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aelaer · 4 years

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Re: Blood in Your Veins

Hey so uh.

As anyone who’s been following me for a while knows, I started the serial “The Blood In Your Veins” about this time last year (it used to be ‘my veins’ but retitled it on its move to AO3 because execution of prompt had changed a bit over writing). It’s a prompt that I couldn’t stop thinking about and just dabbled in slowly to see where it went. Then 2020 fully hit and my writing came to almost a complete stop until about October, which is when I began again on Illuminating the Shadows, which was finished and posted in December.

Anyway, I’ve been poking and prodding fairly continuously at The Blood in Your Veins. The first four parts that I posted originally here on tumblr are now all on AO3, and once part 5′s up I’ll link it here and link everyone who wanted alerts to the updates then so they can see the new part. Then all future parts will be linked here as well.

(Cut because why the *hell* did I write this much about this?)

I’ve been slow in posting because I, against better judgement but why not, decided to post it as a WIP. But that means I keep on making edits to older parts because I think of something new that should be addressed earlier in the story. Like uh, when I was writing part 9, I realized I needed to go back to part 5 and add an addendum. When I was writing part 12, I realized I totally forgot a part that I ended up adding in part 8, because I needed it for a future connection. This happens all the time in my writing and makes posting WIPs almost dangerous because my thinking is rarely linear if the story takes place over a course of more than a couple days. Thus the very slow posting.

So this silly little prompt thing that I was just prodding and poking at to see where it went? The farking doc passed 50k words tonight. Yup.

Granted, like 10k of that is probably outlining, personal notes, and A/Ns filled to the brim with meta, medical science, fake science, and technical/computer engineering because I love talking about it and giving people info to access easily for their own knowledge. I figure I can’t be the only one who finds this stuff super fascinating and fanfic makes it unique in that it’s not a book where the research is irrelevant, you can show off all the interesting stuff right here and talk about it with people! I love that about fanfic, so much. Sometimes the A/Ns are just as interesting as the story in some stories.

So it’s gonna be a bit slow for however long, but I finished 11 parts (with 10 betaed), have the 12th largely written out (though I’m not 100% sure about it yet so I want to poke at it more), and parts uh, 13 to 17ish outlined. But considering I was like “yeah this is 8 parts at most” like, at the beginning of this, that number is bound to change because characters keep saying things and doing things (including the supporting OCs, who are demanding to be fully fleshed out within the bounds of supporting character roles).

And yeah, this is just a ramble of what I’ve been mostly doing as I haven’t been super active on tumblr this month as this has consumed most of my free time. I haven’t read a lot of works either, and once this is completed I hope to remedy that, before I go into my next two big projects (which were meant to be what I was working on *now*, but then this took over and what will you do. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to complete three novel-length fics in the course of the year, but I’ll see what I can do. I really want to tell these stories).

Uh, this was really long. Sorry, I’m super verbose and don’t know how to be like, succinct. My old boss, two bosses ago now, used to quote Twain about brevity being a sign of wit, but if it is, call me 100% unwitty because I like to ramble. And then I always feel a little bit guilty for writing *so much* about my bullshit, so I feel like if you read this far, you 100% deserve to read a preview of an upcoming section. Especially since you pressed the Read More button! So here you go, thanks for reading my rambles. This is a section from the longest part so far, part 8. It’s a long little bit!

---

"How high's the toxicity now?" Tony asked as he stepped off the scale.

"Yesterday's blood sample came back at 0.45 milligrams per kilogram of your weight," Stephen replied. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

Tony offered his arm for the blood draw. "And if 3 milligrams is the magic number for fatality, that'd put my current blood toxicity at 15%."

Stephen inserted the needle at the crook of Tony's elbow and watched the tube fill up. "That's not quite how it works."

"It makes sense to me."

"That's still not how it works." He removed the needle and capped the tube, and as he put everything away, explained, "Saying that your blood toxicity is at 15% implies that you're talking about the whole volume of blood in your body. You're probably at about 5,500 milliliters with your weight, and with the density of blood equaling about 1.06 grams per milliliter, it is like you're saying—"

"That 874.5 grams of my blood is toxic, yeah, yeah, I know," Tony interrupted. By now he was setting up the table for their breakfast.

"I was getting there."

"You were going too slow," he shot back easily. Stephen gave the engineer a look at the comment, but Tony ignored it. "Yeah, I know it's not my whole body's blood volume. Obviously. But putting a percentage on how long until I reach the point that I'm dead makes sense to me. I'm not measuring the whole volume of my blood, I'm measuring how much more can I handle until I'm dead."

Stephen shot him a frown. "It doesn't make sense to call it 'blood toxicity' then."

"Maybe not to you, but it does to me. And I'd design such a measuring tool for me."

The statement caught him off guard. "Design?" He finished packing up the kit and joined Tony at the table.

"Well, if I wasn't stuck in here, I'd design something to automatically read a blood sample, like how glucose meters read blood sugar levels. Wouldn't be hard to engineer something like that. And I'd have it give me the amount of toxicity as a percentage relating to how far along it was until the amount was lethal. Sure, I could memorize the numbers, but the percentage would be more concrete in my head."

Stephen smeared butter over a piece of bread as he listened. He shook his head at the end of Tony's explanation. "Wouldn't work for the consumer market; there's too much room for interpretation as to what the percentage means."

Tony huffed. "Well, like I said, it'd be for me. Not the consumer market."

His brow furrowed. "You're telling me that you can make a blood test as simple as the one used for testing blood sugar levels for something as rare as palladium poisoning?"

He narrowed his eyes. "... yes…"

"You can make it portable like the glucose meters?"

"Yeah, of course."

"And affordable to most hospitals?"

Tony looked up in thought. "I don't usually factor in the costs of materials and manufacturing in personal projects, and others do the number crunching to see if my ideas are viable for production in company projects. If they aren't, but I really want them to be, I'll tinker a bit more, sure."

Stephen couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you realize the amount of money you could save for both hospitals and patients across the country with such technology? Specialized blood tests—like for many metal poisonings, for instance—aren't offered at every hospital. It may not be available even in every state. Those types of lab results can take weeks to get back to a doctor and the patient. And you're saying that you can not only potentially create this type of technology, but that you may be able to make it affordable if you really want them to be?"

"Well yeah, sure. I've done it a few times with other things. I could probably do that with a blood meter thing. I doubt the tech's that complicated."

His mouth was partially hanging open, Stephen realized this, but he couldn't bother at the moment. He was flabbergasted. The first thought that came to mind went to his mouth, unfiltered. "And you spent the last two decades building weapons."

"Don't." The word was sharp and filled with an overabundance of emotion.

Stephen fell silent. He crossed a boundary he had yet to see before now, and he was not so callous as to push against it. Instead he turned to his meal and focused on eating. He avoided looking at the other man.

A couple minutes later, Tony spoke again. It was low, pensive. Thoughtful. "There was a good reason I shut down weapons manufacturing after I got back from Afghanistan, you know. If the department ever comes back, it will be with major restrictions and modifications. Likely more defensive than offensive. More shields, less missiles. But in the meantime I've been restructuring. Expanded in commercial aerospace and industry. We entered the energy market properly. Consumer products is coming soon—end of the year, probably." A pause. "Don't see why we can't look into medical tech, either. Certainly wouldn't hurt to try."

He could only nod and say, "It certainly wouldn't."

#my writing #my wips #fic snippet #stephen strange #tony stark #also why do my fics spiral out of control like this #i mean really

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liesonthefloordramatically · 5 years

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Four fun Buddhism fic bonus facts, as promised:

1. The description of the Jizō statue in the fic (“The face has mostly worn away at this point, although his mother swears that the Jizō has a different expression every day.”) is based on a real Ojizō-sama I am acquainted with! He looks like this:

(Friend-shaped!)

2. This didn’t make it into the fic proper, but Kakyoin’s favorite Wisdom King is Aizen Myōō. Like most things in this fic, it’s both because I think that’s incredibly funny and because it’s very fitting for who he is as a person.

3. This also didn’t make it explicitly into the fic because the audience for this content is me and like two other people, but Kakyoin has read the works of Kuroda Toshio. If you’re familiar with Kuroda’s work, you might recognizes some echoes of his ideas in Kakyoin’s words...

4. I think one of the most interesting things for me about seeing folks’ reactions to this fic is to see how they describe Kakyoin’s orientation toward Buddhism. Namely, I’ve seen folks saying that Kakyoin is a devout Buddhist or a pious Buddhist. Granted, I’m both the author and someone who studies Japanese religion professionally so I probably have...a slightly different view on it than most of my readers, but I think Kakyoin’s relationship with Buddhism is a lot more complicated than that!

I tend to study much more of the...how do people actually Do Religion/put religion into practice rather than the scriptural/doctrinal side of religion because I think religion is really interesting as a lens people use for making sense of the world. That’s also why I tend to write so many characters who are trying to make sense of their circumstances (sometimes through religion but not always--religion isn’t the only interpretive lens people have available) but they’re struggling to believe the narrative they’ve been handed (see: linear time is fake, two points of a triangle, etc.).

Kakyoin is also in this vein! He knows a lot about Buddhism (both Shingon Buddhism specifically and the history of Japanese Buddhism more generally), but, as I said in my original annotations, a lot of his associations and opinions are intellectual/historical rather than emotive/experiential. When he finally starts opening up to Jotaro, he outright tells him this, in fact: “‘I don’t think I was ever really interested in the religious aspect,’ Kakyoin says. ‘I mean, it was interesting, but in an intellectual way.’” But also he winds up going back on his own words right at the end of the fic: “‘So if everyone else is living in a world of delusion and you’re the only one who sees the truth,’ Kakyoin says, condescension dripping from every syllable, ‘don’t you think that you’d be attracted to a religion that validated that experience?’”

So Kakyoin is caught in this place of...he doesn’t really believe any of this, because it was just something silly that brought him comfort as a weird and isolated kid, but also...deep down, he really does believe this, because it makes the world make a little more sense. He’s constantly trying to keep this level of intellectual distance when he’s talking about Buddhism--but Jotaro doesn’t know enough to recognize that distance so he keeps accidentally smashing through it and making things too uncomfortably personal. Kakyoin’s favorite Buddha is Maitreya and he’s over here describing how his arrival will be heralded by the apocalypse and his boyfriend just cuts through all his melodrama to say Kakyoin likes Maitreya because Maitreya symbolizes hope! He’s right but also, wow, that’s way too uncomfortably vulnerable to admit!

(Man, this makes me want to write that Kakyoin character study I’ve been threatening for forever...)

Anyway: study religion! 10/10, highly recommended! Not just because it’s literally my livelihood but also because it’s a really cool way to study how people understand the world and their place in it.

#Queenie actually says something on this blog #parallelism palooza: the journey #JUST A BIG LONG ESSAY ON HOW COMPLICATED PEOPLE'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH RELIGION CAN BE #and also some fun facts thrown in

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alexandralyman · 6 years

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Could you make a one shot/short story that’s sort of a prequel to Gloriana? Like how killian and Emma became close and what happened that night at Hatfield house?

Gloriana - my Tudor Court AU with Emma as Elizabeth I and Killian as a mix of Robert Dudley and Francis Drake - was one of those fics that I did intend to continue but time just got away from me, and it did work as a one shot so I left it as it was. But I had started writing a second part forever ago and when I got this message I pulled up the file, reread it and my inner history nerd came out again and….

….7,000 words later, here is Part 2. I always envisioned this as a non-linear story anyway, so there’s two flashback scenes plus a scene that takes place after the events of part 1 and I’ve included the night at Hatfield referenced in this line, “She hadn’t been a virgin since that night at Hatfield House lo those many years ago, when Killian had taken her to his bed and made her a woman in his arms, ruining her for any other man from that day forward.”

(so yeah, it’s rated M - hope you like it, Nonnie!)Part 1 is here on Tumblr and the fic is posted on ff.net hereGloriana - Part 2Hampton Court PalaceSome Time Ago

“I do not believe we have been properly introduced, my lord.”

“We have not, but I’m afraid I must correct you, Your Highness, as I am not a lord.”

“And I must correct you, good sir, as I am simply Lady Emma and in my sister’s court it is a foolish mistake to call me Highness.”

The tall man with bright blue eyes that reminded Emma of the sea leaned down slightly in a graceful hint of a bow and lowered his voice so that it carried only to her ears, “I assure you I am no fool, Your Highness. My name is Killian Jones, and I have come to court to swear my service solely to the Princess Emma, lawful daughter of the great King David and true heiress to the throne of England.”

Across the room Philip of Spain bowed somewhat stiffly to Emma’s half sister Mary, daughter of her late father David and his first wife, the repudiated Kathryn. The whole of the court was there to celebrate their marriage, including Emma, the rather inconvenient heiress presumptive who Mary could hardly bear the sight of at times but couldn’t quite ignore completely. The courtiers tended to follow their queen’s lead and few were brave enough to be seen conversing openly with Mary Blanchard’s daughter. Queen Mary’s memory was long and her hatred of the dark haired siren of a woman who had drawn her father away from Kathryn had never abated over the years, frequently spilling over to the only child of the passionate union between king and commoner.

“Watch your tongue, Master Jones. You very nearly speak of treason,” Emma warned in a hiss, back straight and gaze darting from side to side to reassure herself that no one had overheard. She might have been standing alone amid the wedding revels before the stranger approached her, but she was not so foolish as to believe that she was unseen. Spies were rife at the English court, as Spain, France and Scotland all vied for European supremacy and England was the board on which the pieces moved. Bishops, knights, kings, and a little white pawn with faint hope of being queened.

The man smiled, clearly unconcerned. “I merely speak the truth. Spain might be England’s bedfellow for a time, but planting seeds in a fallow field is no guarantee of a fruitful harvest.”

Emma was faintly shocked by his daring, both for speaking to her at all and for the rather crude reference to her sister’s marriage bed. But there was no denying that Mary was of an age where the prospect of children was far from assured, even with a virile younger husband like Philip and every restored Catholic priest in England praying desperately for their very devout queen to get with child. The petty, spiteful part of Emma had chosen to dress in a manner that flattered her own youth and bore the unmistakable hallmarks of her split bloodline for the festivities, golden hair inherited from her father just peeking out from under the curved velvet band of her French hood, whilst Mary’s graying locks were concealed completely in an attempt to camouflage the age difference between her and Philip. The queen’s gown was splendid, sewn all over with gems, slashed and puffed as a peacock, and in contrast Emma’s unfashionably plain dress was as spare and demure as a nun’s habit save for the wide Blanchard sleeves that unfolded so prettily and touched the floor when she’d curtsied to her frowning sister and new, speculative-eyed brother before retiring to her place in the shadows to watch and wait by herself for the tides to turn.

Only now she no longer waited alone.

She glanced at the man who stood boldly at her side while the rest of the court spurned her, a handsome figure in his black doublet, dark-haired, sharp jawed and an even sharper wit that was not unwelcome as he made several more cutting remarks towards the Spanish delegation. Emma was used to her solitude, it was as familiar as a lover to her, and she’d survived this long on her own, but she wondered with a sudden burst of wistfulness if she would ever be allowed to wed. Not so long as the queen remained childless, Emma knew, her claim on her sister’s throne was dangerous enough as it was, let alone if she bore a son before Mary did. Besides, marriage was a shackle that would bind her to the whims of a man as England was now bound to serve Spanish interests and her mother had been bound to her father until his professed True Love turned to something so dark and ugly in the end.

“I’ve vexed you.”

Killian Jones’s handsome smile turned to a frown as his eyes searched her face and his obvious concern pierced her disquiet. Her unringed hand found his sleeve, uncaring who saw the Lady Emma conversing so closely with a man of unknown loyalties, a Scottish spy sent to court by Cora de Guise perhaps, or a Protestant rebel looking to roust the Spanish delegation from English soil. She had the sense that he was neither, seeking not her secrets to sell nor a figurehead for his cause, and his offer to join her service was intriguing. If….when…the time came that the crown should need a new brow upon which to rest, she would need able men to help hold it steady, as a woman without a husband to wear it for her.

“No, milord, you have not.”

“Not a lord,” he reminded her with a saucy wink that made her colour as no nobleman ever had, “As you are not a queen, my Lady Emma.”

His lips just brushed the shell of her ear, whiskered cheek touching hers for the briefest of moments and Emma felt a flutter low in her belly under the stomacher of her gown at both the heat from his body and the promise in the single word he spoke.

“Yet.”

Several Years Later

“Your Majesty?”

Queen Emma didn’t turn around, standing at the window of the small audience chamber and looking down into the courtyard below. Ladies walked arm-in-arm in their bright gowns, followed by more soberly clad servants who carried shawls and baskets of necessities. Courtiers stood in small groups, their swords at their hips and their heads bent close in discussion. There was a clear divide, between the old guard of Catholic families who still retained a few drops of royal Plantagenet blood despite her father and her grandfather’s best efforts to stamp it out, and those risen to new estates and titles as rewards for supporting the young Nolan dynasty and its even younger Church.

She had such a reward to grant now to one who had always supported her since the day they met.

“Your Majesty we really must discuss this further.”

“There is nothing to discuss,” she replied in a crisp voice, tapping a long oval nail against one of the diamond-shaped window panes, “I shall make the formal announcement tonight.”

“But….Lord High Admiral? You are really going to appoint Captain Jones to such an exalted position?”

“After the success of his voyage he has more than proved himself able to hold the post.”

“No commoner has ever been named-“

“Which is why,” she interrupted, “I will also be conferring upon him the title of Earl of Misthaven.”

Silence reigned for a long moment before Sir Archibald Hopper, Secretary of State and longtime advisor to the queen, let out a heavy sigh at the news and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “The Spanish Ambassador will not be pleased by that.”

Emma smiled, idly tracing patterns on the glass that bore more than a passing resemblance to the letters K and E. “Nothing pleases the Spanish Ambassador, and nothing ever will so long as I remain so inconveniently alive and in his master’s way. Ever since I refused Philip’s generous marriage proposal when my sister had scarcely grown cold in her tomb and denied him a second chance at England’s throne I have suffered much Spanish displeasure. You’d think the presence of his new French bride at his court would console him more, they do say Aurora de Valois is quite the beauty.”

“It won’t only be Spain, there are members of the council who will also object to this appointment. The Duke of Norfolk has been angling for his own candidate for several months now.”

She turned at that and arched a scornful brow, “While he corresponds behind my back with the Queen of Scots. His Grace is angling for much more than another royal appointment for his household, he is seeking a crown. But when he finally proposes marriage to Regina Stuart without my permission then he will either cool his heels in the Tower or join her in Edinburgh as an outlaw while I take his lands and title as forfeit. He can marry her as plain Robert Locksley and try to rule the Scottish chieftains if he is so inclined, but he will keep his greedy hands off my scepter.”

Her voice rose in anger and a lesser man would have backed down in the face of her obvious displeasure, but Hopper, her Conscience, as she called him, was made of sterner stuff and looked his queen right in the eye. “They say that Captain Jones also has his eyes on a crown, Your Majesty. You can name him Lord High Admiral and raise him to the peerage if you wish, but you must know that you can not marry a man of common birth.”

“Why is everyone in England so obsessed with the notion of marriage?” she snapped, two spots of colour appearing high in her pale cheeks, “I have no intention of marrying Captain Jones, Lord Hopper, nor any man, be he prince or peasant.”

“You can’t continue to hold all of Europe at bay without a husband and an heir to succeed you,” Hopper explained patiently, and not for the first time, “You have your choice of any unmarried noble from your court or the younger sons of all the royal houses, France, Sweden, Savoy, but eventually you must choose.”

The queen swept from the window, worrying at the gold coronation ring on her finger. “Have the letters patent drawn up. Killian Jones will be named Earl of Misthaven and Lord High Admiral of the English fleet. I trust you can handle any objections from the Council, and perhaps lay aside some smelling salts for when the news reaches the Spanish Ambassador.”

“Who is Killian Jones to you, Your Majesty?”

Hopper’s voice stopped her before she reached the door. The royal back went straight and silence reigned again for so long that he was sure she wasn’t going to answer. But at last she looked over her shoulder and regarded him where he sat on a low stool. Few were afforded the great privilege of sitting while the queen stood, only Hopper, Mistress Ruby Lucas, and one other who only ever exercised that right in private, never in public.

“He was a friend at a time when I had precious few and each was more valuable to me than any jewel. For his continued loyalty he has earned his reward, as I reward all who serve me and only me, yourself included, Sir Archibald. My family name is Nolan, for once we had had no land of our own and only the slimmest of claims to the throne. But now I am queen and I am England, and England has many enemies, some of whom dwell in this very court like snakes hiding in the grass. I need men like Captain Jones at my side to help flush them out and keep them from striking.”

The queen left Sir Archibald Hopper alone in the empty room, where he shook his head sadly and murmured to himself, “Killian Jones may walk behind you and sun himself in your glory, Emma Nolan, but he can never truly stand at your side.”

In a court where gossip was a currency more valued than coin the news surprisingly did not leak in the hours between the meeting of the Privy Council and the start of the banquet, another celebration thrown by the queen in honour of Captain Jones and the success of his voyage. The privateer was dressed all in black as was his custom and the queen had opted to don a new gown of white silk embroidered with thousands of pearls. Ropes of them also hung about her slender neck and fell from her ears, and it did not escape notice among the assembly that she had chosen to adorn herself so lavishly with gems from the sea. They all watched as she made her entry into the hall, framed between the carved oak doors that stood fifteen feet high on either side of her. Skirts rustled as the ladies curtsied to their queen, dipping down low when she passed with eyes demurely lowered to the floor. Emma walked straight to Killian, seeing nothing but him, the rest of the court was nothing but a smudge on the glass, unimportant and beneath her notice. Sir Archibald was her Conscience, her guide through the tricky and treacherous world of ambitious men and duplicitous women that she ruled, Mistress Ruby Lucas was Chief Lady of the Bedchamber, keeper of her deepest, darkest secrets and immune to any form of bribery or threats, while Killian Jones was bestowed with a secret title, one spoken only in stolen moments and known to only the two of them.

He was Emma’s Heart.

Not the queen’s.

Emma’s.

The sword at his hip was ornamental, a blunted blade beneath a silver guard and a pommel shaped like the neck of a swan, curved to fit his hand and adorned with emerald eyes that matched the gems in the necklace he had gifted her (and had, in fact, been chipped from one of the stones). A gasp went through the crowd when the queen unsheathed it with her own hand, reaching around his waist to do so in a gesture of breathtaking intimacy between Sovereign and subject. The Duke of Norfolk let out a strangled noise in the back of his throat while the Spanish Ambassador swore violently in his head, both realizing what was about to happen a minute too late.

“Captain Killian Jones, I confer upon thou as our most able subject for the post, the office of Lord High Admiral of the English fleet, to protect and defend the realm from those who would seek to do us and our kingdom such grievous harm.”

Killian had knelt obediently at Emma’s feet when she drew his sword, face betraying none of the smug satisfaction he felt. He’d known she would grant him this after the great success of his voyage, making the bitter years of separation sweet at last with his victory over all who’d sneered at his common name and scorned his prowess on the sea. No one would protect England as he would, for Emma was England personified, and he would protect her and defend her, until his dying breath. But her next proclamation caught even him off guard.

“I also name thee Earl of Misthaven.”

The flat of the blade lifted from his shoulder and caught the candlelight, flashing bright and seeming to ripple along the metal like a stone dropped in a still pool. So too did a ripple run through the crowd, as the implications of their queen’s decree sank in just as quickly. Emma Nolan had raised a commoner to the peerage, a dark-haired, French-educated commoner who groped for her free hand and kissed the back of it, head bent reverently over her slim wrist. David Nolan had done the same for Mary Blanchard once upon a time, the dark-haired, French-educated commoner he had loved so ardently.

And everyone knew how that story had ended.

“My Queen.”

The new earl looked up at his queen, seeing a smile playing at the edge of her vermillion lips. The memory tugged at the back of his mind, of another night, in another court, where he’d first paid his homage to a bastard daughter with barely a farthing to his name as a marriage was celebrated around them. Now she was the Sovereign, her inheritance firmly secured by nothing but her own skill and cunning, and he was a nobleman, one of the wealthiest in the entire country thanks to her royal patronage.

“My Lord.”

Emma swept back a lock of black hair from his forehead with a lingering touch, her expression tender and unguarded as she looked down at him and the court watched with bated breath. The Spanish Ambassador would write in his next dispatch that the English Queen “is clearly following in the footsteps of her father with the commoner Jones, now Earl of Misthaven, her close companion since his return from sea, and allows him to take unprecedented liberties with her person while he makes love openly to the queen with his increasingly lavish gifts and insincere flattery and is even said to be planning a marriage proposal” while Regina of Scotland sent a coded letter to the Duke of Norfolk upon hearing the news in Edinburgh and asked “Dearest Robin” if it was really true that “the illegitimate Blanchard bitch traded yearning looks and doey eyes with Captain Whoreson, a perfectly matched pair in their pretentions, as the self-styled Saviour of England has exalted a man of no name or family out from under her skirts” but no one openly challenged the queen’s decree and they all gave way to the couple when the earl rose to his feet and led the queen to the raised dais at the end of the hall where she gave the order to begin the feast.

“Will you come to me again tonight?”

His blue eyes were dark and imploring, the sea upon which she’d gladly drown. Emma rubbed a finger over one of the pearls sewn onto her skirt and gave an imperceptible shake of her head, speaking behind her goblet of wine.

“It’s too risky. The eyes of the entire court turn to you tonight, Lord Misthaven, and there is not shadow enough at Whitehall now to shield us from their scrutiny. Though you would not lack for feminine companionship in your chambers if you so wish it.”

“I wish only for you.”

The ladies of the court held no allure, and though he was a man of healthy appetites and knew he could easily charm his way into almost any bed he wished with his dashing countenance and new title, the Earl of Misthaven had his sights set on one only.

“Spain is watching us, as is Scotland through Norfolk’s eyes,” the queen cautioned, her own gaze finding the sour-faced ambassador and her scowling cousin Robert Locksley across the room. No one was close enough to overhear, but both men had other ears planted in the queen’s household, listening intently for any hint of scandal, and the most scandalous thing about the unmarried queen was her close relationship with her new, equally unmarried Lord High Admiral.

“If there is not shadow enough at Whitehall, my ship is docked at Portsmouth, and we could be there by the morrow on a fast steed. Say the word, Emma.”

A look passed between them that did not go unnoticed, a memory shared not by queen and earl, but by the woman under the silk gown and the man behind the moniker.

“It’s too late for that now, Killian.”

The pearl came free from the silver thread and was pressed into his palm in lieu of what she could not grant him tonight, her fingers closing his around it and lingering for a brief moment before the queen abruptly stood and everyone around who was seated scrambled madly to their feet. Mistress Ruby Lucas remained where she was in her chair, exercising the privilege granted to her by her royal charge until the queen passed the gaping courtiers and she finally rose to fall in step behind her, her scarlet gown like a trail of blood following the pristine white. In public Captain Jones always stood when the queen did, and he shifted his weight to one foot and rested a hand on the hilt of his sword with the pearl clutched tight in the other as he watched her walk away from him and his offer for the second time in his life.

“Congratulations, my lord Misthaven.”

He accepted Sir Archibald Hopper’s loud acknowledgement of his new status with a stiff nod, while several nobleman traded black looks and low conversations arose up and down the hall as alliances shifted like the sands to accommodate this latest development. He expected several to darken his door over the next few days with their proposals, to place younger sons in his service and even perhaps to attempt to arrange a marriage and see a daughter or a niece made a new countess at his side.

“Her Majesty was adamant that there was no one else who could fulfill the role and that any dissenting opinion would not be tolerated.”

That mollified Killian slightly and he flashed a smile that sent several of the young and not so young ladies standing nearby into a blushing tizzy. “I’m a hell of a captain.”

Hopper’s face was placid and his tone was light, but there was no mistaking the warning when he spoke to the man his queen had chosen if not as consort, then as something as unprecedented as her own unlikeliest of ascensions.

“Good. Because the storm is brewing on the horizon, and when it hits, all of England will feel the consequences of these decisions. Especially the queen.”

Emma had made her choice long ago, on a night when her path forked and a vow was sworn in blood. It had stained the sheets between them, the spilled drops a dark crimson circle on the pale linens like the red petals that ringed the white of the Nolan rose. The emblem of the royal house to which she would always truly belong to more than any man was inescapable, even during those few, secret hours when she was oh so fleetingly his.

He answered the Secretary of State not in the manner of a courtier, elegant and refined and as flexible as the wind, ready to twist and turn and follow whichever way it was blowing. Earl of Misthaven and Lord High Admiral of the English fleet he might be, Killian Jones was, at heart, a cunning pirate who’d sailed through his share of storms even before he was the queen’s privateer and it was that man who replied as he would on the docks, with a dip of his chin and a single, clipped, “Aye.”

HertfordshireLast Months of Queen Mary’s Reign

The lone rider urged his large black horse to a gallop along the winding roads and lush green fields of the countryside far from the capital, cloak flying out behind him and hat pulled down low on his head, raising a great cloud of dust beneath the sharp hooves that pounded unrelentlessly mile after mile as his own heart pounded madly against his ribs.

Not from the exertion of the strenuous ride.

From fear.

His gloved hands were cramped tight around the reins and only loosened a fraction when the squat rise of Hatfield House finally came into view, the low sloping roof stark against the rapidly setting sun that plucked fire from the red brick and leaded windows of the large country estate. In London the heretics burned at Smithfield and the sky above the city was black with the smoke for days on end, it drifted as far south as the docks at Portsmouth and carried the ash of the condemned souls away on the wind while the ships in the harbour still limply flew both English and Spanish flags in honour of the disastrous marriage pact between their half-Spanish queen and Spain’s king.

Captain Killian Jones served neither queen nor king, having sworn himself to another whose swan badge he wore in secret, close to his heart. He alighted from the saddle and left his lathered horse in the care of a white-faced groom before entering the house, scarcely stopping to knock the dust from his boots in his haste. Mistress Ruby Lucas met him inside the Great Hall as if she’d been expecting him, answering his half-entreaty, half-command of, “I need to speak with Her Highness. Now.” with a thin-lipped nod, not questioning the reason for such urgency.

“This way, Captain.”

There was hardly a servant to be seen about in the corridors or in the rooms glimpsed through open doors as Killian followed Mistress Lucas deeper into the house where Princess Emma had spent much of her uncertain childhood and remained her principal and favoured residence after the deaths of both her father and brother, an inheritance that went unchallenged by her sister to keep her away from London. Normally bustling with activity as the quasi-royal household of the heiress to the throne and shadow court to Mary’s, Hatfield House was strangely shuttered and still now, quiet as a tomb with only the faint retort of his own footfalls echoing along the long gallery. There were no squires cooling their heels and waiting for an audience, no messengers taking a mouthful of wine after delivering a letter, and Killian thought scornfully of rats deserting a sinking ship, as news must have spread that the Lady Emma had lost what little remained of her sister’s favour and the hangers-on had all fled lest they go down with her as well.

But not Killian Jones. He had made straight for Hatfield when his own man had sent the word.

It was at Hatfield where Emma had personally supplied Killian with the funds that went straight to his small ship, allowing him to purchase the foodstuffs needed for longer, more profitable journeys than he was currently able to undertake and speculate on cargos with no ready buyers to front the cost. It was at Hatfield where he’d brought her back the fruits of his voyages, spools of Brussels lace and costly Venetian glass, watching her face light up at both the gifts and at his safe return from sea and telling her tales by the fire of the lands he had visited as the wine flowed and the hours slipped by without notice or care.

It was at Hatfield where he had fallen hopelessly, utterly, wholeheartedly, in love with the girl who should be queen.

Mistress Lucas ushered him into a chamber and she was seated in a chair by the window, sitting straight-backed and staring at nothing. He hair was loose, a spill of gold down her back with no modest hood to conceal it, while she was garbed in a robe that was hardly suitable for receiving an unrelated man, though it was heavy and fur-trimmed against the chill it was low-necked and revealed the white swell of her bosom and the slim column of her throat, slender and delicate, as her mother’s was said to have been. Her former governess withdrew with a curtsey and closed the door behind her when she left, soft click of the latch loud in the silent room and leaving them alone without so much as the pretense of a chaperone to guard against wagging tongues and whispered allegations. Killian supposed it no longer mattered, not now, not when the worst accusation of them all was about to be levied against the Lady Emma’s Grace.

He spoke without preamble, “My spies have informed me that the queen signed a secret warrant for your arrest, on charges of high treason. They will be here no later than tomorrow afternoon to escort you back to London.”

There wasn’t so much as a flicker of emotion in response to his announcement, no gasp of alarm or draining of colour from her cheeks. There was only the barest arch of a brow as her gemstone-green gaze finally flicked to his.

“You have spies in my sister’s household, Killian?”

“Aye,” he answered, bothering to speak like a courtier as he moved to kneel in front of her and took her unresisting hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the rapidly fluttering pulse on the inside of his wrist. His informants had been well paid and it had been worth every penny to be kept apprised of the state of affairs at court, where Emma’s sister had failed to conceive a child and Philip had left his wife behind to wallow in her failure while he returned to his father’s empire and refused to come back to England. There would be no heir of Mary’s body born to succeed her, but she was loathe to let the daughter of her greatest enemy take her crown.

“My ship is docked at Portsmouth, we could be there by the morrow on a fast steed. My own is too spent from the journey, I’ll have the groom saddle a fresh mount from your stable whilst you don your plainest riding habit. The Dutch will surely offer you sanctuary inside their borders, or we could make for the Low Countries or-”

“I’m not leaving England.”

He reeled back as if she had slapped him, “What? Your Highness, please, if you don’t come with me tonight then they’ll take you to the Tower, and there will be no chance of rescuing you once you are secured behind those walls.”

She trembled and gave a heavy swallow at the mere thought of the ancient stronghold, but Emma did not waver in her conviction. “If I flee with you now, the moment I set foot off English soil my guilt will be confirmed in the eyes of the entire country. I will be convicted without fair trial, be branded traitor to the crown, and so will you.”

His face was a twisted mass of thunderclouds and storm, raging with the force of his emotions and the hand on hers tightened almost painfully. “Damn me for a traitor then, for I’ll not serve any crown or any prince save you and would rather sail lawlessly under the crimson flag for the rest of my days so long as you were kept safe from your enemies. For God’s sake, Emma, fair trial or not, you could still be executed for this, as your mother was before you.”

No one spoke the name Mary Blanchard at Hatfield, though her presence was the unseen ghost behind every fluttering curtain when there was no breeze and the shadow from every candle that flickered and danced so merrily before snuffing out. Once upon a time a king had loved a commoner he could not have, loved her beyond all reason and sense, a love so deep that it had nearly rent England right in two. Emma Nolan was her father’s daughter with her golden hair, but ambitious Blanchard blood ran through her veins, blood that had been spilled to see a daughter set upon a throne where no woman had ever sat before.

Killian begged and pled, “Don’t do this, Emma, please!” but she would not be moved. It was her destiny, set in motion long before she had even been born. It was a curse, inescapable, that had swept across the land and only she could break it.

There were tears on his face in the amber light from the fire, wet rivulets that carved tracks down his cheeks and she tasted the salt when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was a brand, a promise, a whisper of words she could not speak. Emma rose from her chair and let the robe fall from her shoulders to reveal the white silk chemise that she wore underneath, pure and unblemished, a thin, unsubstantial thing without corset or farthingale to shape and sculpt her form into that of a king’s daughter. Killian Jones sat dazed on the floor while she stood, too stunned by the sight of her to even try to arise to his feet when a lady did as a gentleman should.

“I will be queen and I will make you a lord, and all of England will one day be mine. But if I am truly fated to die on the scaffold like my mother before me, then I do not wish to die a virgin.”

She too loved a man she could not have, common born but with a noble heart hidden underneath that would best any prince. In a flash Emma was in his arms, pressed boldly against him from shoulder to shin while his mouth crashed down on hers and his large hands spanned the narrow turn of her waist to pull her even closer. Her fingers fumbled with his belt, sending it clattering to the floor in a heavy thump of leather and cloak and codpiece both quickly followed. In nothing but flowing shirt and close-fitting hose Killian lifted her up, striding into the adjoining bedchamber and kicking the door closed impatiently with his heel. The curtains were already pulled back and tied to the post, letting them fall straight to the mattress with his mouth never leaving hers.

Killian went onto his knees on either side of her and took the neck of the chemise in his hands, tearing it open down the front with no care for the cost of the silk in his ardour. Nude, she was much smaller than when fully gowned in sweeping skirts and padded bodices, delicate as gossamer with fine white skin that would bear the marks of his loving to be hidden away afterwards, his rough, sailor’s hands not meant to touch the likes of her. But touch her he did, thumbing over the apples of her cheeks as gently as he could and tipping her chin up to receive his kiss again. The long golden curls coyly veiled her breasts like a siren of the deep, he pushed the strands aside to reveal the rosy tips that went pebbled and tight from the exposure and even more so when he bent to take one in his mouth, a tiny gasp of surprise escaping her at the sensation and hands fisting tight in his hair with a burst of pleasure-pain that prickled all along his scalp. Killian slid a palm down over her hip and felt the brush of the downy hair that feathered over her mound against his stomach, making him twitch with need and fighting his baser instincts, laying his head on her breast and closing his eyes to take a breath and quell the boiling urge rising within lest he lose all control and just take her without care.

“Killian.”

The weight of his body on hers was not the burden she expected to have to bear, it was a comfort, warm and reassuring even as she trembled under him with the nerves she fought so hard to conceal from everyone but her most intimate of companions. There was nothing to conceal her now from his avid gaze, dark and wanting, and oh did she want, wanted nothing more to be the only woman he looked at like that. She laid her hands on his bare chest once he tossed his shirt aside, eager to touch and explore and marveled at the fine mat of hair that covered it all the way down to his navel, feeling the flex of his ribs and the scars normally hidden by linen and wool, lash marks laid on his broad back from uncaring masters who she swore would feel her own wrath one day. His maleness stood out proudly from the wiry thatch between his legs and was hot and velvet-smooth against her palm, while her heart raced and her pulse throbbed between her own, suddenly slippery thighs, an ache that only grew more demanding with every brush of skin to skin, every sigh that escaped kiss-swollen lips.

“Lay back, darling.”

The order was breathed into her ear and she reclined back against the pillow while his knees spread hers apart and his hips rolled forward until there was nothing that remained but the final join of his body to hers and it would be done. Her maidenhead belonged to England, not her, but Emma was already a traitor in the eyes of the Crown just by virtue of her birth anyway. High treason was committed at Hatfield not in any secret plot or plan to seize the throne, but in a pirate’s bed when he claimed her virtue for his own in a sharp thrust that stole the breath from her lungs and she let out only the barest cry as he pierced through the barrier inside with his forehead pressed to hers. Dark satisfaction filled her even as Killian did, firm buttocks cupped under her heels and hips positioned just so between her open thighs. She belonged to England, but she loved a man as her father had loved her mother and like the late King David she would have both, her land and her lover and let nothing and no one stand in her way.

Killian started to move, a heavy slide of flesh against flesh that made her shiver despite the fact that she was far from cold, clutching at his shoulders and giving in to the urge that had her legs hitch up higher on his waist, revelling in the low groan he let out in response.

“Bloody hell.”

The pleasure of their coupling rolled down Killian’s spine and pooled low at the base, making his hips jerk hard against Emma even as he tried to be as careful as he could, taking most of his weight on his arms when all he wanted was to pin her to the bed and take his pleasure hard and fast until he was fully spent. But they had all night and he had to make it last as long as he could, both because he didn’t know if he’d ever have this again and to make sure Emma did not go to the Tower carrying his bastard child. He railed against her going there at all, anger lacing his love for this stubborn woman and tempting him to spirit her away anyway by force. Killian swore to himself that if it came to that, the scaffold or sanctuary abroad, he’d find a way to smuggle her out of England on his ship come hell or high water and raise the crimson flag once more.

He was too close to completion, balls and belly both tight and poised on the very knife’s edge of satisfaction, buried as he was in her silky quim. He had to stop before it was too late and it was a whore’s trick to prevent conception that he employed, pulling out and finishing with his hand instead in a few quick pumps. The sticky mess soiled the formerly bedclothes, along with the small bloodstain smeared on the sheets that marked the moment of consummation. Royal blood spilled by his own sword, and Killian felt a surge of masculine pride that had his cock faintly stirring again against his groin before it softened again and curled limp. There was a basin and ewer on the stand and he’d clean them both up after regaining his breath, but for now he lay on his back with a princess in his arms and thanked every lucky star he could name, for fate had smiled upon Killian Jones and his own lips curled with satisfaction while a small hand settled over his heart.

A sailor always rose before the dawn, but the sun was streaming in through the window and he could feel it even behind his closed lids while he groped across the bed and quickly realized the pillow next to his was empty. Killian sat up, coverlet falling to his waist and blinking his eyes open to start at the sight of Mistress Ruby Lucas seated on the edge of the bed, gazing at him as placidly as a wolf would a rabbit. Still a striking woman, he sensed she’d have no scruples against striking him if she felt the need arise.

“I loved Emma’s mother, Captain Jones, and I love her as if she were my own.”

He was uncomfortably aware of his nudity under the bedclothes but he kept his face carefully blank, even when she threw a pointed glance towards where the coverlet dipped a hair too low.

“You must be gone before the queen’s men arrive. Dress now, and leave through the window, your horse is saddled and waiting. I’ll see that the bedding is taken out and burned afterwards. You were never here, and nothing happened last night. The Lady Emma spent the evening secluded in the chapel at prayer, if asked, I will testify to it under oath. Do you understand?”

Killian scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the weight of something settle on his shoulders. He understood perfectly and he nodded, knowing that like a fearsome she-wolf would protect her pup, Mistress Lucas would protect Emma from any hint of impropriety being discovered. A bundle of clothing was thrust unceremoniously at him along with a flask and a bit of bread and cheese tied up in a square of muslin for the journey back to the coast.

“Mistress Lucas?”

She paused in the doorway with one hand resting lightly on the wood and glanced back over her shoulder, “Captain?”

He spoke four words and then he stood, caring not for protecting his modesty as he shook the wrinkles from his shirt and began to dress. She understood his true meaning, he could tell by the knowing smile that flitted across her face before it was schooled back into a stern look.

“Long live the queen.”

#cs ff #cs fic #cs au #my fic #gloriana

71 notes · View notes

birbs-in-space · 6 years

Note

mashup meme, 54 and 97, newmann?

hi thank you i owe you my life

54 secret relationship, 97 time travel

ok so this is more than a little funny because i’ve actually written out the basic framework for a time travel newmann fic but i didn’t think that it would work here so i made a new au (mistake, i love worldbuilding too much), took a lot of liberties with ‘secret relationship’, and also i briefly forgot that uprising happened so this is just post pr1

------

Newt wakes up to an empty bed which--disappointing--but he’s not too concerned because it usually just means that Hermann’s had some idea that he wanted to get down and he couldn’t do it from bed. Newt gets it because he does the same, except he usually accidentally elbows Hermann awake in the process of wrestling himself out of bed. He straightens his undershirt, finds a presentable enough pair of sweatpants, and makes his way down to the lab.

The door’s askew when he gets there, and he’s about to barge in and announce his presence when he hears Hermann’s worried voice, quiet and frantic.

“I need more time.”

What? That doesn’t make sense. If anything, they’ve got all the time in the world. Post-Pitfall funding will get them through at least the next five years. There are no impending due dates hanging over their heads, no Kaiju knocking at their door. It’s the first time in nearly thirteen years that they’ve actually had all this time.

Newt edges into the lab, careful not to jar the door or knock anything over. He’s not keen on eavesdropping, but, now that he’s here and curious, he’s not entirely sure what to do.

Hermann’s alone, sitting at his desk with his face towards the chalkboards. There’s blue light reflected onto his face. If Newt had to guess, Hermann’s probably talking to someone on his phone or maybe his laptop.

“No,” Hermann says. “No, I am not compromised. I merely need more time to ensure that the future here is secure. No, Ma’am.”

Newt edges his way across the lab to his own table.

“No, I have no personal attachments. Forgive me, but you know my record--” Hermann stops talking abruptly, his mouth snapping shut and his face grim. “Understood,” he says after a moment. “Five days? Understood.”

The blue light fades and Hermann sags in his chair. It grows so quiet in the lab that Newt can hear the tick of an old analog clock. Newt had forgotten that they’d had one of those.

“Newton,” Hermann says and then looks over his shoulder to make eye contact. “I know you’re there. If you could please come over here.”

Newt jolts and takes a few breaths to calm his nerves. “Coming!” he says, his voice squeaking a bit.

“It’s unfortunate that you had to hear some of that,” Hermann says, “but I suppose it is for the best.” He takes ahold of one of Newton’s hands and holds it tightly. He looks absolutely shattered. “I haven’t told you everything about myself.”

“Is this a Terminator kind of thing?” Newt jokes before he can stop himself.

Hermann blinks, apparently thrown. “I--no, I don’t believe so. Provided, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“A cyborg goes back in time and tries to kill this dude’s mom whose kid’s--the dude--he’s gonna stop this robot uprising.”

“Not quite like that,” Hermann says.

Not quite? What does that even mean? Is Hermann a robot? That doesn’t make any sense because then the drift wouldn’t have worked and-- Newt forces himself to stay quiet despite the hundreds of questions building up in his mind and attempts to school his face into a neutral expression. He’s pretty sure he’s not doing it right, if Hermann’s pitying face is anything to go by.

“I am from a different timeline, technically,” Hermann says, “and I was sent here with a mission, but that mission doesn’t involve killing anyone.” He hesitates, then amends, “Except for the Kaijus, though I suppose I am only indirectly involved in that.”

Ugh, Kaijus. Wait, no. No, Hermann just told him that he’s a time traveller and maybe some kind of secret agent? It sounds like some kind of science fiction story. “You’re from a different timeline?” Newt fights to keep his voice down. “How come I didn’t see it in the drift?”

Technically those memories are not connected to this body?” Hermann suggests but his tone of voice says question more than statement. Newt’s confusion must show on his face, because Hermann is quick to explain. “I was sent here as energy, but I was born here. Safety precautions dictate that energy is the only thing that can leave the base, though mass can enter.”

“Dude,” Newt says, “that’s wicked sick.”

“Wicked sick?” Hermann asks. “Is that supposed a good or a bad thing?”

“Oh a good thing for sure, dude,” Newt says, “it means that you’re the coolest.” The clarification doesn’t seem to do much for Hermann’s confusion, but he does look incrementally more relieved. Good. “Wow, this is nuts. Anyways, what’s up with the five more days thing?”

Hermann flinches. “That’s my deadline to return, to leave here,” he says. His grip tightens on Newt’s hand. “To leave you. My mission here is technically complete, so my supervisors have deemed it necessary for me to travel back.”

Oh, fuck, that’s bad. “Right, nope, not gonna happen,” Newt places his free hand over Hermann’s. “It took us ten entire years to admit that we love each other, and I’m not about to go giving up on us so easily.” He leans forward to kiss him but then reassesses. It doesn’t really look like what Hermann needs right now.

“It’s not so easy to disobey,” Hermann says gently. “They can recall me at any time, and doing so forcefully leaves the body behind.”

Newt winces. “That doesn’t sound good,” he says.

“It’s a rather painful process.” Hermann agrees.

“I guess that rules that one out,” Newt says. It’s all coming on so fast. He’s still struggling to grasp everything that’s Hermann’s told him so far. Part of him can’t help but wonder if Hermann’s leading him on, but he doesn’t listen to it. Hermann’s never ever been that guy. “What was that thing about attachments, by the way?”

Hermann sighs. “Technically, I, or rather we, my fellow agents and I, are forbidden from forming personal relationships, except for those necessary for the completion of the mission.”

A quick flash of doubt washes over his mind concerning the veracity of his and Hermann’s relationship, but Hermann continues before it can sink its claws in.

“I have known my fellow agents to engage in such behavior from time to time, given that it never interfered with the mission. With you, I have failed utterly and completely.” He pulls a hand free but places it right on top of Newt’s. “I love and care for you deeply, and I do not wish to leave you in any capacity.”

“I love you too, Hermann,” Newt says, leaning over to pull Hermann is his arms. They stay like that, comfortable, until it starts to feel too much like Newt’s trying to memorize what this feels like, and he doesn’t want to deal with what that implies.

Newt pulls back a bit so he can look at Hermann’s face. “I take it that when you’re compromised, it doesn’t mean they just terminate your contract and you can stay here.”

“When you’re compromised,” Hermann says with a grimace, “you are forcefully recalled and then you are killed.”

“Oh fuck,” Newt says.

-----

“Hey,” Newt says, “so why can’t you just stay here longer and then time and space travel back to whenever they want you to be back.”

“Safety precautions prevent incoming time travel. It’s mostly to ensure that base or the organization is never sabotaged, but it means that all active assets, myself included, are tied to a linear timeline relative to the process of time at the base,” Hermann explains.

“Huh,” Newt says, trying to process what Hermann just said. “I think that could be more clearly phrased.”

“It means regardless of what I do, time will always pass in the base the same it does for me. For instance, if I was capable of travel to, say 1920, and I spent 5 hours there and then returned to here the second that I left, one second will have passed for you, but five hours will have passed for both me and the base,” Hermann says.

“That’s stupid,” Newt replies.

Hermann, to Newt’s utter surprise, laughs hard. “It is unfortunate,” he says when he is able, “yes.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Newt vows.

------

“What if I went with you?” Newt asks over lunch. He ignores it when Hermann steals his last orange slice.

“Hm?”

“To the base,” Newt says, “or whatever you call it.”

Hermann swallows his food. “I, ah. I'm not qualified to register you as anything less than a prisoner. If you are not properly tagged, the transportation process will kill you.”

“Yikes.” Newt chews on some kind of fibrous vegetable. It’s getting stuck between his teeth. “But if you did register me as a prisoner, at least we'd be in proximity to each other, right?”

“No,” Hermann says. “Except in the rarest circumstances, prisoners face either solitary confinement or death.”

“That's more than a little horrifying,” Newt says. “That happens to all of the prisoners?”

“We only arrest people for the most egregious crimes, Newton,” Hermann says

Newt gulps. “Alright, let's rule that one out.”

------

“An appeal,” Hermann says on the fourth night, nearing the final day. “If a knowledgeable but unattached third party makes an appeal to the base, I may be granted permanent posting here, until the death of this body.”

Newt’s half asleep when Hermann starts talking, but he’s flailing upwards by the end of it, trying as hard as he can to listen.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, his voice nearly cracking. “Why didn’t you mention this sooner!?”

“I had forgotten it existed!” Hermann replies. His hands are on Newt’s arms, clinging tight. “It’s been over 3000 years since the last appeal, and that was in the middle of a cold war.”

Newt can’t think of any cold wars happening on Earth three millennia ago which must mean...oh shit, good aliens. Wait, does that mean Hermann’s an alien? Maybe not physically, but like-- There isn’t any time to process this information, though, because there’s an actual, solid chance that Hermann might not have to leave, and that’s not something he can just get distracted from.

“So all I gotta do is convince a bunch of people that you’re absolutely necessary for the continued safety of this world,” Newt says, trying to slow his heart rate. This is definitely something he can do. Everything’s going to be okay.

“You must also convince them that we are nothing more than colleagues. Friendship still is even too close of a personal connection,” Hermann says.

“It’s okay,” Newt says. He’s looking hard down at the bed. “If it means that you can stay here, I’m pretty sure I can lie.” He laughs, somewhat hysterically. “I mean I got six PhDs, right? You can’t defend that many theses without a bit of bullshitting.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Hermann says, loosening his grip on Newt’s arms. He sounds impossibly fond.

Newton wants to cry with relief.

------

Newt makes the call at seven in the morning. Hermann hands him a small device, tells him which buttons to press, and then clears out of the lab.

His heart rate skyrockets when he hears the dial tone. It’s surreal. Why is there a fucking dial tone of all things?

But then the call picks up and Newt has to straighten out his face and pretend like his heart isn’t going a hundred miles a minute.

The video projection is heavily obscured, as Hermann said it would be, but the voice comes through surprisingly clear.

“This is an appeal statement for the asset currently named ‘Hermann Gottlieb’. Please confirm or deny.”

Newt takes a breath. He can do this. “Confirm.”

“Please begin statement,” the voice says.

“My name is Dr. Newton Geiszler. I am a scientist with the PPDC and a colleague of Dr. Gottlieb. I primarily research Kaiju biology. Dr. Hermann Gottlieb has saved countless lives through his contributions to the PPDC program,” Newt says. “I have worked in proximity to him for the past ten years, so I may be the most qualified to report on him.”

Does that sound distant enough? Damn, he really should have practiced this more.

“He helped lay the groundwork for Jaeger programming, helping give us--humanity--a fighting chance. When he moved on to research the Breach, he built a predictive model that helped us locate and time future attacks, allowing us to greatly reduce our response time.”

It sounds too much like a resume. Newt flinches, probably something the camera picked up. He’s never won an argument this way, just stating all the facts.

“The war is not over. While the Breach may be closed, I do not believe that the Precursors will stop their attack on Earth. We may only be familiar with a fraction of their technology, but we know they created the Breach, and it’s only a matter of time before they create another one.”

He doesn’t know it for sure, but he believes it with all of his heart. Some mornings he wakes up completely convinced that a breach is going to tear open at any second and Kaiju are going to come spilling through. There’s always a chance it’s not his fear but rather Hermann’s leaking through the ghost drift. If that’s the case, though, then Newton has way more to be terrified about. Hermann is scientific, pragmatic. If he holds these convictions this strongly, then it’s almost guaranteed to happen.

“Dr. Gottlieb and I, we were the last of the research department to remain. We likely would have lost the w--I would have died--were it not for him.”

Oh, shit. Those were the bad words. He has to fix this, quickly, quickly--

“What I mean to say, is that if the Kaiju come back, and Hermann isn’t here, we will all die, because it was just he and me at the end of it all, because the other researchers left, that’s how I know so strongly that he is needed here. He is smart, he is loyal, he doesn’t give up in the face of adversity.”

Yeah, that’s not helping either. Time to no romo this shit hard because it turns out he is really bad at this no attachments thing.

“Maybe if we’re lucky, we can scrape by without him, but to lose that many people, that much progress, we would never recover. Dr. Gottlieb is a respected colleague, and we all rely greatly on his future contributions here.”

Newt can’t tell if he said the right words or the wrong words at all because the next words from the voice are completely unrelated. “Explain knowledge of Precursor technology.”

“I, uh, I drifted with a Kaiju in a last ditch attempt to end the war,” Newt says hesitantly. He leaves Hermann out of it, just in case they know what the other effects of drifting are. “Alongside extensive study of Kaiju remains.”

The voice coughs, completely breaking character. “I’m sorry, you what? Could you repeat that, please?”

“I drifted with a Kaiju?”

“Acknowledged,” the voice says, sounding bewildered. “Please elaborate on personal relationship with Gottlieb.”

“He’s a colleague,” Newt says. The less the better, right?

“Elaborate.”

Okay, maybe not. “I have worked alongside but not in with him for many years. We share the same goals, but we are extremely dissimilar, which has led our relationship to be defined, at least on my part, as grudging respect? I have never been able to get particularly close to him, as he is extremely private. I realized this early on in our working relationship and felt no inclination to press the issue. I never felt a need for his friendship. I’m surprised we’ve worked together this long, honestly. We are colleagues, nothing more.”

It hurts to say, but it flows so much easier than everything he was stumbling over before. Years and years of practice or firing insults back at Hermann whenever Hermann took offense at his clothing or his taste in music or his inability to properly follow procedure to the dot, it’s almost muscle memory.

Whatever it reveals, it seems to be enough for them to make a decision because the voice says, “Statement complete. Decision will be reached in five minutes. Prepare for reply,” and the call disconnects.

Newt takes a deep breath and stands abruptly, running for the lab door. Hermann is waiting on the other side.

“I have no idea how I did,” Newt says.

Hermann doesn’t reply with words, instead choosing to kiss Newt like he’s dying and he needs to be certain that the last air he’ll ever breathe will be Newt’s.

“I think they’re going to be calling back soon,” Newt says when he’s finally freed.

Hermann freezes and accepts the device from Newt. “I’m supposed to accept this alone.”

“Good luck,” Newt says and gives Hermann one last peck on the lips before Hermann disappears into the lab and the doors close after him.

-----

After what seems like an eternity, the lab doors open, and Hermann walks through, joy radiating off him in waves.

“They called you an idiot,” he says, though Newt’s pretty sure that’s not what he means.

“What?” Newt asks.

“For drifting with a Kaiju,” Hermann says. “They called you an idiot.”

“That’s fair,” Newt says. The last bit gets muffled as Hermann envelops him with a hug.

“I don’t have to leave,” Hermann whispers. “I don’t have to leave.”

“That’s good,” Newt says. “Thank fuck.”

Hermann laughs.

#anonymous #ask meme #writing meme #newmann #whoever you are thank you so much i'm sorry this is so long i just started going #i'm not too happy w the flow and the presentation of information but...it's ok #i'm just glad i actually finished something #i may post this ao3 later if i can get someone to help me clean it up????#i made a new account for tabula rasa purposes #Anonymous

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