstand the cold, and Hamilton was sick a lot during that time and did need tending a lot. West Indian boi did not like Northern winter.) But yeah, Congress being stupid and the army resorting to eating their horses sometimes and not being able to buy food and equipment? All true. It was a real bad winter.

Mulligan wouldn’t have to go back to New York, he never would have left. He remained there as a tailor and a spy throughout the war. He wouldn’t have been traveling with Washington.

Hamilton and Laurens didn't write essays so much as start working out John's battalion plan and writing letters trying to push for it.

This duel happened in 1778, so like. This timeline is so fucky.

Stay Alive makes it seem like Hamilton was the one who wanted to duel Lee, but it was 100% Laurens from the start. The off-Broadway version demonstrates it a bit better. Hamilton was Lauren's second to save his ass. Hamilton had a rough relationship with Washington, but Laurens admired him greatly and would have willingly defended his commander’s honor. John was a Good Boy who always bowed his head to his asshole father, even at first for his battalion plan, but John wouldn’t let even his father talk shit about Washington. Fun fact about this duel, Alex and John were late to the duel because they “got lost in the woods”. Oooookay. Suuuuuuure. And Baron von Steuben was straight. (Fact: Steuben was very gay and pretty much pushed out of Europe for it. And he actually also had challenged Lee! They talked things out before this.)

Aaron Burr was not Charles Lee’s second. His second was a Major Evan Edwards. Lin wanted a parallel with the final duel. To be fair, that was a really cool way to do it and I like it better that way.

Alexander Hamilton could NOT agree that duels are dumb and immature. He was in 10 duel challenges as a participant in his lifetime, 9 of which he was the challenger. One time he challenged two people at once. One time he challenged an entire politcal party apparently. No, I am not kidding. He had a bad day. And I think you know the one time he wasn’t the challenger.

Lee did not yield on the first shot, nor was Laurens satisfied. Lee was pretty much like, “It’s just a flesh wound!” and wanted to go another round and Laurens agreed, but Hamilton and Edwards managed to talk them down. Yes he was shot in the side. But that wasn’t all because Laurens absolutely roasted Lee at his court martial.

Lee: Were you ever in an action before?

Laurens: I have been in several actions; I did not call that an action, as there was no action previous to the retreat.

I love this man. So much. The sass of this man.

We don’t know if Washington was angry about the duel with Lee. We do know that Laurens, and probably Hamilton, had Christmas dinner with him two days later. When Hamilton left, it was because Washington had snapped over a misunderstanding (caused by Lafayette actually, and he really tried to make it better because Lafayette is a sweetheart), and then continued to deny Hamilton the command he requested, and he resigned. It was entirely unrelated to the duel and Laurens. However, the daddy issues are real.

I don’t know if Lafayette went to France for more funds and came back with more guns, but Laurens certainly did! Ben Franklin told him to chill, but he actually got super impatient and ended up supposedly disrespecting and maybe kinda threatening the court, demanding what he needed, and walking out. They were were kind of shocked and impressed into giving more than had been requested. Any existing deities bless John Laurens. I love him.

Lafayette actually nominated his own aide to lead the charge and Hamilton appealed for himself and Washington finally gave in to Hamilton.

Laurens was not in South Carolina. When he finally got back from France, he was sent to Yorktown. He actually was commanding the group Alexander led. (Power couple lol) He also helped with negotiations after the battle. Also, supposedly making the British play ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ on their way out was Laurens’ idea because boy is made of sass and spite.

Henry Laurens would not have sent a letter to Hamilton about John’s death. Even if he would have, he couldn’t. At that time, he’d been locked up in the Tower of London as a prisoner. We have no idea when or how Alexander found out, or who might have told him. We know he wrote to Nathanael Greene on October 25 and Lafayette on November 3 (literally 2 months after Laurens' death), and the mentions of Laurens were very short. It’s thought that he really couldn’t talk about Laurens. People have compared it to the stories of how Benjamin Tallmadge apparently couldn’t hear Nathan Hale’s name without crying.

After Yorktown Alexander resigned and John went down south to flush British troops out of the southern states. His group was ambushed at Combahee River and he decided to charge instead of wait for backup and he died. Many people think it was a combination of his usual recklessness, suicidality, and glory-seeking mixed with a desperation with the war coming to an end. It was such a small skirmish. He deserved better. He left his daughter, Frances, whom he had never met, orphaned, as her mother had died months earlier from sickness. She was adopted by John’s oldest younger sister, also coincidentally Martha Laurens (though married was Martha Laurens Ramsay).

The Levi Weeks case was years later than that, in 1800, though it was alongside Burr. Hamilton actually lost his first trial as a defense lawyer and was not with Burr.

The whole conversation where Hamilton proposes Burr help him write the Federalist Papers is fake. Lin made that up entirely.

John Church’s wealth kinda...varies. He was a gambler. At first, he was actually in quite a bit of debt. He did make it big eventually and he and Angelica moved to Europe. He really didn’t seem to be a lot of fun to most people, but Angelica eloped with him. She chose him against her father’s wishes. I don’t get why Lin kept writing lines saying she didn’t love him, at least at first. He also does this in the cut song Congratulations where she says “I languished in a loveless marriage” bish you eloped wat She also lived as a socialite and was adored by anyone who met her apparently, so like???? da fuq Lin. Didja really do Laurens dirty for these lies or at the very least uncertanties? Could you not prop up that romance without making her say she hates her husband?

Act 2

More of a personality miscommunication. Irl Thomas Jefferson was shy, quiet, and hypersensitive, nothing like how Daveed plays him. If you knew a guy like the real Jefferson in real life you might be endeared to him out of pity or because he seems sweet, but in the short time of a musical that would immediately be read as cold and unlikable. So the best way to portray “this guy is a likable asshole” is to make him loud and made of sass which is what Daveed does magnificently. So, not at all accurate to real Jefferson, but gets the concept of him across.

Thomas was not off getting high with the French. Probably. He was making negotiations for the Revolution. And abusing Sally Hemings (his, at the time, 14 year old slave, who was also his sister-in-law, and 30 years his junior, and was brought along to entertain his daughter). And actually probably chatting up with Angelica!

By the time Philip was 9, he had two sisters, Angelica (7) and his foster/adopted sister Frances Antill (6), but he also had two brothers already, Alexander Jr. (5) and James Alexander (3), with maybe another one on the way since William Stephen would be born next year.

The whole comma thing is backwards. It was Angelica who made the initial mistake. Hamilton pointedly and flirtatiously teased her about it before closing it with “Adieu ma chere, soeur” French for “Goodbye my dear, sister”. So it’s more playful and less lovey dovey in context, so the tone is all wrong. It’s not romantic, it’s teasing and snarky.

Say No To This feels like it’s over quick. The affair lasted a year, not just the summer Eliza was away.

Clermont Street wasn’t renamed until many years later.

I don’t know that Alex has always considered Burr a friend. Irl they weren’t as close, and Hamilton was keenly aware of how slimy Burr could be.

Lafayette was NOT fine. He was imprisoned a lot during the French Revolution, the poor man, and many members of his wife’s family were killed. HOWEVER! Hamilton was not just sitting by. Angelica and her husband did make an attempt to rescue Lafayette, and the Hamiltons fostered Lafayette’s son Georges Washington Lafayette (yes that was his actual name). So Hamilton also did not forget Lafayette.

Not all his defendants got acquitted, obviously. Stop being cocky, Ham.

People comment on how Jefferson whines about Hamilton’s fashion sense while literally dressed in violet velvet. The original plan was to have him in browns, but Daveed is just such a friggin star that they just had to give him something brighter and decided to go with a Prince-inspired look. Originally the browns were going to be representative of his supposed representation of farmers. Though note here: Jefferson’s agricultural representation is much the same as modern Republicans’ rural representation. More for show.

Actually, let's get political for a sec. I've done some research in my hyperfixation and in searches for Hamilton shiz I've ended up stumbling into far-right nonsense and I know how to recognize the degrees of nonsense from years of actually paying attention to it now because this is what I do apparently. Which is weird, right? Lin kinda portrays him like a lefty. Well, here's the thing. Any proud historically educated Republican will tell you that their roots are in the Federalist Party. Which is technically true. What they will neglect to mention is the flip between parties that happened when the Republicans decided to use southerners racism to their advantage in elections. Being subtly racist can get the racists and the non-racists on your side! Yeah, it's gross. Federalists are more like Democrats. The corporatists. They clearly care more about companies and Wall Street, but they put actual action into social progress on rare occasion. Democratic-Republicans are like Republicans, conservatives who don't want social change and rail against it and pretend they aren't for corporate interests while being just as bad as the other guys. But Republicans have a tendency to rewrite history to paint themselves as the good guys, or reclaim things that aren't theirs as their own. Just look at the Civil War! Or...literally just...America I guess. Yikes. But yeah, here's your warning. Don't just go looking at and trusting things labelled Federalist. It likely won't be friendly.

John Adams didn’t fire Hamilton, Hamilton left. Eventually. And this is not the only time this kind of verbal confrontation happens, and not the one that destroys the Federalist Party. That actually happens after the Reynolds Pamphlet. But John Adams hates Alexander Hamilton with the burning passion of a thousand suns and really kinda earns this.

I’m not sure if he specifically called Alex a Creole bastard but I wouldn’t be surprised, there were other similar racist and bastard-related insults. You know the tomcat thing mentioned above. He started the rumor of the affair with Angelica. He accused him of being a rake (male version of whore at the time). He also may have behind closed doors accused him of being a sodomite. His (probably gay) son Charles helped with that one, bringing back rumors from a dinner he had with Hamilton (who he was working for) and John Church because Church joked about Alex being fond of a guy. Adams probably thought working for Hamilton was what made his son gay and alcoholic (Charles was an alcoholic and may have died in part because of that; Hamilton was not an alcoholic, but he supposedly could not hold his drink. He was smol).

Jefferson, Madison, and Burr didn’t accuse Hamilton of speculation. It was James Monroe, Abraham Venable, and Frederick Muhlenberg. Lin wanted to keep consistent representation of the Democratic-Republican party. But anyway, the whole thing went to hell because Monroe sent the letters to Jefferson (or I’ve also heard Monroe gave them to Madison who sent them to Jefferson) who, the spiteful gangly fucker, started spreading rumors because fuck Hamilton, amirite? Hamilton challenged Monroe to a duel over that. And who stopped this duel? Aaron Burr. He gets to be the good guy now and then.

It wasn’t just total strangers that got Alex off the island. He was sponsored by his cousin Ann Lytton and his teacher Reverend Hugh Knox. Also, he was kind of expected to get an education and come back and help out the island...guess what he never did. Oops.

This one I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure. I think Eliza was upstate with her family when the Reynolds Pamphlet was released, away from Alex. I also know she had recently given birth to their son, William Stephen. A lot of people think Alexander had been keeping that in mind. Eliza had had a miscarriage once before, when she was under a lot of stress and alone and with the kids and he had to be away (Whiskey Rebellion), so some people think he made sure she was surrounded by her family and waited until the child was born to drop this on her, and gave her distance from him if she needed it. At least he knew he fucked up, and he really did love her.

Those weren’t Alexander’s guns. They belonged to John Church.

It was quite some time between Philip’s challenge and the actual duel.

Another age miscommunication; Eacker was 27ish and Philip was 19 when the duel happened. There was a whole 8 years between them!

Eacker didn’t shoot early. Actually, both of them stood staring at each other for a really long time doing nothing. But Philip went to make a move and Eacker shot him.

Alex and Eliza had made up from the Reynolds Pamphlet bullshit before Philip died. When he passed, Eliza was already pregnant with the son they would also name Philip in honor of his older brother.

Hamilton wasn’t really the deciding factor in the election of 1800. But he did say that about Burr and it did help swing the vote somewhat. But also, this was before Philip died. Philip died in 1801.

If a vote is that close, you can’t win in a landslide??? That’s not how words work???? Mister Miranda????? You are a writer??????? Sir???????

Burr actually held a term as Jefferson’s Vice President.

The Burr vs Hamilton Duel was in 1804 and was actually about another election and other things Hamilton was saying about him. Burr was running to be governor of New York and lost but heard about Alexander telling people the things he listed Alexander saying in Your Obedient Servant.

Thayne should not have played Alexander’s doctor. Sydney should have played Alexander’s doctor. Do you know why? Philip and Alexander had the same doctor when they died. Alexander took that doctor with him to the duel. His name was David Hosack.

While there’s evidence to suggest Burr experienced immediate regret (he stepped forward as if wanting to see if Hamilton was okay and supposedly asked after him and wished him well before Alexander passed) in the years that followed, until he was on his death bed, he expressed nothing but neutrality or even pride for having shot Hamilton. The ‘the world was wide enough’ comment could plausibly be entirely made up, and even if it were true, it was supposedly said toward the end of Burr’s life. Burr's life was quite a ride after Alex. He tried to make like his own empire out of Texas, and then of course was tried for treason, but he got out of that, but then everyone hated him for that ON TOP OF already hating him for killing Hamilton, so he had some crazy journey around Europe for a while. He kept a journal, writing entries like letters to Theo. The most notable things I think he writes he'd "been amused for an hour with a very handsome young Dane. Don't smile. It is a male!" which implies maybe Theodosia knew her dad was bi and was at least amused by it? And he spent a while living with Jeremy Bentham, who is generally accepted to have been gay (if you want more Burr gayness look into Jonathan Bellamy and Robert Troup. Troup knew Hamilton too!). Unrelated to his sexuality but I find it important, Burr spent, in modern cash, $40 on a coconut, in his own words, "like an ass." He returned to America eventually. I dont remember if it was before or after his foreign adventures, but his beloved grandson (also named Aaron Burr) died, and then not long after, Theodosia was lost at sea on her way to visit her dad. No one knows what happened to her. It's so sad. Anyway he married a wealthy widow named Eliza, spent all her money on charity, and died the day their divorce was finalized. And Eliza Jumel's divorce lawyer was Alexander Hamilton Jr..

Poor Eliza couldn’t go through all of her husband’s papers. Her son, John Church Hamilton, finished the work for her when she no longer could and put together the biography that inspired Chernow’s that inspired Lin’s musical. (He named a son Alexander and a daughter Elizabeth. He even named one of his sons Laurens! Aw.) And we have come full circle.

The End :33

There’s probably more but that’s what I’ve got. Thanks for reading!

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thespoonisvictory · 3 years ago

Note

Hamilton Hot Take: A Hamilton that kept in the deleted songs and workshop versions tell a superior story (So Broadway vs Off-Broadway version). And, no, I’m not just talking about Congratulations (although that one should’ve also been kept).

A significant part of Hamilton’s narrative focuses on the relationship between Burr and Hamilton. From the beginning, their ideologies and the way they get ahead are completely different. Burr keeps his true opinions and thoughts close to his chest. He never reveals anymore than what will make him most agreeable to others. His persona is one of inoffensively likable. Hamilton is quite the opposite. He is never indecisive, always shooting off his own opinions. He takes risks in order to grab at better opportunities, but often this leads him to gathering more enemies. And despite these differences, Hamilton and Burr remain good friends who have a lot of mutual respect (and envy) of one another.

Until the second act that is. And the second act is also unfortunately where things start getting cut and rewritten.

As the dsmp fandom would put it, Broadway A. Hamilton is made “smooth” compared to his original counterpart. He’s much calmer and more reasonable. He’s pride and short temper have been stripped away. And Burr, in comparison, is stripped of much of his more sympathetic traits. Aside from Dear Theodosisa (Reprise) and really any mention of his family being entirely cut, he’s made to be far more malicious and villainous in other songs, compared to their original lyrics.

Take for example, Schuyler Defeated. Both versions start on Eliza and Philip finding out about Eliza’s father being challenged for his seat in the senate. In the Broadway version, Eliza is very unconcerned with this development and she and Philip leave the song as quickly as they entered, happy to go and meet the new senator. The original, in contrast, starts out with a panicked Eliza, desperate to find Alexander because she knows exactly how he’ll take this. Hamilton’s characterization also vastly changes depending on the version. Broadway Hamilton is very calm, innocently asking about Burr’s change in party affiliation. Meanwhile, og Hamilton comes out swinging, already furious, he demands to know when Burr changed parties. Hamilton is far more personally offended in this version, framing Burr running against Schuyler as an attempt to “make a fool of [him],” compared to to the Broadway version where he seems more offended on behalf of his father-in-law. The only thing that stops Hamilton from doing anything stupid for what is essentially just running for senate AND not the personal attack Hamilton views it as, is Eliza and, later in the deleted song “Let It Go,” Washington talking him down from it.

Another example is the Broadway vs original versions of “Your Obedient Servant.” The Broadway version is undoubtedly framed in a deeply negative light. He is furious, unable to understand Hamilton’s support of Jefferson, viewing it as an attempt to keep him from winning, as something done to spite Burr specifically. Meanwhile, the original Burr is more calm in level headed in explaining his feelings. In both versions, Burd makes accusations towards Hamilton. In the original, he backs up his claims with a source in the form of a private letter sent in confidant, while Broadway Burr makes accusations of Hamilton calling him “amoral [and] a dangerous disgrace,” which is never said by Hamilton anywhere and has no basis. This combined with Burr already suggestion they can name a time and place I’d they have a disagreement, makes Burr come across as far more petty and eager to start a fight. Faced with accusation with no basis, Broadway Hamilton responds fairly reasonably, saying he would need to sight a specific source for him to be able to disavow those words, and provides his own list of disagreements with. Original Hamilton, however, is very flippant of the accusations, being incredibly petulant in denying Burr’s accusations, mocking the wording of them. And yes, while both Burr’s escalate the conversations to threats, the Hamilton’s responses show just how different these versions. Broadway Hamilton stands by what he says and defending himself by saying that everything he said is true and that Burr stands for nothing. Which is completely true, so Burr then challenging Hamilton to a duel makes Burr seem unreasonable and angry that Hamilton pointed out how his own ideology screwed him over. While original Hamilton makes the whole disagreement incredibly personal, for no reason, bringing up Burr’s dead wife to mock him. It’s only then that Burr challenges Hamilton to a duel, to which Hamilton agrees to almost immediately, showing how rash the original Hamilton is, compared to the Broadway version who thinks the challenge over for a few seconds before agreeing.

And finally, “Ten Things, One Things,” really shows how far their friendship and understanding of each other has fallen off. Burr’s perspective shows how much he wants Hamilton to apologize and back down from the duel, only realizing at the 8th count that this is a serious duel, and Hamilton won’t be backing down. Meanwhile Hamilton goes into the duel considering the possibility they might die, but as the counting continues he becomes more and more convinced he and Burr will survive. He is specifically is assured of this by realizing it’s not in Burr’s political interests to kill him. While Hamilton scrutizes the area, Burr’s own fear and paranoia takes hold, convinced Hamilton will shoot, Burr resolves to kill Hamilton first, so his daughter will not orphaned. All the while, is so assured of his safety that he starts to think about going to back to his house to see Eliza awaken. Neither one of them are able to fathom the possibility of the other outside of the image they’ve created of each other. Hamilton cannot see a Burr that wouldn’t wait, and Burr cannot see a Hamilton who would throw away his shot.

Far more emphasize is placed on Hamilton’s violent anger in the original, while in the Broadway version this is lost and Burr is pained more as the unreasonable instigator in their deteriorating friendship, when the original makes it so much more complicated than that. Broadway is so much more Black and White in the story it tells, where the villain Burr shoots our hero Hamilton, rather than the far more interesting story of a friendship between two men based on mutual respect, admiration, and envy and how that friendship ultimately changed both until they could no longer understand each other and how that inability to see how the other had changed, led to their ultimate falling out in the form of final duel.

I’m not saying the workshop versions of songs are better musically (I know jack shit about music) but they make Hamilton’s characterization and relationship with Burr so much richer and that’s why the story they tell is so much better to me.

TLDR; Hamilton is less of bitch in the Broadway version and it makes me >:(

I hope this makes sense, I started to ramble

^^^

god damn this is so good idk what to do with this other than nod and tell you to run my blog for me

also- this reminds me of what happened to off broadway orpheus vs live broadway orpheos, bc ob!orpheus is a self confident bitch who was charismatic and funny and I like him so much, and b!orpheus is a awkward little rat creature who doesn't make as much sense both as a character and in the narrative. he got smoothed

#asks #spoon talks musicals #I could talk a lot about the orpheus comparison

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passable-talent · 4 years ago

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i see z nation in your fandoms... 👁 could i possibly request a 10k x reader in which the reader and 10k have a heart to heart about something or in general have a soft moment? thank you... 💕

thank you @dreepiez, the best ever, for the lovely ask 💕, and for being my best friend and knowing exactly what i felt like writing today. I’m so soft for this boy its not even FUNNY.

Eight months since the world had ended, roughly. All things considered, you’re in a pretty good place- definitely a better one than you’d been in on Day One.

On Day One, you were absolutely alone in the middle of a national park near your home. You hadn’t known that the god damn zombie apocalypse was about to happen, so you were taking a walk- which wasn’t so unusual for little fifteen year old you.

You’d been ambushed and chased by Z’s, and managed not to die, but walked away with an extremely broken ankle.

And, that day, you’d met 10k.

He was leaving the area late at night when he happened across you, in the truck he couldn’t quite drive. Well, an ally with a broken ankle is better than none at all when facing the zombie apocalypse.

In the months following, you’d stuck together, becoming strong allies and close friends. You’d trust him with your life, and he you. You were the only person, in fact, who knew his real name. In the eight months since his father died, he hadn’t told a single other soul.

You weren’t like anyone else. You were there since Day One, you’d never left his side. Even when the two of you were found by a survival group, you stuck together. It was the two of you against the world- no matter how many others offered help, neither of you would ever let your guard down far enough to be without the other. Or, rather, neither of you would ever let your guard down far enough to leave the other alone.

You hated to admit it, but 10k was the only person that mattered to you. In the darkest of nights, when you laid in a bed that wasn’t yours and stared up at a ceiling so far from the home you’d grown up in, when you wondered if survival was worth it, thoughts of 10k would pull you through. No matter what you had to live through, you could never imagine leaving him alone. You’d stay alive, for him, for as long as you needed to.

Maybe it was a little sad. You’d only known him for eight months, you really had nothing keeping you friends other than necessity; it’s not exactly like the two of you went to movies together. Still, he was the most important person in your life- the only important person.

Your parents were gone, you didn’t know where. Your friends, from school, you didn’t even think about checking up on them before skipping town with 10k. There was no one left for you, other than him.

Still, you knew that no matter who you met, you’d always come back to him. It wasn’t like you didn’t get along- he was funny, and kind, and loyal, and, uh..

Well. You’re a teenager. And he looks like that.

You’d never act on it, even though you know he feels the same. Every time he looked at you, chose to eat sitting next to you, wished you goodnight before passing out on a couch, you knew he felt the same. After all, he was a teenager too. He was easy to read.

It was unspoken, really, how much you cared for each other. Neither of you would never dare to bring it up, no matter how much you felt it. Instead, you just showed it, checking up on each other, keeping each other safe. You rarely even talked- with each other, that is. It was a silent companionship, affection obvious through the way you always sat beside each other, even when there was no reason to.

It confused a lot of people at this safe camp, especially when you first arrived. Why are they always together, people would say amongst themselves, when they don’t even seem to like each other?

Little did they know that all of your time alone together was worth far more than the time you spent together in the presence of others.

Camp New World, as it was called among its survivors, was as safe a place as one could ask for. It was situated on the top of a mountain, right at its peak. In the time before day one, it had been owned by a single family, who built three homes on its peak as the generations passed. There was only one road up to the top, which made security from humans quite simple, and there were straight drop cliffs on all sides except for the road, which made security from Z’s easy enough. It was safe, and had been since the day it was made into a safe haven.

Thanks to its position on the mountaintop, Camp New World had some spectacular views. And thanks to your age, you and 10k were very rarely sent on missions outside of camp, such things being given to adults rather than the two of you.

And you did love going on adventures, you always had. The word had been well-soured by this eight month long, horrifying adventure, but sometimes you felt just a bit of that love when you sat back from the edge of the cliff and looked out across the valley. You could see to long-away mountains, turning blue with the horizon, and you could see roads crossing the fields that were once bustling highways. Looking out across a world that didn’t seem so much different than how it had been when you were fifteen, you always had just a little bit more to talk about. And with 10k sitting next to you, you always had someone to talk to.

You glanced over your shoulder, making sure no one else was nearby the two of you.

“It almost looks the way it used to,” you said, fixing your eyes on the silhouette of a town that must be miles away.

“What do you mean?” 10k asked, turning his head slightly toward you, but not looking right at you.

“All of it, out there,” you said, leaning back just a bit onto your hands. “If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t know anything was different. The homes are in ruins and the towns deserted and the people scared, but from up here...” you trailed off, giving a light shrug. “You can’t tell.”

“But you do know better,” 10k said, and this made you look at him. He looked the way he often did- pulled away, reserved. But you knew him better than anyone wandering the earth, dead or otherwise.

He was comfortable. He was at least happy to be sitting with you instead of splitting wood, as they often asked him to do. He was interested in what you were saying, even if what he brought to the conversation was a little bit of cynicism.

You looked back across the world, lifting your chin.

“Yeah,” you said, “I do.” Another few minutes passed in silence between the two of you, being serenaded by the October air rattling through the trees that had begun to lose their leaves, and the sound of the raging river far below that was responsible for the steep-cliffed mountain.

“Still,” you said, “It’s peaceful. I’d be much more scared if I stood down there than I am sitting here.”

“I’d rather you be here than down there,” he said, choking on his words just after they’d left his mouth. You came to his rescue as best as you could.

“Well, last time I was down there, I had a broken ankle. I don’t want to be doing that again, either.”

All too used to it you were, reeling him back from the conversation that neither of you wanted to have. You had to assume that if the situation was different, he’d be a romantic- the way he gave you an extra blanket or let you borrow his jacket made you sure of it. So sometimes, when you were alone, little things would slip out from between his lips, little things that told you just how much he cared for you.

But caring for someone in this world was dangerous. You both knew it- he, who had had to mercy his own father, and you, who hadn’t seen your parents since the day it began. It was a lesson that held onto the two of you like burrs, hooking and holding deeper every time you tried to pull it away.

Even though the two of you cared for each other, would die for each other, that little stinging burr kept the two of you from saying it out loud. If it was said out loud, it was real, and that reality would be much more dangerous.

So you always deflected the attention away from his little confessions. Not maliciously, not to push him away, but to protect you both. It was the least you could do. After all- he’d saved your life, all those months ago.

You’d returned the favor, of course, a few times. The first being when he drove you back to your home to find your parents, and instead found a Z with its arm stuck to the front door.

The door was still locked, there was no forced entry, other than this Z on the outside of the front door. But your parents were just... gone. And there was nothing to suggest where they went.

You scooted a little closer to Tommy, trying to get refuge from the wind.

“Hey, Tommy,” you began, eyes cast over the edge of the cliff and to the riverbanks far below. “Do you ever think about what would’ve happened if we’d found my parents?”

He knew how much it stung that you didn’t know what had happened to them. He knew how much it had hurt you to leave your home town and travel to Camp New World, leaving behind the one place you might find them. But you’d been injured, and young, and vulnerable, and you’d had no choice. He knew that it was a particular crack in your heart that was still raw, and likely would be for a long time.

So he put his arm around you, letting you rest your head on his shoulder.

He still smelled like the cigarette he’d swiped from one of the men around the camp earlier in the day. At one time, you hated the smell of tobacco. Now, it just reminded you of him.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think about things like that.” His first finger drew little shapes on your furthest shoulder, and you let out a breath. “But I guess I would be a little happier if you didn’t have their loss on your shoulders.”

That one, you’d let him get away with.

The sun was near setting, the first brushstrokes of orange and yellow beginning to touch the western horizon. The sunsets from Camp New World were almost always spectacular, thanks to the wide expanse of horizon that one could view.

But you turned your head, laying your cheek on his shoulder, closing your eyes. This was the most you ever let your guard down; when you were alone with him, and the world was safe enough, for the moment.

“I hope they’re dead,” you breathed out, and you felt his arm tighten around you. “So they don’t worry about me the way I worry about them. Is that bad?”

Slowly, carefully, you felt Tommy lower his head down, resting his temple onto you.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, and you pulled one knee closer to you. “And even if it is, I still can’t blame you.” You let out a heavy breath, leaning further into him.

If it hadn’t been for the zombie apocalypse, you never would have met him. And maybe you wouldn’t choose him over putting the world back to the way it was, but you’d definitely think hard about the decision. He was a bright side to the blackness that the world had become, the only person who kept you alive, who gave you a reason to stay alive.

In moments like this, in which you sat with him, felt his fingertips run over your arm; in moments like this, all of the pain, the death, the mercy, all of it- it almost felt worth it.

-🦌 Roe

#reader insert #angst #10k #10k z nation #Tommy z nation #z nation #10k x reader #Tommy x reader #Alvin Murphy #fics

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scapegrace74-blog · 4 years ago

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Ginger Snap, Chapter 2

A/N I am breaking probably the only rule I gave myself when I started writing fanfic, which was Don’t Ever Post a WIP. But lord knows I’m not immune to peer pressure and the narcotic that is reader feedback, so here it is, the second chapter of what is now an open-ended modern AU story about Jamie the Chef and Claire the Kitchen Disaster. Still a first person Claire POV, so I apologize in advance for any stray pronouns.

For the first chapter, I recommend reading it on Ao3, since I’ve made some minor edits since I first posted it on Tumblr. See above re. not planning on posting a WIP.

Oh, and funny story. When I decided to check the location of the real Ginger Snap catering company in Edinburgh, it was squished between “FrazersOnline” and “McKenzie Flooring”. If that’s not kismet, I don’t know what is. The location I describe below, however, is based on a catering venue here in Ottawa called Urban Element, where I’ve attended a few team-building events. I have yet to set anything on fire, though.

I checked my phone for the third time, confirming I wasn’t lost.

Frank and I moved to Edinburgh over the summer, just in time for him to start his position as Associate Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. Despite our years spent in America, neither of us cared overmuch for driving, so we chose a flat (or rather, Frank chose a flat and I concurred) not far from campus. Therefore, this was the first time I’d ventured as far afield as Leith, a maritime enclave just to the north of the capital that couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be grittily working class or artistically hip.

When I finally reached the address, I had to smile. No main street pretensions or non-descript commercial frontage for Ginger Snap Catering. Before me stood a two-story red brick fire station, still emblazoned with the crest of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Services. The two massive truck bays were now enclosed by see-through doors that could be drawn back on a sunny day. Through these a warm yellow light could be seen, spilling onto the grey, damp pavement.

A petite woman with dark hair manned the small reception area, a red-haired toddler clinging to her like a marsupial. She held a phone to one ear while simultaneously pacing the polished concrete floor. I stood as unobtrusively as possible near the door, but in such an open space it was impossible not to overhear her side of the conversation.

“... they willna take ‘im back until ‘is fever goes down... aye, an hour ago when I picked him up but it hasn’t... nay, i dinna think it’s... tis jus’ terrible timing with two weddings t’morrow... Could ye? Och, I owe ye Mrs. Fitz, a million times o’er... Anytime, we’ll be here. Alright, soon.”

The speaker turned to me, the harried look of a working mother sharpening her already honed features.

“I apologize fer keeping ye waiting. What can I do fer ye t’day?”

Before I could respond, the young boy, probably no older than two, began to fuss, rubbing his flushed cheek against his mother’s shoulder.

“Och, mo ghille, Mam kens ye’re poorly. Mrs. Fitz is coming as fast as she may.”

Unable to quell my instinct to diagnose and then cure, I spoke up.

“I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Based on his age and the way he’s holding his head, it may be an ear infection.” At the woman’s penetrating look, I hastened to explain: “I’m a doctor. Would you mind if I took a closer look?”

Permission granted, I carefully palpated the boy under the jaw and peered as best I could without an otoscope into the offending ear canal. Confident in my diagnosis, I recommended treatment with a warm compress, an over-the-counter analgesic ear drop, and children’s paracetamol to control his fever. If, after twenty-four hours the symptoms had not improved, they could consider seeing his pediatrician for antibiotics, but these were only truly necessary for a persistent infection.

“Och, ye ‘ave no idea what a relief it is tae hear ye say so, lass. He’s my first bairn, ye ken, an’ I can ne’er tell if I’m over-reacting or being negligent. Can ye say thank ye tae the nice doctor, Wee Jamie?”

My stomach jumped. “Wee Jamie? Is he related by chance to Jamie Fraser?”

“Aye, tis his nephew. I’m Jamie’s sister, Jenny. Ye ken my brother, then?”

The pieces fell into place, and my insides settled.

“We’ve spoken before,” I explained. “I’m Claire Beauchamp. You and your brother helped me with a dinner party emergency last Tuesday. I came to return your market bags, and to thank you again for coming to my aid during my hour of need.”

Jenny and I spoke for another ten minutes, sharing the superficial narratives of two strangers brought together by circumstance. She was warm and thistly by turns, and I felt a longing for the honesty of female friendship that I’d given up when we left Boston. Eventually a matronly woman arrived to collect Wee Jamie. I carefully wrote down the exact names and dosages of my prescribed remedy.

After Mrs. Fitz and Wee Jamie had left, it occurred to me that Jenny needed to get back to work. I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do, even if I hadn’t thanked Jamie himself. As I began to make my goodbyes, however, Jenny interjected. “If ye’re no’ in a rush, why dinna ye join our afternoon cooking class? My brother will be demonstrating how tae make quiche. Tis the least we can do, after ye helped Wee Jamie.”

Which was how I found myself standing behind one of six cooking stations arranged across the fire station’s main area, a bright red apron covering my black slacks and saffron turtleneck. My impetuous curls were slowly breaking ranks from where I’d slicked them into a bun that morning. I worried I looked like a human Pez dispenser.

I glanced at the workstation immediately to my left. A slight woman who I guessed to be roughly my own age was engrossed in her phone, a cheeky smirk playing on her berried lips. Her strawberry blond hair was swept into an effortless chignon that made me twitch with envy. She looked up from her screen and caught me looking her way.

“Geillis Duncan,” she said, offering a well-manicured hand.

“Claire Beauchamp. Pleased to meet you.”

“Is it yer first time taking a class, Claire?” At my nod, she leaned in and whispered conspiratorially: “Ye’re in for a treat.”

Before I could enquire what she meant, a murmur amongst the other students (all women, save one) was accompanied by the heavy tread of work boots on polished concrete and a familiar Scottish burr.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank ye fer joining me on this dreich Scottish day. I ken a few of ye are new, so let’s start with a brief overview of yer stations and some basic safety reminders, before we tackle the quiche.”

Today Jamie was wearing a pair of olive pants that tapered down his endless legs and a technical shirt that clung valiantly to his upper body. He looked like he’d just stepped off the nearest rock climbing pitch. I wondered if he owned anything that answered to the name of a professional wardrobe, but I couldn’t deny that he looked impressive, in an athleisure sort of way.

“See what I mean?” Geillis hissed at me as Jamie made his way to the front of the hall, speaking now about optimal burner temperatures. “That man is a dozen kinds of yes.”

I concentrated on each step of the ostensibly simple recipe. Pie crust had been the previous week’s assignment, so I had only to blind bake the prepared dough already at my workstation. Once I had the crust centered exactly in the pie pan, pierced with a fork in orderly rows and placed in the oven, I rushed to catch up with the others. I’d missed Jamie’s instructions regarding pan frying the bacon, so I increased the flame, thinking I could make up a little time. The fatty meat crackled pleasingly as I set it in the lightly greased pan. I was inordinately proud of myself.

Things went very badly, very fast. First, my eyes wouldn’t stop watering as I meticulously peeled then dissected the onion into near-transparent crescents. Tears obscured my vision and I tried to wipe them away without contaminating my hands. To my left I could make out Geillis skillfully cracking eggs into a glass bowl, her pie crust already elegantly filled with crispy morsels of bacon and caramelized onion bits.

A vague sense of having forgotten something important tickled my mind. My pie crust! Grabbing a silicone glove (I wasn’t making that mistake twice) I rushed to the wall oven and extracted the pan. Giddy with relief, I saw the dough was only a little dark around the edges.

Before I could return victorious to my station, Jamie uttered a Scottish noise of alarm from his vantage at the front of the class. We both rushed across the room to where my rashers of bacon now resembled blackened shoe laces obscured by a heavy veil of smoke. With practiced ease, Jamie lifted the entire skillet into the adjacent sink and turned on the cold water. A cloud of steam enveloped his head, highlighting his auburn curls. I bit my lip as he looked my way in amusement.

“I hope ye werena planning on serving quiche to yer faculty guests t’night, Ms. Beauchamp?”

I stood meekly next to Geillis for the remainder of the class, no longer trusted around open flame without adult supervision. She graciously allowed me to extract her quiche when it was done baking. It looked like a magazine cover. Meanwhile, my workstation looked like the scene of an industrial accident.

While we were waiting for her quiche to cook, Geillis and I got to know each other a little better. She was a Highland lass from up near Inverness. Married to a wealthy older man, her life sounded like an endless quest for diversion. Despite this, or because of it, she had a sharp-witted frankness that I appreciated. She was also a hard-core gossip.

“Wee besom,” she remarked with a nod towards a blond girl who was currently monopolizing Jamie’s attention with endless questions punctuated by manufactured giggles and flicks of her pin-straight hair. “Tha’s Laoghaire Mackenzie of the Mackenzie brewing dynasty. They’ve a live-in cook, so there’s only one reason she attends these classes, and it isna for the quiche.”

I watched Jamie laugh over something the girl said, mineral eyes alight and his perfect white teeth on display. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t here for the quiche either.

The interminable ninety minute lesson finally ended. I thanked Geillis profusely and we exchanged numbers before she rushed off for her reiki treatment. Gathering my trench coat and purse, I tried to slink away without calling any further attention to myself.

“Ms. Beauchamp!”

I cursed under my breath, then turned to face him.

“Please, call me Claire. After I nearly burned down your place of business, we should probably be on a first name basis.”

Jamie chuckled. It sounded more natural and lived-in than his earlier response to Laoghaire, but I was likely fooling myself.

“Och, wha’s a cooking demonstration wi’out a wee bit of drama. Will ye be joining us next week? We’ll be making ceviche, sae I willna need tae put the fire brigade on stand-by.”

“Bastard,” I replied to his cheeky smirk. “Alas, I don’t think I’m cut out to be a cook. It appears to be the one science I can’t master.”

“Cooking isna a science, Claire,” he explained with sincere intensity. “Tis an art. Perhaps tha’s the root of yer struggle.”

“Perhaps it is. But in that case, I may as well give up now. I haven’t an artistic bone in my body.”

His languorous perusal of said body lit a different kind of flame in my belly. Geillis was right; he really was a dozen kinds of yes.

“I canna say as I agree. Come back any time if ye’d like tae try again.”

I blushed, thoroughly discomfited by his blatant flirting. He knew about Frank. He’d fled from him onto my fire escape, for Christ’s sake! Maybe when you looked like James Fraser, every interaction with a woman was merely a chance to hone your craft. Or maybe he was truly ignorant of his effect.

“I’ll take that under advisement. Thank you again, Jamie.”

“Until the next time, Arsonist.”

#my writing #outlander #ginger snap

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gentlemancrow · 3 years ago

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In the quiet haven of Daisy's safehouse, Martin notices he is regurgitating cliche romantic lines from beloved movies in place of his own words when he should be finally able to tell Jon how he's felt about him all along. He becomes convinced this means The Lonely has stolen his ability to love from him and Jon has to reassure him that that, above all else, is a thing absolutely impossible to do.

Presented in Technicolor

The first time it happened, neither of them noticed. It was so fast, so very quick, just a twitch of tracking on a well-loved VHS or a blip of a warped cellulose acetate bubble drowning in a sea of feedback and static.

There was only one bed in the safehouse. So exhausted in body, in essence, in soul, neither of them argued, neither even thought to argue, as they collapsed together and apart on either side to sink into silence. They’d held each other until then, until that moment of tense intimacy foisted upon them, on the endless soundless train ride to Scotland while Martin searched inside the hollowed-out cavern of himself for his voice and Jon held the atoms of him together to keep both of them from vanishing into the ether. But in the bed, in the hallowed safety of soft blankets and distance, they polarized. Still yanking magnetically for each other from around the insurmountable corners of themselves, but held apart by the unspeakable, unseeable force of everything still between them. They could not give it voice or life. It gave life to itself in the not speaking and not seeing, in the friction of invisible things looping around and around and shining an aurora green that burned hot and sang with a shrieking fluorescent crescendo. They lay, back-to-back, vibrating and glowing in swelling, whining incandescence before Jon finally burst in an argon bright concussion of light.

“Thank you, Martin.”

Another pop of flash powder.

“…For what?”

“For loving-“ a bruised pause, “For seeing something, anything to love about me. Before. For writing me into the pages of your heart as someone worth penning an epic about. For thinking me worthy, even in the slightest, of your tragic hero’s end. Of your sacrifice. I’m… I’m sorry.”

Afraid to move the mattress, a cotton scum of fragile ice that might shatter and tip them both into frothing white mist, Martin turned only his head, the ozone burnt agates of his eyes shining.

“What makes you think this is an ending?”

Jon’s head swiveled now, with both twisted bodies at parallel meridians and an ocean between them before their eyes could meet.

“I… I only thought. You said-?”

“I’m still… me.”

Words were still so hard, wickedly barbed on his tongue, raw and blistering as they bubbled over, but it seemed to encapsulate what he wanted to say as best he could.

“Oh…” that carved with a serrated blade from Jon’s chest, “Oh god, Martin...”

His name on his lips sounded like a prayer. Devotion of one gone from heretic to nonbeliever to basking in the glories of his own personal god of love, descended to anoint his forehead in blood and sing the forbidden gospels of passion snatched from the jaws of things that lurked and preyed. He hated how brightly he burned so that he could not look directly at him, how much the light still hurt, hated the jagged rip of yearning through his middle too wide now to suture shut. But the comforter whispered softly as Jon turned and his fingers danced over its oceanic crests toward him, for him. Martin’s fingers sailed swiftly in kind, as he too, turned and surrendered into the magnetism of this beautiful, clueless acolyte, worthier than any, who bound up his colliding hands and kissed them desperately.

“I’m so sorry it took me so long to get to you,” Jon breathed into his strong, cold fingers, “I’m so sorry.”

The warmth of those hands, those lips and breath, bled into his, turned his paperwhite skin pink again and brought the noontide sky rising in his eyes. He smiled in faint, glimmering adulation.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re here now.”

“Yes. Yes, we are.”

Martin freed one hand to cup preciously over Jon’s pockmarked cheek, over the gospel of him, to thread his fingers into the silken swatch of silvered hair behind his ear and feel out the elegant curve of his neck. Jon’s hand followed a mirror path, painting color and life into his freckled cheek in its wake and stealing the iconographic crystal tears quivering glimmeringly on darkly red lashes. They closed the distance between them forever, nuzzled foreheads piously bowed and touching. A tiny laugh of mingled breathlessness and shattered walls that portended the first smiles bloomed in defiance of endless gray seas.

“I love you.”

Martin’s throat hitched painfully as twin tears rolled down his cheeks. His chest heaved and burned, his lips and teeth clanked and ground to make the sounds he so violently wanted to make, but they were too heavy. Too burdensome, wrapped in rusted chains and sunken too deep somewhere in the hole bored out of him in white acid fog to haul up, but still there. Still there.

“Shhh. It’s okay if you can’t say it back yet. Or if you don’t want to. I understand,” Jon soothed, touching the corner of his mouth.

Martin kissed into his palm feverishly as tears streaked down his cheeks. He couldn’t say much more. He could not possibly convey the magnitude of his endless, ceaseless want, only whisper in a weak, resolute treble into the scarred piano fingers playing a sonata on lips.

“I want to. I-I would have waited… forever for you. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you. You complete me.”

Three simple, stolen words that ultimately meant nothing at all in the wake of the kiss that followed. A solar flare of months, years, of plasmic longing dripped into the pits of their hearts effused, hands tangled into hair, hot tears mingling on cold crushed cheeks. They kissed into, through, around each other, kissed until they couldn’t breathe, kissed to atone for all the ones they had missed, for all the ones stolen from them. They kissed until they were thoroughly wound together and sleep claimed them, Martin’s head atop Jon’s chest so he could hear and feel his heartbeat all through the night.

Martin only realized late into the next morning that his words had sounded tinny and stuck like an ugly, thorny burr to the knit of his memory, sifting its way to the surface only after the floodwaters of love had receded. They awoke in a waking dream of gauzy, liminal sunlight in dancing ribbons, of unbelieving laughter and kissing and touching each other’s faces just to make sure it had all been real after all. And it had. Their words of love could be rewound and replayed, etched into magnetic tape finally untangled and wound straight and true around the stalwart barrel of a pencil eraser.

It wasn’t until they were halfway through scraping together a quiet breakfast of stale tea and long expired porridge that the scene his words really belonged to came to Martin in a whipcrack flash of sipping lukewarm beer at two something in the morning in a darkened room lit only by whatever was on the tele that could hold his attention for more than a few minutes. Those three stolen words. A line he had snorted cynically, jealously, at, even then, drunker than he wanted to be and in the solitary throes of habitual insomnia. Three stupid, hackneyed words of pop culture parody. He smoldered in wordless humiliation, but promptly forgot again when Jon interrupted him at the stove to slide his arms around his waist and press a kiss to the corner of his lips for no reason at all other than the late morning rays looked particularly beautiful spiraling in his russet gold curls.

Martin abandoned the bubbling sludge in the pot and kissed him back because didn’t matter in the slightest. Thoughtlessly plagiarizing a mediocre romantic movie with a single line eternally embedded in the zeitgeist of the era and lingering in the subconscious of all who endured it meant nothing at all, especially when they couldn’t stop kissing. Giddy with the freedom of just being together, dizzy with the new toy of kissing, of Jon’s lips, Martin’s hands, of the way they fit against each other, and the thrill of newness in radiant insolence of everything they had escaped. Of course, though, he had to come clean over plain porridge with too much cinnamon and not enough sugar, over-steeped tea, and nervous laughter, lest Jon think he was an even worse poet than he already was.

“It’s the worst thing ever, right? THAT movie. Out of all the movies…”

Jon shrugged through the fluttering bird wings of his laughter.

“I didn’t even notice, I mean, how could I? Kind of a small thing, after… everything… and it was finally just us.”

Martin’s voice came easier now, more like sweet, sugary tea just a little too hot to drink comfortably, so he could laugh and blush and splutter into his hands.

“Still. I can’t believe I could only choke out all of three sentences to you after I’d been waiting so long to tell you how I feel, and one of them was from Jerry fucking Maguire.”

“Hey, it’s a good line,” Jon chuckled, “Cheesy, sure, but good. And I don’t care where you got it, so long as I’ve got you.”

“Pfft, who’s being cheesy now?”

“Us.”

Jon took his hand across the rickety breakfast table with its faded flowered cloth and the line was written over in his mind like hitting record on the high-fidelity cassette right at the first chords of your favorite song on the radio. And none of the DJ’s chatter to boot.

The next time it happened it lingered longer, like a vapid slogan from a commercial, devoid of anything but flagrant rhyme and earworms frustratingly buoyant on the brain. It wasn’t until the next day though, when the shadows of everything caught them up and the newness of their love had dimmed just enough to cast them, mangled and black, across their joined hands. Jon had attempted to breach the unbreachable bulwark of The Plan, because they’d had a day, that was plenty, and he couldn’t not be thinking about watching his own feet and his back at the same time because he was him. They couldn’t stay there forever, after all. Though Martin was always quick with a plaintive ‘why not?’ every time Jon reminded him of that fact. He had tried valiantly, oh so valiantly, to keep pace and contribute, to hear Jon’s voice, to process the things he was saying, as horrible as they were, but everything he said clanged around in his skull like a moth trapped in a mason jar, buzzing and fluttering and indistinct in its blind, supersonic lostness. Every shred of Beholding, or Jonah Magnus, or Smirke’s fourteen, maybe fifteen, was another drop of condensation leaking down the foggy panes of him, scoring a clear, bloodless wound that only fogged over to be slashed open again.

Sometime in the haze of late afternoon, when the sun is pale and stagnant, when the second hand lingers on the twelve a little longer than it should on each revolution, Martin began to breathe just a little quicker than Jon would have liked. Even after he gave up the frantic turning of the gears in his head that was a little too loud, even for him, for softer dialog, Martin’s eyes darted just a little too frantically, pupils frosted over just a little too white and a little too small while his tongue tripped over simple words and his hand leapt shyly away from his touch. Jon knew he had tread too far. Suddenly, mid banal and desperate Band-Aid conversation about how to make a proper Scottish shortbread because he had no idea what else to ask about that wouldn’t recall beaches, loneliness, or eyes, Jon closed his mouth, took one look at the fading marigold of his love, and gently took his hand to lead him outside the back of the cottage. Neither said a word as Jon propped the ghost of Martin comfortably on the small garden bench, set his phone to a classic music station at whisper volume beside him, and kissed his temple fiercely.

“You just breathe for me out here a while, alright?” he said against his translucent skin, the words so quiet Martin could barely hear them. He heard them louder and clearer than anything all day, “Just breathe and I’ll be right inside if you need me. You’re not alone.”

Martin nodded mutely, and closed his eyes to let the sound of the wind in the overgrown hedgerows and the petals of pink primroses, of violins and chaffinches flitting in the trees wash the waxed-on layers of static away. A few hours later, when the sun had tipped to the west and the sky was flushed with peachy orange daubs of cloud, Jon peeked out of the back door of the safehouse. Martin was exactly where he had left him, but his eyes were serenely closed, his full lips were a rosy pink and curved into a gentle smile, and he glowed with the flaxen veil of near dusk settling atop their tiny haven.

Jon smiled and padded as quietly as he could to his side. He perched beside him on the bench, saying nothing, just sitting with him, watching as Martin opened his eyes like bright blue forget-me-nots blooming in a dewy April morning and threaded his warm, sunset kissed fingers into his.

“Hi, you.”

“Hi,” Jon replied breathlessly, heart thrumming, “Feeling better?”

“Much, thank you…”

“I’m glad of it. Mind if I sit with you a bit?”

“Please do.”

Unbinding their fingers for only the time it took to extricate his pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fish one out, and light it, Jon scooped Martin’s hand back into his and held it atop the cool stone of the bench as cinders glowed bright against the balmy stirrings of eventide.

“Forgive me my vices in these trying times,” he snickered facetiously, seeing the lovingly judgmental look on Martin’s face.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Martin answered behind willowy wisps of smoke, “For now, anyway. I can nag you to quit again when this is all over.”

Jon didn’t reply right away, taking a long drag of the cigarette and exhaling it slowly, pensively, letting the heavy smoke curl up from his lips and through his nostrils like some ancient sentinel dragon. His warm, dark eyes reflected the tilting sky as he gazed up into its aching emptiness and quelled the bored and hungry thrashing of the thing inside him.

“Do you think it will be…? Over? That is?” he mused in that gravelly tone he only got when he was carrying something heavy.

“Of course I do. I have to believe that,” came Martin’s fervent rejoinder, “I have to believe it. For everyone. For us.”

“For love?”

Jon’s eyes flicked away finally from the crawling heaps of clouds on the horizon toward the man at his side, tethering his hand to solid rock. Martin squeezed that hand as he filled those woody, heady depths with his own gaze of boundless blue.

"People do fall in love. People do belong to each other, because that's the only chance that anyone's got for true happiness," he murmured, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Jon closed those eyes of empty galaxies and polished mahogany and tipped his cheek fully into Martin’s palm, pressing it there with his free hand. The smoldering cigarette balanced elegantly between the knobs of his first two knuckles, painting a wispy circlet of smoke around his head.

“Mmm. That is a nice thought, what’s it from?” he wondered aloud as Martin’s thumb stroked his cheek.

He snorted incredulously.

“Me…? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Really? But it sounds so familiar… oh-!” Jon gasped in epiphany, “I got it! Breakfast at Tiffany’s!”

Martin’s brows knitted tightly on his face as his hand slipped away from Jon’s cheek.

“What? No… No, it can’t be. I-“

“Yeah, it is! You remember! The scene at the end in the cab where he throws the ring at her… tells her she’s… built herself a cage and has to live with herself in it…” Jon recollected, suddenly going darkly joking, “Are you trying to tell me something?”

It was lost in the razor-sharp film reel slithering through Martin’s subconscious, flickering and snapping mockingly in the dark.

“Oh, you’re… you’re right. Hah, dunno where that came from,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head embarrassedly. The other hand, still entwined with Jon’s on the bench, tightened skittishly.

“I should hope you wouldn’t compare me to Holly Golightly,” Jon retorted amusedly, fingers rooting his in reply.

“Oh, there is so much to unpack there, but no. No Jon, it’s just a movie I accidentally pulled a line from because it was one of my mum’s favorites and I used to put it on for her all time,” Martin chuckled, though it was a little thin for his liking, “Don’t read too deep into it. I’ve just seen it a zillion times is all.”

A noncommittal, teasing hum rumbled from Jon’s lips as he put them back around the cigarette and pulled luxuriantly. His long, silvered chestnut waves spilled over his shoulders as he tipped his head back, catching the wavelengths of light in a way that stole Martin’s breath away.

“And anyway. She still makes the choice to put on the Cracker Jack ring and she still finds Cat and they end up kissing in the rain, remember?” he added.

Jon chuckled a husky, smoky chuckle.

“That she does…”

Martin looked down at their joined hands and felt the shuddering reverb of everything that had gone before. A sickly tide of guilt washed up over his heart. He was the reason they were sitting outside quoting Audrey Hepburn movies and idly holding hands when so much was behind them and so much ahead, wedged in the middle of tragedy gone and unknown tragedies to come.

“S-Sorry about all this…”

Jon snapped instantly to attention, sword and shield of emotional chivalry drawn and at the ready.

“For what? Needing a break from me? For chrissakes Martin, I’m not easy to deal with even before… before everything that happened to you. Not to mention I’m probably just about the worst person to learn how to be human again with, if we’re brutally honest. Since I’m… neither here nor there myself. I don’t blame you at all.”

His words struck so obtusely, so off the mark, Martin felt hurled into a vacuum, spinning helplessly in space.

“Th-That’s not it! That’s not it at all! Th-There’s no one in the world I’d rather be learning to be human again with, Jon. I want to be here with you, I just… can’t we just be us? For a little while anyway? I just want to be with you…”

His words settled for a moment, whispering in echo like dust and dry leaves tinkling after a whirlwind. The corner of Jon’s mouth curled into a puckish grin. He paused, just a moment, as if deciding the flash of an idea in his mind was genius or completely deranged, but then stabbed out his cigarette on the cobblestones at his feet. He let Martin’s hand go so he could pick up his phone, still insistently playing some obscure old string quartet composition, searched through the music app, then turned up the volume as Moon River began its first lilting notes through the speakers. Setting it down on the bench and rising primly to his feet, he swept himself up in a gentlemanly bow and offered his hand back out an invitational gesture. Martin stared at it, blinking, and peal of robust laughter rang joyously through his chest.

“…You’re not serious.”

“Deadly.”

Unable, unwanting to refuse, Martin took Jon’s hand and was lifted up into a weightless, awkward dance in the tiny unkept garden to a metallic cellphone rendition of Moon River. They spun with indulgent slowness, as the stars peeked out and the music crooned on, hand in hand and unsure who exactly was supposed to be leading this waltz, no foxtrot, no definitely tango. But they laughed each time they stepped on each other’s feet, as they melded back into congruent shapes, and everything was forgotten again in a kiss like a silver streak of comet dust across the luminous pink-purple horizon.

“Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker. Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way…”

The third time it happened, it was a bloody record scratch and a haunting, grainy skipping of warped vinyl. Jon had woken up after their night full of neon and technicolor splendor completely drained of it and awash in dark-eyed, ailing sallowness. Only able to insist he was fine as far as collapsing into Martin’s arms the moment he tried to get out of bed, he had been stuffed bodily back in and given a stern talking to about neglecting his needs, however unsavory they might be. And unsavory they were, Martin’s gut remembered, as he dutifully fetched the tape recorder and the meager folder of statements they’d managed to filch to tide him over until Basira could secret them some more. They felt grimy and insurmountably tainted in his trembling hands, sticky somehow and cloying with the acrid reminder of what Jon was, what they both were, and what had touched them both with filthy hands and sharp nails. He laid them on the bed beside Jon like they burned, who watched as he took two steps back and faded into the slice of sunlight spilling through the bedroom curtains.

“You… you don’t have to stay,” he told him flatly.

“Do you… do you want me to?”

“Not really?”

“Okay… Okay, then I’ll go make us some breakfast and come back when you’re through. Take your time.”

Jon nodded through the kiss Martin planted on top of his head before escaping the room like mist gliding through the black crags of a lagoon back out to sea. He cooked in choking silence, trying not to let his mind decode words from the indistinct timbre of Jon’s voice in the bedroom through the walls, but it was almost impossible. They dripped like blood rain through the leaves of a tree, fat and blistering and scattered onto the top of his head. Words like sobbed, watching, knife, burned, or devoured, scant snatches of oblique terror from people he didn’t know, would never know, people who were probably long gone and far past their reach to help. Especially now.

The eggs frying in the pan sizzled and popped distantly beside the sliced tomatoes and mushrooms obtained on the day prior’s shopping trip, and together the bright yellows and reds bled out into the cast iron until they were a vague monochromatic hue of cooked. A proper fry-up needed bacon, though, didn’t it, Martin thought, mostly to give his brain something, anything to look at while he waited for the disembodied voice to cease, yes, he should really go fetch the bacon. Staring blankly at the stove, his cloudy, foggy eyes refused to focus on any single point and his feet refused to move, detached and dangling each from a silver thread somewhere. Once he could connect enough points of radio snow to hew a coherent thought, he doubted the kindness of eating bacon, of all things, beside Jon after he’d had to read whatever unknown horror. Instead, just mounded an extra helping of beans onto his plate as he loaded up the tray with tea and toast and everything else and ferried it into the silent bedroom.

Jon was still in bed, as expected, sitting up cross-legged and chewing his thumbnail idly with no sign of the statements or the tape recorder. Martin hated how relieved he was not to see them again, but he loved how much better Jon looked, and how the distance in his eyes fled in bright starry gleams to see him through the gray filter settling over his own.

“Oh, breakfast in bed hmm? To what do I owe this honor?”

“Just one of the many perks of deciding to put up with me,” Martin replied with as much cheer as he could muster to match him.

Jon frowned a little, but said nothing as the laden tray was alighted over his lap and Martin slid carefully onto the bed to join him. Martin was an excellent cook, always had been, but both of them picked at the limp, lifeless spread with appetites long truant and senses perverted. A bit of runny yolk on slightly burnt toast was nothing to a wet crunch of bone and a scream of ire. The canned beans tasted of seawater and squelched like kelp bulbs impaled on the tongs of his fork. Martin poked at them distractedly, watching them leave gruesome red streaks of their innards on the chipped plate until the soft, slender backs of Jon’s fingers pressed worriedly into his too cool forehead.

“Are you alright? You’re the one looking a bit peaky now.”

Martin looked up and nuzzled into the warmth of his fingers needily.

“Am I?” he asked absently, “Sorry, I just… I hate this.”

The miniscule points of light in Jon’s eyes that had winked on at his return, despite everything, dimmed like an empty stage again as he looked down at his mangled plate, crestfallen. His hand shied back away to his lap where it twisted the hem of the comforter instead.

“I’m sorry, Martin…”

Martin’s chest seized. The bright red tartan comforter faded to gray.

“Oh shit- no, Jon, not like that! I-I mean I hate it for you! I hate what it does to you. I hate that the pain of other people is necessary for your continued existence in this world. I hate that it makes you… like it… That’s all. I-I just need to get used to it.”

Protest withered and died in the atmosphere the moment Jon’s lips parted to unleash it. They closed as thought flickered behind his eyes, parted, then closed again before he finally conjured the right words.

“Then… I guess I’m just sorry being with me involves learning the ah… care and feeding of an eldritch demigod…?” he offered with a wan smile and a shrug.

Martin blinked, then chuckled softly, mournfully, and leaned over to press his lips in a slow, indulgent kiss into Jon’s forehead.

“It’s alright,” he mumbled against the scarred skin, closing his eyes and letting the sandalwood scent of his shampoo waft over him in verdant waves, “I think I can manage. Everyone goes through this. Just, most people have to deal with ‘oh he’s a vegan and she hates cats.’ Ours just so happens to be ‘oh he sustains himself on being a voyeur to gut-wrenching terror and he fades from literal existence every so often.’ No better, no worse really, if you think about it.”

Jon laughed in kind, a little deeper, a little louder.

“You’re not going to tell me you hate cats next, are you?”

“Not in the least.”

“Good, because that would have been a deal breaker.”

“And now I know you’re a cat person,” Martin chuckled, reaching out and stealing Jon’s scarred right hand.

He unfolded it reverently out on the comforter, like the painted paper wings of a butterfly, and traced the old lines of it with a fingertip flushing pink again. The trails of his life and heart and fate lines were faint and obscure beneath the crumbling ramparts of healed flesh, but still there.

“But that’s the greatest part about being with someone, isn’t it…?” he continued quixotically, the glow spreading back to his cheeks as his fingers danced atop Jon’s palm, “That’s where the adventure is. Learning about them every day, learning about yourself, too, and how to be two people, but also somehow two people together? And now I can say I have the privilege, no, the honor, to have embarked on the epic journey to learn how to be with you, weird metaphysical dietary needs and all. Because the greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return. Don’t you think?”

It was Jon’s turn to snatch up Martin’s hand with a wry grin, warm again in his palms, and kiss every one of his freckled knuckles as they blazed back to life in ruddy constellations.

“Fancy me a very strange enchanted boy then, do you?” he teased.

Martin balked dubiously.

“I… I’m sorry?” he snorted, raising an eyebrow.

“You know- That song you just quoted. Nat King Cole? Nature Boy? They say he wandered very far. Very far, over land and sea. A little shy and sad of eye. But very wise was he…” Jon hummed, half-singing the lyrics in a drowsy velvet purr, “Heh, I suppose I’m a little flattered this time.”

Too much of a pool of serenaded bewitchment to ponder where he’d gotten the lyrics, Martin’s eyes went positively limpid with love as they flushed songbird blue.

“God, you have… such a gorgeous voice…” he gushed, astonished and humbled to have heard it, even if he could never convince him to do it again.

Jon rolled his eyes fondly as the tips of his ears turned a little rosy.

“Oh, shut up.”

“You know I’m never, ever letting that go now,” Martin said with ruthless affection, laughing sheepishly, “B-But yeah I know the song. I guess. I think I must have been thinking of Moulin Rouge though. Didn’t know it was a song before that…”

“Right, right, that film. Excellent use of it. If I recall correctly, didn’t David Bowie do a cover for it as well?”

Jon prattled on for a moment about David Bowie, or covers of songs most people didn’t know were actually covers, or Baz Luhrmann movies, Martin couldn’t tell. There was another sinkhole opening in him. Not one filled with frigid fog that eroded him layer by agonizing layer with the tide in a seaside cave like the first, but one more of rusted metal, jagged and eaten away by the creep of something infectious and voracious. It had started so small, just three stolen words, but now it spread and ate tiny holes in him wherever something beautiful, something his, should have lived, replaced it with a brown patina of rot and decay and overuse. His fragile armor crumbled while Jon shone, animatedly talking about cinema and devouring, with gusto, the breakfast made for him. The least Martin could do was allow his radiant light to pierce the ugly, unnamed holes in him and shine in love-wrought florals and wreaths made beautiful through him.

“You know if movies are a-a thing of yours, I wouldn’t mind… err that is to say, I like movies, too?” Jon continued on in his hopeful ramblings, desperate to catch the drooping sails of Martin once again, “I took a film class like everyone does back at uni and I found it absolutely fascinating. I mean there’s a good reason everyone does, right? There were a few in there I wouldn’t mind watching with y- Ahah, well we don’t have to watch THOSE kinds of movies, any kind will do, really. And I swear I won’t get pretentious or academic about it, or- oh u-unless you like picking apart movies like that? I probably don’t seem the type but, trust me, I am actually capable of watching something and just enjoying it without-“

“Jon,” Martin halted him adoringly, smiling as he met his timid gaze and mentally scrubbing over his rusty spots stubbornly with steel wool and vinegar, for him, for Jon, “I’d love to overanalyze movies with you.”

The anxious bowstring of Jon’s reedy body finally went slack, and he smiled radiantly.

“Oh. Oh! Good!” he breathed eagerly, “I um- I know this place doesn’t have internet for obvious reasons, but I think there’s an old VCR hooked up to the TV? We can hunt around and see if Daisy has any cassettes squirreled away somewhere. She must have.”

“Sure, after you finish your breakfast though. Don’t want you keeling over from starvation of either kind, lesson number one in ‘The Care and Feeding of Your Cryptid Boyfriend’,” Martin reprimanded lovingly.

“Hey, same goes for you, baked bean Picasso over here,” Jon shot back.

They laughed, and for a brief, halcyon moment, Martin felt the holes spackled shut. Perhaps it could be enough, Jon could be enough. Perhaps it was nothing but paranoia and the lingering fingerprints drawn in sea salt and sand on his throat. If he only forged ahead, if Jon’s godlike hands could sculpt him into something sealed and whole, perhaps the stuttering film reel could come to a raucous, flapping conclusion in the projector and fade to black. He only needed to heal. He just needed time. That’s what Jon would say. And that’s what he said, too, but the breakfast still tasted of brine and Bakelite.

The fourth time it happened was the time Martin stopped counting, and instead just let them stack up, sharp and hot, against the back of his skull. It came, a slow and lumbering sound test later that very evening sprawled on the couch in front of an old VHS from the dusty collection Daisy had indeed accrued. They had settled on Say Anything from her surprisingly romcom heavy library, which Martin had seen many times but Jon had never bothered. Horrified and aghast he had never seen the origin of the oft parodied and iconic boombox scene, and then even further scandalized Jon didn’t even know what ‘the boombox scene’ was in the first place, he put it in and figured out the tuning and setup while Jon filched a dusty old bottle of wine of indiscriminate origin and poured it recklessly into two mugs without even searching for proper glasses. Neither could decide if the wine was awful because it was just awful to begin with, or if wine just tasted weird in general out of a chintzy floral ceramic mug, but they both drank to boneless giddiness as they watched the classic tale of Diane and Lloyd by firelight.

They began ever so politely, each on their own cushion on the couch, just close enough to touch knees or hold hands or brush a thigh on the way to pour more wine. One mug in and they were happily squashed side by side between the back cushions, battling for whose head got to be on whose shoulder with encircled arms and fingers twined adamantly together. Martin sitting up to pour a second round freed Jon to slink, catlike, into a curled-up puddle on his lap, all but demanding Martin’s hands in his hair. He happily obliged, sipping mediocre red blend in one hand while the other stroked Jon languidly, starting at the crown of his long, silvered locks and laying out the waves of them in reverent oaky garlands on his thighs. The bottle only yielded a half pour for their third and final serving, which Jon downed in several hurried gulps so that he could claim the lay of the couch, wriggling his back into the cushions and opening his arms invitingly for Martin, a dopey grin on his face and his ears bright crimson with drink.

A more sober Martin would have been deeply concerned about their ability to squeeze horizontally together on the couch, but as it was all he saw was a sliver of very inviting cushion and the tantalizing glimmer of a little spoon. He crashed into those arms, resulting in no less than several minutes of laughing and yelping in pain and mashed limbs, but eventually they wormed their way to equilibrium. Jon had to tuck Martin’s mop of rusty curls under his chin to see the television, and Martin’s knees dangled precariously off the edge, but their ankles tangled together and Jon’s arm draped preciously over Martin’s chest as he folded him protectively in his embrace and kissed into the crown of his head. They glowed softly in their final performance after a tableau of love for each act of the film, watching the seminal scene in inebriated reverie. Both of them pointedly ignored the lyrics of the song that went with it.

“So… the film’s called Say Anything…” Jon mumbled into Martin’s hair as the film marched on, half sleepy, half drunk.

“Mmhmm,” Martin intoned in response, idly toying with Jon’s fingers twiddling at his chest as the room twirled merrily around his head.

“And supposedly she can say anything to her father… but then he’s the one who lied to her? And encouraged her to break up with John Cusack even though she clearly loves him?”

“That is indeed what happened, yes.”

“So it’s sort of all about honesty, then?”

“You could put it that way, yeah!” Martin replied, tilting his head up spiritedly, “That sometimes we do horrible things, we lie, to protect and care for the people who mean the most to us. But we still mean it. He’s sort of a foil to Lloyd in that way, you know? Both of them unquestionably love Diane, it’s just Lloyd is going to do it despite not being what society deems worthy, being himself, and Jim’s going to do it to make life perfect for her even though he actually can’t and has to lie his way through it. But the film doesn’t really condemn either of them for their choices though! Sorry spoiler, she forgives him at the end and she gives him the pen to remember her by instead. They all learn something about truth and what it means to love someone, familiarly, romantically…”

Jon melted around Martin, his poet, his bard, his untangler of the mysticism of art and the soul.

“But that’s why Lloyd is such a beloved protagonist, he just loves, uncomplicatedly, honestly. He just exists to exist, you know? No plan, no need for one, he just wants to live life and love her.”

“So you are good at film analysis…” Jon snickered, lips fluttering in barely a kiss behind his ear.

“Heh, well I didn’t get to take a fancy class at uni like you did, but I guess so? I dunno, I guess I always just admired him, choosing the ‘no thanks’ option when it wasn’t even an option.”

“Would you like to?”

“Hmm? Choose the no thanks option? I think the answer to that’s pretty obvious,” Martin snorted.

“No no… If you got the chance to go. To uni, I mean. Would you want to?”

“Oh… that. You know? Yeah… yeah I think I would.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… I could take that pretentious film class and get a better grade than you. Take a real poetry course for once. Study all the classics and run an on-campus podcast no one listens to except you about classical themes and motifs in modern media.”

Jon laughed, the joy fizzing in his chest for a past that never was, but a future that still could be spilling into another electric kiss, this time at the nape of his neck.

“Incredible. Then what? Business degree? Run an old arthouse cinema?” he inquired, nuzzling into Martin’s broad shoulder.

“Business degree yes, cinema no. I run a bookshop,” Martin said emphatically, “A bookshop with a café… I do all the baking and you curate all the books and run the till. We have this pompous fluffy tuxedo cat who will literally do anything for ear scratches or tuna that we take in everyday and she’s our mascot and everyone loves her.”

“Love it, keep going.”

“Heh… Dunno her name though… Maybe we just call her Cat, a homage to Holly, or no-! No, we do just call her Cat, but it’s because I finally made you read T.S Eliot and now you can’t stand the thought of naming something that already has a name even if we humans can never know it. Feels far too cruel. But we try and guess at her true name anyway and for a few weeks she’ll be called Mrs. Snickelfritz and then it changes for a while to Bumblybabs or The Princess Prisspat or something. I name a cookie after her and it’s the most popular thing on the menu. We secretly mock the people coming in to find an antique copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland just to look cool on the coffee table and we don’t even feel bad about it. Every day we go home and I fiddle about in the garden and my vegetable patch and you take up astronomy. We drink a lot of wine and watch a lot of really awful tele and fall asleep cuddling on the couch before we remember to go to bed most nights. And life’s just… just quiet.”

Jon took a moment to rearrange the twisted vocal cords in his throat, just to make sure the tone of his voice was dry and clear and unburdened with saltwater.

“And uh, what would you call the shop? Our shop…”

“Out of Sight, out of Mind Books,” Martin replied, a smug grin plastered to his flushed face.

“Pfft. A little on the nose, isn’t it?”

“Hey, be nice. It took me weeks of fantasizing at my desk when I should have been researching to come up with that name.”

“I knew it. I knew you were picking out drapes for our proverbial cottage rather than following up on leads,” Jon cackled, “You really had this all planned out huh? Our life together?”

“Well, the cat’s a new character, didn’t know you liked them before,” Martin answered gleefully, “And what can I say? So much of my life’s been a story of some kind or another, but so little of it has actually been written by me or about me. Guess I just wanted a little say over my ending.”

Silence ensued, punctuated with the subtle shuddering of Jon’s breath as it passed through the machinery of him and the pining of the wrinkles raised on Martin’s sweater as he tightened himself around him.

“God I envy you Martin, being able to see a future like that,” he finally whispered, “I can see… well, there’s no telling what I can actually see, but I still have such a hard time picturing anything beyond this… I can’t see the future even in a hypothetical sense. A-And I don’t know if it’s The Eye or-”

“Hey, hey, no. Don’t talk like that,” Martin scolded, grabbing his hand firmly as he wriggled his way inelegantly into turning about face to look up into his eyes, “It’s okay, there doesn’t have to be a whole life and retirement plan or anything. I was literally just talking about how I envied Lloyd for that! It’s just that, for me, when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

The crescendo of proclamation hung in the air, sacred, immovable, honeyed on Martin’s smiling lips. It shattered with one strike of Jon’s crinkling eyes and tittering laughter.

“Ohh, that’s a good one. You know they weren’t actually supposed to be together in the end in the first draft of the film and that line was basically adlibbed for the new happy ending?”

Martin’s body buzzed numbly as the color drained from the television set and the dying flames in the fireplace, the pleasant buzz of alcohol immediately warping into a frigid tremor and a dull whine in his ears.

“Wh… what film?”

“When Harry Met Sally! Isn’t that what you were quoting? I actually love that one,” Jon went on, oblivious, snuggling up against the vast warmness of Martin's chest.

He laughed, still euphorically tipsy with any incorporeal green eyes just as quickly thumbed shut with coins on ashy gray lids as they were opened, as he went on about how no one ever expected him to like movies like that, but how achingly, awkwardly, and awfully human they always were. The ringing in Martin’s ears turned to the soft hiss of tracking on a blank VHS, the short dead space when the story was over and there were still a few feet of regimented magnetic tape left on the reel, as his eyes swam and danced in points of light. One time was happenstance, two a coincidence, three and four were a pattern. The Fog was still there, it had been all along, translated, parasitic, through his soul in static and tracking and monochrome and snow. His very own personal exile riveted to his bones with rusty old quotes from movies he knew forward and backward and in his sleep.

And it was still so gentle. A gentle fear of redundancy and acquaintance, of the Lonely routine of watching the same two fake people fall in fake love in exactly the same way time and time again with a safe throw rug and a coffee table’s distance between it all, severed from life and adrift on that small chunk of it. It fizzled and crackled with fuzzy unfeeling, draped a velvet mantle over his eyes and burned with just enough limelight to see the one shadowy figure emerging for curtain call on the stage. To see Jon, whose mouth was moving with no sound, whose eyes burned with crystal fires of so many worlds and so many paths that all led back to him, whose hands he could not feel on his cheeks.

Even without sound or touch or sight or feeling, he could still reach back through the nothing for him as he had before. He could still take the glossy black bindings of ancient digital tape and wind them tight through their fingers and around his heart for he who had fought through the Fog to bring him home. He could not be selfish enough to ask to be saved a second time, especially not when his heart still surged and swelled and fought with bound and ragged wings to go to him, when Jon was right there, in his arms, warm and soft and heroic and so very fragile.

“I wish I could give you that, Martin, so badly,” Jon was saying as he clicked the THX stereo back on, “Just… rewrite the script to give us a happy ending. I wish I could be The Architect of our happily ever after instead of The Archivist of our path to ruin already walked, but I can’t. I can’t promise you forever, Martin.”

“I know that,” he interjected, his voice unshakable and brimming with adoration, “So just… just promise me tonight then?”

Scenes could still be paused, still be rewound. One beautiful moment could live forever, frozen in time, watched, quoted, uplifting again and again, eternal in its splendor with so much comfort in the not changing. Just like he could rewind the first time Jon told him he loved him, just like he had so many times already when he could not say it back, he could still have this.

“…What?”

“Just promise me tonight. That we have tonight, here, us. That’s all you have to do. Then in a little while, maybe tomorrow, maybe a week from now, who knows? I’ll ask again. ‘Promise me tonight, Jon.’ And all you have to do is promise you’ll promise me that one night again, then I’ll always know I can count on at least one more promise, and that’s good enough for me. Just… a promise of a promise, no obligations attached.”

Jon mulled it over and around in his mind, the corner of his mouth tugging back up in a grin.

“Just a promise to promise, huh?”

“Yep… no grand gestures, no happily ever, no riding off into the sunset on white horses. Just right here, right now, every time, and we’ll figure it out as we go.”

“I think I can manage that.”

There were sunsets and white horses in both their eyes as they smiled at each other.

“Then promise me, Jon.”

“I promise you tonight, Martin, just this moment, just tonight.”

“That’s all I need.”

The rest of Say Anything faded into the background of their heartbeats and breathing and the kiss that the clocks stopped ticking in reverence for. They kissed each other into an exhausted stupor as the finale of the film rolled on, twisted relentlessly into one another, heedless as the ding of the fasten seatbelts sign turning on heralded the end. Everything would be okay. So long as he had the anchor of Jon to come back to, he could plumb the depths of the rusted-out holes in him and scour out the rot himself.

They lay like that for a while, half an hour, an hour, longer, Martin couldn’t say. He just reveled in the stillness and the blanket of quiet darkness settling over them, of Jon’s touch and Jon’s scent all around him and the peaceful rise and fall of his chest. Perhaps he dozed in the absolute safety of his couch haven while it evaded his protector, but after a time he stirred, snuggling up experimentally into Martin’s chest and nudging him gently, feeling out his consciousness to emerge into the emptiness of his wake.

“…Martin?”

Feigning sleep, Martin slipped back into the shadows to keep his plastic touch off the raw earnestness of the moment that was for Jon and Jon alone. Satisfied he was well beyond the reach of him and in the realm of dreams, Jon smiled as he laid a whispered offering of riotous color and bloom against his fluttering chest.

“I love you. I love you so much…”

It could have broken him. It should have broken him. It should have been a single, tiny stone hurled through a window that brought the entire house of glass crashing in on itself. How many times had he secretly, politely left flowers of ‘I love you’ at the gravestone of his love without his knowing? Instead, it was merely a clean pistol shot through a projector screen. A tiny chink in white vinyl silver screen armor stretched taut and infallible around him. He still could not dredge up those words, not knowing what else would cling to them on the way up from the darkest parts of himself. The film reel snagged and caught fire while he pretended to be asleep for a few minutes more, then feigned rousing to urge them both into bed while melted cellulose acetate pooled in the bottom of his heart. Jon pouted so adorably he almost relented to staying in a tangle on the couch, but for the sake of both of their not particularly young spines he ushered them both off to bed.

Martin fell asleep groping in the darkness for any other films his heart might filch a line from and impale upon his unwilling armor shrike-like, searched for their fetid corpses so he might purge them before rending into them for a meal of festering, gangrenous love. He woke up telling Jon that he liked him very much, just as he was, and fleeing the bedroom in a panic to brush his teeth before the line could percolate through Jon’s mind to truth, his own or Knowing. After lunch and a particularly vexing check-in with Basira at the phonebox that roused more than a few demons and stoked the embers of arguments, in the ashes of the mutual apologies he wielded the ubiquitous sentiment of love meaning never having to say you’re sorry. Jon had laughed. Martin had felt sick.

As they days dragged on the tally marks stacked up in turn. Martin caught himself talking about how love doesn’t make things nice, and how they were there to ruin themselves and love the wrong people. He could not stop his tongue as it churned and clanked out another platitude about his poetry, and how poetry, beauty, romance, love, were the things they stayed alive for. The thing in rusty white armor that had taken the place of him became a thing unhinged, carving the crumbling façade of himself with more and more dead word trophies that sagged, heavy and bloated, slowed its stride and left it sinking into greyscale silt and sand as it marched obsessively out to a colorless sea.

All it took was the tiniest one, three words, just like the first, to bring the battlements down at last. It was nothing more than scooping up empty tea mugs and asking if Jon would like a refill. When he replied that he would very much like one, Martin leaned down and kissed his cheek while the crack in the cornerstone of himself exploded into a fatal fractal.

“As you wish.”

Jon said nothing at first, but as Martin headed into the kitchen, he heard him musing innocently to himself.

“Heh, The Princess Bride. Been ages since I’ve seen it. I bet Daisy’s got a copy of that one here.”

The mugs slipped from Martin’s hands and shattered catastrophically on the tile at his feet. It was over. If he couldn’t do something as simple as fetch tea without tacking on some pilfered sentiment from technicolor pixels, he was too far gone. No one would be able to find him in the fog this time. He would be lost in the dark of a theatre forever, the lone patron applauding a blank screen long after the final credits had rolled and waiting for the same film to begin again. Martin’s thoughts were eerily calm, even as his body collapsed to its knees and slumped against the kitchen cupboards, his eyes white and wild, chest heaving as he gulped desperately for a breath that would stay in his lungs.

He never even heard Jon call his name, or the frantic beat of his footsteps as he flew to his side. He barely felt his hands on his shoulders, then his cheeks, and he could not hear the words spilling from his mouth over the high-pitched test tone in his ears. But there were tears in Jon’s eyes, and his face was twisted and wrought in an expression Martin had never seen on it before. His eyes were just a little too wide and too hollow, skin too taut and creased, lips too thin and pale, and as he finally heard his voice, clear and clarion above the rushing and ringing in his ears he realized what it was.

“Martin, Martin PLEASE. Please look at me! Please, you’ve got to breathe please!”

Jon was afraid. Afraid for him. Jon who had leapt headfirst into countless domains belonging solely to fear itself without a second thought, Jon who bore the scars of every time it had lashed out hungrily for him and survived. He was afraid for him. He was still pounding and screaming for him at the gate of his second ruin, or perhaps from the first he had been swallowed by the moment Jon had left it, hand still clinging to his buried beneath the rubble. Martin reached out to grasp it at last, looking into Jon’s earthen eyes as the tears he had not felt before burned like hellfire down his cheeks and his voice choked out tiny and terrified.

“Jon… Jon I can’t… breathe...”

“Yes, you can. You can. Just look at me, listen to my voice and breathe in while I count, okay? Just listen to my voice and breathe with me, in for one, two, three…”

Through wracking sobs that shook him through every fiber of his entire being, Jon led him through breathing in deep, holding it in his chest, and exhaling slowly, all the while never once letting go of his grip on his hand or letting their gaze break. Each breath he drew in calmed the violent sounds in his ears, each time he held it he could feel the firm, cold kitchen tile beneath his knees and the solidly wiry strength of Jon grounding him, coaxing him back from the brink until he was a wilted, weeping heap against his shoulder with enough air and enough pain to just cry.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…. I’m sorry, Jon,” he wailed repeatedly in answer to his prayer from the first night into the crook of his neck.

“Shhhh, shhh. It’s okay, you’re alright. I’m here. I’m right here. I’ve got you. What happened?” Jon breathed in reply, arms wrapped tight around him with one hand tangled comfortingly in the back of his ginger curls.

“N-Nothing…”

If he could not conjure his own words of love, he could not conjure words of pain. He could not tell him.

“It’s obviously not nothing. I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, of course, but please at least let me help you. Tell me how I can help, Martin.”

“I can’t…”

“We’re safe here, you know. Peter’s gone, he’s dead, he can’t hurt you anymore. I made sure of that,” there was an edge to Jon’s voice, not unkind, protective, warriorlike, “We’re far away from the institute and Basira’s looking out for us back home, and I-“

“I KNOW,” Martin snapped through his tears, immediately regretting the venom, “Sorry… M’sorry. I know… I know all that. I-I just… I just…”

“Martin, please…” desperation now, “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“…Me,” he finally sobbed inconsolably.

Jon frowned, unsure he had even heard correctly.

“…What?”

“Me. I’m wrong. I-I came back wrong.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow. What in the hell are you talking about?”

What he once felt as an empty suit of silver screen armor around him, rusted and eaten away by cliché and prosaism and pinned with their trophies had become a leaking vessel of molten cellulose and mylar mixed in the putrid bile and puss of their rotting, full to the brim and seeping out of the lacy holes in him with only two hands to cover them up. His tongue felt hot and sticky and coated in that death shroud of plastic and mawkishness but truth spilled out of him regardless.

“Jon do you… do you have any clue how long I’ve burned for you? Do you have any scope or scale for the magnitude and depth of my feelings for you? Can you even begin to understand the hell I walked through for you?”

Biting his lower lip and stroking the back of Martin’s head soothingly, Jon weighed his words.

“I-I mean… I wouldn’t try to, I would never. That experience was yours and yours alone, I can’t even pretend to-“

“That��s not the point!”

A thin thread of frustration finally twanged and snapped.

“Then what IS the point? Talk to me! I can’t help you if you won’t tell me!”

“The point is-!” Martin snarled, sitting upright and pulling away from Jon’s tear-soaked shoulder.

He looked so lost in the terrifying shadow of his grief, in piebald splotches of the grey light filtering through Martin in reverse, the guilty polycarbonate cased words vomited out of him like magma.

“The point is… the point is I finally got what I’d always dreamed of. For years. You. You coming to save me, whisking me away, looking into my eyes and promising to fight evil, together, side by side. And not only that, but you telling me love me, wholly and completely. You didn’t waste a second telling me how you felt and kissing me absolutely senseless. D-Do you have any idea how many times I imagined how that might actually happen before it did? Or how much better it was in reality? It was every dream I’d ever had come true, and I…” the tears welled, scalding and heavy, in his eyes as he buried his face in his hands and wept again, “And I ruined them. All of them. Every time we find even a tiny shred of something delicate and beautiful between us even despite all the shit we’ve been through, I ruin it because the broken fucking record in my brain dredges up some stupid movie quote instead of what I want to say that derails and destroys our entire conversation! You were supposed to say it BACK… not first. Not first.”

Jon opened his mouth and closed it again thoughtfully, still pulling gently at the tangled mire of Martin’s sorrow to find the origin.

“O-Okay? Forgive me, I’m still trying to understand. I don’t see how that’s-“

“It’s GONE Jon. I’m gone!” Martin bellowed, red-faced and bawling as he slammed his hands into his lap, “The me that used to pen pages and pages of awful poetry about everything, anything and how wonderful and sad and amazing the world was! Gone! Burnt out of me… I once wrote a goddamn poem about how we used to hide the biscuits from each other at work, you know? But now I… The words aren’t there anymore, my words aren’t there anymore. It’s just an empty hole. Every time I’ve tried to tell you how I feel about you it’s just come from some stupid sappy romcom, not me… That part of me, the part of me that loved with my whole heart, that open, senseless, sappy idiot… It took it from me…”

“What did?” Jon asked gently, reaching out but not touching.

“Please don’t make me say it, Jon. Please,” Martin replied, head bowed and tears dripping from his chin.

“Oh… Oh.”

He rolled his lower lip between his teeth as he let Martin’s words fade to indistinct reverb, his light and color growing dim in the harsh glare of the fluorescent kitchen tubes.

“I see. I think… I understand now,” he finally began in a slow, deliberate tone.

“Do you?” Martin cut in nastily, his voice wetly sawtoothed, and was almost sick with regret even midway between words.

He slapped his hands over his mouth, more tears rolling down his cheeks, “Oh god. Sorry that was… Fuck me, I’m sorry that was so unbelievably- of course you do I-“

Jon chuckled hoarsely as he managed a sympathetic smile and reached out to gently brush the messy white gold curls away from Martin’s forehead and tuck them behind his ears.

“It’s fine, I know you didn’t mean it,” he assured him, “We can’t really ever be sure of the full effect they have on us, or how the different entities manifest their… gifts. But I do know this. There are things inside us, inside humanity, that, if not given up willingly, can never, ever be stolen from us. Inherent goodness and beauty impossible to snuff out. Of that much I am certain.”

Martin’s eyes shifted to the baseboards while he scrubbed at his face messily with his sleeve.

“Doesn’t it bother you, though? That after all that, you said it to me, that you told me you-“ he tripped on the word, swallowing hard, “H-How you felt… and I still haven’t said it back? I can’t even say it now…”

“No,” Jon answered swiftly, firmly, “No it doesn’t.”

Surprise finally drew Martin’s eyes back to him, and Jon reached out to touch his wrist, just to let him know he was there, he was real, and what he was about to say was just as real as him. Color sang a single note of a bell and washed out over his hand in rippling circlets while Jon wrapped it tight in both of his to keep them pinging brightly inside.

“Hear me out, Martin. Isn’t it possible… that, and god help me I’m about to use an idiom. But isn’t it a distinct possibility that the cobbler’s children have no shoes?” he ventured coyly.

The sheer random ridiculousness of that apparent non-sequitur strummed a short, tearful bitter laugh out of Martin as he shook his head.

“I… Sorry what…?”

“You know that stupid, asinine saying about how, basically when one is good at something, one is so busy doing it for other people they have no time left to do it for themselves or their family?”

Jon drew light little circles on Martin’s palm with the pad of his forefinger as he watched the color and light trickle thinly into his eyes in a dim wave of serious contemplation.

“Perhaps you’ve poured out so much of your love, so many of your beautiful words, for other people, for the world around you, that you never let yourself have any of them. You wrote with so much feverish, boundless love for everything there was never anything left for you. You let your words be like a… a gilded cage for your own heart, with you looking out of the bars, pretty for everyone else to look at, but keeping you like a little bird inside and thinking it would be awfully nice if someone would only just join you. You spent so long seeing beauty in the world and beauty in other people, you wrote yourself out of the story.”

Martin sniffed back his tears and pursed his lips.

“I suppose that makes some semblance of sense.”

“Of course it does,” Jon chorused without missing his cue, “And let’s be honest. You never thought you’d actually have… me. You never thought even in your wildest dreams that I would actually fall in love with you. But you were okay with that. In fact, maybe in some ways you even preferred it like that? Not because you don’t have feelings for me, just that… Well. It’s easy to make a dream look beautiful, something you can never touch, something that isn’t yours. Just like your poetry. Honoring and cherishing something from afar is easy. The real thing is different. When you have it it’s still that beautiful thing you loved so much, but it’s beautiful in a way you can’t even comprehend because it’s real. You can touch it, hold it, and it’s yours. And how could you ever fully comprehend that? How can anyone?”

The tears glittered like drops of diamond on russet lashes, rays of sunset shot out from behind the discs of cobalt in his eyes. They streaked hot, vibrant pink trails down his face and painted him in pantone heartache.

“It’s so hard, and it hurts,” Martin whispered, voice cracking painfully, “It hurts so much and I can’t tell anymore which are the good hurts and which are the bad...”

Jon held fast to his hand with one of his, while the other shot to Martin’s face, brushing the tears away from his cheek and leaving behind a masterstroke of freckles, peppery and vivacious against flushed pink.

“I know. But it gets easier. Not any easier to bear, of course, but… easier to sort out which bits are you, which bits aren’t, and which bits aren’t even really there to begin with. And once you’ve worked it out then you can fight whatever it was left inside you. Nothing is gone, Martin, least of all you. And even if it DID take something, theoretically. If it was even possible to-to burn your love out of you, as you said. Who’s to say it’s gone forever? Things heal. Worst case scenario, the movie quotes are just your heart going to physio or something, you know? Your words will come back to you once you’ve healed.”

“But you-“ Martin meekly protested to an emphatic shake of Jon’s head.

“Stop. Stop right now. We’ve both been hurt, and we’re never going to get anywhere if we keep ignoring our own in favor of the other.”

Wordlessly nodding, Martin bowed his head again to speak his timid, visceral truths to the ground where they fell just a little quieter.

“I’m just… I’m… I’m so scared…”

“So am I, Martin. So am I,” Jon echoed, scooping his chin in his hands and holding his cheeks tenderly, “But it’s alright. It’s okay to be frightened, I’m with you now. We can both be afraid together.”

Martin looked up and finally caught Jon’s gaze, really caught it, as the lacings of his armor began to fray and the boundless forest song of his eyes hummed its ancient melody through him and bid him to join.

“I’m so afraid that I’ll never… never look at a puddle in the rain and find something indulgently sad about it again. Or wax melancholy at a particularly colorful sunset. Or be charmed by a silly little bird oblivious to the world,” he said, heavy words weightless in their unburdening, “But mainly… mainly I’m so, so deeply, petrifyingly scared I’ll never be able to write a poem meant for you and you alone… all I ever wanted was to gift you my words.”

Jon’s eyes hooded with a mischievous fox’s grin as his fingers settled comfortably on the back of Martin’s neck and he tugged him close to nestle their foreheads together, whispering against his lips.

“But you already have…”

“Wh-What?”

“Don’t you see? You already have written me a beautiful love ballad over the last few days, or at least your wounded heart did the best way it knew how.”

“And how is that?” Martin snickered tearfully, a bit more levity in his voice, tip of his nose brushing up shyly against Jon’s.

“Well, let’s see. Once upon a time… you began with a quote from a movie about a man who was so wrapped up in his work he felt inhuman, who made a choice to go against what everyone else thought was right, who loses everyone around him while he struggles to live up to his own ideals. Then we have a film about two people who are both hiding something, but who are so inexorably drawn to one another they can’t help but be drawn into each other’s orbits, deep flaws and dark secrets and all, who can’t help but love each other even as they learn the truth. Next one features a love for the ages, a love pure and bright and good in the dark underbelly of Paris… but one of them belongs to someone they don’t love, but must serve for the greater good even as their heart yearns for another. And then lastly, a movie that was originally a bit of a tragedy, a movie about a romance that was doomed from the start, became one about a love that flourished in the face of everyone and everything telling them it could never be…. You were writing a story all along, Martin. Our story. Sure, for now the pieces don’t belong to us, but you’re still singing that ballad, loud and clear. You said to me that night you would have waited forever for me, so I’m returning the favor, I’m just waiting until you finish it.”

With each step of his journey recounted in glimmering fondness, the rusted and rotten silver screen white armor sloughed off chunk by chunk. The plastic effluvium that had choked him flooded out in an epiphanic tide while the misquoted rivets snapped and crumbled away, all shriveling into ash and nothing. Stripped down to an open ribcage with delicate, quivering heart throbbing in defiance, Martin shone in full, thrumming, beating technicolor life. Broken and naked, incalculably vulnerable, but divinely free. The words did not have to belong to him to be from him, to sing the gospel of his truth in reply at last, to reach out for the touch of another through bars of poetry and VHS tape further than his own trembling fingers had ever dared to go, and to bind them, once and for all, together.

“Oh my god,” Martin half breathed, half mad laughed, “Oh my god you’re right… Jon you’re right! You’re right! Jon! Jon I-!”

The wings of his heart erupted free of their film reel chains, burst out of his poetic gilded cage, and flew, carrying beginning, ending, epilogue now featherlight in three simple words.

“…I love you.”

Jon laughed euphorically through his own burst of tears, hesitated to allow the quip on his lips to escape, but set it free anyway.

“I know…”

It took a second to filter through the golden haze of joy, but once it did Martin laughed and shoved at his shoulders playfully.

“Oh, you absolute prick! Star Wars? Right now? Are you serious!?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

They both laughed and sobbed and tussled with one another around a messy, raw kiss, repeated until lips were bruised, breath came in desperate pants, and they were a tangled, idyllic muddle of a tearstained embrace on the kitchen floor still surrounded by teacup debris.

“I love you…” Martin sighed blissfully, kissing the words firmly against Jon’s mouth, just to feel them again and make up for lost time, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…”

“I love you, too,” Jon murmured back, kiss drunk and dizzy with love, “And you’re still Martin. Martin K. Blackwood, or MKB, or Mr. Blackwood or whatever it is these days. Whatever you want it to be.”

“Just Martin, I think. For now. I just want to be Martin. Your Martin.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Martin’s breath hitched in his chest with a familiar and all too welcome urge, an itch in his chest and a flutter of his tongue. He teased out a few words from that sensitive and bloodied heart hopping eagerly there in the open, roughhewn and salt of the earth, but undeniably his.

“My love is presented in full Cinemascope tonight. Unspooled, unwound, free from circular aluminum prisons and plastic spools that twist back inside, alight, alive in full glory, My Technicolor Muse…”

Jon pulled back, stunned by the sudden bashful kaleidoscope flash of affection.

“Oh shit, that was- I… Is that me? I’m your muse?”

“Who do you think?” Martin chastised affectionately, “You always have been.”

“A-Ah, well, I-I um…” Jon stammered shyly, grinning from ear to blushing ear, “Thanks. I-I really like that. A-And it’s a nice line regardless, better write it down before you forget.”

“I won’t. Not anymore. Never again.”

“Good.”

Jon nodded, and finally rose carefully from the floor, offering his hand out for Martin. He took it, and rose with clumsy, but effortless elegance into his arms. Together, they set about sweeping up the ruins of Daisy’s tacky mugs and putting the kettle on for a sorely needed and very late cup of tea.

“You know… I’ve never actually seen Star Wars? I only know the line because it’s so famous,” Jon announced as he brushed the last of the ceramic bits and floor dust off his hands into the bin.

“Seriously? Well, we had better remedy that tonight, who knows when we’ll have time like this again,” Martin thought aloud as Jon’s arms snaked around his waist and a kiss was planted firmly on his freckled cheek.

“Well, no matter what happens, we’ll always have the safehouse,” he purred teasingly in his ear.

“Jon, keep that bit up and I swear I will kill you…”

Martin grinned and turned his head to kiss him again while the kettle bubbled, the sun sank low in the west, and they made their tea to drink in front of Star Wars into the night. Jon spent the entirety of the first film draped on Martin’s chest, utterly enchanted and entranced, babbling on about spaghetti Westerns and Kurosawa films and all the various influences he could so clearly see, reminding Martin that beautiful things really did come from a colorful patchwork of those who came before. He knew it now, but for that night, he was content to just hold him and listen to him wax poetic about The Force, just to hear the fervor in his velvety voice. That night they could just be, he could close his eyes to the sounds of lightsabers and X-Wings and the destruction of the Death Star and the comfortable weight of Jon on his chest, to just be wholly in love with him, with any doubt left like so many scraps of 35 millimeter on the cutting room floor.

#The Magnus Archives #TMA #Magnuspod #Jonmartin #Jmart #Jonathan sims #Martin Blackwood #scottish safehouse period #fan fic #Crow Writes

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gloriafc · 4 years ago

Text

Amazing Wife

Jack never expected to let anyone close to his heart, until he met you. You had it the instant he laid his eyes on you.

You're a surgeon, a prodigy attending. You're friends with Miranda and Ben, when she was grumbling under her breath you asked her what was wrong, "Ben forgot to grab his lunch, so now I have to cancel my meeting to take it to him." "I can take it. My shift is almost over. I'm just finishing my paperwork."

You walked into the firehouse and Jack instantly walked over towards you with his charm on. "Can I help you with something?" "I'm just looking for Ben. He forgot his lunch." As soon as you finish your sentence Ben rounds the corner, "Prodigy! What brings you here?" You quickly toss the lunch box to him, "You stressing your wife out." Jack watches the two of you interact a little jealous of Ben for the moment. He instantly perks up when he hears Ben offer you a tour of the place, "Alright. I'll bite, only if theres coffee involved."

When you get to the end of the tour Ben shows you the kitchen where almost everyone is waiting for the girl they noticed instantly caught Jack's attention. They attempt to get to know you, not expecting you to be a super human. "Why does Ben call you prodigy?" "I sort of am. I specialize in multiple areas of surgery. Fetal, peds, gynecology, neuro, and plastics."

It takes Jack a few weeks of begging to get Ben to invite to one of their outings after work. Ben gets Miranda to agree to bring you drinking with everyone.

That night Jack manages to get your number, Ben eventually telling him he couldve just asked him for her number, "But what's the fun in that without the chase."

After a few months you begin dating. And Jack doesnt know how to explain it, but dating you is different than all the other woman hes dated before you. Eventually he figures it's because you're way out of his league, but soon realizes it's because you are different from ever single woman hes dated.

He can see how other men look at you, you're young and successful, and you're hot, what couldn't they want? And normally he'd get jealous but he trusts you with his life. The times he does get jealous or you look like you're getting uncomfortable he'll grab you by your hip and pull you close and he'll refuse to let you go for the rest of the night.

After a few years you get married and he finally knows what it's like to have a family of his own, even if it's just the two of you. You manage to talk him into considering getting a cat. And as much as he hates the idea, and hates how much the cat takes up all of your attention he'd get you another one if you asked.

After being married for two years you find out you're pregnant and at first Jack doesnt know how to feel, he doesnt want to end up like the parents hes never met. But you eventually ease him into the idea and then he couldn't be happier especially when you start to show. He's slightly upset he can't lay his head on your stomach as you watch tv anymore, but he's settled for drawing random shapes on your belly and watching the random movements from your child.

Jack is amazed when hes able to feel the baby kick. He goes as far as feeling it at least once a day minimum, if his hands could permanently stayon your stomach they would.

One day the two of you go separate ways, he heads off to work as you take advantage of your day off and decide to run some errands.

When he gets a call hes talking to Dean about random things like always. When they show up at the scene they get the rundown about the scene. "Three car accident, the last cars brakes failed as they were going down the hill. It rammed into the back of a parked car, that pushed it forward. There was a person walking between the second car and the one in front of it, squishing them." Jack looks at the scene and instantly recognizes your car as the one squished in the middle. Dean does as well and instantly tries to hold Jack back, "Jack you need to calm down." "CALM DOWN! THAT'S MY WIFE AND MY CHILD!" "Hey I get that. But the call says only one person was injured besides the driver." Jack freezes seeing you pop up on the side and start looking at the person stuck between the cars.

Before you realize what's happening you're trapped in two arms, and after a few seconds you realize its Jack from his cologne. You understand immediately what he was thinking and instantly start soothing him, "We're okay. I was inside using the bathroom when it happened okay?" After a few moments Jack's back in action. You get told to stay off to the side because of any fumes that may have been released from the cars. You watch everything happen until the person starts to seize.

You quickly grab a mask and a pair of gloves before climbing over your car and climbing behind the patient. "Y/N get down." "You're pregnant." "That's not safe." "Are any of you a neuro surgeon? This person will continue to seize unless you relieve the pressure in his head, can any of you do burr holes?" When no one answers you continue, "Then I suggest you listen to the pregnant person and get me a drill."

Ben assists you, being the only person with surgical experience, as you do the burr holes. Everyone watches you in amazement as the patient slowly stops to seize as the blood build up is released. You stay behind the person, using your lap as a head rest as they start to move the car off of him. Jack makes you take his jacket when they have to bring out the saw, which gets him scolded at but he could care less, as long as he's keeping you safe. Everyone listens as you talk to the person, keeping him calm. "You two must be married." "What makes you say that?" You laugh when Ben jokes, "Their playful banter?" The guy chuckles as he mindlessly stares at the trees around him, "That's how I was when my wife was pregnant with our first child." You keep the man talking when he sucks in a breath, "How many kids do you have?" "Four. How'd you learn to do that?"

You smile at the man who's referencing to the burr holes you did. "I'm a surgeon at Grey Sloan. Neuro is one of my practices. One of the first things I learned as an intern actually." "Just one of your practices?" You let out a chuckle, "I like working with kids, so I took up pediatrics, then came fetal because why wouldn't a pediatric surgeon know how to fix a baby while it's still in the womb. Then gynecology because I might as well know how to deliver a baby. And finally plastics. Youd be surprised how many kids go through plastic surgery, especially disabled kids." The guy looks at you surprised, the fact that hes literally in a sandwich completely forgotten, "What made you decide to do all that? How'd you manage that?" You chuckle, "Grey Sloan has an amazing program and I jumped at the opportunity. It's sort of what happens when you get told you'd never be able to do something amazing. You prove people wrong and you go above and beyond." "Who told you that?" You let out a chuckle, "An ex actually. My dad wasn't too happy about that one." "What'd he do?" "My mom had to pick him up from jail for smashing every single window on the guys car."

Jack jumps in, "Her moms the one to be scared of though." You let out a laugh as the guy says, "Its always the mom. My wife would murder for our kids." You let out a laugh making the guy smile.

You ride in the ambulance, being one of the only people who'd be able to stabilize the man if he were to start seizing again, and your ride home completely totaled now. When the guy is taken away for surgery Jack bugs Miranda until she agrees to look you over, "Jack I wasnt even in the accident." "You were near it, the fumes and stress cant be good for the baby." Bailey smiles as the two of you go back and forth, "Y/N just lay on the table. You're both stubborn and we'll be here all day if no one stops you two." You give in and lay on the table as she does an ultrasound, the rest of the firehouse watch from the window in amazement as they see the baby on the small screen and they all couldn't be happier that Jack finally got his own family while they also get a niece or nephew, neither of you telling them what you're having just yet.

When the fire station has to leave Miranda is the one who offers to take you home if you're willing to wait for thirty minutes. You make dinner, Jack getting home right on time then you both continue your nights like you usually do. When it's starting to get late you find Jack looking at his laptop, eyebrows furrowed. "What's got you thinking so hard over here?" You come up behind him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and resting your chin on his right shoulder. "Cars? Really?" "We're going to have to replace the one that got totaled today." "Not one with... Military grade metal? Why dont you just look for tanks on sale?" "You think they have room for carseats?" You hit his arm at his joke making him laugh.

You end up going past your due date, so now it's just a waiting game for you both. As Jack is getting ready to go into work, knowing he can't sit still at all, especiallywhen hes so anxious to meet his kid, he finds you in the kitchen hunched over with your eyes closed and face twisted in pain. He immediately starts to rush over but almost slips, he sees the puddle of water on the ground and looks around confused. When he sees the wet spot on your pants it hits him. "When did your water break? We need to get you to the hospital now." You let out a groan when he tries to help you stand up straight, "When you started coming down the stairs."

Jack helps you to the car, before starting to speed his way to the hospital. He calls Sullivan on the way there, "I wont be there today. Y/Ns water broke.... shit. I forgot the hospital bag." You smile in your seat and between breaths say, "It's fine. There's. One in. My locker. Bailey has one. In her. Office. Too."

Jo and Meredith are the ones to see you enter the hospital, both immediately knowing what's happening, "Jo page Carina and get the hospital bag from her locker. I'll take her to the delivery floor."

You're in labor for most of the day, your friends stop by through the day to check on you and give their congratulations. Jack is by your side the whole time, he's a nervous wreck honestly but hes managed to stay calm until you have to start pushing. By dinner time you've welcomed a baby boy, who has very healthy lungs. Your room is filled with balloons from your friends, as you both sit watching the sleeping boy.

Before the night can end you look at the doorway where the firehouse is standing with even more balloons, along with flowers and what smells like stew. "Hey." Dean is the first to push into the room, he quickly hands you the tupperware of stew before turning to his best friend, "Where is my nephew?"

Everyone gives their congratulations as your son is passed around, "What's his name?" Jack immediately says, "Jack jr." You simply roll your eyes and shake your head before looking at the boy who's now in your arms, "Its Jaxon. With an x. Cant let Jack's ego get too big now."

When everyone is gone and it's just your small family in the room you happily lay next to Jack, now able to press your face into his neck without a giant belly in the way. As you're falling asleep you hear Jack say, "Did we really have a baby today?" You smile and kiss his neck, "We became parents today. You became a dad." You chuckle when you hear Jack huff, "That's going to take some time to get used to." "You'll be fine. We have eighteen years to get it right."

#jack gibson #station 19 #station 19 imagine #jack gibson imagine

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portalford · 4 years ago

Text

In the Light that We Have Found

AO3

It hits Stan out of nowhere, for no reason at all. It’s not like he’s been thinking about it. He makes a point to avoid thinking about most things, actually, and this thing in particular. But he’s thinking about it now.

He’s happy.

He can’t remember the last time he actually thought about his own happiness.

Well, that’s not true. He thought about it a lot last summer, but while the feeling was definitely happiness, the thought was more focused on how fast it could all go wrong if the kids learned the truth about him and what he was doing in the basement. So, yeah, he was happy, but he was also somewhat existentially anxious and incredibly stressed.

Business as usual.

But he’s not existentially, generally, or even sort of anxious right now. He gets twinges of “this can’t last” and “he won’t stay” every now and then, but they’ve slowed over the past month or so as this does last, and as Ford does stay.

He pokes cautiously at the sleeping anxiety. He pokes a little less cautiously. He’s a skeptical fool, maybe, but a skeptical alive fool. Surely something is going to screw this up for him.

Nothing does. He’s just really, truly, uncomplicatedly okay.

“Stanley?”

Stan looks up, and sees Ford eyeing him warily. He realizes he’s been sitting in dead silence, clutching a cooling mug of soup, for God-knows-how-long.

Whoops.

Ford is still watching. “Are you okay?” It comes out cautious, a little hesitant, like Ford’s afraid of the answer.

Stan almost laughs. Trust Ford to completely misinterpret silence. Then it’s suddenly less funny. Misinterpretation and miscommunication are what got them into that whole mess forty-odd years ago, and if anything in Stan’s world ever killed happiness, it’s that.

That and Bill Cipher, may he rot forever.

“Yeah,” Stan says, and offers Ford a smile. “I’m fine.”

Ford smiles back, but it’s the smile he gives when he thinks he should be smiling, not when he actually feels like smiling. He’s concerned while trying to look like he’s not concerned at all, and doing a really bad job of it.

What the hell. Why not share it around.

“I’m fine, Ford, I swear.” Good start. Keep it up. “Better than fine, really.”

Ford’s running his fingers up and down the chunky knitted scarf Mabel sent him in her last package. He got some purple sticky briar things in it the other day, and has been carefully disentangling the burrs from the fabric. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Stan takes a sip of his lukewarm tomato soup. “Just thinking that I’m happy. S’all.”

Ford’s mouth quirks a little. “You’ve decided to express your happiness with solemn staring and ignoring food?”

“You got something to say about it?” Stan leans over the table a little, but doesn’t take his hands off his mug. It’s been a chilly morning.

“Of course not.” Ford’s tone is nothing but false innocence. “I just seem to remember you telling me that the path to happiness was not books or contemplation.”

“That was two weeks ago,” Stan says loftily. “I’m a changed and enlightened man now.”

Ford is visibly biting back a grin. “Certainly. Well, I wish you luck with your new life path.”

“Eh, who needs luck.” Stan slugs the rest of his soup in one go. No sense in letting it go completely cold. “You can just cheat the sucker.”

Ford rolls his eyes, but he’s definitely smiling, and for real this time. He’s stopped his nervous finger-twitching and has gone back to cleaning up his scarf.

“So I’m doing pretty well for myself,” Stan says, and apparently it’s his turn for hesitation, “but what about you?”

Ford looks up, surprised. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” The you idiot is unsaid, because this is a Meaningful Conversation, but heavily implied, because it’s applicable and Stan isn’t going to let it slide. “How’s your path to enlightenment going?”

Ford stares. “Stanley, are you asking me if I’m happy?”

“We really need to work on your habit of being blunt about everything,” Stan says. “Did you never learn how to sugarcoat?”

“No,” Ford says. “I leave that to you.” He folds his hands together, looks at Stan, and waits.

Damn it. Ford wants him to say it, but he won’t actually ask, because that would be telling. Stan sucks it up and says it, but only because he doesn’t want this to turn into emotional chicken. “Yes, Ford, I’m asking if you’re happy. No sense in fifty percent of this crew being sour.”

“Technically we don’t have a crew; I’ve automated most of it,” Ford says, because he’s a pedantic bastard.

“Not the point.”

“Well, no.” Ford’s back to smoothing out his scarf. “And yes.”

“Yes, it is the point?”

“Yes—no, it’s not—” Ford stops, looking annoyed. “No, the fact that we do not have a crew is not the point. Yes, I am happy.”

Stan flicks his mug, making a small but satisfying ping noise. “Way to suck all the emotional high out of that, Stanford.”

Ford scowls. “It isn’t my fault you actively try to confuse me.” And yeah, Stan deserves that. “Stated plainly, I am very glad that you’re happy, and I myself am happier now than I have been at any point in the past thirty years, give or take. Except for parts of this summer, apocalypse notwithstanding,” he adds.

Stan’s grinning like an idiot, and he really has turned into a sappy old man. Only Ford would narrate his emotions like exposition in a really lazy movie. “Damn, Sixer, you’re gonna make me cry.”

“Oh, shut up, Stanley.” Ford is smiling too — a little less maniacally, maybe, but big and honest all the same.

And maybe Stan isn’t really gonna cry, but he really is happy. More than that: he’s happy, and neither anxiety-poking nor honest-conversation-having managed to dampen the feeling. In fact, the honest conversation only made him more happy, because now he knows for sure that Ford is with him on this.

So Stan is happy.

Maybe he’ll try to think about it more often.

#stanley pines #stanford pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fanfiction #my writing #EXAMS ARE OVER.......I AM FREE........IT HAS BEEN FOREVER SINCE I'VE WRITTEN FOR THESE CHARACTERS AND ITS SHOWS

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dragonheart-swtor · 4 years ago

Text

To Let Traitors Live

Summary: Quinn makes a bad mistake and gets kicked around like a football for it, which is remarkably merciful as far as Zavi's punishments go. It's the Quinncident, y'all know how this goes by now. Obvious spoiler warning for Chapter 3 of the Sith Warrior storyline is obvious.

Tags: Torture, choking/Force-choking, Force lightning, Zavi’s bad habit of viewing people as Sith property, canon-typical violence, I don’t think this is graphic violence but I’m not totally sure, read at your own discretion, Zavi does get shot but not badly, Quinn gets kicked around like a football but he’s okay in the long run

Find me on AO3 at Dragonheart37!

-----

Zavi paused as prickles ran up the back of xir neck, an old danger-warning xe was well familiar with. Xe scanned the room, but found nothing obvious to cause it – no people, no droids, not so much as a blinking light that might indicate an explosive. The only other moving thing in the room was Captain Quinn – who, speaking of, hadn't stopped when Zavi had. He'd kept moving further into the room, steps brisk with purpose.

Before xe could do more than raise an eyebrow ridge at this, he stopped and folded his hands behind his back, still facing away from xir. “My lord. I regret that our paths must diverge. Out of respect, I wanted to be here to witness your fate.”

Zavi narrowed xir eyes. “I don't like the sound of that.”

“Your senses always have been keen.” Quinn turned to face xir, face impassive and hard despite the cold, tense dread and anticipation radiating from him that he couldn't hide. “It pains me, but – this entire scenario is a ruse. There's no martial law, and no signal emitter.” The lines around his mouth deepened, and Zavi knew what he would say next before it crossed his lips. “Baras is my true master. He had me lure you here to have you killed.”

Zavi thought about unclipping xir lightsaber from xir belt, but left it there for the moment – the warning prickle at the back of xir neck was still quiet, not yet imminent, and Captain Quinn was a threat xe could handle. “You would betray me now, after all this?” xe asked, low and dangerous. “I have protected you, Captain. I helped you eliminate Moff Broysc. You owe me.”

“You've helped me immensely,” he agreed. “I act today with a heavy heart.” Scripted tripe. “But without Baras, I'd have no career. I owe you, my lord, but I owe him more.” He turned to pace away, not a threat but an inability to keep still released in carefully measured steps. “I didn't want to choose between the two of you. But Baras has forced my hand, and I must side with him. Once you're gone, your crew will either join Baras with me, or be killed.”

Zavi curled xir lip with distaste. “You know who I'm working for now, Captain. If you stand with Baras, you stand against the Emperor himself.”

“The Emperor is an absentee landlord,” Quinn snapped. “Baras is doing what any true patriot would do.” He unfolded his hands from behind him, revealing something in his hand – the warning prickle along Zavi's neck grew in intensity, and xe reached for xir lightsaber as he pressed the button. The door behind him slid open as he spoke, revealing two heavy war droids – specialty models Zavi didn't recognize, lurching forward to stand on either side of Quinn. “After all this time observing you in battle, I have exhaustively noted your strengths and weaknesses,” he continued. “These war droids have been programmed specifically to combat you. I calculate a near zero percent chance of their failure.”

Zavi laughed aloud at that, crimson lightsaber snapping into existence with a vicious hiss. “After all this time observing me, you should know better,” xe sneered. “But then, your confidence in the odds always has been your biggest weakness. You should know by now that the Sith are beyond your petty calculations.”

“If anything, I am underestimating my droids' chances,” Quinn said evenly, though xe tasted fear in the Force. “But I suppose we shall see. You'll find they are virtually immune to you.” He pursed his lips. “I'm sorry it's come to this, my lord.”

Xe barked another laugh, far less amused this time. “Don't waste your breaths on apologizing. You have so few left.”

And the droids opened fire.

The first shots were far too late – xe was gone well before they blasted a smoking crater into the durasteel where xe'd been standing, leaping in an arc up over their heads. They turned to track xir in the full arc, not restricted in vertical movement like most droids, and xe was forced to dodge again, rolling to the side as they fired again. Xe slashed at the nearest one's leg, but xir saber ricocheted off – in the shock of that, xe was slow to dodge the next volley, and heat blazed past xir arm, painfully hot through xir armor.

Zavi hissed, launching xirself again. This time, xir saber carved an arc across the body of the droid as xe passed it in the air to land on the other side – but the damage was superficial, a glowing mark across the reinforced exoskeleton. Cortosis, or something similar – Baras had spared no expense, and neither had Quinn.

Quinn. The skin of xir back went ice cold as if cued by remembering him, and xe rolled forward as a shot darted overhead – not one of the droids, but a blaster pistol. Bastard. Zavi snarled, forced to parry a shot from one of the droids – the force required pulled a guttural noise of rage from xir, and immediately pain seared across xir belly as another blaster shot rang out – glancing, through Zavi's armor, but burning pain nonetheless.

Zavi darted under one of the droids, narrowly avoiding being stabbed by one of its legs, thoughts racing. Quinn had indeed done a good job, as always – the usual weak points on a war droid were reinforced on these, enough to withstand a lightsaber blow, and their shots were both fast and powerful. Already the walls and floor were seeping smoke from pitted wounds where the droids' blasts had punctured the thick durasteel. Even the near miss Zavi had already taken was screaming pain from the heat through xir own armor. One solid hit, one mistake, and this would be over.

Wait.

Xe backed up, watching the droids track xir movements, then launched xirself again before they could be ready to fire, directly at the body of one this time. Instead of attacking and leaping away again, xe clung to it like a burr, too close for it to do more than spin uselessly as it tried to target xir.

The other one, however, had no trouble finding its target. A split-second whine as it prepared to fire, and xe tensed, preparing to leap away again -

A blaster shot, and pain exploded in xir thigh. Xe screamed, in shock as much as pain, and stumbled as xe flung xirself away from the droid just in time, stumbling on the wounded leg as xe hit the floor. The droid xe'd been riding refocused on xir just in time for its fellow's shot to hit it full on with a scream of metal, rending it where Zavi's lightsaber had weakened a seam in the metal. The droid staggered, and for a terrifying moment xe thought it might right itself – but then it toppled, half its legs kicking frantically as the other half collapsed beneath it.

Zavi dared to spare a glance for Quinn, blaster still pointed at xir, and let out a screaming roar, fueled by hatred and rage and pain and accompanied by a blast of Force that knocked him clean off his feet and sent his weapon skittering across the floor. Xe had no further time to spare for him; the second droid was firing again and xe had to roll away, shouting to vent the pain without slowing down. Xe circled the droid, managing not to limp too much, and in a moment of desperate fury gathered the Force to xir and shoved.

It didn't knock the droid over – it was even heavier than it looked – but it did make the next volley go wide, and gave Zavi an idea. Gritting xir teeth against the wrenching agony in xir thigh, xe ran forward, ducking and rolling to slide underneath the droid again – and this time stabbing xir lightsaber straight up overhead, with as much force and Force as xe could muster behind it.

The droid shrieked and threw off sparks, making Zavi shield xir face with an arm as xe scrambled out from beneath the thing, not trusting xir ability to hold it up off xir as it fell. Xe slashed at the gun barrel and took it off for good measure, but the droid was already dead, computer core pierced and destroyed.

When xe was sure it wasn't going to get up again and have another go at xir, xe turned to Quinn.

He'd gotten up and was going for his blaster. Zavi yanked it to xir and flung it to the side; it hit the wall so hard it burst into pieces of metal and sparks. Quinn stared at Zavi with wide, frightened eyes – his fear was palpable in the Force between them, and it did nothing to stem xir pain or xir anger.

He swallowed hard. “I don't – I don't understand,” he stammered. “What went wrong? I calculated precisely, you – you should be dead.”

Zavi took one step forward. Quinn took one back. “You are a fool,” xe hissed. “All your observations, all your calculations, and yet you still don't understand.” Xe took another step forward, and this time he held his ground, apparently realizing there was nowhere to go. “It is useless to defy me.”

The fear staining the Force black only grew as Zavi drew slowly nearer, and yet Quinn managed still to keep it from making his voice shake – he always had been good at that; xe should have realized sooner it would have made him good at deception. He sank to his knees. “My lord,” he started.

Zavi bared xir teeth in a warning. “I do hope you're not thinking of debasing yourself even further by begging for mercy.”

He shook his head. “I have betrayed you,” he said, lowering his head. “Conspired with your most hated enemy. I – I don't expect your mercy.”

Zavi closed the Force around his throat, lifting him off his knees as he grasped instinctively at the choking force. “That,” xe hissed, “is the first intelligent thing you've said today.”

Xe threw him backward with enough force that he slammed against the back wall, knocking the breath out of him with a choked noise before he slid to the floor. Xe stalked toward him, closing the distance at an almost leisurely pace, in no rush now that there was no further threat. No, mercy was not a word xe found in xir vocabulary today – xir wounds burned as xe moved, and the pain only fueled xir anger further. The droids had been some challenge, but droids weren’t satisfying prey – droids didn’t feel pain or fear, didn’t feed Zavi’s bloodthirst, much less sate it.

Quinn got up to one knee before Zavi lashed out again, snatching and flinging him with the Force in one movement, sending him tumbling across the floor. His ribs, already bruised from the first impact, threw out pangs of pain as they cracked under the blow, and Zavi drew them to xirself, reveling in it. Xe coiled Force around his throat and squeezed, lifting him off the floor – his stifled fear cracked and bled panic, an instinctive terror too deep to suppress. He clutched at his throat, legs kicking instinctively – xe bared xir teeth in something between a smile and a snarl at the panic and fear staining the Force around them. He would fight back, betray his lord? Then xe would remind him why the Sith reigned rightfully supreme.

It was only when his movements started to grow more feeble and the light of his consciousness started to flicker that xe dropped him again. He crumpled, coughing and gasping, and Zavi circled him at a distance, hissing fury between xir teeth until Quinn finally recovered enough to hear xir properly.

“Did you think me an idiot?” Zavi asked. “Did you think you were stronger than a Sith lord?”

Quinn opened his mouth as if to answer, and xe snarled, throwing out xir hands toward him. Rage and hatred boiled under xir skin, lit paths of fire down xir nerves and exploded from xir fingers in brilliant crimson light that arced to his body and killed whatever he was going to say before it could leave his lips, twisting it into a pained cry as his body convulsed. Xe swallowed his pain and demanded more, held the lightning until xir arms shook.

“Did you think,” xe hissed, “that you could defeat me?”

Xe let the lightning subside and Quinn slumped to the floor, body shuddering and twitching from the aftereffects as he lay prone. Zavi stalked around him again, restrained fury driving xir to restless pacing, as he struggled to bring his limbs underneath him again and push himself slowly up to hands and knees.

Xir boot came down on the back of his neck, forcing him back down with his cheek pressed against the floor. Xe curled xir lip at him as he struggled for breath. “I don't recall giving you permission to get up.”

His chest heaved, pulse racing under the press of the hard leather – xe couldn't feel it through the war boots, of course, but the Force was as attentive as always – but he didn't try to move again. Zavi watched him gasp for air for a moment, supply limited but not choked off completely by the pressure from xir boot on his neck, and took a few deep breaths xirself to reorder xir thoughts.

The urge to wring his life from his miserable body was undeniably strong, the Force singing for blood still – but Zavi was the master of xir emotions, not the other way around, and logic made xir hesitate to rend him limb from limb just yet. Much as xe would have liked to crush his bones and bleed him dry, to make him suffer for this betrayal, something gave xir pause as xe looked down at him, helpless at xir feet.

“You make a unique problem, Captain,” xe admitted, watching his face as he silently fought for breath. “Up to this point, you have been exceptionally useful to me. It would be a shame to lose you now, when my fight is coming to its peak. But to allow a traitor to live?” Xe clucked xir tongue. “It simply isn't done. Nor am I personally inclined to ideals so impotent as forgiveness.”

Xe released him, turning away as xe spoke. “On the other hand, you may yet be useful to me. And to face my dear master with the very soldier he tried to use against me at my side...” Xir lips curled in a twisted smile at the thought. “It does ring of poetic justice, doesn't it? After all, what is his shall belong to me by rights soon enough. Why not make a point of starting early?”

Zavi turned back to Quinn, examining him. He hadn't tried to get up this time, not even to hands and knees – had simply shifted himself enough to turn the awkwardly pinned posture into true prostration, kneeling with his forehead pressed to the floor, palms flat beside his head. He didn't try to answer, either, apparently realizing it was a rhetorical question. He always had known when to shut up and quietly put himself at xir mercy like a good Imperial.

“No, I don't think Baras would like that at all,” xe mused. “What disrespect, to allow his would-be assassin to live.” Xe smiled coldly down at Quinn. “What outrage, to make his most useful toy mine.” Xe tilted xir head. “And what do you think, Captain? You've always been so delightfully adherent to tradition and custom. What do you make of my new dilemma?”

He hesitated. “Darth Baras would never forgive such a failure, my lord,” he said slowly, not daring to look up at xir. “Most Sith would not. But... your assessment of his reactions is likely accurate. It would make a point.”

Zavi smiled again, mirthless this time. “Not even going to try to convince me to spare you?”

“You asked for my honest assessment, not to be convinced, my lord. I didn't think it would be appreciated.”

“I do appreciate an Imperial who knows not to overstep his bounds.” Xe considered him for a moment. “Sit up, then, and say what you will in your defense.”

Quinn sat up to his knees, raising his head. “My lord, I... if you will permit me to stay in your charge, my dedication to you will never come into question again. I swear it.”

“Pretty words, but I've heard them from your lips before. It didn't prevent this betrayal.”

He swallowed. “I will do my utmost to make up for it, my lord. I know I don't deserve your mercy, but should you choose to grant it, you will have my service for life. You will never find a more faithful servant. The loyalty that forced my hand today belongs to you now.” He bowed his head again in deference. “My life is in your hands, my lord – as it always was; I see that now. I was a fool to ever stand against you.”

Zavi reached toward his mind and pushed, brushing aside what little resistance his disciplined mind afforded him with barely an effort – he wasn't trying to stop xir from looking. His words rang true; even as his mind was tense with fear, there was clawing regret and deep devotion there that xe had felt from him before. This time Zavi went looking for its source, and found only xirself as xe existed in his mind – a burning god of crimson and gold, power and glory demanding the awe and fear of those beneath xir. Quite the flattering image. He was aware of xir flaws – had used them against xir today – but they were overwhelmed by xir virtues in his mind, which was just as well.

And Baras – Baras had been banished to a shadow in his mind, surrounded by fear and dread, but connected to that undercurrent of loyalty only by the thinnest remaining strands. For a moment, Zavi was tempted to snap them xirself – but xe had never been good at manipulating minds, and to break him now with unintended consequences of an apparently small change would be an utter waste.

So instead xe withdrew, satisfied with what xe had seen, and said coldly, “I will keep you alive today, Captain, and we shall see if you can regain my trust. But,” xe continued, holding up a finger to stop him from responding as he looked up, eyes wide. “Your life is now on a timer, Malavai Quinn. I cannot afford to replace you at this moment, but when Baras dies, I will have time on my hands to re-address this again.” Xe narrowed xir eyes at him. “You have a silver tongue, Captain, but it will not save you forever. You had best hope you can prove yourself both loyal and useful to me by the day your timer runs out. And if I ever think you will betray me again...”

“I understand, my lord,” he said, bowing his head to xir. “I am most grateful for the chance to redeem myself. I will not repeat my mistakes, I swear it.”

“We shall see.” Xe flicked xir fingers at him, clipping xir lightsaber back onto xir belt. “Get up. We're going back to the ship.”

He obeyed, moving to fall in beside and behind Zavi – xe stopped him with an outstretched hand and a cold stare. He flushed with embarrassment but reluctantly turned to walk in front of xir, more a prisoner than a companion now as they returned. At least with him in front of xir, not watching, Zavi could allow xirself to favor xir leg a little more, still trying to bleed the pain into the Force and ignore it. It wouldn’t cripple xir - if it were going to, it would have already - but it was painful.

What a bother. And now xe had to sort out how to inform the crew without causing anarchy. Pierce would try to undermine Quinn immediately, and perhaps xe would even let him for once. Vette would be hopelessly obnoxious about it. Most problematic, they would no longer trust him - they would be uneasy every time Zavi took advice from him, and that could undermine xir authority.

Xe resisted the urge to sigh. This is why Sith don’t let traitors live.

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