#distancing himself from the institution or even feeling like it yes he’s done it but it wasn’t an easy choice!

[tvxcue]

i get that s2 wasn’t what people expected or wanted but it literally wasn’t ooc or badly written. y’all are just annoying.

[sheepiemc]

your touch (a craving)

part 2: arm (first)

You were on Diavolo’s mind again. 

This seemed to be happening more often than not these days, especially after that infamous bus ride a few weeks before. The warmth of your thigh on his still made him crazy whenever he thought about it. The strength of his willpower was astounding; how he didn’t end up just pulling you onto his lap because of that touch was beyond mortal comprehension. Such were dangerous thoughts for the future King of the Devildom.

Something you had said that day kept bringing him back to that conversation. Somehow, you got on the topic of Devildom flora and he mentioned the Flowers of the Abyss in the school garden would soon be in bloom. You said you hadn’t gotten to explore the gardens much, as it wasn’t a part of the very brief tour you got from Mammon that very first day. 

“We’ll need to rectify that immediately,” he remembered himself saying, leaning ever so closer - just as you did to him earlier on the bus. 

You tilted your head as if you were surprised by the prince's sudden boldness. “I would really appreciate that, Diavolo. Thank you.” 

The way your eyes brightened with your genuine smile made his heart soar; he'd been riding that high ever since. And he definitely clocked you dropping the honorific in his name. He had never been so excited to be disrespected (something to unpack at a later time). 

And so, it was time to fulfill his promise. 

He had finally cleared up his schedule and worked some magic behind the scenes to make sure you had the same time off. He texted you as soon as he was done to ask if you were available for the tour (even though he already knew the answer). You texted back almost immediately that yes, you were free and you would like to cash that rain check now. 

Diavolo looked out the window. It wasn't raining. 

You texted back, “I'll meet you at the garden gate.” 

He tried to control his excited gait as he made his way to the garden from the student council office, but if anyone saw how fast he was hustling through the halls, they would know something was up. 

Approaching the garden gate, he stopped when he saw you - close enough to observe but far enough away for you not to notice him yet. You were looking away from him, leaning against the fence that surrounded the perimeter of the garden. 

He admired the way your hair looked in the eternal Devildom starlight, though it made him wonder what it looked like in your natural environment. What did it look like in the sun? Did it feel as soft as it looked? 

You looked down at your phone and he could see your face in profile. He leaned against the fence now too, gently enough so as to not alert you to his presence. He wanted to memorize that profile, to become so familiar with it that he would be able to recognize you by its shadow. You smiled so fondly at whatever you found on your phone, and it made Diavolo's chest tighten. It was a stunning sight, to be sure - but he felt a sting of envy that he wasn't the reason for that smile.

“MC!” He waved and you looked at him, only a little bit startled.

“Hello, Lord Diavolo.” You put your phone away and turned to him, smiling wider.

He stopped short at the formality, leaving a respectable distance between you. Of course you would use his title here, in the hallowed halls of his very own institution, but that didn't make the blow land any softer. 

He schooled his features into his “jovial prince indulging another of his whims” mask and asked, “Are you ready for your first official tour of our gardens? I can't believe it took this long for you to get to see them. We'll have to fix that for the next group of exchange students we bring in.” 

“Yes, well,” your smile faltered infinitesimally, so minutely, anyone else might not have seen a difference. But Diavolo did. Demon that he was, he felt slightly vindicated but it didn't make him feel any better. In fact, it only reminded him that your stay here was temporary. “I'm glad you're the one that gets to show me, My Lord .” 

He was startled by the emphasis on his title. Could you really see right through him? He almost shuddered at the thought before fully turning away from you to open the gate, allowing you to walk inside. “It's a huge garden and we have much to see so let's get on then, shall we?” 

You walked past him, your smile ever so slightly morphing into a smirk. Diavolo released a breath he didn't realize he was holding and closed the gate behind him. 

You wound the serpentine trails of the garden at a decidedly uncomfortable distance. Diavolo kept you at more than arm's length, a distance he maintained every time you stepped a little bit closer. He named every interesting plant you pointed out because what else is a prince to do for millennia if not memorize every plant name in his domain? 

When you arrived at the section affectionately called “the flower fields”, you couldn't hold in your enthusiasm for all the strange, beautiful, and entirely unfamiliar flowers that populated this part of the garden. Your glittering expression softened Diavolo’s heart, reminding him why he chose to bring you here in the first place. 

“Those would be the Flowers of the Abyss.” He gestured to some flowers with dark purple petals with a black gradient and blood-red stamens, a combination you had certainly never seen on any flower on earth. 

“Can I touch them?” you asked. 

“Smart of you to ask,” he smiled. “If you wish.” 

He watched you, standing on the other side of the trail, as you tentatively reached out for the plant, rubbing its petal between your fingers. Your lips parted in a near-silent gasp. Diavolo gasped too, albeit involuntarily, his attention oscillating between your fingers and your face. 

“It's so soft,” you whispered reverently as you gently cupped the flower in both hands. You leaned in, bringing your face closer to the bloom. Diavolo swallowed hard. Was he really getting jealous of a flower? In trying to feel the petals against your cheek, you managed to get some pollen on the corner of your mouth. “And they smell delightful,” you sighed, standing up straight, and releasing the flower from your grasp. 

“MC, you have-” he couldn't finish the sentence, so he only vaguely gestured to his mouth, wishing he could get it off you himself. 

“Oh,” you wiped it off with your thumb and looked at it quickly before sticking your thumb in your mouth. “Mmm, sweet, too.” 

At that, Diavolo had to look away or else he might end up doing something he would certainly regret. That's when he noticed all the Hell Jasmine growing on his side of the trail. Stepping away from them, Diavolo cleared his throat, saying, “Yes, well, there is still more garden to get to so let's-” 

“Of course,” you interrupted, “I know you're very busy, you must have something more important to attend to today.” 

Anyone else listening to you might have taken that statement at face value, as someone being considerate of a prince’s schedule. But if you could read him, then he could read you just as well. 

He heard the subtle hurt. 

And it crushed him. 

“That's not-” he started. 

That's when time slowed down. As Diavolo approached you to try to assure you that you had his full attention, you stepped toward him as well. What you didn't see was the creeping vine that caught your foot as you stepped away. 

You were falling. 

You reached out for something - anything - to steady yourself, to catch yourself before you hit the ground. That something just happened to be Diavolo. His arm to be exact. The desperate grip short-circuited his brain and all he could think was please, don't let go. Long dormant synapses were firing in his brain and his eyes were only focused on where you two were touching. When you looked up at him, you realized just how close your faces were. You could've been standing there for an eternity, or only a few seconds - the Prince was absolutely transfixed.

You could've been standing there for an eternity, or only a few seconds. “You saved me, Diavolo. Thank you. I almost got your uniform dirty,” you joked in an attempt to snap him back to reality. 

He looked at you. 

You looked back at him. 

“Yes, well,” he said, his voice a little strained, “we couldn't have that now, could we?”

You nodded and straightened out, releasing his arm at the same time. He mirrored your posture and placed his hands behind his back, out of sight, so you could not see the vice grip he had on the arm you were just holding. “Shall we continue the tour? We haven't even seen the restricted part of the garden yet.” 

You smiled at him again, “I would love nothing more.” 

And you walked side by side with only a few inches between you.

(next)

A/N: Hell Jasmine is a pale blue, glowing flower with a sweet aroma. Breathing in its fumes makes demons extremely needy and affection-craving. (Obey Me Wiki)

[cleabellanov]

Two weeks after season 2, but I'm still there. Here are some chaotic thoughts I felt like sharing 🌞

Part 1 :)) Contains spoilers for season 2

Free will / Responsability

I was just thinking how, before everything changed in seasons 1 and 2 of Loki, the events on the Sacred Timeline were, so to say, scripted. In He Who Remain's words (though i have to admit it feels weird mentioning him, the man is so LITTLE compared to our Loki); the road was paved.

That's the thing about branches, about the infinity of the vast multiverse. The path isn't paved anymore, no more yellow brick road, every decisions sets you on a new one. Anything can happen. So, if anything can happen, nothing matters? No. If anything can happen, the choices that are made, the paths that are taken, have their own entity. Everyone has a story that they can make different every day. That's what Loki is there for. Rewriting the story. The hard thing to do, the thing that had to be done. And I find that really interesting. If you only believe in Destiny's hand, what are yours there for? Gods don't give humans destiny, because it would be just too easy. Too easy to blame it on fate, rather than take responsability for your actions. And the other way around too, if it all falls on your shoulders, isn't it too much to bear?

That links to burden, the burden of responsability. All "variants" will have the free will, while the God of Stories bears it. for a while. I mean, he won't be there for forever, alone, right? Come on now.

Bittersweet, exceptionally good, but definitely heartbreaking

Yes, I still sob sometimes because a once analyst or jet ski seller from Ohio can't move on from losing / being separated from his favorite person. And that favorite person hearing him from a very long distance.

Thank you, my friend / Thank you, Mobius.

I genuienly think Loki learned a lot about himself and the essence of life so different from what he knew because of his time at the TVA, not only because of Mobius. As Tom said in an interview ( for SagAftra Foundation) he found himself in this kafkaesque organization, where people, now variants, are just numbers and a verdict: guitly. That gradually changes, but as we see Loki evolve, it's Mobius who stays by his side. They meet at the TVA, and influence each other for the better while changing the institution as well!! "Thanks for the spark"

It's Mobius who looks at Loki without judgement. With a little bit of admiration, even.

It's Mobius who tells Loki he doesn't have to be alone. And that he can be someone good.

He offers this outcast, a "mischevious liar", a hand, both literally and figuratively.

And this is returned, because now Loki is trusting Mobius, something we barely see the God of Mischief do before, right? (examples: Mobius is the one Loki turns to in episode 1, they very much work together in episode 2 when finding Brad and getting that information out of him, and at the end of the ep Loki stayed. The hug, our only on screen *actual* hug between these two, at the end of season 1. It's great).

It's Mobius who Loki turns to, at the roots of this relationship, when not knowing what to do anymore, or needing that last piece of the puzzle, or number of the equation (and knowing the person that will give it). That "thank you, Mobius" as Loki shakes his hand is like a reflection to all this time spent together, not only that moment in time. It's a thank you of ages, of learning how to love and BE loved; learning, across this path, that every life and every branch is worth of love, ultimately turning Loki's understanding and caring of this in the biggest motivation.

And the thing is it doesn't even have to be romantic!! (I mean it kind of is to us fans, but not everyone sees it that way*ahem*D!sney). But even platonically, this is still a very strong connection, undeniable so. Everyone agrees: Kevin Wright "He cares about Mobius, more than he ever cared about anyone else", Eric Martin : "They have great chemestry", Tom: "They're *passionately* disagreeing" or any time he talks about these 2.

Secondly after Loki's fulfilling journey and more than poetic end, these 2 are certainly the best we got this season.

Thanks for reading <3

[blackthornv]

TWP: my arthurian headcanon pt.4

Oh, please, we all knew it would come to this, there's no mystery here. Also i don't know a lot about this arthurian character so i'll just go with the basic stuff.

Tiberius Nero Blackthorn, fifth of the Seven Blackthorn Siblings: there's just no way he wouldn't be Merlin. It's impossible to not make comparisons between both these characters intellect. Merlin is one of the greatest warlocks in the history of literature, with immense power and wisdom. He is mostly represented as a mentor to many of the others characters in the Matter of Britain such as Morgana Le Fey, the Lady of the Lake, Lancelot and King Arthur (ah yes, our Arthur).

Ty was introduced to us as an erudite and later on he went pursuing his dreams to be a (sort of) investigator in Scholomance - the most refined manner of education Shadowhunters allow in their midst. (Let's get it out of the way: Ty is the greatest student in the history of Scholomance. Source? I don't need one. Shut up.)

He also has began his introduction to (forbidden) magic in QoAaD and we can tell by Livvy's PoV that he - they - are exploring the magic that remained after his attempt at necromancy. I might be biased (and so what if i am?) but he does always find a solution to the problems he faces (even death lol) and so far things are going alright for him except for... the poorly acknowledged matters of his heart.

Okay, maybe to say he doesn't acknowledge his feelings is a bit harsh, but he certainly doesn't let himself process it. I do believe that some of the fault here is at his older siblings and parents. I understand that they did the best they could for him without actually understanding why they always thought Ty to be sensible, it's just i can't help to feel like the excessive coddling might have done him harm when it comes to get in touch with both his and other people's feelings. For all my previous thoughts on how Ty might be depriving Livvy from her freedom by keeping her around even though she clearly doesn't belong anymore, i believe Livvy held him back in the past.

All that to say: Merlin's ending is usually marked by his death/entrapment after he falls madly in love (let's ignore that he fell for the Lady of the Lake). The intensity of his feelings ended up making him careless in his approach and blinded to anything else. As a result of that, he was trapped in a lake - condemned to drown perpetually with his feelings.

Ty wronged Kit. I understand how they were both coming from difficult moments and how delicate the situation was but i still think Kit was right in all the decisions he made to keep a distance between himself and Ty.

Ty knows a lot but he will not learn how to deal with his feelings by staying locked away in the Institute or pretending to move on at Scholomance. He didn't allow himself to go through his grief when his twin died, when Kit was there offering comfort, companionship and love - but now Kit is gone and in this scenario he has removed himself from the equation is a much more drastic way than Livvy because he chose to leave. He doesn't give Ty any other option than to feel the ache of his broken heart - of their broken hearts - created by this oppressive absence.

In the end, his twin hovers above his shoulder as a ghost but it is Kit who haunts him.

[mementoasts]

PLEASE do write me some thoughts about suprisingly caring (original?) loser uncle elias

ohhhhhh oh i'm excited to finally write this all out in one spot. also a bit embarassed because i'm cringe and pulled all of this outta my ass xD

i didn't mean to write so much but it became kind of A Lot. i even decided halfway through that i needed to use proper capitalization because i can't look at so many bullet points in lowercase fdhsfkjdkh PLEASE bear with me:

First off, yes! It's just original Elias. I desperately need to see Jonah again, but for as far as I've thought about this, Elias isn't involved in any spooky situations here. No eyes getting gouged out, no Magnus Institute, no dead college roommate. (I could get extra silly and say they're happily married xD)

I do think he's still a bit haunted by his father, in the sort of way that it's impossible to shake off the damage done by a parent entirely, even when they died half a lifetime ago and you're already in your mid-to-late-50s.

But for the most part, he's kinda moved past it. He got over his "I'm a Bouchard, I'm destined to be More" phase somewhere in his 30s, and has learned to find meaning in little things and be content with where he is in life. (I'm also running with the idea that this probably meant he never got a letter from the Institute, so he spent a few years miserably trying to figure out why nothing seemed good enough for him before forcing himself to get over it).

Doesn't really have any contact with most of his relatives, but it's nothing that bothers him at this point.

Him being Gwen's uncle would obviously mean one of Gwen's parents is his sibling, which I think is reasonably possible. (I'd assume it's not her mother, because Gwen's last name is also Bouchard). I could see him having an overachiever younger brother that made him look even worse by comparison.

Elias' father had probably basically disowned him by the time he died, so Elias wasn't left with as much.

Probably met Gwen at some family function when she was still very young, before he committed to distancing himself from the rest of his family. He still showed up, but no one really had any reason to talk to the guy whose father would openly go ON about his son being such a disappointment. And Elias certainly didn't feel like striking up a conversation with most of the people there unless he had to.

Gwen is just as quiet and polite as everyone else there, but she's still just a kid. Elias sees her getting a slap on the wrist after reaching for a second mini-dessert to go with the rest of her tea, so he wraps one in a napkin and gives it to her later while her parents aren't looking.

He's just tired and lost at this point, and it's more of a chore than ever keeping up appearances; so when Gwen looks up at him with big, happy eyes and a soft "thank you," well-- he feels like he can relax his shoulders a bit, and finds himself smiling down at her.

For a while, that's Gwen's nice uncle who she likes seeing at gatherings :] But she quickly starts to settle into a more serious demeanor as she gets older, and at the same time, Elias doesn't really show up to anything anymore.

Something something something, she's probably in her teens/early adulthood maybe when she actually bumps into him again somewhere. She's overheard plenty of negative things about him over the years from her father, but,,,,,, well, she's still got a soft spot for the guy, even if she maybe agrees that Elias could be doing more for himself. And when he smiles at her, it's not as restrained as the one she remembers from when she was a kid.

He's certainly a bit of a goofball now. Nearly two decades of unlearning toxic mentalities and finding something to be passionate about in life kinda does that to some people. He's actually kind of annoying, but she tolerates it because that's just her Uncle Elias :/

I think he'd be mostly chill, but pretty upbeat. Has a habit of yapping. Maybe a little sassy? I kinda feel like the way he speaks would be similar to how he sounded when it was Jonah, but more lighthearted/informal.

Gwen doesn't give him many details about work and such, but it quickly becomes apparent to him that she's definitely not happy with where she is, despite how much she'll calmly insists she likes her job.

He's under the impression she's only sticking around at that job because she's sunk several years into it already, and it'd look good to her family if she could eventually move up into an actual respectable position. (Although I'm personally assuming that her motivations are separate from any of that specifically, but who knows!)

Elias trusts she knows what she's doing, but maybe he's a bit worried because he's seeing himself in her, a little bit. He doesn't want her to do anything rash (y'know. like blackmailing her boss for a promotion. or something.) the longer she's stuck at the bottom without a way of climbing higher.

At this point I feel like all of this is too good for him. He needs to be put into a Situation. But I also really enjoy a character who's already been through the horrors of being in their 20s/30s and has actually managed to find a way to be okay with life 😭 If this were an actual workplace comedy, he'd just pop in from time to time to be silly and irritate Gwen a bit. He's probably get along with Alice.

okay other random details. He doesn't smoke weed or anything as much as he used to, but still does occasionally just for funsies. He's recently gotten into vaping.

Jonah Magnus wears fancy three-piece suits ONLY, you CANNOT change my mind. Elias would dress far more casually, however :3 Maybe not so far as a hoodie and sweatpants (at least not when he goes out), but more like a nice, comfy sweater and an old coat and pants that don't really match anything but he still looks mostly alright. I think it'd be funny if he wore, like, Crocs, though. Never really styles his hair.

[voiceless-terror]

More than Enough

For @tma-mspec-week Day Three: Polycule

Characters: Jonathan Sims/Sasha James/Tim Stoker/Martin Blackwood

Rating: Teen

Summary:

“But what if-” Once again, Jon struggles to find the right words. He knows their situation is unorthodox to most people, and the thought of Martin looking at him differently is too much to bear. “What if he doesn’t understand?”

“Then explain it to him,” Sasha relays patiently, her hand never leaving his. Things are always so clear to her, Jon envies that. “You’re my partners, you’re dating Tim, sometimes me and Tim have-”

Or: How One Became Four.

It starts with Sasha and Jon.

She’s fresh off six months in Artefact Storage, shell-shocked and stand-offish. Jon starts a few months later and they learn the ropes together. She warms up, divulges little tidbits of her time in the other department that Jon devours. He’s young, hungry for answers and Sasha’s already jaded by her few years in academia. This is just a transitional job, she assures him. It pays better than most research gigs and allows her to keep up a certain lifestyle. 

“I’m looking at other places, putting out feelers,” she confides in him one day over coffee. It’s become their daily ritual, a mid-morning break where they can commiserate on the staid academics that ask too much of them and the fanciful statements that end up on their desk. “Whatever you do, don’t get stuck here.” She leans back in her chair, gives a cynical little smile. “Or maybe you should. It’ll be different for you, you’re a man.” He starts a protest but she cuts him off. “It’s an old boys club and you know it. Besides, I know all about your extra meetings with Bouchard. He’s never done that with anyone else. Who knows - in a few years you might be my boss!”

He scoffs at that. Jon feels like he’s treading water. He’s a great researcher, sure, but he hasn’t exactly made himself popular among the others. He’s quick to bite, dismissive, blunt. It’s why he and Sasha get along so well, tucked away in their own little world. Of course she would notice the attention from Elias; Jon’s flattered by it, even if he stammers his way through every interaction. Elias seems to find this amusing, but Jon wants to impress him. 

Though not at the cost of his friendship with Sasha. “I always mention your work to him. I’m rubbish with technology, but you-” She rolls her eyes.

“Don’t, he’ll see right through that. Manipulation’s not your strong suit.” Jon stares down at his rapidly cooling drink, an embarrassed flush spreading across his features. But her hand reaches out to grasp his and a fond smile lights her features. “Thank you, though. It’s sweet of you.”

Jon likes Sasha. Their personalities occasionally clash, but never for too long. Jon’s quick to forgive and Sasha’s too fond to hold a grudge, though she’s loath to admit it. So when her roommate suddenly moves out and she’s left in a bind, it’s only natural for Jon to take her place. He’s been rent-poor, living paycheck to paycheck in a shitty studio that’s still an hour’s commute. Sasha’s closer and her flat’s substantially nicer; she offers and he accepts, easy as that. It’s a practical move, and Jon has to admit his lonely little flat is starting to feel suffocating. 

They fit together easily, like pieces of puzzle slotting in place. Sasha’s brutally efficient in her personal matters; bills and maintenance that Jon finds overwhelming and confounding she takes care of with ease. He’s heard her on the phone in that light, practiced tone of hers as she casually threatens the landlord for necessary repairs. Jon finds himself relaxing bit by bit, feeling comfortable in his own skin as she snarks at the dinner table over a dish he’s made. He used to cook for Georgie like this. Now he cooks for Sasha.

“You’re good at this,” she comments one night over chana masala. “Loads better than the frozen meals I’m used to.”

“It’s nice, having someone to cook for. Harder to do it for one.” He feels a bit uncomfortable with the admission, though he knows he shouldn’t - this is what it’s like, when you love someone.

He’s never said that to her, of course. He gets attached too easily but never knows quite how to show it. And it’s not his usual sort of love, he doesn’t want to date her. She’s more than a friend, and Jon’s never had many of those; he has no metric to measure this against. He thinks he could stay in this flat with her forever, so long as he could see her smile every morning and yawn every night. 

On a Saturday morning she stumbles out of bed and makes her way over to the kitchen. “Morning,” she grumbles, as she reaches for the coffee pot and kisses his forehead. Jon doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

On a Wednesday night Jon drinks too much. 

“Sasha,” he slurs, her arm the only thing keeping him from falling off his stool. “I want you t’ know…”

She smiles indulgently, takes a sip of her drink. “Yes, dear?”

“I-I love you.” She pauses and Jon’s heart drops. “N-Not like that, but like friends. Good friends. Very good friends. But m-maybe not.” She’s still smiling, that’s got to be a good sign, right? “I-I just love you, okay?”

And then she laughs, puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him close. “I love you too. Stay with me forever, okay?”

He takes her hand between his and promises, with all the solemnity a drunken man can muster, that he’ll stay with her forever and then some. The next morning, while they’re both nursing massive hangovers, Jon broaches the subject again.

“Did you mean it?” he asks tentatively, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “What you said last night. Do- do you want me to stay forever?” She turns to look at him, bleary eyes suddenly alert.

“Yes.” There’s no tease in her words as she leans into his side, a warm weight on his shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything more.”

Jon stays.

______

Two years later, Tim joins the Institute.

He’s handsome; charming, but subdued. He’s been assigned a desk near theirs, invading the quiet little corner that had become their world. Tim greets them both with a smile and a perfunctory handshake before settling down at his desk and powering up his laptop. He doesn’t speak to them again.

Jon watches as he goes back and forth between circulation and his desk, building an impressive stack of books- The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi, The Congress of Clowns and Other Russian Circus Acts. Sasha told him he worked in publishing, Jon knows she got that information through her usual nefarious means. Perhaps he’s writing a book, Jon says. Sasha thinks otherwise.

“He’s one of those,” she says over sandwiches and tea. She invited Tim, but had been turned down with an apologetic smile. 

“Hmm?”

“Like you.” She sets her drink down, eyes him with her steady gaze. “He’s got a reason.”

Mr. Spider doesn’t like it.

Jon shivers at the reminder. Sasha never brought it up after he initially confided in her one vulnerable night last year; she just held him through the shaking and the tears. He’s only told the story twice; once at eight, again at twenty five. It never got easier.

“No one believed me,” he whispered, tucking his face into her shoulder as his body itched from phantom legs skittering across skin. She squeezed him back.

“I do.”

They’re friendly enough to Tim, giving him his distance while still trying to be helpful. Jon points him in the direction of texts and scholars who might be useful, Sasha teaches him a few of her more invasive tricks that Jon refused to learn. Slowly, bit by bit, he opens up. Never shares his story, no- but he smiles, jokes around with them, accompanies them on their lunch breaks and eventually entices them to after work drinks. 

He’s handsome when he smiles, Jon thinks to himself as Tim regales them with stories of dates gone wrong. Sasha catches his eye and winks. He wonders if she’ll tire of Jon now that Tim’s around. He’s everything Jon’s not; good-looking, confident, secure in his intelligence. Sasha laughs so freely around him. He could ground her where Jon cannot- they can be a chaotic force, the two of them. It’s why they keep to themselves.

But at the end of the night it’s Jon’s hand she takes, swinging it gently with hers. “Stay with me forever?”

He smiles. “Forever.”

They invite him over to their flat one night in spring, when the trees are blossoming and Jon’s allergies are acting up. He’s sniffling miserably on the couch, Tim sprawled next to him as Sasha pours some wine. Despite his misery, Jon’s content.

Tim nudges him with his foot. “So what’s your deal?” he asks in a wheedling tone, though his smirk betrays an almost imperceptible anxiety. It’s strange. “You and Sash. Dating, roomies…?”

It’s Sasha who answers, handing Jon a glass of wine and standing before Tim, tall and proud. “Jon’s my partner.” It’s matter of fact, and Jon can’t help the warmth that floods him. “We’re not dating. I’m not interested in that.” She hands him his glass with a smirk. “But if you want to romance Jon, feel free.”

Jon sputters as she laughs- he’s transparent, as usual. They’d talked about it briefly- Sasha’s fine with him dating other people, but Jon’s never felt the need to. Sasha’s enough. She still is, but he can’t deny the way his heart swoops whenever Tim aims that smile in his direction. Sasha likes him too, in her own way.

Tim’s still gaping at them and Jon can’t help but join in on the laughter, as embarrassed as he feels. “Is the great Timothy Stoker nervous?” Sasha says in between giggles. “Guess we know how to shut him up now.”

“L-Look, can you blame me?” Tim says, a smile growing on his face. “You two can be very intimidating, not to mention gorgeous-”

Jon kicks at his leg. “Don’t joke.”

“No, we are.” Sasha interrupts, daring him to disagree. She turns that deadly smile back on Tim, delighting in his falter. “So what’ll it be, Stoker?”

There’s silence, Jon can feel his heart racing. They’ve got this all wrong, Tim doesn’t want him, Tim’s going to leave, Tim doesn’t understand-

“Can I take you out to dinner tomorrow night?”

Jon blinks. “Uh, yes?”

“He likes Thai!” Sasha calls as she walks over to her bedroom, leaving the two of them on the couch, laughing nervously. 

“So you’re bi, then?” Tim asks, scooting closer to Jon and throwing a blanket over their legs and an arm around his shoulder. It’s warm in all the right ways and Jon leans closer, the awkwardness dissipating at the touch of his hand. 

“I prefer pan,” he replies. It’s the first term that felt right to him. Georgie used to make some stupid joke about a ‘gender buffet’ and him ‘having one of everything.’ It still makes him smile. “And- and you should know I’m also ace. So there’s some things I won’t be able to do for you.” He looks for disappointment in Tim’s eyes and finds none. “I hope that’s alright.”

“Of course.” Tim smiles like he means the words and Jon feels light, almost dizzy. “Are kisses alright?”

He nods shyly, and Tim takes this as his cue to pepper him in obnoxiously loud smooches- one in his hair, another on his nose. Jon manages to bat him away after Tim almost gets him in the eye. 

So Tim and Jon are dating. Tim takes him out to dinner, the movies, one memorable night of karaoke. Sasha joins in when she wants; they go to museums and lectures. One night she laces her fingers through Tim’s, smiling at his wide eyes.

“What?” she says innocently, doing the same with Jon. “I’ve got two hands.”

On Wednesday nights Tim goes to the gym. Jon sits at the table, passes Sasha a bowl of reheated spaghetti before settling down in his chair. He fidgets, not touching his fork.

“What is it?” Sasha asks, setting her own fork down. “You’ve got that look on your face.”

“I-” he stutters, sighing as the words won’t come. Just tell her like you practiced. “I’m not trying to, well- hmm. I don’t want to insinuate anything-”

“You would never.”

“But, I’ve noticed- I’m not- Tim is very handsome.”

Sasha smiles indulgently. “Mhm. Go on.”

“And I’ve noticed. I don’t- if you wanted to-” Goddamnit. Pull yourself together. “I wouldn’t mind it, if you were to - that is, if you’d like to engage in-” He closes his eyes, purses his lips in frustration. “Please stop me.”

“Why Jon,” she replies, her voice coy and teasing. “Are you giving me your blessing?”

Jon sighs, his face warming as he opens one eye- she’s grinning, just as he expected. “...Yes?”

Six months later, Tim moves in.

_______

“Jon wants to bring a boy home!”

Jon smacks him in the arm and scowls. “Tim, don’t-”

“What, it’s true!” He leans back in his chair, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Jon wants to knock the smile off his face and maybe onto the floor, if he can get a good kick in. “I don’t blame you and in fact, I encourage it. Martin’s a catch-”

“Martin?” Sasha perks up. “Finally!”

“Not you too-”

“Jon, he’s a very sweet boy-”

“-good-looking, too!”

“And if you want to bring him over, please do.” She reaches across the table to give his hand an encouraging, if condescending, squeeze. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other.”

“But what if-” Once again, Jon struggles to find the right words. He knows their situation is unorthodox to most people, and the thought of Martin looking at him differently is too much to bear. “What if he doesn’t understand?”

“Then explain it to him,” Sasha relays patiently, her hand never leaving his. Things are always so clear to her, Jon envies that. “You’re my partners, you’re dating Tim, sometimes me and Tim have-”

“I don’t think I’ll need to go into that much detail just yet,” Jon cuts her off, ignoring Tim’s snicker. “It’s just...what if he thinks it's weird?”

“Weird can be good. And if he doesn’t agree, well - he’s not worth your time.”

If only it were that simple.

It’s been about three months since he first ran into Martin in the break room. He’d seen him around plenty of times, but despite his hulking form, the man can make himself very, very small. It wasn’t until he quite literally ran into him, causing him to drop his newly organized files, that Jon got a good look at his face.

It was a nice face. Soft, kind, with big blue eyes and curly red hair that fell across his forehead. He wanted to touch it, tuck it behind Martin’s ear and he almost did, despite the man’s rambling apologies and meek demeanor. He stood there, frozen, even as Martin handed back the file with a bashful smile.

“Sorry, I’m pretty clumsy. Are you alright?”

Jon was fine. He should probably say that.

“Y-Yes. I’m Jon.” Wow. Smooth.

“I know.” Martin put a hand behind his neck, nervously chuckling. “You’re quite known around these parts.” His eyes widened and his face turned red. A nice red. “N-Not in a bad way, of course! You’re- you’re just very smart and- and direct- and oh Lord, that’s not a compliment, is it-”

“Thank you for my file,” Jon replied robotically, his eyes trained somewhere over Martin’s shoulder and not on his very, very blue eyes. “I have to take my leave now.” Why are you talking like this?

Their next few encounters were similarly stunted and awkward. Martin made tea at ten every morning, coincidentally when Jon got his yogurt from the fridge. He started making Jon a cup as well; he wasn’t sure if Martin was particularly excellent at making tea, or if it just mattered that he was the one making it. Jon tried not to dwell on the sentimentality of it all. 

He shouldn’t want another partner. He’s got Sasha, who he loves, and Tim, who he also loves, albeit in a different way. They should be enough for him. They are enough. But Martin makes him tea and asks him how his day is going and smiles at him and people don’t do that. He tells himself he just wants a friend, but he finds his mind wandering- Martin’s hand in his while they walk down the street, Jon nestled into his side on a movie night and Tim’s there too, because Martin is very comfy and handsome and warm. Sasha’s in her armchair reading a book because tonight they’re watching a romantic comedy and she hates those. Jon hates them too but Martin likes them, of course Martin likes them-

No. He’s getting distracted. And he’s standing in front of Martin like an idiot, saying nothing. This is going terribly. Why did he ever think this would not go terribly-

“Jon? Are you alright? You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”

“I’m not having a stroke,” Jon responds on auto-pilot. “I’m trying to think of a clever way to ask you out but you are very distracting.”

Shit. Martin stares at him, mouth open in shock. He’s got nice teeth. Very straight.

“Um- I-I thought you were with Tim?” Martin squeaks out. Oh God, I’ve scared him. Do I keep going? “Or- or Sasha, oh! I’m not accusing you of -”

“No, you’re correct,” Jon grinds out, willing himself to be calm. He doesn’t want Martin to think his frustration is aimed at him. “Sasha’s my partner and I’m dating Tim, and sometimes Sasha and Tim-” No! Abort! “-sorry. We’re together. But, um, I-I also like you, and I think Tim likes you but he hasn’t said- I’m sorry, this is going all wrong.” He looks down at the floor, clenching his jaw. “I understand if you say no.”

“I’m not saying no,” Martin’s voice is lower now and Jon feels a hope rise in his chest. He’s not? “So it’s, it’s like an open thing? You’re accepting applications?” Jon would laugh at the joke if he weren’t so paralyzed with fear.

“Not really? It’s, we aren’t dating around or anything, but I suppose it is open, in a way.” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “Open for you.”

Martin’s smiling like he can’t believe his luck, and it confuses Jon because who wouldn’t want him? Kind, handsome Martin who makes him tea and doesn’t laugh at his stupid jokes but rolls his eyes affectionately and tells his own in turn. Jon doesn’t think he’ll ever understand his humor but it makes him smile and that’s important. And now Martin’s taking his hand and he- oh fuck Martin’s taking his hand Martin’s got his hand and it’s warm, just like he knew it would be-

“I-I think I’d like that.” A squeeze. Jon dies but only a little. “Wow, this is sort of crazy for me, y’know? You’re all so, so intimidating and good-looking-”

“Yes, we are,” Jon agrees, squeezing his hand back. “But we’d like to buy you dinner, if you’re amenable.” Martin laughs and says yes, he’s very, very amenable. It feels right holding Martin’s hand. It feels right to see him with Tim and Sasha, smiling and joking. It feels right to lean into him at the end of the day, to nudge his side in the night and apologize in the morning.

Martin’s lease expires in seven months. They start looking for a new apartment after three.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29032062

[iceeckos12]

time travel snippet

little time travel au oneshot. season 5 jon travels back in time to season 1. from the perspectives of tim, martin, and sasha. 3.5k.

i dont think i need to tag anything, but please let me know otherwise.

Tim wakes up that morning, and it’s just like any other day.

Well—no, okay, that’s a bit misleading. Today is his first day working as an archival assistant, so he’s one part nervous, one part that breathless, exhilarated feeling you only get when you’re about to do something unfamiliar that may or may not redefine your life for the foreseeable future. When he says “it’s just like any other day”, he means that he wakes up, and he’s a normal person doing normal people things like eating a healthy breakfast and going to work.

(So, no. In short, he doesn’t realize that today is the day when It happens, that big, life-changing event that you think will Never Happen To You.)

He gets out of bed, stumbles into the bathroom. Washes his face of whatever residue that’d built up during the night, tries to scrape away the evidence of his nightmares, smiles big and bright at the mirror to see how successful his efforts were. He’s betrayed by the traitorous bags beneath his eyes, but that’s okay. Sasha taught him how to wield concealer as a shield whenever his past wore down his armor.

He shoots twin finger guns into his reflection, making soft pew, pew! noises that are almost too-loud in the hush of the bathroom. Then he turns on his heel and walks away, sauntering and humming along with the chorus of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5.

He gets to the Institute twenty minutes before he’s supposed to—not because he’s trying to impress his boss or whatever (he and Jon have known each other long enough that there’s no point). It’s just, Jon will probably want to make some sort of game-plan before the actual workday starts. 

The poor man had been relieved to an almost comical degree when Tim had said yes, I’ll come with you to the Archives. It’s painfully obvious how out-of-his-depth Jon is with the whole “Head Archivist” thing. Tim’s honestly baffled as to why Elias had singled him out for the position in the first place, considering his lack of qualifications.

But, whatever. It’s fine! Tim and Sasha will be there to help him—although the third assistant is a bit of a problem, considering that they know absolutely nothing about him. There’s no guarantee that this Martin Blackwood won’t report inadequacies or mistakes back to Elias. If that’s the case, Tim and Sasha will have to be Jon’s safety net, which is partially why Tim is hoping to talk to Jon before anyone else gets there.

He also wants to talk to Jon because he just knows the man is probably working himself up over all of this. Maybe reassurances won’t do away with the source of anxiety entirely, but at least it’ll remind Jon that he’s not alone, and that he can count on Tim and Sasha.

As expected, when Tim gets there he can see a sliver of light pouring out from the cracked door of the Head Archivist’s office. He selects a desk and sets his bag on top of it, noting a set of strange gouges in the fake wood with a raised eyebrow, and then an internal shrug. The Institute issued laptop is near the far edge of his desk, and his collection of pictures are strategically placed so that he can see them all clearly.

His eyes linger over the image of him, his mother, and his brother. Their smiles are almost perfect replicas of each other, like someone took a mold of one of their faces and recreated it twice over.

Briefly, he closes his eyes. Then he shakes himself, releases a slow, steadying breath, and goes to check on Jon.

Tim’s not sure what he’s expecting to see when he goes into Jon’s office.

(That’s misleading too, though. He’s not sure if Jon will be visibly calm or upset, if he’ll be on his laptop, if he’ll be picking at the skin around his fingernails, as he so often does when he’s stressed. He is expecting Jon as he is and always has been—a twenty-some year old going on sixty, who wraps his gruff, grumpy demeanor about himself to protect the soft, vulnerable core he likes to pretend doesn’t exist.)

He comes up to the door, and the soft rectangle of light that emanates from beneath the door paints the tips of his shoes gold. “Jon?” he calls softly, rapping his knuckles against the frame. There’s a soft rustling noise—papers maybe? but no audible response, so he shrugs and pushes the door open. “I’m coming in.”

Tim steps inside, a quip instinctively readying itself on his tongue—but then his gaze lands on Jon, and he freezes dead in his tracks.

Even years later, he still vividly, viscerally remembers the moment he saw Danny standing on the stage underneath the Royal Opera House, the way he’d looked...not quite right. The wrongness had been subtle, so much so that it had been unnoticeable upon first glance, upon second glance. The longer Tim had looked though, the more obvious it had become, exposing all the little faults in that almost-perfect recreation of his brother.

Looking at Jon now, it’s the first and only thing he can think of. Because—yes, there’s the long, silver-streaked black hair, there’s the rich brown eyes, there’s the pair of spectacles that make him look far older than he actually is. But that’s where the similarities between the Jon he knows and this Jon end.

Jon’s always been a small man, but his feigned haughtiness makes him seem much bigger than he actually is. Except—except this Jon looks smaller somehow, his shoulders curved protectively inward, like he’s trying to present less of a target. And there’s something about his face, too—his expression is too sharp, too much—

But the worst of it is his eyes. There’s something very wrong with his eyes.

Who the fuck are you, and what have you done with Jon? He doesn’t say it out loud though, just keeps staring at Jon, a heady mix of terror and horror making any sort of reaction impossible.

After a moment Jon’s lips thin, contorted by some distant cousin of displeasure, and he rises to his feet. Tim stumbles instinctively backward, his breath escaping him in a sharp gasp that’s immediately swallowed up by the apathetic stacks of books and papers surrounding them. He’s struck by the fact that if he dies here, it’s unlikely anyone will notice; he’ll become just another set of marks gouged into the desk, willed away with an uneasy shrug.

Jon freezes, lips parting subtly, as though he were about to speak. Tim feels his breath catch in his chest, unable to shake himself out of the clouded stupor his mind has fallen into.

In the end, Jon says nothing. Just releases a long, slow breath of air and sits back down, pushing his chair close to his desk. The motion looks heavy, tired, as though it takes far more energy than it should.

“You—you should go,” Jon rasps, and there’s something off about his voice too, though Tim can’t put his finger on why. He can’t cobble together enough of a train of thought to make sense of any of this, all he can think of is that clown ripping Danny apart—

He stumbles out of Jon’s office, sits down at his desk. Stares down at the cheap, fake wood, at the gouges that have marred the otherwise pristine surface. Puts his head in his hands, and tries to will his heart to stop pounding in his chest.

-0-

Martin’s heard things about Jonathan Sims.

He’s not usually the type to pay attention or encourage gossip, as the vivid memories of his classmates tittering cruelly whenever he walked by still leaves a sour taste in his mouth.The problem with the Institute is that the employees get bored pretty easily. Though most would consider academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal to be fairly interesting, it’s still academic research. And the subject content can get to be a bit...repetitive. There’s only so many gruesome statements you can read without thinking, oh great, more meat.

So the employees gossip a lot, and while Martin usually tries to keep his head down and avoid it, it’s difficult not to overhear some things. And from what little he’s heard, he’s...a bit concerned. Rude and unsociable has frequently been mentioned, as have arrogant and unnecessarily finicky, and worst of all, a bit of a stuck-up know-it-all.

Normally he tries not to put too much stock in office gossip—he’s well aware that the grapevine tends to exaggerate one’s most undesirable traits—but if any of it is true, then he might just be in trouble. It was hard enough being a library employee when his boss wasn’t even paying attention most of the time. If Jon is as exacting as they say, it might be enough to expose the fact that Martin has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. And if that happens, then he might get fired, and he can’t get fired, he needs this job, he can barely keep up with his mum’s medical bills as it is—

Calm down, Martin tells himself firmly, pressing his hand against his sternum, as though that will be enough to quell the rising panic. It’s only your first day. Maybe he’s nice, and we’ll actually be good friends.

(With his luck? Yeah, right.)

The Institute looms in the distance, growing closer with every terrified, grudging footstep. A shiver runs up his spine at the sight of its imposing presence, a dark, ugly blot of a building against the backdrop of the iron grey clouds.

If there’s one thing he’s good at though, it’s keeping his head down and muddling through until he’s able to figure out what is actually expected of him. He can twist and fold himself into whatever role they need him to fill, as he has done so many times in the past. Not easily perhaps, but he has always managed. The alternative is untenable, after all.

So he takes a deep breath, and shoves his panic down as deep as possible. Lifts his head and forces a smile onto his face, like a good attitude will be enough to protect him from his boss’s wrath.

He could really do with a cup of tea.

Martin trudges down the stairs, giving the blank walls, the old-fashioned carpet, a dubious look as he does. The Archives themselves are as he remembers it—he’s been down here a couple of times when Gertrude made a request for something specific, but—

He pauses when he notices a man sitting at one of the desks, his face buried in his hands. His shoulders aren’t shaking and his breathing is even, so Martin doesn’t think that he’s crying? He’s just….sitting there, his stillness so perfect it’s almost inhuman.

“Hello?” Martin calls softly, cautiously, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.

The man looks up, revealing a very handsome face and brown eyes so dark they may as well be black. His cheeks are dry but his eyes are bright and a little wild, and his mouth is pressed into a small, tight line. He doesn’t speak, just keeps watching, blinking dazedly in Martin’s direction. Martin gets the feeling that this person isn’t entirely there at the moment, like a house in which every room is lit, but there are no people inside.

He swallows and shifts nervously back and forth, trying to decide whether or not to call for some backup. Eventually he sets his bag on the floor and shuffles a bit closer. “Um—are you—is everything okay?”

The man blinks rapidly, some semblance of awareness creeping back into his gaze. He shakes his head slowly, pushes his short, gelled hair back from his head. His hands are trembling. “I’m...yeah, I’m fine. It’s—everything’s, it’s…”

But then his gaze lands on something over Martin’s shoulder, and all the color drains out of his face, his mouth shutting with a painful sounding click. Martin quickly spins around, searching for whatever could’ve scared him so much—

There’s someone standing in the doorway of Gertrude’s office.

There are so many things that one normally takes in upon first meeting another person: their hair, their skin color, all the little wrinkles and marks that give you the briefest insight into their life. Martin looks at posture first, tends to check if a person is intentionally looming, or if they’re making themself smaller.

But all Martin can see are the eyes.

There’s—two of them he thinks, but two is such an arbitrary number when the thing you’re applying it to doesn’t ascribe to human values (he’s not sure how he knows that—how does he know that—?). That horrible, terrible gaze is an unerring arrow, all-encompassing, all-consuming, piercing the deepest corners of his mind. It hurts in some distant, nebulous way he’s not even sure he comprehends—

Then he blinks, and the sheer terror, that feeling of the horrible, violating exposure of everything that he is, abruptly snuffs out. What’s left is just a person, wispy and small, his slight frame fairly drowning in a chunky, cable-knit jumper. He’s leaning against his doorframe, his eyes—two big brown ones, rich and unfathomably sad and more than that, human—drinking Martin in, his lips parted in a soundless gasp.

“Um—” Martin glances over his shoulder, and almost leaps out of his skin when a land falls heavily on his shoulder. The man who’d been sitting in the chair is standing just behind him, a strained but polite smile on his face.

“Hi Jon,” the man says, an undercurrent of a warning in his voice.

Martin glances between the two, his confusion growing with every passing moment. This is not what he was expecting when he first came into work today, and the uncertainty makes him feel strange and off-kilter.

The person in the door swallows once, twice, then straightens, one hand still gripping the doorframe like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. When he speaks, his voice is soft, tentative, a little ragged around the edges. “Tim. It’s, um...it’s good to see you.”

“Martin Blackwood, was it?” Tim continues, injecting a bit of cheer into his voice. It takes Martin a moment to realize that he’s being addressed, and he shoots Jon—this is Jonathan Sims?—an uncertain look before nodding slowly. “We’re happy to have you on the team.”

“O-Oh?” Martin squeaks, then grits his teeth and bodily forces his voice back into its normal range. “I’m—um, I’m happy to be here?”

“Good,” Tim says through a grin that looks more like a grimace, giving Martin’s shoulder a friendly pat. The look he shoots Jon is a dark, mistrustful thing. The look Jon gives him back is fragile, vulnerable, that winds the tension in Tim’s shoulders so tight it has to be painful.

Jon’s gaze flickers to Martin, just for a second—and then he disappears into his office, leaving the door cracked behind him.

Tim and Martin stand there for a second, staring at the door. Tim’s still tense as a bowstring, and his grip on Martin’s shoulder is almost uncomfortable. The air in the Archives feels stuffy and too warm, and there’s a strange prickling sensation on the back of Martin’s neck, like he’s being subjected to close scrutiny.

Then Tim sighs and lets go of Martin’s shoulder, a little of the tension bleeding out of him, and without it he looks small, deflated. He goes back to his desk and sits down, booting up his laptop without a word of explanation to Martin.

Martin stares at the back of Tim’s head for a moment, a number of questions clamoring around in his brain—what the fuck was that? What’s wrong with Jon? Why are you so obviously suspicious of him?—but the words won’t come. Breaking the silence feels...sacrilegious, somehow. Every breath of air sticks against the back of his throat.

In the end, he doesn’t say anything either, just sits at his desk and takes out his Institute-issued laptop. Stares blankly at the screen as the machine slowly, laboriously, comes to life.

-0-

Sasha’s not entirely sure how to interpret the tense atmosphere that has descended over the Archives.

The first day she’d arrived a couple of minutes before she was supposed to, prepared to follow Jon’s direction and help him adjust as best she could. (Her feelings about Jon’s promotion...didn’t matter. She didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his fault that Elias was an old-fashioned misogynist.)

But when she’d come down the stairs, Tim and the assistant she didn’t know, Martin, had been seated quietly at their desks. They’d both had the same distant, shell-shocked look on their faces, like they’d received some shattering, horrible news. Sasha had sent Tim a confused look, but he either hadn’t noticed it, or hadn’t wanted to explain.

She hadn’t even seen Jon that first day, just received a polite email asking her to start organizing the statements according to the system which he’d devised.

It’s been almost three days, and nothing has changed. Oh sure, they’ve all started organizing the statements as directed. Tim cracks jokes, Martin tiptoes around them and makes copious amounts of tea. That strange tension that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, like the world is holding its breath in anticipation, hasn’t faded though. And while she doesn’t know Martin all that well, she knows that something’s still up with Tim. He seems more subdued than usual, keeps sending uncomfortable looks in the direction of Jon’s office—

—which hasn’t been open since that first day. She hasn’t seen Jon at all either, no matter how early she arrives or how late she stays. The only proof she has that he’s still alive is the polite email she periodically receives, detailing some specific task that he wants for them to do.

Even then, his emails are...odd. She’s not sure how she can tell, but they feel...awkward? Stilted? Like he’s only half-aware of what he’s typing, or like he’s only asking them to do things because he feels like he should, not because he has any actual goal in mind.

Normally she’d be frustrated by this, would complain bitterly to Tim about Elias passing over her for someone who obviously doesn’t properly appreciate the position they’ve been given—except that she knows Jon. He’d made a point to explain the situation to her himself, an apologetic twist tucked into the corner of his mouth. More than that, he’d asked her to follow him to the archives, saying that he wanted the two people he trusted most, her and Tim, to come with him.

He respects her too much not to take this job seriously.

The strangeness of the archives is only emphasized by Jon’s complete and utter lack of presence within it, but she doesn’t—she doesn’t buy that. She doesn’t believe that he’d just suddenly decide not to do the job he’d been so anxious to excel at. 

More damning than anything is Tim’s complete, utter silence regarding Jon’s strange behavior, but whatever he knows about it, he isn’t saying anything. Martin is willing to talk, but he seems to be as lost as she is.

“I—that first day, Jon…” Martin shrugs, shooting a nervous glance toward the door leading to the archives. He’s been spending a lot of time hovering in the break room making tea, not that she can blame him. “He—I mean obviously I don’t know him very well, but he seemed...upset?”

“Upset,” Sasha repeats dubiously.

Martin lets out an exhausted sigh and turns away, waving a dismissive hand. “Look, I’m not entirely sure how to explain it. He just—okay, so, bear with me for a second, but he reminded me of this guy who used to live in my neighborhood.”

Sasha backs off, folding her arms and leaning against the counter. “Okay?”

“There was this little old couple that used to live in my neighborhood. They were—they were really sweet! The husband used to give candy to us younger kids. But um—sometimes you’d see him sitting in the rocking chair on his porch, and it was like...he wasn’t entirely there? Like, he’d just sit there for hours, rocking and staring at nothing. That’s—that’s what Jon’s expression reminded me of.”

Martin gets more animated the more he talks, Sasha notes; his hands move in broad, sweeping gestures, his expression twisting into an expression of extreme concentration. The moment he finishes he deflates again, tucking his hands into his armpits self-consciously, a hedgehog curling protectively in on itself.

“So, yeah,” he finishes eloquently.

“Huh,” Sasha says thoughtfully.

She gets back to her desk. Looks over at Tim, who’s studiously working through a box of statements, his mouth set in a neutral, concentrated frown. Takes a deep breath, letting the taste of dust and old papers sit heavy on her tongue.

Then she opens her laptop and starts looking through the catalog of cursed items that are currently being held in Artifact Storage.

(She doesn’t think that she’ll find anything, but—but just in case.)

-0-

They all get the call the next Monday morning: Elias Bouchard was found dead in his office.

[rainingpouringetc]

liebestraum

a thomastair ficlet | read on ao3 | inspiration

Alastair didn’t know how Thomas talked him into dinner. Everything had happened rather quickly.

They’d just arrived at the Paris Institute when there was a knock on Alastair’s door. He’d expected one of the hovering heads of the place—he was so grateful Charles was still recovering in London—but instead, it opened to familiar hazel eyes.

“Mr. Lightwood.” Alastair tried to scowl, but his heart simply wasn’t in it.

The two had been traveling together for several days, and faking indifference was growing more and more difficult, especially as they both knew it was a lie. For his part, Thomas—kind, respectful Thomas—hadn’t pushed matters. He was keeping his distance, and Alastair, though he’d never say so, was eternally grateful. He didn’t think he possessed the willpower to hold Thomas at arm’s length much longer, no matter how often he told himself it was a horrible idea to engage himself in any sort of relationship with the man.

But this trip was necessary. Matthew and Cordelia were still gallivanting about Paris and it seemed everyone else was too wrapped up in the disappearance of Lucie Herondale to do anything about it.

Alastair knew that wasn’t true, of course—James had been sincerely disappointed that he could not accompany them, but he needed to stay behind and aid in the business with his sister. Still, he couldn’t deny the fact that he was the slightest bit resentful at the fact that this left him alone with Thomas Lightwood.

Not that there was anything wrong with Thomas. In fact, that was the worst thing about him, the whole reason Alastair resented their situation so much. He couldn’t find a single flaw besides the man’s refusal to wear a hat. If there had been anything else, a glaring warning sign or two like there had been with Charles, then Alastair could better reason with himself to stay away. Instead, he was resigned to reminding himself of Matthew’s words, something he never thought he’d find himself doing, but something necessary all the same. Cordelia assures me that you have a heart. Alastair could have scoffed at the words. It was obvious Matthew himself still did not believe this. Alastair was certain this feeling was not his alone and likely extended to the rest of Thomas’ friends. 

So, as Alastair stood there, staring down the man who had somehow managed to steal away into his affections without Alastair’s knowing, he reminded himself once again. This—him and Thomas—wasn’t possible, and it never would be. 

“Well,” Alastair said, aware of how tired he sounded, “what is it then?”

Thomas blushed and stammered for a moment—the act had no business being attractive, and yet somehow it was—before he managed, “We arrived too late for dinner, it seems, so I was wondering if you might care to get something. From—a restaurant, or, er… something like that.” Thomas rubbed at his neck.

Alastair bit back a smile. He really was hopelessly endearing, wasn’t he?

It isn’t possible. It won’t ever be. Alastair knew that. 

One night out couldn’t hurt.

---

He was completely and horribly wrong.

The night started with an impromptu walk along the Seine. Thomas did his best to engage Alastair in small talk as they walked, commenting on the chill weather and the dazzling lights, but Alastair could already feel himself falling. 

They found themselves at a small bistro not unlike the one they’d been to the previous year. There was a small corner table available, which they fit themselves into carefully. Alastair ordered for them both after Thomas sheepishly admitted his French hadn’t improved since their last adventure in the city. 

“English, Spanish, and Persian,” Alastair couldn’t help but laugh, “and yet you can’t seem to get a hold of French.”

Thomas laughed with him. Alastair’s heart clenched. He’d gotten used to the feeling by now.

They chatted idly as they waited for their food, Alastair feeling more and more like he was simply an observer, an outsider in his own body. He didn’t dare let himself give in too much to the conversation. He answered Thomas’ questions with cold politeness, aware that as he did so he reverted further and further into his old harshness. Thomas didn’t push, didn’t say anything he would not say to a stranger at a dinner party. It felt so odd. Alastair knew Thomas’ dips and curves, the freckles dusting his cheeks and the callouses on his hands and the way his eyelashes were light enough that they didn’t get credit for their length. Yet here he sat, deflecting questions as soon as they cut too deep, questions about his mother and Cordelia and if there was anything he could do to help. No, Alastair told him, his eyes drifting to a spot over Thomas’ shoulder, there’s nothing. 

Their food came, and they ate in silence. It wasn’t awful, the silence, it was just… unusual. In all the time they’d known each other, they had rarely had nothing to say to each other.

At the end of their meal, Alastair was struck with the sudden memory of Thomas’ tattoo. When they’d last been in Paris, Thomas had spoken of getting a tattoo, and Alastair, like the idiot he was, had allowed himself to trace the spot on his arm, to revel in the feel of his skin under his fingers even if only for a moment. In the Sanctuary, Alastair had traced it again, had grinned into Thomas’ mouth as he’d done so. Though only a handful of days earlier, it felt like a lifetime ago.

Alastair pushed the thought from his mind and raised a hand for the check. He paid quickly, thanking the waiter and avoiding Thomas’ gaze as they left.

They walked down the street side by side, and with the wind roaring in his ears, Alastair could almost let himself think things were different. He could almost pretend he and Thomas were something more than… whatever this was. Just because it could never be real didn’t mean Alastair couldn’t indulge himself every once in a while. Once they arrived back at the Institute, Alastair would slip away to his room and remain firmly detached from his feelings for the man. 

Thomas, it seemed, had other plans. About a block away from the Institute, he put a hand on Alastair’s arm to stop him and said, “When we get back, there’s something I wish to speak to you about.” He paused heavily. “Privately.”

Alastair stared up at him, keeping his face as impassive as possible. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Mr. Lightwood.”

Something flickered in Thomas’ eyes, and he snapped, “To hell with good ideas. I need to speak with you, Alastair, and you haven’t exactly given me the chance.”

“Yes, and there’s good reason for that, isn’t there?” Alastair retorted, tearing his arm from Thomas’ grip. 

“Please, Alastair,” Thomas whispered. His voice was so soft, so gentle, it nearly broke Alastair’s heart. “Just give me five minutes. Five minutes to talk to you and split my heart open for you and then you can do whatever you wish. You can ignore me for the rest of our lives if it pleases you. Just give me this.”

He sounded desperate enough that Alastair could only swallow and nod once, not trusting himself to speak. Thomas let out a breath and nodded once, twice, then started down the street again as though nothing had happened.

They arrived at the Institute to find the halls empty, everyone else already having gone to bed. Thomas led the way to his room, even going as far as politely holding the door open for Alastair.

Thomas cleared his throat as soon as the door was shut and locked behind him. Alastair turned to look at him, crossing his arms as he did so, and raised his eyebrows. 

Thomas let out a breath and began, looking vaguely sick as he spoke. “You told me that you didn’t want to make me choose between you and my friends, so you chose for me.”

Alastair rolled his eyes. “Yes, Lightwood, I was there. What is your point in all this?”

Undeterred, Thomas pushed forward as though Alastair hadn’t spoken. “You were wrong to choose for me. And you were more wrong to think it isn’t you I’d choose.” Alastair blinked, his composure slipping for a fraction of a second. “If my friends, as you said, aren’t willing to accept me—aren’t willing to accept you—then they are not and never have been a true friend, and therefore their opinion is of as little import to me as that of a passing stranger on the street.” He paused, his hazel eyes wide and vulnerable. “You chose for me because you did not wish to cause me any pain. You took the burden on for yourself, and while I’m grateful, I want you to know you needn’t have done it. I would’ve chosen you, if I’d gotten the chance.”

---

Thomas waited for Alastair to say something. Anything. He waited for him to acknowledge what Thomas had just said, whether to accept it or scorn it—but Alastair just stood there. It was as if he was waiting for Thomas to take it back.

Then he chuckled, a low, easy sound, and smiled softer than Thomas had ever seen. He spoke, and his voice was rough and thick from emotion. “Careful, Lightwood,” he said, his smirk tinged with sadness. “I just might take that as a love confession.”

Thomas cleared his throat, suddenly far more nervous than he’d been mere seconds ago, and took the slightest step forward. “Perhaps you should.”

Alastair’s eyes were open and dark as he looked up at Thomas through his lashes. Beautiful, as always. “Then I suppose I will,” was Alastair’s answer, and he closed the gap between them.

This, Thomas thought, Alastair’s lips soft on his like a promise, is what I’d choose every time.

---

Alastair woke slowly, his surroundings unfamiliar to his sleep-blurred eyes. He blinked a few times and the light-bathed room came into focus. More importantly, Thomas came into focus. 

They were laying beside each other beneath the covers—fully clothed, Alastair realized with a twinge of relief—and Thomas’ face was turned toward him in sleep. Memories spilled into Alastair’s mind like sweet honey. A whirlwind of emotion had surrounded them both—there had been, to Alastair’s memory, more than a few tears between the two of them. That’s what happened, he supposed, when a dam came toppling down: the flood it held back came rushing out.

The night reminded him vaguely of the Sanctuary—they really had to get away from Institutes, Alastair had thought—in that it was the talking, truly, that meant the most to him. They’d fallen asleep talking, their whispers evening into steady breaths sometime far past midnight. 

Thomas’ face was soft in sleep. It erased the trials of the year etched into the lines of his forehead and eyes. He was beautiful as ever, and Alastair was hit by the preemptive grief that accompanied leaving. For one of them would have to leave, wouldn’t they? Perhaps Thomas would even be upset that Alastair hadn’t yet—but no, Thomas didn’t seem like the type to be upset about this sort of thing. He wasn’t Charles, Alastair reminded himself with a smile. 

Still, they couldn’t risk being found out. Especially by the people Thomas held closest. And that was the catch, wasn’t it? It always would be.

Alastair reached out and cupped Thomas’ face, his pinky slotting behind his ear and his thumb resting at the corner of his eye. He was rewarded by Thomas leaning into the touch, waking slowly. “G’morning,” Thomas yawned. His eyes were still closed.

“Hello, love,” Alastair whispered.

Thomas smiled and opened his eyes a fraction. He let out a sigh. “Esfandiyār.” Something tugged in Alastair’s chest at the name. “A beautiful name for a beautiful man,” Thomas said quietly, closing his eyes again. 

Alastair swallowed heavily. Don’t, he wanted to say. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. He moved his hand to Thomas’ hair, threading the short strands through his fingers. “I’m sorry,” Alastair said, gazing at Thomas’ sleep-soft face.

Thomas opened his eyes. “Why?” he asked, furrowing his brow and stretching adorably.

Alastair gave him a sad smile. “Because this is a dream,” he whispered hoarsely, “and sooner or later we’ll have to wake up.” Thomas stared at him, puzzled, his hand raising to grasp Alastair’s wrist. Alastair’s fingers stilled, his hand resting behind Thomas’ head. “Don’t be sad, joon-am. It has been my favorite dream.”

“It doesn’t have to be over.” Worry coated his words. Before Thomas could tighten his grip, Alastair pulled away, swallowing hard as he rolled over, away from Thomas’ pleading eyes. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone; he buttoned them as quickly as he could, his shaking fingers stumbling from exhaustion or—or something else. Thomas was still talking. “Alastair, I meant what I said last night. All of it.” Alastair sighed through his nose, closing his eyes and touching his chin to his chest. His jacket had been discarded and was now hanging on a chair. Alastair opened his eyes and reached for it, shrugging it on numbly. 

“Alastair.” He felt pressure on his shoulder. Thomas’ grip was firm—he pulled Alastair back toward him, turning him so they were looking directly into each other’s eyes. There were only a few inches of space between their noses. “I’m serious,” Thomas whispered. “I choose you.” He leaned forward, pressing their lips together, and only moved away a fraction of an inch to say, “I love you, Alastair Carstairs, and I won’t let you walk away from me again.”

There was a time when Alastair might’ve brushed it off, sneered at him for being so vulnerable, said something to quash the hope shining in his eyes. 

Now, he found himself speechless. Thomas was looking at him with such intensity and—

And he wanted to believe him. Alastair wanted them to make it work. Because. Well. 

“I love you too, Tom.” There it was. The words came out without thought or resistance. “That’s why… that’s why I’m so scared you’ll regret this.”

“I will never regret us, Alastair.”

“I know you think that, but…” Alastair swallowed and touched his hand to Thomas’ cheek again. “Could you really give up your friends? Your family? You say they would mean nothing to you, but it would leave a hole that I could not fill. I could not bear to see you friendless for my sake.”

“And what makes you think I would be? Alastair—here, just—” Thomas twisted so he was sitting cross-legged atop the blankets. His shirt was unbuttoned down to his navel, and his hair was mussed from sleep. He took Alastair’s hands in his and rubbed his thumbs along the backs of his hands in broad, soothing motions. 

Alastair closed his eyes, filled with an emotion he couldn’t quite name. Even just being around Thomas had a calming effect on him, and being able to sit here and hold his hand… it was overwhelming in the best way. 

“Look at me.” Alastair looked at him. Thomas told him, “The only way this could ever work is if we both choose to make it work. It won’t just happen on its own—you know that, as do I. But, if you mean it when you say you love me—” his voice caught on the word, snagging on the incomprehensibility of their situation, of the fact that they’d said it aloud to each other “—then I implore you to listen to what I’m saying. We can choose to be together. It may not be easy, but—God, it’ll be worth it. It would be worth losing the world if it meant gaining you.”

Alastair couldn’t help but chuckle, hanging his head as tears finally escaped and race down his cheeks. It was all so much, so different than what he’d grown accustomed to. With Charles, it had been a year before he’d uttered those words—I love you—in some nondescript hotel in this very city, and then it had been slow and relaxed, void of the urgency dripping from Thomas’ words. This was better, though, wasn’t it? This time, he was being asked to let himself be loved instead of begging for the feeling to be reciprocated. It was quite a turnaround. Alastair much preferred being on this side of it, he decided.

But then—there needn’t be sides, after all. They could be in it together. That was all Thomas was asking, wasn’t it? For him to choose to fight—and Alastair was rather good at fighting—even when the odds were stacked against them and it seemed there was no way they could be together?

When he thought of it that way, well. Alastair wanted it to work.

And Thomas did, too.

So, really, the answer was clear. It had been there all along—Alastair had simply been too afraid to see it.

He picked up his head, opened his eyes, and looked at Thomas. Really looked at him. He looked at his freckles and lashes and the veins of brown and gold in his eyes and realized that, if he chose it, he could watch that face grow old. He could learn all its secrets and tells. He could do that, if only he said yes. 

It was obvious, then. 

“All right,” he croaked out. He nodded once, then again, and then he was nodding and laughing and leaning forward to kiss Thomas just because he could. Thomas was laughing too, and then they were kissing and Alastair was thinking, I could do this forever. I could sit here with him forever and I’d never get tired of it.

Perhaps this was all a dream. Perhaps he’d wake up and find none of it had been real. It would be worth it, he thought, just if it meant having these memories of happiness.

Perhaps it was a dream, but it was the loveliest dream of his life.

i hope you all enjoyed <3 this was purely indulgent, ik it would not be as easy but i can dream ok

tag list (lmk if u want to be added/removed): @littlx-songbxrd @thewarthatsavedmylife @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @itsdaughterofthemoon @stxr-thxif @lifewouldbebetteronmars i feel like i’m missing ppl ?? anyway let me know and i’ll make sure to tag you next time <3

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

seventeen (paris, 1901)

this is inspired by "seventeen" by MARINA! i recommend giving it a listen! the way she sings the chorus honestly gives me chills, it really makes me think about how young alastair was when all of this was happening. sorry in advance for the angst!

cw: toxic relationship, bullying

Read on AO3 | Masterlist

Could never tell you what happened

The day I turned seventeen

Seventeen, Alastair thought. The number sat happily in his mind. It wasn’t a particularly special number. He still was not an adult in the eyes of the Clave, but he took comfort in the number. One year older.

When he was younger, he thought of his birthdays and the years passing optimistically, imagining that in the future there would eventually be a day where he felt like the age of his body matched the age of his mind. Now, however, he doubted that day would ever come.

Adults liked to tell him he had an ‘old soul.’ Parents always commented on his maturity. Not his parents, of course, but when he visited the boys from school or his family found themselves at some gathering of sorts, those were the words he always heard. Oh, Alastair is so mature for his age.

Perhaps that was his problem, he’d always thought. That was the reason he could never make friends the way that Cordelia did. The reason he never got on well with people his own age. He was never any sort of teacher’s pet in school, but he always found it easier to converse with adults nonetheless. He felt far more comfortable with Charles than he ever did with any of the boys from the Academy. It was all because he had an old soul, and his peers did not.

As he grew older, however, these designations made less and less sense to him. He did not feel as if his soul was old at all. In fact, most of the time, he felt more like a thirteen-year-old pretending to be a thirty-year-old than anything else. Now, he was certain that he would never feel like his physical age fit the rest of him. Still, seventeen was a nice number.

Alastair didn’t have strong feelings about birthdays. Most of the time, he simply did not wish for the attention. Back before he went away to school, birthdays were never much of an ordeal. They were far too busy with his father’s health to spend much time, money, or energy on something as relatively insignificant as a birthday. Still, he and Cordelia had a habit of making each other presents for their birthdays. His was in early autumn, September, and they’d spend the day outside, wherever they were living.

They’d collect the prettiest flowers and stones and anything else they could find, then build whatever they could make out of what they had. A castle out of clay; a crown out of twigs. It was nice; it was special. It was theirs.

Then, Alastair went away to the Shadowhunter Academy. He was not excited to spend his fourteenth birthday alone. He missed Cordelia dearly, and the bullying did nothing to help. On the morning of his birthday, he’d gone to the mess hall, attempting to contain both his excitement that there would be letters waiting for him and his anxiety that there would not.

When he arrived, however, the boys were waiting for him, Clive and Augustus and the rest. Clive was in the front, holding an opened envelope. He twirled a flower stem in his fingers, the petals clearly torn off. He could see a few other broken flowers, crushed at his feet. Augustus was beside him, holding out a letter for the others to see, already mocking the writing on the page simply because he could not read it.

Alastair would never read it either, whatever his mother had written him, nor would he read Cordelia’s letter. In fact, he would not remember most of that day at all, only the bruises after.

He did not write to them after that, and when he returned for the winter holidays, conveniently the same time as Cordelia’s birthday, he let the occasion pass without a word. When she asked him if he’d received the flowers she sent to him, he told her he didn’t.

She did not send him anything for his fifteenth birthday.

He spent his sixteenth birthday at home again, but it did not matter. He’d already put far too much distance between him and his sister. He considered trying to apologize for the way he’d treated her, promising to do better, but when the day came, he’d spent the entirety of the night before searching for their father who always decided to go on a bender a few weeks after they arrived in a new city. He’d wistfully wished himself a happy birthday at some early morning hour, gone to bed, and decided it simply was not worth the effort. The only thing he wanted for his birthday was for it to no longer be his birthday anymore.

Today, he was finally seventeen. He’d received two letters at the Paris Institute the day before, one from his mother, wishing him well on his travel year, and the other from his sister, though it was short and he was fairly certain their mother had forced her to write it. There were no flowers, and he did not deserve them. The boys at school may have hurt him, but the way he continued to treat her in the years after was entirely on him. He thought for a moment that he should find her something in Paris, a book or a piece of jewelry so beautiful and thoughtful that she would need to forgive him. He did not believe he deserved her forgiveness, though.

Charles was away visiting his family in London, so Alastair would spend his seventeenth birthday alone. He doubted Charles even remembered it anyways, or that he would have wanted to do anything special for it if he had.

Thus, he did what he did any time he needed some cheering up: he started by visiting various bookshops across the city. He did not typically purchase much from them, but he found the atmosphere comforting. His father was an avid reader and was always severely critical of his son’s tastes in literature. He had many opinions over what was worthy of reading and what was an utter waste of time. Any time Alastair attempted to choose a volume to purchase for himself, he inevitably felt his father’s voice creeping up in the back of his mind. He wasn’t certain whether he preferred the books that the voice favored or the ones it didn’t. Nonetheless, he disliked anything that reminded him of his father, so he resigned himself to casual browsing, purchasing books as gifts for others, and only ever buying for himself what he had the space to hide.

After, he’d take himself to an art exhibit or the Louvre. He was fairly certain he could spend weeks in the Louvre and never grow tired of it.

When he finally returned to the Paris Institute that evening, he’d felt content that at the very least, his birthday was not as terrible as the ones preceding it. As he entered the building, he was startled to see Charles’ coat in the cloakroom. He quickly hung up his own belongings and went to the dining room where dinner was already being served. Charles was there, politely chatting in French with the head of the Institute, Jean Beauvale.

“Monsieur Fairchild!” It felt odd to address him so formally, but while it may be appropriate to address Charles by his first name in English, it was not in French. “You’ve returned from London.”

“Yes, I just got in a few hours ago,” Charles responded. “How was your day?”

“Yes,” Monsieur Beauvale added. “You must tell us how you spent your day off.”

Alastair always felt like this question was a bit of a trap. He knew that Shadowhunters viewed art and literature as a waste of time, but at the same time, he did not want to show a lack of appreciation for the culture. In the end, he simply commented on the beauty of the city and the language, thankful that he could spend a bit more time learning about France.

A servant arrived then with a bottle of champagne, and Monsieur Beauvale proposed a toast. This was how Alastair learned that the Beauvales would be traveling for several months, and Charles would serve as interim head of the Institute. “That is not the only thing we have to congratulate you for, is it,” he added.

Charles grinned a humble, sympathetic politician’s grin. “Oh, thank you, Monsieur. Yes, it’s true, Ariadne Bridgestock and I are to be married,” he announced.

Alastair felt his blood run cold. He bit the insides of his cheeks, forcing a smile and a congratulations. The rest of the meal dragged on, though Monsieur Beauvale and Charles did not seem to sense any tension. When it was over, Alastair promptly excused himself and returned to his room. He suddenly wished desperately that he had purchased a book earlier, anything to take his mind off of this awful truth. Charles was to be married. He was marrying a woman. Of course he was, why would Alastair have ever been enough for him? Still, he felt as if he’d at least been owed a warning.

He heard a knock at his door, but he did not respond to it. “Alastair,” he heard Charles say gently. “Please allow me to explain.”

He should have refused. He should have told him to leave and been done with the whole ordeal. When he looked back on this moment years in the future, he’d wish he did. However, he was lonely, and it was his birthday, and thus he let Charles inside.

“I know you’re upset,” he began.

“I’m not upset,” Alastair said quickly.

“Right,” he responded. “Anyways, this is merely what needs to be done to please our families, both mine and Ariadne’s.” Of what Alastair knew of the Fairchilds, he had a hard time believing that they cared that much about Charles’ romantic life. “This is what I need to do if I wish to secure a position in the Clave, a real position, not simply interim head of an Institute. It means nothing, I swear it. She has no interest in me. It’s merely an arrangement; it’s not real.”

“Not real? You mean, you’re not getting married?” Alastair asked, not fully believing Charles’ words.

“No,” he said quickly. “I mean, perhaps, one day far, far in the future, I will need to, but I have no intention of getting married right now. I am merely doing what I must, you understand that, don’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“You know what the world we live in is like. We must do what we can to ensure our success in it.” Satisfied with Alastair’s reluctant acceptance, he pulled a long, thin box from his pocket. “I have a present for you.”

Alastair blinked. “What?”

“You didn’t think I would forget your birthday, did you?” Charles handed him the box, already smiling in anticipation.

He slowly untied the string securing it, and uncovered a fine, ornate dagger made of stunning Damascus steel. He must have paid handsomely for it. He knew that Charles did not understand his collection of blades, why someone, a warrior, would collect weapons with no intention of using them, but the dagger was gorgeous, each element of it expertly chosen. Alastair could not keep himself from smiling.

“I knew you’d like it,” Charles said, pleased. “Alastair, you know how deeply I care for you. I would never do anything to hurt you. I swear, everything I do is so that you and I could be together.”

Alastair looked at him in stunned silence. He’d never heard those words before, but he’d hear them many, many more before their relationship finally came to an end. At that moment, Alastair felt as if Charles’ words were true. He felt as if there had never been anyone to care for him as much as Charles cared for him, and there never would. He felt as though the key to everything he desired lay within this man. The way he was looking at him, this beautiful dagger in his hands, how was he to feel anything but loved?

He’d look back on it years down the line and wonder how long Charles must have planned that moment, if he’d organized his trip and his engagement all around Alastair’s birthday so that he could have an excuse to give him such a very expensive gift, whether the existence of it was merely a ploy to distract him from the reality of his engagement. If it was, it worked.

That night, Alastair held no doubts in his mind that Charles’ words were anything but the full truth, even as he left him cold and alone that night to return to his own room, only ever staying until he himself was satisfied. Many months would pass before Alastair would even begin to question that night, when he would begin to wonder whether it was the beginning of the end.

The rise of a king and the fall of a queen,

Oh, seventeen

Seventeen

thanks for reading! taglist (lmk to be added/removed or if you only want to be tagged in certain fics):  @stxr-thxif @satanisanauthor @zosiaenrique @lifewouldbebetteronmars @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @eugeniaslongsword @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @livingformyself @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @writeforjordelia @sapphic-in @jem-nasium @fortheloveofthecarstairs

[tma-ficrec]

Five All Time Mod Recs

To start off this blog, we decided to submit ourselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known and show y’all our TMA top fic recs!

These are fics of very different premises and categories that stayed with us and soothed our souls. Feel free to ask for more recs (or more specific stuff) because we’re definitely not done. Enjoy!

Mod Ami:

Statement Ends  by @martivist 4k words. Jonmartin. Angst. Post-canon AU. Ending Speculation. Lore speculation. S5 AU.

"Final statement of Jonathan Sims. The Archivist. Statement given… I think it’s June? We haven’t done very well counting time since the days stopped. Summer 2019, call it that. Statement begins.

We’ve found a way to send them back where they came from. All of them."

Forty-some years after the apocalypse abruptly ends, the final acts of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood come to light.

Mod note: This fic... goddamit this fic. I read it halfway through s5 and I genuinely think this is one of the best endings the show could have had. It hit all the points Jonny made and then some. This fic is pain, yes, but the best kind.

Ninety Feet To Home by @judesstfrancis 33k words. Jonmartin. No Powers AU. Baseball Players AU. Fluff. Pining.

Jon isn’t really Martin Blackwood’s biggest fan. And he knows it’s a him problem, because it’s not like Blackwood is a terrible person or like he loses on purposes just to ruin Jon’s life, but he can’t help it. In his defense, if you were on a hot streak and the same person kept coming in and ruining it for you every single time, you'd harbor a bit of resentment towards them, too.

Mod note: I’m so obsessed with this AU that I broke my vow of not making fanart for TMA and made fanart of it. Yeah. Sue me. It’s the perfect levels of pining, ridiculousness and it brought me (an argentinian whose only baseball reference is the HSM musical number) tremendous joy. As the us-statians would say: home fucking run. ALSO, MARTIN BLACKWOOD IS LATINOOOOO.

Maybe not the stuff of legend by imperfectcircle. 14k words. Jonmartin. Post-canon AU. S5 AU. Ending Speculation. Lore speculation. Angst with a Happy Ending.

Martin forgets slowly at first, and then all at once. One moment he's grasping at memories, desperate without knowing why to retain even a single image of an angry, scarred stranger saying incomprehensible things about eyes, and the next, nothing. He can't even remember what had him so anxious just now. A car alarm, probably, or a dog barking in the distance. He's always startled easily.

Mod note: I still quote it to myself from time to time. ‘’Martin, you ate the megalodon’’ makes me giggle and also terribly sad. This is an excellent way of exploring entities lore, as well as grief and hope. 

the garden of forking paths by @bibliocratic. 49k words. Jonmartin. Post-canon AU. Ending Speculation. Angst with a Happy Ending. Use of Spiral Doors.

Whatever he had predicted might happen, Jon wasn't expecting to survive upon demolishing the Panopticon. He certainly wasn't expecting to be rescued.

Instead, he wakes up in an alternative universe where he's never been the Archivist, and Martin Blackwood doesn't exist.

Martin Blackwood wakes up somewhere else entirely.

Mod note: I’m argentinian and the major element in this story is a Borgues book. OF COURSE IT’S HERE. This fic is an absolute ride and so so so beautiful - multiple universes and Jon and Martin doing the same thing over and over and over again, with hope of finding each other.

Family, Found  by Dribbledscribbles. Gen fic. 9k words. S4 Divergent. Canon Divergence. 

It’s Basira who catches onto it.

The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.

The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.

Mod note: Do you want to hit the Eye? Do you want all the Entities’s plans to be twarted by the power of found family? Do you want everyone who blamed Jon for everything in S4 to sit down and apologise? This is your fic.

Mod Ebby:

the apple of the eye by  gocrazygostupid. 2.8k words. Fluff. Lore speculation.

TELL ME, ARCHIVIST

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG?

i'm not sure. i don't really get the chance to listen to music

if i told you, what would you do with it?

Mod note: I am absolutely weak towards any fic that gives the Entities some form of sentience, no matter what canon said. Especially when these interactions are so surprisingly soft. 

I WOULD PLAY IT

I WOULD LISTEN

in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by  imperfectcircle and raven (singlecrow). 19k words. S4 Divergent. Canon divergence, in the space between 159-160

Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.

or; hope is a thing with feathers.

Mod note: Everytime I read this fic, I end up at least a little teary eyed. It’s not exactly happy, more bittersweet, considering, but I still love it.

Come Love This World (Come Hate It, Too) by cedarbranch. 3.3k words. Character Study, fluff and angst, spans s1-5. Canon Compliant. 

Jon never liked poetry, until Martin.

Mod note: Yes I am picking fics that personally came for my heart one way or another, not much else to say, besides that “it feels like loving you” haunts me still to this day, in a good way.

i love you, i'm glad i exist by kissyourlocalmoth. 1.7k words. Scottish safehouse period. Fluff.  Established relationship.

Martin was thinking of a poem. It’s name sat on the tip of his tongue, aching to get out. It was a lovely one, too: something about how life felt easy now, at peace; how the small things felt like everything, a poem about… the importance of the little moments. These last few days had been like that, he thought. He couldn’t stop smiling to himself recently, and even Jon teased him about it sometimes, though he was hardly less giddy. He thought of the immense joy the little things brought him now, the mugs of tea they made for each other, how he would lay in their bed late at night staring at the ceiling, his love nestled against his chest, overflowing with so much contentment and fondness he did not know what to make of himself.

Mod note: Short and sweet, it was the first time I read that particular poem, and now it’s forever intertwined in my head with little scenes of jon and martin in the scottish safehouse before 160 happens.

exit wound by autoclaves. 3.1k words. Post-canon AU. Ending speculation.

Suppose there is a house on a hilltop. Suppose there is a story. There is always a story, and every universe is always expanding.

Mod note: I would’ve liked to tag this more, but it would probably spoil the twist it has. Reading back on it, the narration reminds me of the statement from 196, which I find fitting and a funny coincidence, considering. 

[kiljoytrout]

Oath of the Cherry Orchard

Based off this illustration by Emily Amiao as well as some details from her animatic The Other Side (check it out on her yt emilyamiao)

Summary: The rebels have won. Now all that's left for Yun on his long list of plans is for him and Elias to sign the sacred oath of the cherry orchard and formally end the war. But when mysterious characters cause familiar screams and snow bleeds red under the cherry trees, it's up to Yun to make some difficult decisions

Word Count: 3.3K

The cherry trees had been dusted in the fine sugar snow of late winter, but now they were covered in the sweet red syrup of fresh blood.

Pointing a gun at the head of his father, who in turn was ready to blow the brains out of the last prince of the Everstied royal family, Yun couldn’t figure out where everything had gone wrong. The subterfuge, the turmoil, he had thought it was all over. The crumbling remains of the Anwei Democratic Party and the prevailing rebels had come to the sacred cherry orchard, the place where Anwei was first woven together, in order to make an oath of peace, to stop the bloodshed that had torn the nation at its seams. Yun had known the possibility of treachery, expected it even, but not even his meticulous planning and preparation prepared him for what had occurred.

Elias had always been slightly apprehensive about the oath.

“ You’re certain the orchard is secure?”, he had asked earlier, for what was likely the hundredth time since the ceasefire.

“ For the last time, it is!”, groaned Yun, tossing a hair ribbon to Elias before taking a glance back at his uniformed self in the mirror.

It was indeed, for Yun had thought of absolutely everything: sniper in the peach grove, weapons check at the old Capitol entrance, dubious area patrol dismissed. Yun was an expert in pointing out the fatal chinks in his opponent’s armor, the weak spot that guaranteed victory, and there was nothing of the sort in his own. Or so he had thought.

When they had arrived at the cherry orchard, the diplomats from the ADP weren’t there yet. Elias raised his eyebrows at this, but Yun shrugged it off. Unlike Elias, he wasn’t used to people being at his beck and call; at any rate the delay gave him time to strategize terms for the closing treaty, which traditionally occurred after the ceremonial peace oath. Elias started squinting at the distance, shaking his head slightly to himself, before looking again at absolutely nothing. After about thirty seconds of this, Yun started to get irritated.

“Cool it, Elias. The trains from the old Capitol are practically snails with windows, it's no wonder they’re late.”

“ There they are, coming through the peach grove”, Elias responded, pointing to where Yun could now barely see the shadowy bulks of three figures walking through the garden towards them.

The two of them with thuggish bodyguard builds were lugging the sacred scrolls needed for the oath towards them. The man in the middle was taller, with an imposing stature that clearly defined him as the person who people would bow down to and the person who expected it. Yet, he had a cold crookedness to his features that was strikingly familiar. Elias blinked, rubbing his eyes before voicing what Yun had already figured out.

“ That’s-”

“Yes”

Yun knew that he couldn’t harm him, that the old Capitol had been purged of weapons and that the sniper were waiting at the only other entrance in the garden to institute peace by any means necessary. But even if every rifle in Anwei was at his disposal, he didn’t think he’d ever feel completely safe from him, the man who now faced them, sacred scrolls in hand.

“Son”

“ Father”

Both spat the words with so much venom that a string of obscenities would have been a more welcoming greeting. After a few seconds of tense staring (which took Elias jamming his riding boot into Yun’s shoddy shoe to dispel), his father sighed and looked up at the cherry trees, sweet red drops sprinkled with snow.

“Now that your insurrectionists are done tearing up the country it's about time to institute some peace.”

Yun snorted. Only his father could make the rebel’s historic takeover sound like a victory for the ADP.

“ How was your trip?”, asked Elias, his tone dripping with the polite contempt required by his princely position.

“ Rather taxing, but I’m sure it was necessary”

“I take it you didn’t appreciate the weapon screenings?”

The two guards knit their eyebrows in confusion at this, but Yun’s father took it in stride.

“ Seemed rather out of place for a diplomatic meeting, but then again my son has always liked his smoke and mirrors. Shall we get on to business?” he said.

“Sure.” 

Yun stepped forward, shaking snow off the shoulders of his navy jacket. He extended his frostbitten hand, not trembling a bit in the bitter cold because it was all finally over; his struggles with his father, the arduous battles to take back Anwei, they were all as hollow as cherry trees in the dead of winter. His father’s sneer twisted itself into a satisfied smile as he reached out his hand-

“Yun.”

Yun glanced sideways, but Elias wasn’t there anymore. Instead he was moving closer to the ADP guards, fingers fluttering at the edge of his now empty sword sheath like they always did when he was about to fight.

“Yes?”

Gaze never breaking away from the ADP, Elias continued “ What direction is the old Capitol entrance to the orchard?”

“ East”

“And where did our friends here just enter the orchard from?”

“From the Peach Grove in the -”

Yun stopped short.

“West.”

They had been tricked. No wonder the guards had looked so confused about the screenings, somehow they had bypassed them entirely. But what about the snipers in the Peach Grove and the Pear Garden? Wouldn’t they have sent a message that the ADP was sneaking in another way? Then Yun saw the barely discernible muzzle of a blackmarket gun poking out from between the holy scrolls, and he knew what had happened. For a single moment, nobody spoke, instead flaying each other's eyes, for any remaining sense of humanity, dignity, and civil peace to stop what was inevitable.

The guard on the left reached for the scroll. Whether it was to grab the gun or to pass the oath, Yun would never know, because Elias reached into his elaborate hairdo, whipped out three silver bladed throwing stars, each with the ornate gold accents of the Eversteid crest, and sent the first one ripping straight through the guard’s throat. Any other time Yun would have balked at the failure of his no-weapons plan on two levels, but sudden death appeared to be the ultimate catalyst to snapping out of it.

The resulting scuffle happened so fast that Yun could barely keep track of what he was doing let alone everyone else. The second guard had stooped to the ground in a futile effort to revive his cohort while Yun’s father rushed Elias, who was now swinging five throwing stars at an arm's length. Just when Yun absorbed what had happened, the second guard, thirsty for vengeance of any kind, picked up the gun that had spilled out of the scrolls and aimed it right at him. Yun dove out of the way, just as the first bullet whistled over his head, with a silencer so quiet, he could have missed the sound of gunfire in the falling snow. He scurried over to where a second gun had fallen from the scrolls, feeling it's cold metallic barrel freeze his fingertips, before hastily emerging from the underbrush to confront the second guard.

But the second guard and Yun’s father were several feet away, next to the struggling form of Elias, who the guard had tackled to the ground. His long lavender hair was fanned out behind him, and his treasure trove of throwing stars had been tossed into the snow.

“That one certainly gave us some trouble”, said Yun’s father as he plucked a late cherry off of a tree, the red juice running down his chin as he bit it.

“ That’s for sure. What about the other one?” the second guard replied, binding Elias’s hands with rope, as the latter yelled obscenities muffled by the heel of the guard’s boot.

“My good for nothing son is probably hiding like a coward in one of the other orchards. We’ll find him soon enough”

“Those traitors better pay for what they did to Kierek”, the second guard said, nodding towards the corpse of the first guard, Eversteid throwing star still in his throat.

“ We can take care of this one soon, and my son will be captured and sentenced once we reinstitute order”

“The orders were to kill them bo-”

“I said he will be captured. Do you understand?”

The second guard nodded, noting the violent gleam in his boss’s eyes.

“ But this one has no other use. The royals are too pigheaded to ever give up any information and we don’t have the time for a public execution.” said Yun’s father, spitting out the cherry pit.

“Dispose of him,”

The guard raised the gun to Elias’s head; Yun burst from the bushes and sprinted as fast as he could. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears, his stomach in his chest, he was going so fast that the snow fall had become an endless tunnel of white, with Elias at its center. The guard had no chance. Yun plowed through him like a meteor, driving him straight into the snow bank and knocking the gun out of his hands. Yun turned around to free Elias, but standing in his way was the crooked man who had made his life a series of slanting scowls and stolen smiles.

“Don’t you dare”,

his father snarled, the third gun cocked at his side, and his foot on a gasping Elias, who he had given a brutal kick in the ribs.

“Let him go!”

Yun had meant to sound intimidating but in the icy cold his voice thinned out to little more than a squeak, prompting a smirk from his father.

“Such big talk from a greasy little nobody. Just stand around waving that toy some more and we can wait until Roklin comes out of the snowbank and captures you.“

His father was where Yun got his ability to spot weak spots. And Yun’s father had always known exactly where his son’s were.

“We both know you’re really not going to do anything. Even when you were little you were always loudmouth with no spine, crying for mommy, so why don’t you-”

While Yun’s weak spots may have been the same as when he was younger, his temper was twice as short. He rushed his father, blood pounding in his ears, but stumbled on a stray root before faceplanting right back onto the snowy ground. He heard the crack before he felt the pain pumping through his broken nose. The brackish tears came instantly as did his father’s wolfish laughter, hoarsely echoing dead wood.

Amidst the relentless pounding in his head and nose, Yun’s foot kicked aside the stray root that had caused his bloody humiliation. A rather metallic stray root. Yun jolted up, reeling as he snatched Roklin’s half buried pistol from the snow and pointed it straight at his father.

“You wouldn’t have the guts,” scoffed his father, aiming his own firearm at the temple of a wheezing Elias.

Click. Yun cocked the gun.

A moment of silence. The cold wind whipped Yun’s bloody, tearstained face; snowflakes melted in his loose, dark hair; his earring, a miniature rebel flag, waved back and forth in the bitter breeze. He couldn’t be that boy, could he? The one holding a gun to his father? The one who had to make a shot that would haunt him for the rest of his days? No. In that moment Yun was nothing but a cherry tree: frosted with snow, watered with blood, and staunchly rooted in a history that would never be chopped down.

“I wish I didn’t have to do this”

Right as he pulled the trigger, a steel wall slammed into him. Smothered under the heavy armor of the second guard, who had managed to pull himself up from the snowbank, Yun extricated himself just in time to hear the dull thud of a bullet meeting flesh. But the low canine howl that Yun had steeled himself for never came. Instead, a sharp, shocked cry, that could only come from one person.

When he was five, Yun and his friends were running around in the grass, when one of them fell and cut their knee on a jagged rock. The world seemed to separate into colors at that moment : the treacherous gray of the rock, an eggshell pale face of shock, and of course, the crimson that had stained the grass below their feet. The injured child was quickly escorted back home by their guardian, where their sobs were staunched with a piece of candy. But Yun couldn’t stop crying. He had felt no physical pain, his skin was intact, his blood was unspilt, but he had seen all of that and more in his friend’s eyes, the fire, the horror, of being at one moment whole and the next moment not, that Yun had felt it more acutely then if the wound were his own. If that was bad, then seeing Elias, prostrate on the snowy ground of the cherry orchard, a red sea flowing out of the gorey hole in his shin, was a thousand times worse.

Spooked, his father lunged aside, just in time to collide with the second guard, who charged past him through the orchard with seemingly endless adrenaline, his icy obligation to his commander melting away to wet fear.

“ Elias!” screamed Yun, running over to him, ripping off his own uniform jacket and wrapping it around Elias’s leg in a desperate attempt to staunch the gushing blood that poured forth like the pulsing rivers of Anwei. Elias’s face had the same shock as the boy from Yun’s childhood, but so much paler, and with every second he resembled more and more a sculpture made from the snow he was dying on. “Hold on hold on hold on” Yun hiccuped, tying the makeshift tourniquet as tight as he could. Tears blurred his vision, but in the periphery he saw a crooked man gathering the torn scrolls of peace from the ground.

The sight made Yun forget all about Elias and he dropped the tourniquet, concentrating all of his drained energy into raising his blood splattered pistol at the back of his fleeing father. Before he could pull the trigger, his target turned around, but instead of booking it out of the orchard, raised his arms in a scorching surrender.

C’mon just do it, just do it, just do it, Yun thought, Prove him wrong just this once. But his steely self commands froze at his finger, which remained entrenched at the top of the trigger, refusing to push down. Amidst his rancid rage, exhausted adrenaline, and salty tears, he knew one glimmering truth. If Yun pulled that trigger, the last remains of his energy would be spent, and he would collapse into the snow next to a wounded Elias. They would die, they would disappear under the earth, and they would be cherry trees half dead in winter, embracing branches, bleeding fruit, screaming snow.

But Yun always had a plan, and even when he didn’t, the end goal was always the same.

Elias.

Yun would never give him up, even as acid burned through his veins when he pried his frostbitten fingers from the bloody pistol and dropped it into the snowbank, even when his father slinked off through the peach garden with an unreadable expression on his crooked, familiar face, even when he realized how far away the orchard gates were and how he had ordered the night patrol to stay away for his goddamn security measures; no matter how beautiful it was, the cherry orchard would never take Elias as long as Yun could still trick his paper form into the softest pulse of life.

Slippery warm blood, bone breaking cold, rotten raw heart; that was all he could remember for weeks afterward. Mia, Elias’s little sister, and her girlfriend Celine visited him at the hospital everyday, trying to coax him into revealing how a simple peace oath led to all of this. They told him that he was a hero, that he had half-carried, half-dragged Elias past the orchard gates, that a little girl had found them collapsed near her swing set, more dead than alive. But the only question he ever wanted an answer to was always met with avoided glances, shaking heads, and uncertain words. Lost a lot of blood, infected wound, critical condition.

But after a lot of begging, bribing, and borderline blackmailing, Yun was finally allowed a brief visit. The doctor took him down an endless fluorescent corridor, stopping in front of a room with a rusty sign reading Post Operation.

“Only ten minutes!” chirped the nurse as she opened the creaking door, and bolted away, green tea pipe in hand for a smoke break.

Yun crashed into the room, but stopped short when he saw Elias, wrapped in a thin blanket on a too small cot, where he could see a single sock-covered foot hanging off the end. The patient, on seeing him, gave a slight smile, and tried to raise himself up to sitting position.

“Let me” said Yun, walking over to the bed, fluffing and stacking the pillows for a head rest as he observed the tinctures and bandages littering the dinky nightstand.

Among them was a pamphlet emblazoned in cheerful yellow with: Adjusting to Your Amputation. Yun snapped his head back towards Elias, who averted his gaze towards the end of the bed. Without asking for permission, Yun yanked the blanket off the cot, exposing next to a bandaged and blistered leg, a stitched up stump connected to a polished wooden crutch.

“ They’re putting a more refined one in next week. I’ll need to use a wheelchair at first, but after some time I can adjust to a cane.”

The guilt took a second to set in, but when it did, Yun wanted to submerge himself in the oiliest, blackest sea and never come out.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,”

“Why are you crying? I’m the one with the botched leg,” said Elias, the amused tilt to his statement falling flat when he saw Yun’s crushed expression.

“Oh my god, this is my fault, I can’t believe I shot you, I should have aimed better, I should have shot him faster, oh my god, oh my-”

“Hey, HEY!”, said Elias, grabbing Yun’s flailing hands with the reflexes of an ace swordsman.

“Look at me. Look at me. You got me out of there. It’s like I used to tell my sister whenever she messed up at something: whatever mistakes made back there are dead, but you aren’t. It's going to be an uphill battle from here and I need you supporting me, not blaming yourself.”

Yun nodded.

“Okay?”

“Okay”

“Now come over here and tell me about the new siege on the Old Capitol. But first close the door. If that horrid nurse comes back here stinking of burnt tea again, I’m breaking out my sword, prosthetic or not.”

At this, Yun’s tears finally dried into loud snickering; Elias chimed in with some decidedly non-aristocratic chuckles. This continued until the nurse in question barged back into the room, smoke curling from her nostrils as she demanded they keep it down. Yun and Elias practically roared with laughter; a loving crack of relief as deadwood came back to life.

[tokimihyachi]

Love Is War [ AU ]

Pairing: Nacht Faust X Reader 

Warning/s: None

Includes: Kaguya-sama references </333

The prestigious school of Clover Academy with its ancient and noble origin, was founded to educate its students born in the crusts of upper society. Despite its nobility class system being abolished due to the efforts of a certain man, distinguished families from all over the land, who will one day take lead continue to enroll in the said academy.

But of course, they would not let anyone rule the school in its grounds of education.

'LOOK!'

'It's the members of the Student Council!'

Proud, conserved, and prudent. These where the characteritics of [Y/N] that allured all the rest of their dignified school's students, staff, and even members of the council.  

She was viewed as the powerful Vice-President who's connections are far more vast than the ocean's wideness itself, her intelligence beyond comprehension, and above all else, her beauty exulding nothing but that worthy of a regal woman who's shares  with their own company is far superior than anyone else that attended the school. (yes we ain't broke here)

And the man who she supports dedicatedly; Nacht Faust. Unlike  [Y/N] [L/N] , the student council president is well respected as he is first in every academic-related contest, event and affairs, earning the high and fear of his peers. And of course, would could not let slide how charming this man is.

'They're like gods walking around!'

'Do you think they're dating?'

'Why don't you ask them?'

'No! That would be too embarassing!'

Joining the power duo is Mimosa Vermillion, the student council secretary, Asta, the treasurer and Noelle Silva, their trusted auditor and also the public morale committee head.

These five students make the strongest foundation an institute could ever ask for, but even the strongest of pillars have its weaknesses...

Pouring in a sum of coffee, deliciously brewed by the Vice-President herself, [Y/N] smiles gently, holding the kettle with its contents streaming into the porcelain cup of the President, who looks over the book he held with his right arm to thank the girl for her unwavering kindness.

"So it seems that the students have been gossiping about us lately, President." Nacht hums at her statement, delicately raising the cup to his lips and drinking the pleasant morning coffee, "They're wondering if we're a couple or not." the girl giggle softly, trailing back to the cabinet of ceramic plates and dishes.

Nacht closed both of his eyes, and responded with a furtive grin, "They're probably at that age of curiousity. It is best to ignore them, if it bothers you." the last sentence he uttered was hesitant in his perspective, but to her, it was filled with much confidence.

Despite the thick tension in the air, [Y/N] maintained her composure, "Oh? But it does not mind me at all." the President was surprised at her boldness, was this perhaps... a sign that he should take initiative?

Feeling a surge of new found bravery, he opens his mouth to commend them and undobtedly push the woman to her limits when the door opens, and Noelle, Asta and Mimosa walk through the doors.

'Curse them/!' the two thought simultaneously

Asta, the energetic boy that he is, loudly entered the room and jumped onto the sofa next to Nacht, while the two girls were giggling to themselves and went to the direction of the Vice-President. Mimosa shyly tugs [Y/N]'s uniform and hands her a letter.

"Is this next month's budget for the activites?" she inquired, slowly opening the letter.

"NOPE! I THINK IT'S A LOVE LETTER!" Asta yelled from the sofa, causing Nacht's eyes to open. His calm and serene eyes looking at their course with an amused complexion painting his face.

[Y/N] opened it, and was surprised with the contents of the letter: It was a confession, a very passionate one from a boy named bokuto, "It is." the girl thoroughly read every bit of it, as it clearly stated that he wanted to meet up with her at the cafeteria during lunch.

Noelle, clearly irritated that it wasn't who she was shipping with her senpai, flipped her hair and scoffed, "It's not like you're going. Am I right, [Y/N]-chan?" the silence that followed such question, echoed in Nacht's mind.

The President always knew that [Y/N] was, and is a woman of class and dignity. He felt that whoever confessed to him, must've been an over-achiever, or a big ball of pure dumbness, as they confessed to a woman who spent most of her time staring at him lovingly.

"Of course I am." her simple reply shook them to the bones. Miss [L/N] who's standards were well-known all over the school for being completely high and too out of reach for anyone to even qualify for, decided that she wanted to hear the boy confess? She has never done that, as far as any student can remember.

The silver-haired girl shakes her head as if she's heard the most absurd thing in her life— No, this is by far, the most ridiculous thing she's heard her say. Who was it that confessed to her that even made her change her strong belief!?

The Vermillion beside her, squealed in delight and clinged herself to [Y/N] who uncomfortably felt her 'mountainous' chest pressed against her arm, as the girl's throughts suddenly drift to how flat-chested she actually is.

[Y/N] gulped before kindly detaching Mimosa to herself, "They clearly poured all of their own to the letter, it would be rather unfair of me to not even show myself up." Nact sighed in relief, as his mind sat on the edge, thinking of every possible way to stop her.

"OHHHHH! Finally! [Y/N]-chan is going to have a boyfriend—"

Asta's enthusiasm however, was cut off by the President, "I will not allow it." the black-haired boy tensed at his own words feeling how resolute he seemed, "As the student council president, I will not allow such illicit sexual affair in this academe." the smile dancing on [Y/N]'s lips widen, as she tried to surpress her mirth.

"Illicit? sexual? affair? Whoever said it would come to that?" she grinned at her reposte, biting her inner lip to prevent herself from laughing at how hilarious and discomposed the President looked like.

"Then I'm not sorry to inform you that I will tell of the teachers about this then. You may be suspended over this." Nacht's demeanor slowly returned as he believed his statement should be enough to silence her.

But she was not willing to back down so easily, unless the President would beg obediently for her to not meet him.

"And I, am not sorry to inform you as well that if it comes to such love as this, then I am prepared for suspension. I don't even mind if I am faced with expulsion." other members of the student council held their gasp from her choice of words. 'E-E-Expulsion!? What kind of man would confess to [Y/N]-chan that would even make her go as far as that!?' Noelle thought as she looked at the letter the girl pressed against her chest with a look of love emitted from her presence.

'What? Huh, I wonder which weed I have to pluck out...' Nacht's intelligence was put to test.

The satisfaction flowing vividly inside of [Y/N] with her imagination running wildly at how the President may actually bow down to his knees for her was enough of a thought to make her blush in place, which the others misinterpreted. 'She's serious!'

The school bell rang, signifying that it was lunch time. The moment of judgement has finally presented itself, and [Y/N], despite knowing that no lowly normal person was worthy of her except Nacht, is fully commited in pushing through with her plans.

"WELL! I HAVE TO GO SEE YUNO NOW AND ASK WHAT'S HIS SCORE ON THE SCIENCE EXAM! SEE YOU AT AT THE CAFETERIA [Y/N]-CHAN! I'LL SAVE A SEAT FOR YOU TWO— MIMOSA! NOELLE!" the ash-blonde boy yelled, passing through the corridors to run off to his rival.

The darkening presence of Nacht as though being surrounded by a scad of shadows, frigthening both Noelle and Mimosa who, from the look on their President's face, knew that he wanted to be alone with her, "H-Hey [Y/N]-senpai! Mimosa and I will be going now!"

"What? We will? But I thought—"

"See you laterrr~!"

[Y/N] merely chuckled at the two who, presumably, went to look for Asta. But as the door of the room clicked, it dawned to her that she is to face whoever this 'bokuto' of a simpleton he may be if the President does not act in a few minutes. This was a risk she was willing to do and make, but it may as well be a chance of meeting and casting her eyes away from the President who has shown very little interest in her.

The girl has taken into account all of the words which their President spoke to other people; on normal conversations, a lengthy half an hour, but with her, Nacht seems to have upset his stomach and would only converse for a few minutes. When it came to eye contact, he would not, and one would even say, he dared not to look at her for more than a minute as well. And yet did not break it with any others.

With all these thoughts in mind, [Y/N] realized she may have been fooled by the appeal of the President, falling into their trap like a mindless stray dog, "Well," she sighed, "Lunch time. I-I, I should go." the lump in her throat was unbearable, and to make matters worst, Nacht seemed like he didn't care at all.

She smiled wistfully to herself, taking her things that were next to the President himself and prepared to leave, but was stopped when asked a question, "If I confessed, would you still go?" [Y/N] looked at him, shock evident on her face, "Hypothetically speaking, If I did, would you." he added, further saddening the girl.

"Well, it's only a hypothetical question...So, I would not have an answer. See you this afternoon then, President." with a heavy heart, [Y/N] slowly marched towards the doors, her hold on the door knob trembled, as if waiting for him to stop her, but how delusional she was as he did nothing but stare at her back.

And so she went outside, and carefully closed the door. Every step she took was like a burden since the farther she went, their distance would be forever tainted in her heart.

After a couple of steps, a hand made its way to her wrist, and was surprisingly, unexpectedly faced with the President himself, "[Y/N]" he breathed out, his hand cold and shaking lightly.

"Hm?"

"Don't go."

The girl sighed, removing her hand from his grasp, "I will, if there is no reason to stay. You should go and eat lunch, President. There may nothing be—

"I like you."

The girl chuckled, "Of course you do— wait, what?" 'Does he really? Did he just...? Or was that a fraction of my imagination yet again? Can, can you repeat it, just to be sure?'

"If it means that I get to be with you, then I will gladly concede,[Y/N]. To hell with this little competition. As long as you tell me you'd like the same..." Nacht's voice was almost pleading, wailing for her to stay, to say that she felt the same as he did, despite such being unnecessary.

"I thought you'd never ask. Of course, I like you—" Nacht closed the distance between them, and claimed her lips which he always dreamt of placing his against, "Are you not ashamed o-others are watching!" she yelled at him, a deep blushing forming on her cheeks as Nacht held her face with such gentleness and love. His eyes piercing her soul as its coldness was no longer traceable with his features softening while looking at her.

As if not listening to the girl, he placed his hand behind her neck and connected their lips again for another kiss, not willing to give a care for the students who were happily eyeing them with much anticipation as they've always wanted to see such scene happen, "Then let them watch so they know what is mine."

[justsomeoneunordinary]

you said i could ask for ironhawk fic recs so here i am asking for ironhawk fic recs pleeeeeeeeease?

Hi! Yes! Yes, yes, yes and all the yes in the world. You came to the right place, cause I’ve got all the IronHawk one could wish for! This is one of my absolute favorite ships, which is why this list is also a bit on the longer side. And there are still some in my MfL list yet to be read, otherwise this would be even longer.

(On a funny side-note; I almost rec’d your own AU-gust ficlets at you and it wasn’t until I typed out your name that I realized it lol)

Visiting Hours are Nine to Forever by Tahlruil

Look, Clint didn't mean to hit the guy, it just sort of happened. He was distracted, and the guy was distracted, and then things were a little bit out of his control. And even if it wasn't completely his fault, he still feels pretty bad about it. He had to go see the guy, didn't he? It was only polite, so yeah. He'd do that.

And look, he doesn't mean to start fake dating his accident victim either, but sometimes life is weird that way. You just gotta go with the flow when it happens, and learn to be the best fake boyfriend ever.

This is not only my favorite IronHawk fic, but also one of my favorite fics in general. I’m not one for overly fluffy stuff, but this fic is an exception. I absolutely adore Clint here and re-read this story so many times already I could probably recite it from memory. Sometimes I don’t have the time to read the whole fic, so I just jump to the beginning of chapter 2 cause it’s literally my favorite scene written ever. Honestly, you just need a feel-good? This fic is it.

I wonder how the world sees us by donutsandcoffee

This is how everyone else will see it:

Clint and Tony don’t so much happen as other people don’t happen.

(Or, Clint and Tony, as friends, as best friends, as warriors, as lovers-- and, most importantly, as themselves, even in the eyes of others.)

Clint and Tony’s relationship, written entirely in everyone else’s POV - and in such an incredibly beautiful way at that. Bruce’s POV always makes me very emotional. 

Learn from the Wreck (Series) by thepartyresponsible

The circus has a way of evening people out. Everyone looks the same when the lights center on the stage. The whole audience, just blank shadows, staring in. Everyone looks like nothing.

Someone like this, though. Someone like him. They’ll throw off that nothing before they get back to whatever pampered bed they crawled out of. Everyone else stays nothing, but, for people like that, it’s just a temporary state.

Clint doesn’t mean to watch him. It’s just that he keeps catching Clint’s eye.

A+++ characterization and amazing mix of heart-wrenching yet so beautiful. Phenomenal fics!

Things Clint Barton Has (Series) by Tahlruil

Clint has always been a people watcher - he likes things better from a distance, after all. Hanging out in the Student Center with Nat supplies him with a primo lookout and fodder for stories. He's learned a lot about college students since they started hanging there - he can spot a freshman or a grad student from a mile away.

One in particular has really caught his eye lately. Not because he's attractive - though he is - but because he's both adorable and clearly a Grad Student Zombie. It really gets his protective, mother hen instincts up. Clearly something must be done.

Absolutely adorable. I really love how this author writes Clint a whole lot.

Take A Shot by ChibiSquirt

When SHIELD decided they were going to send an agent to assess Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, the Black Widow was their first choice to do the assessment.

Unfortunately (or maybe not so unfortunately), they would have to go with their second choice, instead.

IM2 but Clint is sent to spy on Tony instead of Natasha. And since this is Clint, the story takes quite a different turn. My favorite part is the moment Clint realizes Tony is dying, because of how he realizes it.

A Different Kind of Knight by jenny_wren

Clint's soulmate's first words to him will be 'Oh shit. You gotta help me hide the body.' Clint's not sure why everybody thinks this is a bad thing.

Soulmate AU with a first meeting you probably haven’t read like that before. :)

360 by donutsandcoffee

Clint and Tony's relationship from all perspectives. A collection of ficlets. 

Lovely characterization of Clint!

Twelve months by everythingispoetry

Twelve months in twelve pieces: how Clint and Tony, slowly but steadily, become Clint and Tony.

I have no other words for this but: soft.

No Heart For Me Like Yours by FannyT

Everyone is born with a number visible on a random body part, a number that only exists twice—on yourself and on your soul mate.

Tony, famous from birth, was brought up to always hide his number from everyone around him in order to protect both himself and his soul mate from kidnapping and extortion. Clint, meanwhile, had his number obliterated by an accident when he was young and now only has only his own memory to rely on, having no records of his number from before.

Then, one day, Clint accidentally sees Tony's number.

This was the very first IronHawk fic I read and therefore partly the reason why I fell in love with this ship so hard.

The Man With the Golden Gauntlet by squadrickchestopher

“Okay.” Clint sighs. “So, am I jumping out of a window again?”

“Nope.” There’s a smile in her voice. “As per your request, you get to seduce the rich guy.”

Clint blinks. “What?”

“Tony Stark. He’s got a type. You’re it.”

I literally just read this one yesterday. Absolutely hilarious and well done characterization.

Aww electricity, no by Bill_Longbow

When Clint gets trapped in an elevator it might not be such a bad thing with this gorgeous stranger. 

Cute and funny!

first one's free by shatteredhourglass

Clint Barton has a crush on Iron Man. Clint Barton is also sleeping with Tony Stark on the regular. All in all, it's a mess. 

Identity Porn! So much Identity Porn!

Killer Date by Jaune_Chat

Clint and Tony's fifth date starts with death threats and payouts and only goes uphill from there. 

Some nice smut. ;)

Bright Eyes by NotEvenCloseToStraight

After being hurt in a fight, Tony ends up temporarily blind and tries to hide it from the team so they don't worry.

Clint is the only one to notice, and an honest conversation between the two about exactly how much Tony matters to the team leads to unexpected kisses.

Very soft and beautiful.

Sorry for the Repetition by harcourt

When Tony fails to save Clint from a mission gone bad, there's only one thing to do. Reset the clock and try again.

So he builds a machine that allows him to go back in time in an attempt to change fate...but he fails again and again and suddenly he's not confident anymore. He's terrified that he'll never be able to save his lover.

Read the tags first. Heart-wrenching angsty and so well done!

devil on your shoulder by desitonystark

As an Angel, Tony's job is to investigate potential humans, assess whether they're fit to enter Heaven. The worst (read: best) part of that job, is what when Hell got word of their investigations, they started sending Clint to accompany him.

Some lovely bickering!

And bonus, since I’m not above some shameless self-promotion:

Le cirque des mirages by me

Tony Stark falls in love only three times in his whole life: once it’s with an institution and the other two times with a person. Both times it’s the same person. 

I’m quite proud of this one. That’s it, hope you’ll like some of them, cause I love them all a lot! Enjoy reading :)

[anon-e-miss]

Primus Help the Outcasts 6

It was difficult to believe. He was waiting for the rug to be ripped out from under his peds but he could not be frozen in place by fear. Even if this reprieve was only temporary, Prowl needed to seize it with both servos for his creations’ sakes and to take full advantage. He needed to get healthy and strong. Then he could better plan for the battles to come. Prowl did not want to believe anything could be worse than had already befallen them, but he did not dare chance fate by making such proclamations.

There was a chair ready for him at the table. Someone had arranged cushions on it so that it might be more comfortable for his doorwings. They had done the same for the two Smokescreen and Bluestreak occupied. As he had always instructed his creations to, Prowl washed up, and then took his seat. Just walking to the table had exhausted him. The crash had trained what fragile reserves he had been clinging on to and now they were gone. He felt weak as a cyber-kitten and considerably more helpless. Sprocket served him a navy blue cube of energon with flecks of minerals floating in it. Medgrade. Prowl felt anxious and frail and he did not know if he could even hope to eat, let alone keep it down but  Bluestreak went on in great detail how he and his friends had helped the Twins’ grand-genitor make everything from the dough to the sauce completely from scratch. He was so proud, of course Prowl had to eat a slice of chrome-alloy pie.

“What was that scandal wit yer origin ya mentioned?” Jazz asked.

“He assassinated Zeta Prime.”

“Woh. What now?” Punch gasped. His sparkmates froze. “Yer originator was Camshaft?”

“You know of my originator?” Prowl asked, surprised. He looked to Jazz, who seemed equally surprised.

“We worked in the same business,” Punch replied. “Sometimes for the same side. After it was done, he went silent. We figured the worst.”

“He escaped,” Prowl explained. “Off world, I believe. I was attending school in Simfur at the time. He sent me packages without any return address from time to time. I was questioned regarding the matter repeatedly when I was young. I found the last package on my desk at the precinct shortly before I went on leave to have Bluestreak.”

“It was a brave thing he did,” Sprocket said. “He knew his life would be over but no one else could get close.”

“My originator was angry he had played a part in the tyrant’s successes,” Prowl replied. He remembered how angry Camshaft had been when the Institute’s crimes had been revealed and then the news so perfectly and ruthlessly oppressed. “The assassination would have been restitution to him.”

“It’s a small world,” Punch said and he shook his helm. “He never hinted to havin’ a creation or a Conjunx. He didn’t let ya become a target. No choice for us. Our whole family was in the business, that was the lot. Jazz and Ric had to grow up quick.”

“I remember Camshaft,” Jazz said. “Sometimes I’d try to eavesdrop on ya’ll. He caught me ‘bout as often as ya. I loved it when ya let me in on what ya were plannin’. The last time he game round, ya spent joors in Geni’s workshop, ‘n I came snoopin’ round again. He caught me. Shook his helm ‘n said this one wasn’t for me.”

“We weren’t sure if it might come back on us,” Rumbler explained. “We were makin’ plans to disappear if it got warm, let alone hot. But no one ever sniffed at us. We never heard from ‘m again.”

“The authorities knew when he sent me parcels,” Prowl explained. “I imagined my progenitor or the school informed them. He was deeply angry by my originator’s actions. The scandal forced him to step down from the senate. He had me surveilled. He was certain my originator would come for. He may have tried. He likely wanted to. But I was too closely monitored.”

“Yer progenitor arranged yer bondin’ then,” Jazz guessed.

“He picked a mech like himself,” Prowl declared.

“That don’t sound like a compliment,” Jazz replied.

“It was not.”

“He was nasty,” Bluestreak declared. “He smacked me because I was talkin’.”

“Bitty Blue, that’s awful,” Rumbler hissed.

“It’s okay,” Bluestreak said. Prowl flicked his doorwings at the memory. Bluestreak smiled up at him. “O’gin punched him.”

“Ya got a tough, Ori,” Jazz declared. “Took after his ori, I think.”

“Thank you,” Prowl said, he found himself relaxing as he found himself around friends and not merely benefactors. “I like to think so.”

The revelation that his originator had been friends and colleagues of Jazz’s procreators made Prowl feel safer in depending on their aid. Camshaft had paid a very personal price for being the triggermech for the assassination plot. Prowl had paid one too. Though he had not lost his originator completely, somewhere out there he new Camshaft lived, Prowl had never seen him again. His creations had never met their grandoriginator, who would have spoiled them if he had been able. They had only known their grandprogenitor who had treated them with no more grace than he had his creation. The boarding school in Simfur had been Camshaft choice for Prowl as his duties had taken him further and further afield. The distance from Praxus had protected him from his progenitor’s scornful impatience.

“Smokey helped me set up yer hab,” Jazz revealed after they finished dinner. Prowl offered to clean up but he was firmly refused.

“I got it,” Punch declared. “Ya got quartexes o’ rest to make up for before I wanna see ya liftin’ a digit. Go on up, get settled in.”

Smokescreen and Bluestreak each took hold of one of Prowl’s servos and let him out of the apartment. The stairs loomed and Prowl did not entirely trust his peds but he let himself be guided up. Jazz was close behind him, closer than Prowl normally cared for, but in this instance it was reassuring. If he felt, Jazz could stop him. The Twins followed after their progenitor. They were excited to have their best friend so close. Prowl was happy Bluestreak had made friends as generous and devoted as these two. Had they not gone to their progenitor wishing to help their friend... friends really, Prowl did not care to think what this next dark-cycle would have brought. Smokescreen entered the door code and the door slid op with a soft swish. The mechlings led him inside.

“This is amazing,” Prowl said as he looked around the open concept room. There was a table and chairs in the kitchen. A solid couch sat in front of an entertainment centre. Smokescreen hugged his arm.

“They asked me to help pick what we needed. The couch is as close to one back home as I saw and we caught lost of cushions to make it even better.”

“It is perfect, Smokescreen,” Prowl had static in his voice and tears in his optics.

“It reminded me of our place... when it was just us. Not that stuffy stuff he liked.”

It was not unlikely the simple, comfortable furnished Prowl had purchased for the habsuite he had rented. Those seven vorns had been the best of his life. Bluestreak was the only solace that had come from returning to that bonding. He was the only boon. Prowl hardly trusted himself to remain standing but he wanted to see what else they had chosen, Smokescreen was so pleased and so proud. His creations led him to the first berthroom. It was theirs to share. Two berths with drawers built into the frames sat against opposing walls. A blue geometric patterned quilt covered the berth that would be Smokescreen’s and a red and black striped one covered Bluestreak’s berth. There were two desk, a bookshelf and a chest of toys. The furniture looked solid, like it was meant to be lived on. Pictures covered the wall at the head of the berths. They were image captures from his mechlings own memories. Family moments, moments with their friends, Prowl teared up again.

“You do not mind sharing?” Prowl asked.

“We like it,” Smokescreen promised him and for now it might have been true. That was enough. “I hope you like what we did for your berthroom.”

“I am sure I will.”

A berth was all he could possibly imagine wanting. It could have been stiff as rock and that would have been enough because it was not in the shelter. There was no looming threat of someone wandering in. The door opened and Prowl saw it was a great deal more than a berth, though it was a wonderful berth. Smokescreen had chosen a heavy black and white quilt to go over red sheets and pillows. A bright red armchair sat in the window and a desk sat against the opposing wall, with bookcases on each side, bookcases that were full of datapads.

“Do you want to lie down?” Smokescreen asked. “You’re tired.”

“I would rather sit with you in the other room,” Prowl replied. He need to sit before he collapsed. This was all incredible and overwhelming. They led him out to it and Prowl did not quite collapse into it, but he did sag. The pillows were blissful. Smokescreen burrowed into his side and Bluestreak climbed into his lap. Jazz stood by. “Thank you. This is more than I could have imagined.”

“Y’all deserve a comfortable home,” Jazz declared. “There’s plenty o’ fuel in the pantry, but ya won’t need to cook wit my genitor downstairs. He’ll bring ya whatever ya could possibly want, hot ‘n ready to go.”

“I am a terrible cook,” Prowl said.

“We can teach ya, if ya want, when y’re stronger,” Jazz replied. “Rest for now, we got everythin’ else taken care of. Box over here has the makings o’ a shrine for the Festival. I thought that was somethin’ the three o’ ya outta do together.”

“Yes, thank you,” Prowl said. “Thank you so much.”

[cuttoothed]

172 spoilers

Post episode fic, because damn it these boys need to talk about stuff! Contains discussion of Jon’s season 4 feeding on victims.

*

Jon leads the way down a narrow, winding corridor while the stage noises dim behind them, sounds of laughter and scrabbling legs and the occasional scream becoming indistinct and indistinguishable. The air still smells like cigarette ash and blood, but even that fades as they approach a door with a brightly lit sign above it. The sign reads NO EXIT, but Jon knows that doesn’t refer to them. 

He pushes down on the rusted crash bar, which squeaks in protest before giving way, and the door opens into the gray light of the ruined world. 

From outside, Jon notices, the theater looks a bit like the Lyceum, except far more massive, its tarnished edifice warped and stretched into a predictably web-like arrangement. Maybe it was the Lyceum, once.

They walk a good distance without saying anything. Martin has a look on his face that says he’s thinking; his percolating look, Jon calls it, a little crease between his eyebrows and his lips moving faintly as he has some fierce discussion with himself⁠. He knows better than to interrupt Martin when he’s percolating. Sooner or later the thoughts he’s brewing will drip through and be ready, and he’ll tell Jon about it.   

Frankly, considering where they’ve come from, Jon is happy to wait a while before talking about it. He’d be just as happy not to talk about it at all, but he knows that’s a harmful impulse, self-destruction framed as self-defense. That isn’t who he’s chosen to be anymore. It still isn’t easy, talking about things, trusting people⁠—  

(the temptation to take just a peek, just to be sure the spiders aren’t crawling over what’s his) 

⁠—but he knows it’s what’s keeping him anchored. Keeping him human, or as close to it as he can be, at least. If he doesn’t talk about what he’s experiencing⁠—how he feels, however horrifying and shameful⁠—he could lose himself without even realizing it. 

(How do you know you’re the same person who fell asleep?) 

If he doesn’t trust Martin⁠—

“I was worried, you know.” 

Martin stops in his tracks, so Jon stops too, turns to look at him. His percolating expression has been replaced by his determined expression; this generally means they are going to have A Conversation. Jon considers that maybe they could find somewhere a bit less...exposed, to sit and talk, but really, there’s nowhere that isn’t exposed these days.  

“Worried about what?” he asks. 

“When you told me we were coming to a Web domain. I was worried...well, you know you left a lot of tapes in your office before the Beholding? All the ones you made while you were away.”

“On the run for murder, you mean.” 

“Yeah, that. Well, I listened to them. While you were⁠—you know...”

“Dead,” Jon supplies, and Martin gives a sad little laugh. 

“Yeah. Sorry, funny that I still have trouble saying it, after⁠—after everything. Not like it’s the worst thing that’s happened to us!” His jovial bravado rings false, and Jon reaches for his hand. 

“It’s okay…” he begins, but Martin shakes his head. 

“No, please, let me⁠—I listened to your statement. About...about when you were a kid? And I was worried that⁠—well, you’ve found the others, haven’t you? The ones that’ve marked you.” 

“You thought we might find⁠ Mister Spider.” Even now it’s hard to say that name. Fear doesn’t feel the same to Jon as it once did, but the thick bile still rises in his throat, the instinctual shudder of nerves firing down his spine. 

“I mean, didn’t it occur to you?” 

“Yes...yes, of course it did.”

“Do you know why we didn’t?”

Jon frowns. He hasn’t thought about the why of it⁠—or rather, he didn’t want to think about it, about why their pilgrimage brought them through this particular manifestation of the Web, its hanging hooks and guiding strings and victims stepping time and again through the same dance of will against want and always, always failing. They were not moths fluttering purposeless into the spider’s strands; something brought them here. 

“It was a⁠—a reminder, I think. Of what I’ve done. What I chose to do.” Jon hears the unsteady note in his own voice and then Martin is grasping his arm. 

“Jon⁠,” he says,”Let’s just⁠—” He looks around as if there might be somewhere pleasant to sit (no comfortable chairs in the apocalypse) and then, with a huff, folds onto the bare, blasted earth, tugging Jon down with him. Jon sits with his knees hunched, Martin cross legged in front of him, giving him a worried frown.

“You didn’t choose any of this,” Martin tells him. “It was all Jonah. He tricked and manipulated and used you! I know it’s hard to believe, sometimes⁠—” 

“No, Martin, not⁠—not that.” Jon shakes his head. “I’m talking about b-before. I...well, you took the statement. You heard what I did to that woman, to the others I fed on.” The pit of his stomach feels, rather appropriately, like it’s filled with spiders, squirming and sick and heavy with self-disgust. 

“That was⁠—yeah, that was bad, Jon. But you didn’t know what it was doing to them, not really.”

“I knew enough! And I did it anyway, gave those poor people nightmares to last their whole lives.” Jon laughs. “Before I turned everyone’s lives into a nightmare, that is. I chose to do it, Martin. It felt good. And I latched onto the idea that the Web was⁠—was making me do it because I couldn’t take responsibility for my own actions. And now...now I have all the fear in the world pouring into me. I’m like a⁠—a whale shark, just swimming along with my mouth open, swallowing it all down. I don’t have to hurt anyone directly to feed. And I don’t know⁠—” 

Jon looks down at his hands, resting against his thighs. They are faintly gray with the dust that gets everywhere, ground into the seams of skin and scars. His nails are bitten to the quick, a bad habit his grandmother never managed to rid him of. Something horrible sits in the back of his throat, and he bites his tongue, not wanting to say it. 

Martin’s voice is very soft when he says:

“You don’t know what?” 

Jon sighs. The horrible thing crawls onto his tongue, and he lets it go.

“I don’t know if the only reason I’m not hurting people is because they’re feeding me anyway.” 

“Oh,” says Martin. Jon feels a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like a hook, and he can’t look up, picks at the ragged cuticle of his thumb instead. He wishes he had a cigarette.

“You tried to stop, though, didn’t you?” Martin’s hand appears in his line of sight, grasps hold of the hand he’s picking at⁠—the burned one⁠—and lifts it out of reach, cradling it between his own. Jon risks a glance at him. He looks...he just looks like Martin. 

“When the others made me, when you⁠—” When you found out, he doesn’t say.

“They couldn’t have made you stop. Not unless you wanted to.” 

“I⁠—I wanted to want to.” Jon swallows the hitch in his breath that threatens to turn into a sob; he’s already wallowing in self pity enough. 

“Then you wanted to,” says Martin firmly. “You wanted to stop, Jon, but you needed help. There’s no shame in that.”

“But what if⁠—”

“Forget about ‘what if’!” Martin tells him, squeezing his hand tight. “What if I’m being controlled by spiders? What if Gertrude was right and there’s nothing we can do about all this? There’s enough guilt and worry to go around without dragging hypotheticals into it!” 

“Martin⁠—”

“I love you, Jon. Okay? You are a good person, who I love, and we are both doing our bloody best in this⁠—this ludicrous situation, and frankly the Web can go and⁠ get fucked if it’s trying to tell you otherwise. All right?” 

Martin’s face is red with determination, and though his eyes are wet, his jaw is set like stone. Jon is overwhelmed once again by how much he loves this man, how that love fills up all the space behind his rib cage, and though the spiders in his stomach don’t vanish, their squirming lessens. He takes a deep breath, and nods. 

“I love you,” is all he can say for a moment. Martin smiles tightly. 

“I should hope so.”

They sit there quietly for a little while. It’s not exactly comfortable⁠—the ground is hard and cruel beneath them, the Eye overhead a constant oppression⁠—but it is comforting. Martin keeps holding Jon’s hand between his, tracing his fingers along the shiny ridges of scar tissue, up to brush over Jon’s own fingertips, a delicate connection between them. Eventually, Martin gives a long sigh, and draws Jon’s hand up to kiss the tips of his fingers, then his knuckles.

“Suppose we’d better get going. We don’t want to be late to the Panopticon, Jonah might fire us.” He tilts his head, thinking. “Are we still Institute employees, technically?” 

“I, ah, I think so, technically,” says Jon. “Though I imagine the pension scheme is rather out the door at this point.” He hefts himself to his feet, pulling Martin with him. Martin brushes down the backs of his trousers, as if it might get rid of the dust, such a perfectly human gesture that Jon can’t help smiling. 

“What?” Martin asks, suspicious. Jon shakes his head. 

“Nothing, you’re just...quite adorable.” 

“You’re the adorable one,” Martin mutters, as a pleased flush creeps across his cheeks. “Ready to go?” 

“Yes,” Jon hesitates a second. “Just, umm...Martin?”

“Yeah?”

“What you said, about the, uh, the spiders?”

“Oh,” Martin says. He gives a sharp little laugh, and there’s a catch in it like the first crack in a pane of glass, the kind that threatens to spider web out and shatter. 

“If you don’t want to talk about it⁠—”

“No, it’s⁠—it’s okay,” says Martin. “We can talk about it, but it’s...hypotheticals, like I said. No point worrying. We’ll just...be careful. I might not want you poking around in my head, but you can still keep an eye on me. With your actual eyes. And I’ll do the same for you. I’ll let you know if you get ominous, you let me know if I get...spidery.” He wiggles his fingers. 

“I promise to keep a close count on the number of limbs you have,” Jon says solemnly, and is pleased when that gets a much more genuine laugh from Martin. 

That temptation is still there, to look, to just be absolutely sure. He’d never even know, a thought murmurs in the back of Jon’s head, and it’s true. It’s true, and Jon squashes the idea without mercy. 

It’s not easy, talking about things. Trusting people. But if he doesn’t trust Martin, then he might as well give it all up right now and succumb to this world. He trusts Martin, and it’s both a choice, and a defiance of the fear that tries to tell him he shouldn’t. 

The Web can⁠—as Martin so eloquently put it⁠—get fucked.

“Right, let’s go,” he says, and takes Martin’s hand in his.   

[artieistired]

liebestraum

thomastair fic

inspired by this song || read on ao3

Alastair didn’t know how Thomas talked him into dinner. Everything had happened rather quickly.

They’d just arrived at the Paris Institute when there was a knock on Alastair’s door. He’d expected one of the hovering heads of the place—he was so grateful Charles was still recovering in London—but instead, it opened to familiar hazel eyes.

“Mr. Lightwood.” Alastair tried to scowl, but his heart simply wasn’t in it.

The two had been traveling together for several days, and faking indifference was growing more and more difficult, especially as they both knew it was a lie. For his part, Thomas—kind, respectful Thomas—hadn’t pushed matters. He was keeping his distance, and Alastair, though he’d never say so, was eternally grateful. He didn’t think he possessed the willpower to hold Thomas at arm’s length much longer, no matter how often he told himself it was a horrible idea to engage himself in any sort of relationship with the man.

But this trip was necessary. Matthew and Cordelia were still gallivanting about Paris and it seemed everyone else was too wrapped up in the disappearance of Lucie Herondale to do anything about it.

Alastair knew that wasn’t true, of course—James had been sincerely disappointed that he could not accompany them, but he needed to stay behind and aid in the business with his sister. Still, he couldn’t deny the fact that he was the slightest bit resentful at the fact that this left him alone with Thomas Lightwood.

Not that there was anything wrong with Thomas. In fact, that was the worst thing about him, the whole reason Alastair resented their situation so much. He couldn’t find a single flaw besides the man’s refusal to wear a hat. If there had been anything else, a glaring warning sign or two like there had been with Charles, then Alastair could better reason with himself to stay away. Instead, he was resigned to reminding himself of Matthew’s words, something he never thought he’d find himself doing, but something necessary all the same. Cordelia assures me that you have a heart. Alastair could have scoffed at the words. It was obvious Matthew himself still did not believe this. Alastair was certain this feeling was not his alone and likely extended to the rest of Thomas’ friends.

So, as Alastair stood there, staring down the man who had somehow managed to steal away into his affections without Alastair’s knowing, he reminded himself once again. This—him and Thomas—wasn’t possible, and it never would be.

“Well,” Alastair said, aware of how tired he sounded, “what is it then?”

Thomas blushed and stammered for a moment—the act had no business being attractive, and yet somehow it was—before he managed, “We arrived too late for dinner, it seems, so I was wondering if you might care to get something. From—a restaurant, or, er… something like that.” Thomas rubbed at his neck.

Alastair bit back a smile. He really was hopelessly endearing, wasn’t he?

It isn’t possible. It won’t ever be. Alastair knew that.

One night out couldn’t hurt.

---

He was completely and horribly wrong.

The night started with an impromptu walk along the Seine. Thomas did his best to engage Alastair in small talk as they walked, commenting on the chill weather and the dazzling lights, but Alastair could already feel himself falling.

They found themselves at a small bistro not unlike the one they’d been to the previous year. There was a small corner table available, which they fit themselves into carefully. Alastair ordered for them both after Thomas sheepishly admitted his French hadn’t improved since their last adventure in the city.

“English, Spanish, and Persian,” Alastair couldn’t help but laugh, “and yet you can’t seem to get a hold of French.”

Thomas laughed with him. Alastair’s heart clenched. He’d gotten used to the feeling by now.

They chatted idly as they waited for their food, Alastair feeling more and more like he was simply an observer, an outsider in his own body. He didn’t dare let himself give in too much to the conversation. He answered Thomas’ questions with cold politeness, aware that as he did so he reverted further and further into his old harshness. Thomas didn’t push, didn’t say anything he would not say to a stranger at a dinner party. It felt so odd. Alastair knew Thomas’ dips and curves, the freckles dusting his cheeks and the callouses on his hands and the way his eyelashes were light enough that they didn’t get credit for their length. Yet here he sat, deflecting questions as soon as they cut too deep, questions about his mother and Cordelia and if there was anything he could do to help. No, Alastair told him, his eyes drifting to a spot over Thomas’ shoulder, there’s nothing.

Their food came, and they ate in silence. It wasn’t awful, the silence, it was just… unusual. In all the time they’d known each other, they had rarely had nothing to say to each other.

At the end of their meal, Alastair was struck with the sudden memory of Thomas’ tattoo. When they’d last been in Paris, Thomas had spoken of getting a tattoo, and Alastair, like the idiot he was, had allowed himself to trace the spot on his arm, to revel in the feel of his skin under his fingers even if only for a moment. In the Sanctuary, Alastair had traced it again, had grinned into Thomas’ mouth as he’d done so. Though only a handful of days earlier, it felt like a lifetime ago.

Alastair pushed the thought from his mind and raised a hand for the check. He paid quickly, thanking the waiter and avoiding Thomas’ gaze as they left.

They walked down the street side by side, and with the wind roaring in his ears, Alastair could almost let himself think things were different. He could almost pretend he and Thomas were something more than… whatever this was. Just because it could never be real didn’t mean Alastair couldn’t indulge himself every once in a while. Once they arrived back at the Institute, Alastair would slip away to his room and remain firmly detached from his feelings for the man.

Thomas, it seemed, had other plans. About a block away from the Institute, he put a hand on Alastair’s arm to stop him and said, “When we get back, there’s something I wish to speak to you about.” He paused heavily. “Privately.”

Alastair stared up at him, keeping his face as impassive as possible. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Mr. Lightwood.”

Something flickered in Thomas’ eyes, and he snapped, “To hell with good ideas. I need to speak with you, Alastair, and you haven’t exactly given me the chance.”

“Yes, and there’s good reason for that, isn’t there?” Alastair retorted, tearing his arm from Thomas’ grip.

“Please, Alastair,” Thomas whispered. His voice was so soft, so gentle, it nearly broke Alastair’s heart. “Just give me five minutes. Five minutes to talk to you and split my heart open for you and then you can do whatever you wish. You can ignore me for the rest of our lives if it pleases you. Just give me this.”

He sounded desperate enough that Alastair could only swallow and nod once, not trusting himself to speak. Thomas let out a breath and nodded once, twice, then started down the street again as though nothing had happened.

They arrived at the Institute to find the halls empty, everyone else already having gone to bed. Thomas led the way to his room, even going as far as politely holding the door open for Alastair.

Thomas cleared his throat as soon as the door was shut and locked behind him. Alastair turned to look at him, crossing his arms as he did so, and raised his eyebrows.

Thomas let out a breath and began, looking vaguely sick as he spoke. “You told me that you didn’t want to make me choose between you and my friends, so you chose for me.”

Alastair rolled his eyes. “Yes, Lightwood, I was there. What is your point in all this?”

Undeterred, Thomas pushed forward as though Alastair hadn’t spoken. “You were wrong to choose for me. And you were more wrong to think it isn’t you I’d choose.” Alastair blinked, his composure slipping for a fraction of a second. “If my friends , as you said, aren’t willing to accept me—aren’t willing to accept you —then they are not and never have been a true friend, and therefore their opinion is of as little import to me as that of a passing stranger on the street.” He paused, his hazel eyes wide and vulnerable. “You chose for me because you did not wish to cause me any pain. You took the burden on for yourself, and while I’m grateful, I want you to know you needn’t have done it. I would’ve chosen you, if I’d gotten the chance.”

---

Thomas waited for Alastair to say something. Anything. He waited for him to acknowledge what Thomas had just said, whether to accept it or scorn it—but Alastair just stood there. It was as if he was waiting for Thomas to take it back.

Then he chuckled, a low, easy sound, and smiled softer than Thomas had ever seen. He spoke, and his voice was rough and thick from emotion. “Careful, Lightwood,” he said, his smirk tinged with sadness. “I just might take that as a love confession.”

Thomas cleared his throat, suddenly far more nervous than he’d been mere seconds ago, and took the slightest step forward. “Perhaps you should.”

Alastair’s eyes were open and dark as he looked up at Thomas through his lashes. Beautiful, as always . “Then I suppose I will,” was Alastair’s answer, and he closed the gap between them.

This, Thomas thought, Alastair’s lips soft on his like a promise, is what I’d choose every time.

---

Alastair woke slowly, his surroundings unfamiliar to his sleep-blurred eyes. He blinked a few times and the light-bathed room came into focus. More importantly, Thomas came into focus.

They were laying beside each other beneath the covers—fully clothed, Alastair realized with a twinge of relief—and Thomas’ face was turned toward him in sleep. Memories spilled into Alastair’s mind like sweet honey. A whirlwind of emotion had surrounded them both—there had been, to Alastair’s memory, more than a few tears between the two of them. That’s what happened, he supposed, when a dam came toppling down: the flood it held back came rushing out.

The night reminded him vaguely of the Sanctuary—they really had to get away from Institutes, Alastair had thought—in that it was the talking, truly, that meant the most to him. They’d fallen asleep talking, their whispers evening into steady breaths sometime far past midnight.

Thomas’ face was soft in sleep. It erased the trials of the year etched into the lines of his forehead and eyes. He was beautiful as ever, and Alastair was hit by the preemptive grief that accompanied leaving. For one of them would have to leave, wouldn’t they? Perhaps Thomas would even be upset that Alastair hadn’t yet—but no, Thomas didn’t seem like the type to be upset about this sort of thing. He wasn’t Charles, Alastair reminded himself with a smile.

Still, they couldn’t risk being found out. Especially by the people Thomas held closest. And that was the catch, wasn’t it? It always would be.

Alastair reached out and cupped Thomas’ face, his pinky slotting behind his ear and his thumb resting at the corner of his eye. He was rewarded by Thomas leaning into the touch, waking slowly. “G’morning,” Thomas yawned. His eyes were still closed.

“Hello, love,” Alastair whispered.

Thomas smiled and opened his eyes a fraction. He let out a sigh. “Esfandiyār.” Something tugged in Alastair’s chest at the name. “A beautiful name for a beautiful man,” Thomas said quietly, closing his eyes again.

Alastair swallowed heavily. Don’t, he wanted to say. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. He moved his hand to Thomas’ hair, threading the short strands through his fingers. “I’m sorry,” Alastair said, gazing at Thomas’ sleep-soft face.

Thomas opened his eyes. “Why?” he asked, furrowing his brow and stretching adorably.

Alastair gave him a sad smile. “Because this is a dream,” he whispered hoarsely, “and sooner or later we’ll have to wake up.” Thomas stared at him, puzzled, his hand raising to grasp Alastair’s wrist. Alastair’s fingers stilled, his hand resting behind Thomas’ head. “Don’t be sad, joon-am. It has been my favorite dream.”

“It doesn’t have to be over.” Worry coated his words. Before Thomas could tighten his grip, Alastair pulled away, swallowing hard as he rolled over, away from Thomas’ pleading eyes. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone; he buttoned them as quickly as he could, his shaking fingers stumbling from exhaustion or—or something else. Thomas was still talking. “Alastair, I meant what I said last night. All of it.” Alastair sighed through his nose, closing his eyes and touching his chin to his chest. His jacket had been discarded and was now hanging on a chair. Alastair opened his eyes and reached for it, shrugging it on numbly.

“ Alastair .” He felt pressure on his shoulder. Thomas’ grip was firm—he pulled Alastair back toward him, turning him so they were looking directly into each other’s eyes. There were only a few inches of space between their noses. “I’m serious,” Thomas whispered. “I choose you .” He leaned forward, pressing their lips together, and only moved away a fraction of an inch to say, “I love you, Alastair Carstairs, and I won’t let you walk away from me again.”

There was a time when Alastair might’ve brushed it off, sneered at him for being so vulnerable, said something to quash the hope shining in his eyes.

Now, he found himself speechless. Thomas was looking at him with such intensity and—

And he wanted to believe him. Alastair wanted them to make it work. Because. Well.

“I love you too, Tom.” There it was. The words came out without thought or resistance. “That’s why… that’s why I’m so scared you’ll regret this.”

“I will never regret us, Alastair.”

“I know you think that, but…” Alastair swallowed and touched his hand to Thomas’ cheek again. “Could you really give up your friends? Your family? You say they would mean nothing to you, but it would leave a hole that I could not fill. I could not bear to see you friendless for my sake.”

“And what makes you think I would be? Alastair—here, just—” Thomas twisted so he was sitting cross-legged atop the blankets. His shirt was unbuttoned down to his navel, and his hair was mussed from sleep. He took Alastair’s hands in his and rubbed his thumbs along the backs of his hands in broad, soothing motions.

Alastair closed his eyes, filled with an emotion he couldn’t quite name. Even just being around Thomas had a calming effect on him, and being able to sit here and hold his hand… it was overwhelming in the best way.

“Look at me.” Alastair looked at him. Thomas told him, “The only way this could ever work is if we both choose to make it work. It won’t just happen on its own—you know that, as do I. But, if you mean it when you say you love me—” his voice caught on the word, snagging on the incomprehensibility of their situation, of the fact that they’d said it aloud to each other “—then I implore you to listen to what I’m saying. We can choose to be together. It may not be easy, but—God, it’ll be worth it. It would be worth losing the world if it meant gaining you.”

Alastair couldn’t help but chuckle, hanging his head as tears finally escaped and race down his cheeks. It was all so much, so different than what he’d grown accustomed to. With Charles, it had been a year before he’d uttered those words— I love you —in some nondescript hotel in this very city, and then it had been slow and relaxed, void of the urgency dripping from Thomas’ words. This was better, though, wasn’t it? This time, he was being asked to let himself be loved instead of begging for the feeling to be reciprocated. It was quite a turnaround. Alastair much preferred being on this side of it, he decided.

But then—there needn’t be sides, after all. They could be in it together. That was all Thomas was asking, wasn’t it? For him to choose to fight—and Alastair was rather good at fighting—even when the odds were stacked against them and it seemed there was no way they could be together?

When he thought of it that way, well. Alastair wanted it to work.

And Thomas did, too.

So, really, the answer was clear. It had been there all along—Alastair had simply been too afraid to see it.

He picked up his head, opened his eyes, and looked at Thomas. Really looked at him. He looked at his freckles and lashes and the veins of brown and gold in his eyes and realized that, if he chose it, he could watch that face grow old. He could learn all its secrets and tells. He could do that , if only he said yes.

It was obvious, then.

“All right,” he croaked out. He nodded once, then again, and then he was nodding and laughing and leaning forward to kiss Thomas just because he could. Thomas was laughing too, and then they were kissing and Alastair was thinking, I could do this forever. I could sit here with him forever and I’d never get tired of it.

Perhaps this was all a dream. Perhaps he’d wake up and find none of it had been real. It would be worth it, he thought, just if it meant having these memories of happiness.

Perhaps it was a dream, but it was the loveliest dream of his life.