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the-iceni-bitch · 4 years ago

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My Body Aches to Breathe Your Breath

Pairing: serial killer!Charles Blackwood

Words: another mobile guess, ~2k

Summary: Charles is sick of you upsetting his plans, and now he has to spend Valentines Day with you.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral sex (f receiving), unprotected vaginal sex), mentions of murder and descriptions of side effects from long term poisoning, SMUT, 18+ ONLY!!!!

A/N: my second gift for @drabblewithfrannybarnes @chrissquares and @amythedvdhoarder’s Happy Hoelentines Day 2021 challenge!! My giftee was @literate-lamb and she requested a Valentines Day themed serial killer fic, so I figure Charles Blackwood would be a perfect fit. There’s nothing too dark in this one, just mentions of death and descriptions of poisoning symptoms, but please be mindful anyways! I hope you all enjoy, and have a happy holentines!!!

Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!

Charles watched you like a hawk from the giant window in the bedroom.

You’d just come back from your afternoon ride, your hair tousled and your breath coming in shallow pants as you dismounted. You removed your riding gloves and tucked them into your belt as you handed the reins to the stable hand, giving your mare an affectionate pat on the nose before turning to head inside.

He’d been obsessed with you ever since you came to stay with your aunt, his wife, six months ago. Your easy grace and poise cut by a wicked tongue that endeared you to him immediately.

It was worrisome. He would have typically moved on by now; your aunt had already changed her will, and he’d started slipping the thallium into her evening drinks ever since then. But every time he got close to administering that final dose, the dose that would finally free him from his seventh false marriage, the thought of leaving you staid his hand.

He was determined to finish it tonight. Finally put the old bitch out of her misery, and on Valentines Day no less. She let out a pained groan from the bed behind him and he rolled his eyes before turning to give her a sickeningly sweet smile, full of false sympathy.

“Do you want me to call the doctor back here, my love?” Charles murmured, doing his best to look lovingly at the creature in front of him.

“No darling, he’s no help. Just, help me to the bathroom please.”

He felt his stomach churn at the thought, but bent to help her stand anyways. Your aunt wasn’t beautiful by any means when Charles first met her, but now she looked ghastly; a rattling mess of skin and bones whose hair was falling out in clumps. Charles couldn’t believe his luck that the doctor hadn’t thought to do any tests for poisoning or he would’ve been fucked.

“Oh no, Auntie!” You cried as you flowed into the room. “Is it your stomach again?”

“Yes dear.” She let out in a pained sigh, leaning heavily on Charles’ arm as she hobbled through the bathroom door, collapsing in front of the toilet and heaving.

It was all he could do not to run out of the room. His own stomach was roiling as he did his best to ignore your aunt, turning his gaze to you instead.

You moved from where you were leaning on the wall to come help; not rushing, but gliding past Charles at a smooth pace. Your hand brushed his arm as you moved past him and made him suck in a breath.

He watched you kneel beside the pathetic creature and you gave him a sad smile as you held back the little hair she had left and stroked her back soothingly. You were the embodiment of life and vigor next to your dying aunt, and all he wanted to do was shove her aside and fuck you senseless.

You’d been teasing him for weeks, and he couldn’t tell if you were doing it on purpose or not. Whether it was just a lingering look with a wicked grin or tracing your fingers absentmindedly on his thigh while you chatted, it seemed like every action you took was specifically geared to drive him crazy.

Now you were bent over your aunt making soft cooing noises, but the angle you were at gave Charles a view right down the front of your blouse. He felt his cock twitch in his slacks as he stared at the valley between your breasts, and fought to swallow a moan.

“Charles, dear, I don’t think I’ll be able to join you for the lovely dinner you have planned for us. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that I’m forcing you to spend Valentines Day on your own, but you can see that I’m in no shape for romance.”

“Darling, I don’t care about Valentines Day, I’d much rather take care of you.” He said through gritted teeth, trying to move his thoughts away from all the filthy things he wanted to do to you.

“I’ll be fine, I just need to rest. Darla can bring me my tea this evening, you should take some time for yourself. You’ve done so much for me. I just wish you didn’t have to be by yourself.”

“Aww, don’t worry, Auntie. My date canceled and I’d be happy to keep Charles company for the evening.” You murmured as you helped her back to the bed, giving Charles a grin and a wink over your shoulder.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! Not about your date but I’m so glad my two favorite people will at least have each other.” Your aunt sighed as you pulled the blankets over her. “Please have Darla bring me my tea darling, then I’ll sleep.”

Charles’ jaw clenched as he bent to give her a soft peck in the forehead before moving to the doorway.

“Just give me a few minutes to wash up and I’ll be right down.” You said, still beaming at him as you sauntered away, your hips swinging suggestively in your riding boots.

He swallowed a groan before turning towards the kitchen running a hand over his face as he did his best to school his thoughts.

He set the kettle on the stove and chewed his lip in frustration. He should’ve been long gone by now, living off your aunt’s fortune on some tiny Greek island. But here he was, thinking of nothing but going up to your room and tearing all your clothes off then fucking you until you were begging him to let you cum.

The tea kettle let out a high whistle and he removed it quickly, pulling your aunt’s favorite tea off the shelf and placing a sachet in a cup before pouring boiling water over it. He pulled the amber vial out of his pocket and gazed at it before pulling the stopper and emptying it into the cup.

He placed the cup on a tray along with a single rose and called Darla into the kitchen, instructing her to bring the cup to your aunt before moving to the dining room and pouring himself a drink. He downed his first glass of bourbon in one shot, bringing the bottle with him as he sank into the chair at the head of the table.

He had already finished three drinks by the time you swept into the dining room, and he swallowed a moan when he saw you. You were wearing a burgundy dress that billowed behind you, its slit going almost up to your hip.

“Hope you don’t mind me dressing up.” You beamed at him. “Figured I should get some use out of this dress.”

“It’s fine.” He said, wincing at the crack in his voice that he hoped you didn’t notice before taking another gulp of bourbon.

You gave a light laugh before moving to the bar and pouring yourself a glass of rose. He watched you as you turned back to him, giving him a wink as you sat down in the seat beside him.

“So, what’re we eating?” You said after taking a sip of wine, watching him squirm under your gaze as the staff brought out the appetizers. “Ooh, oysters.”

He had to pour himself another drink as he watched you reach across the table to serve yourself. He almost choked as he watched you swallow your hors d’ouevres in one gulp, humming your satisfaction as you reached for another.

“Good?” He asked as he watched you swallow again, his cock twitching as he thought about your lips wrapped around him.

“So good. You gonna eat or just watch me?” You teased as you leaned back in your chair, taking a swig of wine.

He chuckled before taking an oyster for himself. His eyes never left yours as he scooped the meat from the shell with his tongue and swallowed thickly.

You tittered into your drink before looking over your shoulder as the staff brought in the next course.

“Jesus Christ, lamb? You trying to get in my pants, Charles?” You teased before taking a bite. “Fuck me, that’s fantastic.”

“That language typically work for you, darling?” He said, shaking his head as he tucked into his own meal.

“You tell me, sweetheart. You’re the one who can’t stop staring at me.” You teased, laughing as he spluttered around his food.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said after taking a drink of water, trying his best to avoid making eye contact with you now.

“Sure you don’t.” You said with an eye roll, moving your focus back to your food.

The two of you finished the meal without any more conversation. Charles did his best to ignore the small sounds of pleasure you kept making, little hums and sighs escaping from you as you enjoyed your food. He had drunk almost half of the bottle of bourbon by the time the staff came to clear the table.

He was about to stand up to leave when they came back into the room with the dessert and he cursed under his breath.

“Well, well. You sure know how to treat a lady, Mr. Blackwood.” You teased as you accepted a champagne cocktail, taking a sip as you winked at him suggestively. “Look at all this chocolate.”

You popped a truffle into your mouth and let out a moan that was almost pornographic, your eyes rolling back into your skull dramatically.

“You need to try some of these Charles.” You said as you wrapped your lips around a strawberry.

“I don’t have that much of a sweet tooth.” He said as he watched you slurp the juices from your lips.

“Aww, c’mon, just a taste.”

He didn’t have a chance to respond before you had moved to sit on the table in front of him, grabbing another strawberry and holding it in front of his mouth. He parted his lips and gazed up at you through his lashes as you pressed the strawberry against his tongue. You bit your lip as he took a bite and moved your foot to rest between his thighs.

“What’re you doing?” He asked as his gaze ran over your leg where it had escaped from the slit of your skirt.

“I think you know.” You murmured, scooting even closer to him. “I’ve seen you watching me.” You moved your foot to hook under the armrest of his chair and dragged him towards you. “I’m gonna tell you a secret. I never even had a date tonight.”

He tried to stand up to leave and you pressed your stilettoed foot to his chest, pinning him to his seat as his breath started coming in ragged gasps. You tutted you’re disappointment at him as you leaned back on your hands.

“You need to stop fighting it, baby.” You murmured as you twisted your toe into his shirt. “I know there’s no way my poor sick aunt has been taking care of your needs. When’s the last time anyone aside from you touched that cock?”

“Fuck.” He hissed as your foot moved to press into the bulge that was forming at the front of his slacks. “We shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I think we should.” You moaned as you tossed your skirt over your other leg and spread your thighs, bringing a hand to run over the soaked lace that covered your core. “I’m so fucking wet for you, baby. Don’t you want a taste?”

He growled at you before digging his fingers into your hips and running his teeth over the inside of your thigh. You let out a whine as his fingers moved under the straps of your panties and ripped them off you before diving between your legs.

You wrapped your fingers in his hair as he ran his tongue over your slit in a heavy stripe, moaning against your entrance as he finally tasted you. He lapped at your greedily, slurping up your arousal with a series of obscene sounds. His hands dug into the soft skin of your thighs as he ate you out, drawing bruises.

Your arms collapsed when he thrust his tongue inside you, massaging your canal with the thick muscle as you writhed against his face and whimpered. His lips brushed against your clit as he tongue fucked you and you tugged on his hair until it was almost painful.

“Shit, don’t stop.” You muttered as his lips wrapped around your clit and you felt your pussy clench around nothing. “I’m right there.”

He held your hips down as he sucked your pearl into his mouth and you let out a shriek. Your back tried to arch back on itself as the wave of your orgasm crashed over you, your release flowing over Charles’ mouth as your thighs clamped around his head.

You were panting heavily when you finally released him, your muscles still occasionally spasming with aftershocks as he undid the fly of his slacks before yanking you off the table until you were straddling his lap and leaned against his shoulder, your legs spread wide over his thighs as he ran his teeth over the curve of your neck.

“I’m sick of you teasing me darlin’.” He growled into your hair as he ripped the sleeves of your dress down your shoulders, exposing your breasts and bringing his hands up to tweak your nipples to the point of pain. “I’m gonna fucking ruin you. Thinking there’s no consequences to your actions.”

You yelped as he slipped a hand between your legs and slapped your pussy, making you throb with with need before letting out a low moan. His teeth sank into your shoulder as he drew his cock from his slacks and teased it against your entrance before spearing into you, sheathing himself to the hilt in one quick motion.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking tight.” He murmured before he started to move his hips, driving up into you in slow, fluid thrusts that had him dragging against every angle of your canal. “God, you feel even better than I imagined.”

You rested your hands on his knees and tossed your head back as his mouth moved down to your breasts and wrapped his lips around one of your nipples, rolling it between his tongue and teeth as his hands dug into your waist. Your back arched into his mouth as you sighed, your cunt clenching around him as he moved to your other nipple and rolled it through his teeth.

He groaned against your chest as your breath hitched, a coil starting to tighten in your abdomen as heat spread from your core. You squeezed him with your thighs as he brought you closer and closer, your nails digging into his knees.

“C’mon pretty girl, give it to me.” He ordered you, gazing up at you through his lashes as you let out a thin whine. “This pussy’s squeezing me so good. I wanna feel you cum.”

You swallowed a scream as your torso rolled against his as the coil in your abdomen snapped violently. He wrapped his arms around you to hold you in place as your vibrated against him, your pussy fluttering around him as your released flowed out of you and soaked the front of his slacks.

Charles hooked his hands under your knees and drew them over his shoulders, his cock hitting you at an even deeper angle that made you whine. He brought a hand between you and started to strum his thumb against your clit.

Your arms almost collapsed as he wrapped an arm around your waist to steady you. You moved your hands to grip his forearms desperately as another orgasm threatened to rip through you. His cock twitched inside you as you clenched around him sporadically, making him groan.

“Fuck, are you cumming again already?” He asked as your fingers gripped him painfully, striving for something to anchor you as he pushed you over the edge with a final drive of his hips and a press of his thumb against you.

You let out a wordless cry as a wave of pleasure wracked you, your body trying to fold in on itself as you fluttered around him. He let out a hiss as his hips stuttered and his cock twitched inside you before his spend filled you up, mixing with your release and leaking out of you in a thick mess.

“Jesus fuck.” You muttered as you unfolded yourself, resting your head against his shoulder as he panted into your hair. He drew your face to his and brushed his lips against yours before pressing them to you desperately, his tongue slipping between your teeth and tangling with yours.

“Run away with me.” He said, his eyes gazing into yours as he pleaded with you, his tongue running over his kiss swollen bottom lip.

“Did you finally use that little vial you’ve been carrying around, babe?” You asked as you gave him a wicked grin. “Cuz I don’t really feel like having my aunt chase after us.”

“It’s done.” He said, not fully registering the fact that you not only knew what he had been planning, but that you had done nothing to stop him. He was too intoxicated with you.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, stealing the breath from his lungs as he dug his hands into your waist. He groaned when you pulled away from him, drawing the sleeves of your dress back over your shoulders to cover your breasts.

“I’ll go pack.” You said bending to give him a quick peck before leaving to head back to your room. You left Charles on his own to tuck himself back into his slacks, and dream about starting a new life with you.

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yellowocaballero · 4 years ago

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He’s Just Not That Into You: Web!Jon and Martin ficlet

Another ficlet written in the same universe as The Convention on Chronographer Lane/The Monster at the End of This Book. As before, you don’t need to have read that to read this. These ficlets are being written as character studies so I get a good handle on the uniqueness of the characters in this AU before I actually write something longer. Which is why they’re...like this.

Very slight content warning for internalized fatphobia and Jon being interpreted as being a creep again. Reverse content warning for Martin’s tasty pasta.

EDIT 2/4/2021: With the release of Sucker’s Bet, which this story was a kind of pilot study for, this story is no longer canon. However, you can still consider it a 15 page summary of that entire story. I’m sad I couldn’t keep the ‘join my spider cult’ thing but we all make sacrifices.

Martin was in the middle of making a delicious pot of pasta when Jonathan Sims crawled in through his kitchen window.

Martin stared at Jonathan Sims, too out of it to even be surprised. Jon halted halfway through his entrance, sitting on the windowsill with one leg swung over it to rest on his floor, one leg on the fire escape above. Martin was on the sixth floor of his flat complex.

“Hullo,” Jon said, as if he was not in his window, “have you reconsidered my offer of -”

Martin threw his spoon at Jon, hitting him squarely on the forehead. Jon cursed, shocked into leaning backwards, and he accidentally topped off the window and onto the fire escape. He landed on the metal grid with a loud crash and a rattle, and the muffled sounds of his cursing echoed through the flat.

After a second to grab a new spoon and turn down the heat on the pot, Martin walked over to the window and wiggled it down again. He looked Jon dead in the eyes as he locked it, before going back to his pasta.

It was good. He should add some pesto and herbs next time.

Martin was in the middle of making a delicious pot of pasta when Jonathan Sims crawled in through his kitchen window.

“Hullo,” Jon said, as if he was not in his window, “have you reconsidered my offer of -”

It was good. He should add some pesto and herbs next time.

***

Martin had never really bothered to learn how to cook, but now that he was unemployed he had plenty of time.

Now that he was unemployed, he had plenty of time for lots of things. He was finally taking up knitting again. Lots of seasons of Jane the Virgin to catch up on. His severance package from the Institute had been pretty good, not to mention the check Rosie had slipped him with a wink that she had worryingly called ‘Hazard Pay’, but this was London and even Martin could only make the money stretch so far. He spent eight hours of his day looking for jobs, touting his five year experience as a librarian and six month experience as an Archival assistant. But there was only so far you could go without a degree, and the market was shit, and really wouldn’t it just be so much easier to list a master’s in library science from some huge, anonymous university…

But Martin had the feeling that line of thought was what had put him on Jon’s radar in the first place.

***

A week later Martin was halfway through a comforting Gilmore Girls rewatch when he heard a knock on his door. He had been fastidiously avoiding answering knocks on the door ever since Jon had pulled his first Jehovah’s Witness impression, but he had ordered a replacement washing machine part and it was arriving that day. He put his knitting down and got up, peering through the eyehole - hair not nearly long enough to be Jon, great - and opened the door.

“Hullo,” the man said in a thick Cockney accent, not looking up from his clipboard, “I got a package here for Mr. Blackwood?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Martin held out his hands to take the little screen and sign for the package. After a second of clumsy fumbling, the man passed the package and the screen over, and Martin boredly scribbled his name. “Thanks, mate -”

But the man was gone, and Martin had realized belatedly that the man had slipped past Martin to enter his flat. He easily slid the cap off, letting his tightly curled hair cascade down to his shoulders, and propped his hands on his hips as he spun in a circle, admiring Martin’s extraordinarily boring and cramped flat.

“Really love what you’ve done with the place!” Jonathan Sims said loudly. “Your sense of interior design is really impeccable, Martin, truly. A man’s home is his castle! Oh, is that vintage chintz? So cute.”

“Get out of my house.”

“Look at this ceramic kitten!” Jon was already in front of his mantle, carefully scrutinizing his little row of ceramic figures. They were fifty pence at the charity shops and Martin found them precious and charming, okay? “Your place has so much personality. My flat has personality too, but I’m afraid that personality just screams a propensity towards arson, so it’s much less impressive. How old is that couch, from the 70s? Very grandmother. Is it inherited?”

Yes. “No,” Martin said, resisting the urge to throttle the man as he dumped his washing machine part on the end table, “and please get out of my flat. I’ve said explicitly I don’t want you where I live -”

“Really, Martin, I’m hardly a vampire,” Jon said, having the gall to look offended as he cradled a little meowing ceramic kitten in his hand. “If I needed permission to enter dwellings I’d never go anywhere.” He paused a beat, something seeming to occur to him. “But I get a lot of permission from many different people of a variety of genders to enter their homes for sex, which I am very good at.” He paused again. “I really am very thirsty. I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a spot of tea…?”

Because Martin was British, he made the tea. But he resented every second of it.

Jon hadn’t started stalking him immediately after he and his weirdo friends had murdered Martin’s boss, but it was pretty close. He had probably thought a week was enough time to emotionally recover from the ordeal of finding out that your boss’ boss was an immortal apocalypse cultist or whatever and that your boss was actually just a plant from a different and somehow creepier apocalypse cult inserted into your workplace to assassinate his boss. He had probably thought that a week was enough time to emotionally recover from the fact that Jonathan Sims - prickly, rude, pretentious Head Archivist with a heart of gold - was an elaborate fabrication, and that the man whom Martin had been falling for had never truly existed at all.

A week had not been enough time.

He didn’t even know Jon’s real name.

“So what is your real name, anyway?” They were, unfortunately, sitting at Martin’s rinky-dink kitchen table, complete with little pock-marked burn scars in the wood and a wobbly leg. Martin had a magazine rolled up and jammed under the leg, which he was uncomfortably aware of as Jon lounged in his hard little wooden chair as if it was a thousand dollar gaming chair. The fake UPS uniform helped make him look like something other than a movie star, but it was hard to disguise the sharp and haughty features and the cold grey eyes. He had kept the ceramic cat, placing it in front of him with its little plainative face turned towards Martin.

“What makes you think it’s not Jonathan Sims?” Jon asked archly, sipping at his PG Tips out of a chipped black mug. He made a faint face. “Sorry, is there cream for this? I hate black tea.”

“You always take your tea black,” Martin said automatically. Jon stared at him until he got it. “Of course. Right.”

By the time he got back to the table with the sugar and cream Jon was going through his mail, with absolutely no shame whatsoever. “Bill, bill, overdue bill. You’re hurting for money, aren’t you? You know, I might know someone who’s hiring -”

“If you’re about to say a giant spider that’s going to lay eggs in my stomach and then burst out of my skin and transform me into a spider person, I have to pass.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Jon blatantly lied. “I just don’t think you’re hearing me out. Has anybody ever told you that you’re very unwilling to listen to new ideas?”

“When the new idea is joining a spider cult, then yes. Actually, no, because nobody’s ever asked me that before I met you.”

Jon didn’t seem to pick up on Martin’s extraordinarily pained expression, or maybe he just didn’t care. He leaned in instead, easily dropping a grotesque amount of sugar cubes into his tea. “Just consider it. Let the idea percolate in your mind. There’s a lot of benefits. No more worrying about money. No more putting in all that work to manipulate people. It’d be as easy as breathing for you. Anybody you want to like you likes you, and anybody you hate has their life ruined in days.” Something glinted with light in Jon’s grey eyes, like a spotlight shining off a raincloud. “Anybody you want to fall in love with you does so instantly. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“All for the low, low price of selling my soul to a giant spider god,” Martin said sarcastically. Jon nodded fastidiously, as if it really was a low price. “Seriously, Jon? I have no interest in any of this. I don’t even know why you’ve singled me out to stalk. I don’t - I don’t like manipulating people, it’s not some kind of hobby -”

“Liar. You love manipulating people.” Jon sipped his tea, as if bored. “Honestly, Martin, we’re all friends here. I won’t judge. You don’t need to virtue signal. We both love manipulating people, getting what we want, putting on personas. We like to control how people see us, no matter what that perception is. You believe that ends justify the means, I believe that good means result in good ends. We’ve very similar.” Something strange entered Jon’s expression, almost entirely hidden by the tea, and for the first time Martin wondered if this was an expression Jon hadn’t meant for him to see. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who is exactly like me. We should work together. You’re so well suited for the Mother. You’d be a treasured son. Valued, celebrated, loved. Everything you always wanted, you can have.”

Silence stretched between them. Martin let Jon think that he was thinking it over, staring into his own cup of Earl Grey and letting the slowly wafting steam fog up his glasses. Jon sipped his tea again, still posed casually yet attractively. In a brief yet stupid spurt of nostalgia Martin found himself missing the man he thought Jonathan Sims had been.

Stupid. Loving Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist, had been as real as crushing on a love interest in a dating sim. Instead, Martin leaned in, and Jon leaned in to match him. Martin locked eyes with him, as sincerely as he possibly could. No lies, no artifice. “Stop projecting your insecurity about your own bad decisions on me,” Martin enunciated clearly, and Jon’s eyes widened in shock. “and get out of my house.”

He did, eventually. Maybe that was one of a million surprising things about Jonathan Sims, or whatever his real name was: Martin could always get him to do what he wanted eventually.

***

Martin did not spend time thinking about Jonathan Sims, mostly because he had the feeling that this was what Jonathan Sims wanted.

Instead, he frantically piled more and more projects and work into his free time. Ever since he was seventeen, Martin had always held down at least three jobs. His life was a never-ending rotation of a six am to three pm shift at Papa John’s, then a three pm to ten pm shift at Panera, and then stumbling home to stuff a ready meal in the microwave before doing it all over again only to work his third weekend job on the weekends. It had gotten to the point where he had paid the unemployed downstairs neighbor living on disability cheques to feed and occasionally take care of Mum because he hadn’t had time to do it himself. Martin could have have just dropped a job and scraped by on two so he could take care of Mum himself, but - well, it wasn’t hurting anybody. His neighbor had needed the cheques, right?

In comparison, the Institute had been an absolute dream. Work from nine to five, every day, then come home and crash. There had been benefits, insurance. It probably said something that even after discovering that both of his bosses had been cultists to Lovecraftian horrors who wanted to end the world or whatever, it was still the best job he ever had. He even missed it, sometimes - missed listening to Sasha and Tim joke around, missed the repetitive work, missed harmlessly and shallowly crushing on his persnickety boss who sometimes flashed a smile at him that made his heart melt.

Fucker had known exactly what he was doing.

That was what got Martin, even now. What had been the point? Jon had been there to infiltrate Elias’ plans for a Head Archivist, or so Sasha had confusingly explained after the fact. The skeptic, pissy act was to show himself off as an ideal candidate: willfully ignorant, psychologically vulnerable, and utterly isolated from everyone. What was the point of...of...seducing Martin?

The thought made Martin want to die. Imagine living a life where you woke up in the morning and thought to yourself, ‘Today I’m going to seduce the ugly, fat, high school dropout in my extensive long con to save/destroy the world’. It was like he was a movie star in a heist film or something, only cruel and pointless.

Was it just to make fun of him? Martin had thought it was. But as he...interacted with Jon more and more, he got the sense that his fascination with Martin was genuine. He genuinely saw something of himself in Martin.

Unless that was a lie too, and he just needed something from Martin. Unless Jon knew that Martin knew that he was conning him, and that there was another reason -

Martin had the terrible sense that Jon lived his life like this, always guessing and second guessing and triple guessing. It sounded...very tiring.

He didn’t know how to explain any of this to Tim. They got together every so often for drinks - actually, Tim texted him asking to hang out, playing it all cool as if he went out and got drinks with tons of buddies all the time but was doing Martin a favor. Martin had the sense that he was hiding a deep and pervasive loneliness, but these days whenever Martin went down too deep a spiral of teasing out motivations he felt like Jon, so he quickly cut it out.

“What’s there to get?” Tim said, throwing back his pint. “He’s an asshole who pretended to be our friend for months, and he turned out to be a total creep who leads a spider cult. You know, as happens sometimes!”

Sometimes Martin got the sense that Tim was a little bitter about what happened at the Archives. He didn’t really have a good thread on why yet, but he had the sense it was because Tim had ‘adopted’ Jon as his friend very intensely and that made him react badly to the perceived betrayal - no! No psychoanalyzing! Not today!

“It do be like that sometimes,” Martin said wisely, peeling away the label at his shitty beer. The bar was crowded, noisy, and dim, and it was hard to hear Tim over the noise. “I don’t know, though. If that was all there was to it, he wouldn’t be showing up at my house all the time…”

“Wait, what?”

Martin explained in short order, trying not to feel embarrassed about it. Tim seemed to grow increasingly furious, and Martin found himself trailing off uncertainly near the end.

“He’s doing the same thing to Sasha,” Tim said lowly. “Fucking freak.”

“Wait, what? He’s been bothering Sasha?” Jesus, that really was creepy. Come to think of it, Martin hadn’t seen Sasha around lately - she used to come get drinks with them right after they all got fired, but the last three invites she had begged off and said that she was ‘dealing with a lot right now’ and that she was ‘really swamped’. Martin was pretty sure that she was also unemployed, so he didn’t really know what she was swamped with, but it wasn’t any of his business. Maybe she was depressed. “Like, is he also trying to recruit her into the spider cult, or…?”

Weirdly, Martin felt a weird pang of disappointment at that. He had thought that what he and Jon had was special.

Ha ha. As if.

“I don’t know!” Tim cried, frustrated. He was gripping his pint glass tightly, as if he wished he was wrapping his fingers around Jon’s very slim and attractive neck instead. “First he keeps bothering Sasha, and now he keeps breaking into your house and flirting with you -”

“What!” Martin squeaked. “He’s not -”

“He’s a predator,” Tim said finally, as if he was a judge delivering a verdict. “Fucking freak. Martin, next time he drops by, I want you to call me immediately. I’ll kick his ass for you.”

“I’m a grown man, I can kick his ass by myself,” Martin said lamely, fully aware that he had never kicked an ass in his life and never would.

“Don’t let that bully intimidate you,” Tim lectured, like the overbearing big brother Martin had always kind of secretly wanted. “He’s just a grifter, spider cult or not. Seriously, Martin, next time he bothers you call me. I have more than a few things I want to say to the bastard.”

It was heartwarming, almost. “You haven’t seen him since he killed Elias, right?”

Tim looked away, scowling. “Nope. Dunno why, if he’s hassling you two. I’m the only one with some serious questions I need to ask him, and he hasn’t even - whatever.” He looked back at Martin, forcing a great big smile. “Really, if he wants a hottie, why isn’t he knocking on my door, right? Like, come on, I’m single and ready to -”

“How’s the job hunt going, Tim!”

“I’m trying to get back into publishing, what do you think! Kill me!”

Martin liked Tim. If you had asked him four months ago if they were really friends, he would have smiled and deflected, because he was pretty sure that Tim was just that friendly to everybody. Martin always felt insecure with friendly and nice people, because he never knew if they were being friendly to him because they liked him and considered him a friend, or if they were just like that with everyone.

But they still got drinks when they didn’t have to, and the expression of tight and barely controlled rage that flashed through his face when he thought that Sasha and Martin were in danger from Jon was real. Maybe they really were friends.

Maybe there was something deeply buried and long since repressed in Tim that was destroying him slowly from the inside. Maybe Martin and Sasha had that too, that rot: the way Sasha would carelessly invade privacy to hack inside people’s private files without even thinking about it, the way that Martin would almost instinctively balance impression management with playing down to expectations with always dissecting people in a ruthless search for a weak point without even thinking about it.

Maybe they were all bad people, every one of them. It felt sometimes as if Martin had a corrupt and diseased heart, that infected parts of his body with a sick necrosis. He hurt people when he didn’t want to; he said things he didn’t mean. There was something rotten and evil in Martin, and sometimes it felt as if he couldn’t help but pass it along from person to person.

Man hands on misery to man, Phillip Larkin said, it deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, and don’t have any kids yourself.

Well, Martin had the second part down. He was still working on the first.

***

But Martin was right to worry, because when he woke up at seven the next morning to shamble into his living room, he flipped the light switch to see Jonathan Sims sitting on his grandma couch flipping through his meager collection of books.

“You don’t read very much, do you?” Jon said.

“How did you get into my house.”

“Told the landlord I was the exterminator and needed to get in to spray for bugs.” Jon tossed the book on the battered coffee table - 1984 - and reclined on the sofa. “You really do have quite a bit of spiders, though. Want me to take care of that? Do you want more spiders? I can get you as many spiders as you like.”

The way he sat was purposeful, the way one of his black boots with a low heel was propped on the coffee table, the way his dark and closely cut trousers were slightly splayed, his tight black turtleneck highlighting his figure was slightly hidden by a fine white silk jacket. The small part of Martin’s mind that used to work at a dry-cleaners inanely wondered how difficult that jacket was to keep clean. Most of Martin’s mind was occupied realizing that Tim was right, and that Jon was flirting with him.

“What do I have to say to get you to leave my house,” Martin said, instead of asking why, why, why, why. He knew why - spider cult purposes - but why -

“Lots of poetry collections, though,” Jon said, and Martin knew that he had caught him looking. He had a little half-smile: half encouraging, half shy. “You have great taste. I’m a Yeats fan too.”

Sure. “Name one Yeats poem.”

“The Stolen Child,” Jon said instantly.

Martin narrowed his eyes. “What do you like about it?”

Jon was silent.

“Thought so.” Martin pointed at his door. “Out.”

There it was, a brief explosion, so quick that Martin might have thought he imagined it: grinding teeth, sloping eyebrows, a scowl. A flash of irritation: here one second, gone the next. “I like your poetry, though,” Jon attacked, a different angle. “Your imagery is very vivid.”

What the fuck. “You went through my diary?” Martin screeched.

“Yes?” Jon looked slightly flummoxed. “I was doing research. People like it when you display interest in their hobbies.”

“I am making coffee,” Martin said, voice strangled, “and I am making breakfast. And if you refuse to leave, you are not saying a single word until I’ve had caffeine.”

And then Martin refused to acknowledge Jon any more. Martin quickly realized that Jon hated this very much, used to being the center of attention wherever he was, and it was an extremely effective method of making him throw himself into a kitchen chair and sulk as the coffee pot sputtered out a cup. Martin focused himself on heating up the pan and cracking a few eggs into a bowl, whisking it absentmindedly as he clenched his mobile.

He should call Tim. He had never known Jon to get violent, but that didn’t mean anything. The guy was...he was…

He glanced back at Jon, who had his arms crossed and was frowning down at the stained wood of the kitchen table. He didn’t seem to know Martin was looking, and it occurred to Martin for the first time that this might be the authentic Jon: tired and frustrated and uncertain what he was doing wrong.

The eggs sizzled on the frying pan, and Martin pushed them around with a spatula. “What do you like on your eggs?”

Jon looked up, surprised, before rearranging his expression into something cool and distant. “Surprise me.”

Martin served them cheesy with herbs, just for that. When Jon took a bite he looked surprised, as if he had been expecting something spiteful and received only something good in exchange.

When he put a cup of Early Grey in front of him, with sugar congealing on the bottom and rosy brown from the cream, he looked surprised again too.

“You’re excellent at reading people,” Jon said, carefully directly after Martin had a sip of his coffee. “Mother would -”

“Do you want to make a bargain?” Martin asked.

That caught Jon’s attention. He smiled winningly, leaning in, hair carefully arranged to fall over one shoulder in a painfully attractive way. “I could be convinced.”

“If you knock on my door at a reasonable hour, then I will let you in and we can talk or whatever. I’ll make us tea. I don’t care.”

Jon’s grin only widened, and when Martin felt a foot brush his leg he had to fight the urge to jump a foot in the air. “What’ll I do in exchange?”

“You let up on the sales pitch,” Martin said severely, and physically moved his chair further away from Jon. “And you stop lying to me. And for christ’s sake, stop pretending you’re into me.”

Jon blinked, expression falling in shock.

He scrambled to paste something back on, but it was as if he couldn’t decide. Martin saw him half-cycle through different expressions, different appearances: abashed, eager, flirtatious. It was as if he was frantically guessing which Jon would work best to convince Martin to do what he wanted, but he just couldn’t decide.

Finally, he weakly asked, “What makes you think I’m not into you?”

Martin couldn’t help it: he scoffed bitterly. “Guess someone like you was never asked out as a joke in secondary. Nobody would honestly find me attractive. Everything you do is calculated, Jon, and I’m not vain enough to think the flirting is an exception. It’s obvious.”

“I’m not obvious,” Jon said, physically fighting to keep his expression from twisting into anger. It was...obvious. He eventually forced his expression into something wide-eyed and sincere, reaching out a hand to place on Martin’s arm. It was warm, but it settled oddly on Martin’s skin. Something about it didn’t feel like a human arm. “That’s just your low-self esteem talking, love. When I look at you, I see -”

“A sucker?”

Jon opened his mouth, then closed his. His hand was still on Martin’s arm. Martin didn’t know why he hadn’t shaken it off. “I see someone very kind,” Jon said, almost lamely. “I like that in a man.”

“Yeah, sure.” Martin shook his hand off - disgusted with Jon, disgusted with himself. Someone like Jon - attractive, confident, smooth - could never understand how it felt. He didn’t know why he expected him to. “I don’t know why you aren’t leaving me or Sasha alone, or why you’re trying to recruit us both into your spider cult -”

“I’m trying to recruit Sasha into my vigilante superhero team, actually.”

“Whatever. Point is, if I can’t get rid of you, I don’t want our conversations to be exhausting. These...games you’re always playing,” Martin waved his hand demonstratively as he chugged coffee with the other, “are tiring. Maybe - maybe you and I are similar, Jon. But the difference between us is that I find these games tiring. I don’t like doing it. I - what I want is a relationship where there’s no games. Where I can just be me and the other person can just be them. Don’t you want that too?”

Jon stared at him, eyes wide, almost shocked, almost hesitant, almost hopeful.

Finally, he said, “I only trust three people.”

“I’m not asking you to trust me,” Martin, who trusted nobody, said exasperatedly. What did it say, that the leader of the spider cult trusted more people than Martin did? “I’m just asking you not to lie to me.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” Jon said, before pausing a beat. “I’d trust you if you joined my spider cult.”

“You’re shit out of luck, then. And you’re not going to convince me.” Martin took another sip of his coffee, hiding his trembling hands. “Because you can’t lie to me, Jon. Face it: I’m almost as good as you are.” He smiled wryly. “As good as someone can get without supernatural powers, anyway.”

Jon stared at him, just stared, and Martin let the moment linger in silence as he cut into his eggs. Finally, he said, “You’ll tolerate my presence if I agree to drop the act.”

“Yep.”

“I’m not sure how to drop the act,” Jon admitted, somewhat embarrassed, as if he was admitting to not knowing how to tie his shoes.

Martin rolled his eyes. “Do your best. You must have been normal at one point.”

“When I was normal,” Jon said, “nobody tolerated me at all.”

The shocking honesty made Martin almost gag on his coffee. Jon’s eyes widened again, as if he couldn’t believe what he had just said, as if he had never meant to say it. As if nobody had ever heard it at all.

“Now that we’re actually getting somewhere,” Martin said, tactfully not touching that barrel of worms - er, spiders - with a two meter pole. “Can you please tell me your real name? Unless it was, like, wiped from your mind by your spider mom? Is this like one of those cult things were they rename you for indoctrination purposes?” Something terrible occurred to him. “Is every guy in your cult named John and every woman named Annabelle? It was just a fake name you gave to Elias, right? Right?”

Jon - whoever he was - stared at Martin, completely and utterly dumbfounded.

Then he laughed, long and hard, hoarse and wheezing and breathy, and Martin knew that this, at least, was real.

***

Martin: I think I’ve taken care of the Jon thing

Martin: Probably

Martin: The guy’s kinda hopeless

Tim: ya sash said that hes cool

Tim: apparently shes a vigilante now? or smth? Idk

Martin: Yeah that seems about right

Martin: At least she’s living her best life?

Tim: ya good for her honestly

Tim: ….so does Spider-Man KNOW how to use all eight of those arms ifyaknowwhatimean

Martin: WE! ARE! JUST! FRIENDS!

***

“ - so then after my father passed tragically of brain cancer, I was raised by my emotionally distant and disaffected Gran. I think she’s the one who taught me that if I ever want anything in life, I have to secure it for myself. I’ve been very independent ever since I was a child, and although my social skills have always been naturally lacking I’ve worked to compensate for that by studying the art of social interaction. I guess you could call it somewhat of a special interest of mine, I like to sit in coffeeshops with my sister Annabelle and study passerby -”

“Uh huh.”

“Did you know forty percent of Britons own pets? I think it reveals interesting things about the human psychology. The domestication of dogs has always been fascinating, of course. Did you know that all dogs are descended directly from the grey wolf? There were other wolf species at the time, but they’ve long since gone extinct.”

“Wow.”

“I know! The evolution of what we today determine as dog breeds were only created in the Victorian era. I’m sure Jonah would have had some thoughts on that, if I hadn’t fed him to my mother. Actually, few people know this, but our modern conceptualization of the wolf pack hierarchy has been thoroughly debunked. Alphas and omegas only exist in captive populations. Tell that to the werewolves, huh! Actually, I organize the weekly Avatar poker games - you can come if you’re interested, great way to make some money - and I actually did tell that to the werewolves, and they were not very happy with me -”

“Jon? I can’t hear the movie.”

“Right, right.” Jon passed Martin the popcorn. “So what’s this one about?”

Martin scooped up a handful of the popcorn without shame, feeding it in a steady stream into his mouth. “About a guy who gets turned into a fly.”

“That’s fun,” Jon said warmly. “I turned a guy into a fly once. He got stuck in a spider-web immediately and everything, it was quite entertaining.” At Martin’s horrified look, he quickly followed it up with, “Gerry had found out that he was illegally evicting tenants who were undergoing cancer treatment, asking for rent before it was due and physically intimidating the tenants and everything. He also stole one thousand dollars worth of goods from Whole Foods and everything, which is quite funny if you think about it -”

“How does someone steal a thousand dollars with of stuff from Whole Foods? It’s a grocery store.”

“I know, right!” Jon threw up his hands, accidentally sending some pieces of popcorn flying. “The rich are the true parasites, Martin! I’m speaking as an insect person!”

“Word.”

Martin ate more popcorn, and noticed Jon carefully brush his crossed legs against Martin’s knee.

Well, he was trying. He’d stop pretending to like Martin eventually.

They’d get there. ;

#my writing #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fanfic #tma fanfic #web!jon #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #ME? WRITING JONMARTIN? ITS LESS LIKELY THAN YOUD THINK #tim stoker #feat. tim's protective streak martin's low self-esteem and jon's theater special interest #ftr jon is sex-repulsed and never had any intention of actually going there with martin he just knew martin was into him #offscreen jon was throwing chairs like 'WHY CANT I SEDUCE THIS MAN WHO I SIN LOVE WITH ME'#gerry playing video games: because you actually like him back and you can't handle feelings that are genuinely your own #jon: 'i think ill just flirt harder actually'

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arce-elliot · 4 years ago

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Magnus Archives - First Impressions (76-100)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH WE’RE HALF-WAY THERE

EP 76 (The Smell of Blood): - MELANIEEEEE I'm being spoiled, so many Basira eps and now Melanie - hmm. what the fuck. - "yes i know what a meme is" YESSSS THE LINE - Jon and Melanie are getting along we love to see it - wait how does Melanie know why can she remember real Sasha EP 77 (The Kind Mother): - Ah yes more Not Them - THANK YOU JON YOU'VE FINALLY GOT IT EP 78 (Distant Cousin): - oh dear Jon what's your deal - More Not Them Wheeeeee - WEB TABLE WEB TABLE - Breekon and Hoooooope, the boooooys - AYYYY MICHAEL EP 79 (Hide and Seek): - these poor boys are in WAY over there heads lmao - whoops you got that Michael Distortion GPS chip dumbass - oh mr. leitner? EP 80 (The Librarian): - jurgen is so exasperated lmao - "that'll be our gerard" oh so he's OUR gerard now - jurgen really said "can you speed up this panic attack lmao" - damn Jon how you gonna talk your way out of this mess EP 81 (A Guest for Mr. Spider): - jon stop being mean to little jon :C - GEOOOOORGIE!!!! EP 82 (The Eyewitnesses): - AYYY DAISY - oh this is a fun episode, "Martin K. Blackwood Learns About Police Corruption" - Daisy is fed up w/ these archivist men lmao - Lord I HATE Elias but listening to him play Daisy like a fiddle is entertaining - g o d this is fun - "i'm gonna kill you someday" get in line Daisy - Martin get his ass EP 83 (Drawing a Blank): - Of COURSE Georgie's right Jon - reiterating: circus bad EP 84 (Possessive): - AWWW MARTIN BEIN A LIL ARCHIVIST - Melanie said "ew who's this nerd give me MY nerd" - w o o f damn Melanie how's your will looking EP 85 (Upon the Stair): - OoOoOh spooky - Statement of Spiral, regarding the Spiral of the Spiral. Audio recording by Spiral, Head Spiral of the Spiral Institute, Spiral. - AYYYYY DELANO!!!!! - Jon complimenting Georgie is p r e c i o u s EP 86 (Tucked In): - Tim is not suited for this mess lmao - ARCHIVAL PRISONER LMAO - g o d the hatred between Tim and Melanie holy shit - I hate angry Tim but now I have sad Tim and now it's WORSE - YESSSS MELANIE AND JON REUNITED AT LAST, MY DARLINGS EP 87 (The Uncanny Valley): - Explain this shit to Georgie gdi - GERTRUDEEEEEE i missed ya you old hag - Circus music? oh hell no EP 88 (Dig): - wow wonder what entity this one's about - BASIRA BASIRA BASIRA - phewwww Martin is mad it's okay little man - dig lil man EP 89 (Twice as Bright): - where the fuck are they Starbucks - Jude Perry is...how you say...hot - JON LMAO YOU MORON EP 90 (Body Builder): - uh oh Dad's fighting with big brother tim - "lmao i left, what're gonna do? FIRE me? i'd love to see it" EP 91 (The Coming Storm): - Mike Crew is just trying to mind his own business - D a i s y please he's just a tiny scared little man EP 92 (Nothing Beside Remains): - E l i a s you cheeky bastard - g a h NOT THE FUCKIN ELIAS COMPULSION SIGH GET THAT SHIT OUT OF HERE - Tim over here like "what have I been TELLING y'all" EP 93 (Contaminant): - A D M I R A L - wtf is this mold - GDI BREEKON AND HOPE A G A I N? - Georgie is BIG critical of Elias' hiring decisions lmao - Jon and Georgie's interactions are precious I love them - "Jonathan Sims, are you trying to save the world?" I LOVE GEORGIE SO MUCH EP 94 (Dead Woman Walking): - GEORGIE STATEMENT GEORGIE STATEMENT - O H she's deaD? - zoMBIE??? - georgie is immortal in this fear infested world EP 95 (Absent Without Leave): - yaAaAay war statement - lmao Basira is incredible she is simply vibing EP 96 (Return to Sender): - BREEKON AND HOPE BREEKON AND HOPE - Daisy and Sarah: lmao Jon ur dumb EP 97 (We All Ignore the Pit): - who is this sad child w/ Gertrude - YO WTF NIKOLA????? EP 98 (Lights Out): - Tim u are also protective u little hypocrit - mr. sandman, man me a sand - "positively ghoulish book" well golly gee wonder what that is - thank you elias for the murder tips EP 99 (Dust to Dust): - GERTRUDE AYYYYYYYY - Jon's finally puttin some damn pieces together - accept Georgie's help u dumbass - BREEKOOOOOON AND HOOOOOOOPE - Jon is left unattended for five whole seconds and is immediately kidnapped lmao EP 100 (I Guess You Had To Be There): - AWWW MARTIN TAKING LIVE STATEMENTS - Tim ain't cut out for this either lmao - Mr. Smith was strangled to death by Tim after giving that statement that's canon now - i have adhd jonny i can't handle this disjointed episode - PETER LUKAS PETER LUKAS

#magnus archives #tma

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scorlettimagines · 5 years ago

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Eyes On Me: A Nick Scratch Imagine

Request from @qveenmikaelson: Heyy So I’m Back Again 😂 Bc Honestly There’s Just Not Enough Nick On This App . But Could You Do A Nick x Reader Where He Like Stops Hanging Out With The Reader And Is Up Under Prudence More (Reader Doesn’t Get Along With Her & He Knows It) So As Pay Back The Reader Gets With Nicks Rival In The School Like Someone Equally As Popular & Cute . So Nick Gets Real Jealous And Eventually Confess His Love For The Reader . Possibly Around All The Lupercalia Events

Hope this is okay for you lovely, and enjoy x

Lupercalia wasn’t your favourite time of the year; it never had been. But up until recently, your thoughts on it had changed, the hope that maybe you wouldn’t be paired up with some guy who only cared about getting into your pants allowing you to actually be excited for once.

Because this year, things had changed. This year, you had fallen in love with Nick Scratch.

You hadn’t told him of course, knowing that it would probably be the end of your friendship with him. But even though it was a secret, even though you had managed to keep your love for him to yourself, you still let yourself daydream about what would happen if you ended up with him on Lupercalia. Maybe it would be the start of something amazing.

Or maybe it would just be an awkward mess.

Either way, there was the possibility that you would be spending it with Nick Scratch, finding yourself among a group of witches who dreamt of the same thing. However, that was only up until now. Until he had started to ignore you, spending more and more time with Prudence Blackwood.

The whole thing infuriated you. Nick knew you didn’t get along with the witch, and it didn’t help that she was his ex. You had clearly done something to upset him, and as he wasn’t going to tell you anytime soon, having resorted to not even speaking to you, you decided to take matters into your own hands. As Lupercalia grew closer and closer, you came up with an idea that would make him notice you, whether he wanted to or not.

If there was one person who almost as popular as Nick, it was Caleb Shaw. With blue eyes and blonde hair, the witches and warlocks who accepted they weren’t going to bag Mr Scratch anytime soon often turned their attention to the Academy’s second most popular bachelor.

Said bachelor had been showing a lot of interest in you lately, earning scoffs from Nick who hated the guy more than anything.

So now you were going to play that to your advantage.

In truth, you hated Caleb just as much as Nick. He was too aware of his good lucks, too arrogant, and tended to play on people’s heartstrings way too much. At least Nick was polite when he declined people, telling you some time ago that when he fell for someone, he wanted it to last.

Caleb Shaw was just having fun at the expense of others. So while you got your own back on Nick, you were certain that you would get your own back on Shaw too. With Prudence and Nick in your eye line, you sauntered over to Caleb, your attempt at a sexy smile on your face.

“Hi Caleb.” He turned, a signature grin on his face and a glint in his eye as he looked you up and down. You peered over his shoulder, aware that Nick was watching, eyebrows raised in intrigue.

“Y/N. What can I do for you?”

You placed a hand on Caleb’s chest, mirroring the behaviour you had seen from Prudence as she’d flirted with Nick. You saw Nick’s nostrils flare, eyes narrowing in anger as you fell into conversation of Lupercalia with a man you definitely did not want to spend it with. You smiled, knowing that your plan was working, that Nick was annoyed.

Wait, was he jealous? Surely not, he only saw you as a friend. At least, you thought he did. Your heart started to beat ten times faster as you entertained the possibility that maybe Nicholas Scratch, the warlock you were in love with, might feel the same way. Well, there was only one way to find out.

You stood on your tip-toes, your hand moving to Caleb’s chest as you whispered in his ear. Nick couldn’t hear the words, but the action was enough. Your eyes widened as he stormed off, leaving Prudence standing there with her mouth open, brow furrowed in confusion.

Oh. Nick Scratch really was jealous.

You abandoned a slightly bewildered Caleb Shaw as you chased after Nick, suddenly feeling bad about what had occurred. He’d clearly teleported, and you eventually found him at Dorian’s, knowing him too well to expect anything else when he was upset.

“Hey, Scratch,” you tried the gentle approach, his dark eyes full of so much anger. Judging by the way he snapped, it wasn’t worth the effort.

“Caleb Shaw? Seriously? Are you trying to hurt me?”

If there was one thing that you and Nick clashed over, it was your tempers, a fire blazing within both of you, waiting to be provoked. Something in you sparked, and everything you had been feeling over the past few weeks bubbled over onto the surface.

“Well, at least he actually acknowledges my presence. Unlike, oh I don’t know, you.”

Nick looked away from you, but you still saw the pain in his eyes.

“You know what, Y/N? You have a fun Lupercalia with him.”

“As long as you do the same with Prudence. You haven’t been able to keep your eyes off her.” You decided not to say what you really wanted, when your eyes should have been on me lingering on your tongue. Nick turned to face you then, anger replaced by confusion, his voice softening.

“Prudence? Is that what this is about? Y/N, I’m not spending Lupercalia with her.”

“Then why have you been spending so much time with her?”

“I’ve spent so much time being an asshole to her,” he stood up, brushing his hand through his hair, “I’ve been trying to put her off.”

“Oh,” you paused, processing it all, “But why have you been ignoring me?”

The mood changed then, slipping from the promise of a resolved friendship into something else, a secret about to be told, a treasure chest about to be unlocked. All when Nicholas Scratch took your hand, dark eyes lightening ever so slightly, a sad smile on his face.

“Because I was scared.”

Your heart continued to beat faster and faster as you remembered how he had looked when you flirted with Caleb, as you remembered how you thought he had been jealous. As you proceeded to get the confirmation you needed while he spoke.

“I was scared of the fact that I wanted to spend Lupercalia with you.”

“And what about now? Do you still want to spend it with me?”

Every fibre of your body was buzzing as Nick nodded, his hand still holding yours, the other reaching up and cupping your cheek, Dorian’s bar fading around you. You smiled at him, his own grin widening and you fought the urge to kiss him as you accepted, thinking it was better to save it for tomorrow, for when more would occur. You decided then that you would make sure you got paired up with him, with or without a little magical interference.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then, Scratch.”

“See you tomorrow, Y/L/N.”

Lupercalia wasn’t your favourite time of the year; it never had been. But recently, your thoughts on it had changed, the hope that maybe you wouldn’t be paired up with some guy who only cared about getting into your pants allowing you to actually be excited for once.

Because this year, things had changed. This year, you had fallen in love with Nick Scratch, and he had fallen in love with you.

NICK SCRATCH MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

#caos imagines #caos #caos imagine #chilling adventures of sabrina imagines #chilling adventures of sabrina imagine #chilling adventures of sabrina #nick scratch imagines #nick scratch #nick scratch imagine #nick scratch x reader #nicholas scratch #nicholas scratch imagines #nicholas scratch imagine #nicholas scratch x reader #gavin leatherwood

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official-weasley · 4 years ago

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The Irreplaceable Charlie Weasley: Pt. 3, Ch. 5

PART 3: THE YEAR OF QUIDDITCH & MAGICAL CREATURES Chapter 5 - Telling Charlie

Nova

I rushed down the stairs as fast as I could as I didn't want Bill questioning me about Penny any longer! As much as I felt my cheeks go red, it would be a miracle if he doesn't realize what is going on with Penny at this point.

She didn't even admit to me that she has a crush on Bill and I already have to do damage control!

I was running to the Quidditch pitch as fast as I could, hoping Charlie didn't already finish and leave for breakfast; I really wanted to catch him alone.

As I was getting closer, my confidence started to shrink. Bill's words were quite encouraging and I am so glad I've decided to talk to him and ask him for advice but it didn't make the matter any easier for I had to do the talking to Charlie part alone.

I ran to the Gryffindor tent and listened for voices. I couldn't hear anything but then I heard a whistle coming from the pitch. They just finished!

I took a deep breath and blinked a couple of times. I hope Charlie won't notice I was crying.

“Nova! You're alright!” He spotted me immediately. He dropped his broom and ran to me. He squeezed me in a hug so tight that he could give Molly a run for her Galleons. He kept me in a tight hug as his teammates passed us, giggling.

“Where have you been?” He pushed me away and poked me in my shoulder. “I was worried sick! I thought you got hurt at the tryouts so I went to the Hospital Wing but you weren't there. I went to the Courtyard in case you were drawing there. I rushed to the Owlery but was only greeted by Pip. Library...empty, well except for Penny. Went to Hagrid's, you weren't there either. Not down by the Black Lake.” He stopped for a second. “But I still waited there for a while just to be sure the Giant Squid didn't take you. And I ended up sitting next to Tonks in the Great Hall and she said she hasn't seen you either. Neither has Bill. So...” He frowned. “Where...have...you...been?” Poking a finger in my shoulder with every word.

It was for moments like this that I cried in the Owlery this morning. Just imagining doing something that would tear our friendship apart and not seeing his worried freckled face made me want to be fed to the Giant Squid.

“I'm sorry I disappeared like that. I was in my dormitory the whole day.” I scratched the back of my head.

“Tonks was right. Should've asked Tulip.” He had a bewildered expression on his face. I think he was thinking just how many times Tonks has been right or given good advice this year.

“But why were you in your dormitory? Did the tryouts go so badly?” His worried face made me want to just lie that I didn't make the Team but I had to focus! I had to tell him.

“No, the tryouts weren't so bad.” I started slowly. “And I kind of hid from you.” My cheeks started to burn.

“From me?” He looked confused.

“Well, let's just say that the tryouts didn't go as we daydreamed about all Summer. I didn't become a Chaser.” I bit my lip, stopping myself from saying anything else. Why was it so hard to tell him!

He looked me deep in my eyes and I could see he was going through several scenarios of what could have happened differently than what we talked about during the Summer.

“Oh...” Was all he said. He gestured to follow him, grabbing my hand and we went up the stairs to one of the stands and sat down.

“You became a Seeker for Ravenclaw, didn't you?” He asked softly.

My eyes started to water but I blinked the tears away. I didn't want to cry in front of him. I nodded, looking down at my lap.

He gently lifted my chin with his finger and looked me in the eyes.

“And you thought that I was going to be mad?” I nodded quickly, trying to avoid his gaze.

“Why?” He asked with a rather confused voice. “You know I will support you no matter what you do! I just wanted you to be on the Team, no matter which position they assigned you!” Now he looked mad. Well, more disappointed than mad.

“I can't believe you would think that I would be mad at you for working hard and getting on the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team.” He frowned at me. Now, he was mad.

“Yes I knew you would be happy for me but Char, we are both Seekers, we will have to compete against each other. Fly around and chase each other after the Snitch!” I tried to explain my worries, which to be perfectly honest, seemed like nonsense to me now.

“So we chase after the same ball. So what! It's one game per year and you have to admit it's going to be fun competing against each other!” He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed it, a smirk on his face.

“And besides, imagine the look on your face when I snatch the Snitch right in front of your nose!” He grinned at me.

“Not before I do the same to you! You have some competition now, Weasley!” I ruffled his hair.

“See,” he grinned, “that wasn't so bad was it?”

“Oh, stop it! Your reaction could've gone in a totally different direction.” I poked him in the ribs.

“Really? You really think I would be mad at you?” He winked at me. “We talked this over. We leave our friendship in the tents. At least Madam Hooch is going to be happy when the Seekers don't try and kill each other for once.” I giggled.

“Now,” he turned to me rather hastily, “tell me how in the bloody hell did you go from trying out for a Chaser to becoming the Ravenclaw Seeker!” His eyes were glowing. I could tell he couldn't wait to hear about my tryouts since yesterday.

I told him all about it. About Skye and Orion and Andre's rage and how everything went awry in a second and how before I knew it Orion was asking me if I was going to be able to compete against him.

Charlie laughed a couple of times as I was describing our Friendly as if telling an unbelievable story. I was relieved that I didn't lose my best friend and mad at myself for thinking that something like this could break our friendship.

Charlie, of course, couldn't hide how proud he was of me and said that Ravenclaw might actually have a chance to be second this year.

“Second? What do you mean second?! We're going to beat your arses, Weasley!” We both started laughing.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” Charlie clapped excitedly. “And we can compare the strategies that we learn during our practice matches and during Summer we can practice catching the Snitch together!”

“I think our Captains are not going to be happy about that.” I chuckled.

“Eh, I don't care, we can say we were doing it to beat the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs.” We both laughed again.

“Nova?” His face turned serious.

“Uh-huh?”

“Promise me you will never overthink our friendship like this again, okay? I was really worried when I couldn't find you yesterday.” He said with a sad expression on his face.

“I promise.” I smiled at him, my cheeks pink.

“Alright then! What do you say I get changed and we get some breakfast. I'm starving!” I chuckled and we went back down to the tents.

We hurried to the Great Hall as we only had half an hour to catch breakfast. On our way there we already went through several scenarios of how he catches the Snitch, how I catch it instead, and how awesome it will be to be on the Quidditch pitch together, even if on the opposite team.

“Look who made up.” Bill grinned as we sat down next to him. At first, Charlie looked confused but then he knew exactly what I have done before talking to him.

“Did you go to Bill for some brotherly advice?” He mocked me.

“Well, thank Merlin I did because if it wasn't for him, I would hide from you forever!” We all laughed.

Tonks, Tulip, and to my surprise, even Penny joined us. Penny asked me about the tryouts to distract herself from looking at Bill as soon as they sat down. I told them all about it and just as I was finishing the story, an owl dropped a long package right in front of us.

I recognized it at once!

“Waffle, what did you bring me?” I petted him on his head and he hooted happily.

“Well, open it!” Tonks thought we were observing the package for way too long.

I tore the paper and revealed a brand new broom. Charlie, Penny, and Bill gasped.

“Is that the Comet 260?” Asked Bill, finally closing his mouth.

“It is!” Charlie said excitedly.

“Who is it from?” Penny started to look for a card.

“There you go, Nova.” Tulip who was also searching for the card handed it to me.

A big grin appeared on my face as I read aloud.

Dear pumpkin,

a little birdie told me that you've made it on the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team. I can't express in words how proud mum and I are of you! Here is a little present for you. Now, beat Gryffindor for me, will you! Mum would be so jealous if you do!

Love and lots of hugs,

Dad

“Hey!” Charlie acted offended when I read that Ravenclaw should beat Gryffindor.

“A little present, huh?” Chuckled Tonks.

“Bill, were you the little birdie again?” I looked at him, smiling.

“Not this time no. However, I do wonder who was so quick to tell your parents?” He narrowed his eyes, thinking.

“That would be me, Mr. Weasley.” We all turned around to see Professor Flitwick standing behind us.

“Professor, you?” I asked in shock. “But why?”

“Mr. Amari told me that you were the only one who didn't bring your own broom to the tryouts. As I taught your father and he was as excellent at Charms as he was at Quidditch and a proud Ravenclaw too,” Flitwick beamed, “I took the liberty to write to your parents, telling them to send you your broom. I had no idea they were going to buy you a new one.” He clapped excitedly.

“I didn't own one, Professor.” I said.

“That would explain it. Congratulations on making the Team Miss Blackwood.” He grinned at me. Then he turned to Charlie. “To you as well Mr. Weasley. Even though I am sorry to say that you have picked an unfortunate year to join as my Ravenclaws will beat Gryffindor for sure!” A proud smirk on his face. “Go, team!” He swung his arm into the air and walked away, leaving Charlie with an open mouth.

“Who would've thought that our Heads of House were such big Quidditch enthusiasts.” We all laughed as we remembered Professor McGonagall last Summer when Charlie tried out for the Gryffindor Seeker position and she was more than happy when he made the Team.

—

Winter was approaching fast and so did our first trip to Hogsmeade. We were all so excited that I really can't tell who wanted to go more.

Tonks, Tulip, and Jae couldn't wait to go to Zonko's Joke shop. Charlie and I couldn't wait to try Madam Rosmerta's Butterbeer as it was rumored to be one of the best and Penny couldn't wait to buy some sweets.

Overall, I knew we were all just waiting to spend some quality time together as we were so busy with school that we have barely seen each other. Tulip and I made a pact to only talk to each other in our dormitory to have time for other friends. Charlie and I were busy with Quidditch as we both had practice two to three times per week. Penny spent most of her time in the Library and already started to nag us about exams.

Tonks, Tulip, and Jae were Merlin knows where most of the time and the free time we did have, we visited Hagrid, or I drew or we were down by the Lake. Which didn't mean hanging out at all as our noses were in books or writing essays for classes, or reciting potion ingredients or translating runes.

Penny was handling her crush on Bill very well lately. She rarely excused herself anymore when he sat down next to us in the Great Hall or joined us by the Lake. She turned less pink and she even helped Bill with his Potions homework once. Bill was happy to see Penny was talking to him again and I wondered if he ever got around to talk to her about why she was avoiding him.

With all the work our professors gave us you can imagine how happy we were when we read about the first trip to Hogsmeade announcement!

I woke up on a Saturday the Hogsmeade trip was scheduled and I shrieked as I saw that it was snowing. That, of course, woke Tulip up, who sat up so abruptly that Dennis jumped out of the bed and hid under it.

“What is going on?” She rubbed her eyes.

“Tulip, look! It's snowing! And we're going to Hogsmeade today!” That was all I had to say and she was wide awake. We got dressed and took our hats, scarves, and gloves with us.

We were surprised to see Tonks fully awake when we sat down at our usual spot in the Great Hall. I guess all you need to do to wake her up is allow her to go to Hogsmeade. As we ate breakfast, we were making a plan to have a snowball fight by the Lake on our way back to the Castle.

Just walking there was beautiful and I was grateful that I put on the jumper Molly gave me for Christmas in my First Year as it was freezing. Once we arrived Jae, Tonks and Tulip ran to find Zonko's at once. Bill, Penny, Charlie, and I were standing in front of Three Broomsticks, ready to go inside.

“Nova, could I talk to you for a mo?” Penny grabbed my hand, stopping me from going inside. Charlie and Bill looked at us.

“We'll join you in a second. Order two Butterbeers for us, will you!” I said and allowed Penny to drag me away.

We started walking down the street and she linked our arms.

“Penny, are you okay? What do you have to talk to me about?” I looked at her. Her face was so red that I didn't know was it from the cold or was she blushing.

“Listen, Nova. I know we didn't have that much time to talk in private these past few months.” I nodded as I agreed with her. I was busy with Quidditch and Advanced Transfiguration and she was busy hiding from Bill and studying in the Library.

“I know! I am so jealous of Tonks and Tulip as they always find the time to be together. I feel like I haven't seen you all year. I miss you, Penny.” I couldn't deny it.

“I miss you too and I've been meaning to talk to you about something and I feel bad and I hope you don't think I'm avoiding you or something.” She wasn't making much sense until it dawned on me.

“Is this about your crush on Bill?” I mocked her.

“Shhh!” She put her finger on my mouth. “How do you know I have a crush on Bill?” She whispered and looked around if anyone heard that.

“Oh, c'mon Penny, it's super obvious!” I giggled.

“Does everybody know?” She lowered her head.

“I think, Penny, and I mean no offense when I say this, that you are the only one thinking about crushes. So no, I was the only one who noticed and even I wouldn't if we weren't alone that day at breakfast when you blushed when I mentioned him.” I reassured her.

“Oh, good.” She nodded. “Because I wanted to let you know that it's not a big deal, I will get over it and nobody else needs to know, promise!” She pointed her finger at my face. I giggled.

“I promise, Penny. I was thinking about talking to you about it, you know, to see if you wanted to get it off your chest but you have been in the Library hiding so much that I really didn't get a chance to do so.” I smiled at her.

“Was it that obvious?” She frowned.

“Again, only to me.” I reassured her again. “Tonks and Tulip are too busy planning pranks with Jae, Bill is too busy being a Prefect, studying for O.W.L.s and his Career Advice Meeting and Charlie is so oblivious to these things that I think not only would he not notice if a girl had a crush on him and wouldn't believe a girl even if she told him straight to his face. But I am also pretty sure he wouldn't even know if he had a crush on a girl either.” I chuckled.

“Well, that certainly puts me in a better mood. I am getting a hang of myself around Bill.” She said proudly.

“I have noticed. Well done!” I tried keeping a straight face as I didn't see this as a problem.

“And thank you for wanting to talk to me about it. I just really didn't want to make a big deal out of it.” She blushed, playing with her braid.

“It's not, Penny. So you have a crush. It can happen to anybody and besides, Bill is kind of cute, I guess.” It was hard to imagine Bill as anything else but a friend, especially after the talk we had in the Owlery, I began to think of him more like an older brother.

“I know it's not. I just didn't want anyone to find out. I wasn't going to act on it. I'm too young for that and Bill probably likes someone else anyway.” She looked at me hopefully.

“Oh, don't look at me! I wouldn't know anything about that. We don't talk about these sort of things.” We stopped in front of Three Broomsticks.

“Ready to go inside?” I smiled gently.

“Yes, I want to try the Butterbeer already!” She hugged me and we joined Bill and Charlie.

I have only had Butterbeer once before but I can tell you Madam Rosmerta makes the best one as we were already ordering another round.

Penny started a conversation about O.W.L.s with Bill. I really didn't want to think about my Fifth Year yet so I turned to Charlie and we started to discuss our first Quidditch match that was happening right after the holidays. It was the first game of the season and we were playing against Hufflepuff.

After about half an hour Tulip, Tonks and Jae joined us. Their hands were so full of stuff that Charlie joked if Bilton was left with an empty shop. As Bill decided to head back early and check on the Gryffindors that stayed behind, Charlie, Penny, and I decided to get some sweets from Honeydukes. They had so much candy to choose from that I got a little bit of everything.

Now as our hands were as full as Tonks, Tulip, and Jae's before, we were ready to head back to the Castle. We decided to skip the snowball fight as we were all freezing and we didn't want to lose all our stuff in the snow.

The next morning at breakfast both Charlie and I got the same letter from our mums. My mum wrote to me that she arranged with Molly to spend Christmas with them and Molly wrote to Charlie that he and Bill have to come home for Christmas this year and that he needn't worry as I was joining them as well.

I was happy to spend Christmas with the Weasleys even though I couldn't help but feel sad that my dad couldn't get time off work again. I was relieved, however, when I found out that we would have one more Hogsmeade trip before the holidays, as I had to go Christmas shopping for quite a lot of people this year!

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hallospaceboyy · 5 years ago

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Hea, I love your stories! How about another one wit Zelda? She and reader are married happy but reader disappears for long time unknowingly (maybe kidnapped). During time she's gone Zelda marry Faustus and reader appears again. Please very sad and happy ending. Sexy is alright and good too. Love you and have a great day. (Sorry, I french)

Hi! I feel like this is kind of a train wreck, feels kinda rushed, but it's a lot to fit into a one shot. I hope you like it, anyway! (I couldn't resist making Blackwood the villain in this lol)

Warnings: Smut, mentions of flagellation as punishment, slight injury detail

A month ago, you had married the love of your life; the witch of your dreams. You never thought you could be so happy as in this moment, laying beside Zelda Spellman, as Y/N Spellman. You'd never grow bored of telling people you’re a Spellman now. You stroke Zelda's long auburn hair, kissing her softly and pressing yourself against her, and she chuckles against you, knowing you can’t get enough of her – and she can’t get enough of you. She hums as you kiss down her neck, sucking the pale skin there, leaving a deep purple mark. She hisses as your teeth graze her, her hands coming down to squeeze your bare ass.

“I’m going to make you feel so good, Mrs Spellman,”

“Oh, I have no doubt about that, Mrs Spellman,” Zelda chuckles, her voice low, sultry. You grin and slide your hand between her legs, grazing over the soft patch of red hair there to slip your fingers between her folds, finding her already wet and wanting. A soft moan leaves her lips as your fingertip brushes her clit, her hips bucking slightly. You love to tease your wife, but know that now is not the time, know that all you want is to make her come undone beneath you, haven’t the patience to make her wait. You enter her with deft fingers, and as you move them inside of her, she claws at your back, ripping a groan from you that mingles with her own moans and mewls. You pump them faster and harder, add a third finger, fucking her with reckless abandon and she’s writhing beneath you now, mumbling praises and obscenities.

“O-oh darling... you’re so incredibly good a-at this...”

Zelda stiffens beneath you, throwing her head back against the pillow as her orgasm courses through her, moaning loudly and digging her nails into the flesh of your back, sure to leave marks there. She tugs on your hair, clinging to you in any way she can. As she comes down from her high, lids heavy and breathing erratic, her grip loosens, her muscles turned to jelly, and she kisses your cheek, your forehead, savouring the intimacy of this moment.

“I love you, Y/N. My amazing wife,”

“I love you more,” You roll from your place atop her, laying beside her brushing your mussed hair from your face, and take in the sight of Zelda now, euphoric, elated and thoroughly fucked.

“That my dear, is impossible,” You giggle and curl up in her arms, both of you falling asleep almost immediately, in a haze of marital bliss. Neither of you knowing the misery the next morning would bring, when you would be bundled into the trunk of a car, and seemingly disappear off of the face of the earth.

A year later

Zelda had finally given in, married the misogynistic High Priest that had been trying to court her for months, coaxing her with whisperings of power, status, and what he referred to as staggering sins of the flesh, which were only ever really mediocre, compared to you, and she would never admit her thoughts turned to you whenever she did let the man touch her. Zelda let him flagellate her, punish her in ways she felt necessary, because she should have been able to protect you. Knew that something had happened to you, that you would never have just left her, without a word, without a reason. Her heart was split in two, and her trysts with Faustus were her attempt at a soothing balm, although not soothing at all, merely her searching out physical pain to lessen the emotional. She saw her family less and less, felt cut off from them, having to spend almost all of her time at the academy with her now husband, and she felt alone, and broken, but resumed the facade of happy, married life, kept up the appearances expected of her as Lady Blackwood. As she lay beside her sleeping husband, feeling desolate, and unsatisfied, Hilda opened the door at the Spellman mortuary, to find you standing at the threshold, gripping the door jamb to keep yourself up, and you fell into Hilda's arms.

Zelda awoke to the feeling of being summoned, heard her sister’s voice in her mind, urgent, telling her to come home, She sounded panicked, and Zelda didn’t even think twice before teleporting into the mortuary entrance hall, clad only in nightgown, taking in the scene before her and gripping the bannister beside her instantly at the sight. Hilda knelt with your head in her lap. You looked thin, your skin pallid, almost translucent, and your breathing was laboured. A dark bruise surrounded your eye, and more bruises peppered the skin of your body, marks of tight restraint around your wrists and ankles.

“What happened, Hilda?? Satan, look at her!” Zelda's was hysterical, shaking uncomtrollably.

“I-I don’t know, Zelds. She just knocked on the door and collapsed,”

Zelda fell to her knees and crawled to your side, stroking your hair, and she sobbed, both from relief at your being alive, and fear at thoughts of what ordeals you had been through in the last year, a wave of self hatred coursed through her as she scolded herself for not resuming their search, not tearing the whole damn world apart to get you back. She had given up, and now she knew you were somewhere close the whole time, suffering, pained, and waiting for Zelda to save you. The sisters assisted each other in getting you to Zelda's bed, both silent save for choked sobs and sniffles, and over the coming days they nursed you back to health, and Zelda ignored Faustus, forgot he even existed.

The days after your return to the Spellman household were blurred, as if a fog surrounded you. You fell in and out of consciousness, let someone spoon feed you soup, took the water offered to you, swallowed foul tasting potions, and then fell back to sleep, your strength slowly returning to you, but still too weak to stay awake for long periods of time. You dreamt of Zelda, heard her voice, felt her touch, and you thought maybe you had finally died, must be dead, if you were really with her again.

But when you opened your eyes, colour finally returning to your cheeks, actually feeling somewhat human, Zelda laying beside you, your hand clutched in hers, and she sat bolt upright as she sees you wake, tears filling her green eyes. You can see she wants to say something, her mouth opening and closing again several times, and you offer her a weak smile from cracked lips.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N, I’m so sorry,” Zelda's body was wracked with sobs, and you pulled her to you, stroking her hair, and began to sob yourself, so overwhelmed by being in Zelda's presence again, smelling her musty, floral scent, mingled with cigarettes, and you knew she had most likely returned to her habit of chain smoking. Feeling her warmth against you, the static of her magic that you had become so used to, you felt such a relief, a relief that you never thought you’d feel, so sure that you would never see or feel your Zelda again.

“None of this is your fault, Zeldie. I-it was B-Blackwood...” You swallowed thickly, feeling bile rise in your throat at the mere thought of the abhorrent man, knew that Zelda had married him. He had come to tell you, visited your prison often to gloat that Zelda belonging to him now, told you she was always supposed to belong to him, that you simply got in the way. An obstacle that he had to be rid of. You knew he would have killed you a long time ago, if the sadist in him didn’t enjoy seeing your pain, causing your pain. The excruciating torment of knowing Zelda was married to the man that took you away from her, and she was none the wiser. Faustus told you in great detail of the repentance she begged him for, how she cried as he flagellated her, and whispered apologies to you, for failing you. You squeezed your eyes shut now, willing your mind to banish the thoughts.

“What do you mean, Faustus?” There was a fire in Zelda's eyes now, a fury that made you almost pity any person that happened to be on the receiving end.

“H-he took me. Told me you were his. That I was in the way, ruined everything. He told me you married him, that it was his plan all along,” Zelda squeezed your hand, a tear slipping down her cheek, but her eyes were dark now, a storm raging inside them.

“That little bitch. He is going to be in for a world of pain,” She was shaking, so angry you thought she might explode, but she took a deep breath, calming herself and stroking your hair. “Darling, there's something I have to take care of. I’ll be right back,” You nodded, pulling her face to yours and kissing her softly, needing to feel her. It had been so long. “I’m never letting anybody take you away from me again, Y/N. I love you so much,”

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” You couldn’t help but smirk. You weren’t typically a vengeful person, weren’t vindictive, didn’t wish people pain, but this man had destroyed your life, destroyed Zelda's, taken advantage of her in her grief, and although things would be better now, if anyone deserved punishment it was the High Priest.

“No sweetheart, I’m not. But someone is, if he doesn’t pack his bags and leave Greendale immediately,” And Zelda stormed from the room, a fire in her eyes, no doubt readying herself to round up the other Spellmans, and you knew that feisty wife of yours and her family, your family, were a force to be reckoned with, and that they would protect you at all costs now, eliminate the enemy that has taken you from them.

#zelda spellman x reader #zelda spellman #zelda phiona spellman #faustus blackwood #father blackwood #caos fanfiction #hilda spellman

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bluejayblueskies · 4 years ago

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chimera

Part 13 of Whumptober 2020

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood Tags: Whump, Major Character Death, Angst (like a LOT), Memory Loss

Read on Ao3

Warm sunlight filters through the window, casting dancing shadows against the hardwood floors of the Scottish safehouse. It brings out the golden tones in Martin’s hair, Jon thinks as he lays tangled in the soft down comforter they’d dragged from the closet, sleep having left him before the sun broke over the horizon, as it so often did lately.

“I can feel you watching,” Martin says softly, eyes still closed, and Jon startles slightly, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks.

“I- sorry, I… thought you were still asleep. Though I suppose that’s not really any better, is it?”

“No, it’s- it’s fine,” Martin says, opening his eyes to look at Jon. There’s a small smile on his lips. “It… it’s nice, actually.”

Jon’s blush deepens. “Oh.”

Martin laughs lightly, voice still husky from sleep, and reaches forward, his fingers ghosting across Jon’s cheek. “I just meant that- well, you don’t have to stop. That’s all. I like looking at you too, you know.”

Jon reaches up and captures Martin’s fingers with his own. It never feels quite real, being able to touch Martin like this; even now, Jon’s afraid that one moment, he’ll reach out and he’ll meet only fog. “I know.” He hesitates, just for a second, and then leans forward and presses a soft kiss against Martin’s mouth. “I love you.”

He can feel Martin smile against his lips. “I love you too, Jon.”

They lie there, in the warmth of the sun, and just look…

It’s really no surprise when Martin wakes one morning to the creaking of the bed as Jon scrambles out of it, nearly tripping in his effort to free himself from the tangle of sheets that, once, had been a comfort. It still nearly breaks Martin when Jon says, in a voice trembling with raw fear, “Where- where am I? Who are you? Why- why can’t I see anything?”

They’d rehearsed this, all those weeks ago when the first gaps in Jon’s memory had begun to appear. Just little things, at first: what he’d had for breakfast that morning; their trip to the village the day before, to pick up groceries; the garden they’d planted last week, evident only in the freshly tilled earth and small wooden markers labeled in sharp, blocky letters that Jon couldn’t remember writing. Then, bigger things: those last moments of fear, destroyed utterly as the Panopticon went up in flames and Jon’s eyes alit in kind; that long and pained journey through the domains, every step carefully planned yet entirely unknown, in the end; the trip to the safehouse, Martin still shivering in the passenger seat of Basira’s car and Jon’s hand clasped firmly with his, as it had been since they’d begun to make their way out of the fog.

Yesterday, it had been the first time Martin had brought Jon tea. Earl Grey, with a splash of milk, no sugar. Set on his desk with a tentative smile and a, “Sorry about earlier, with the- erm, the dog. I- I’m glad to be here. Really.”

Jon had stared at the tea, like he couldn’t quite understand why it was there, and then had said stiffly, “I trust we can expect a more professional demeanor when it comes to your work, Mr. Blackwood.”

“Oh, y- yes, of course,” Martin said, trying and failing to hide the nervousness in his voice with a shaky smile. “And it’s Martin. Please.”

Jon’s finger absentmindedly traced the rim of the steaming mug. “Well, Martin, we’ll have our work cut out for us rectifying the frankly abysmal state of the Archives. I suggest you spend less time making tea and more time filing.”

It probably should have made Martin angrier, to have what was intended as an apology be brushed aside. But the look on Jon’s face later, after Martin had retreated back to the assistants’ desks, when he took a casual sip of the tea and, apparently, found it quite to his liking, was something Martin never could get out of his mind.

And now it was gone. And Martin knew, when Jon looked at him blankly and said, “We’ve just met—of course I don’t know how you take your tea,” that this was it. He… he’d run out of time.

He’d known for weeks, what was coming. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Jon’s curled up under the sheets, and he’s shivering, and Martin wants nothing more than to wrap him up in his arms and hold him, in these last moments. But he knows that’s not what Jon wants. Not anymore. So he sits, in the armchair he’d moved from the living room to their bedroom—Jon’s bedroom, he mentally corrects, as he’d moved to the second bedroom in the safehouse some time ago—and tries, unsuccessfully, not to cry as Jon says, weakly, “I- I don’t remember. You- your name. I’m sorry, I- I think you told me, but I- I don’t…”

Jon lets out a small, broken whimper. “I don’t remember who I am. And- and everything hurts, and it- it’s so cold. Why… what’s happening to me?”

God, he can’t do this. He- he shouldn’t have to do this. Everyone else gets to be happy. Everyone else gets to forget that dark and broken world of fear and pain, resuming their lives like nothing had ever changed. They’d gone through so much, sacrificed so much to cast the fears from this reality, and this is what they get. This is their reward. Martin wants to scream. He wants to break down, to collapse into the pain and the fear and the sorrow, to retreat into himself and shut out a world that’s not for him anymore.

He forces a reassuring smile onto his face. “It’s- it’s okay, Jon. You’re going to be okay.”

Jon’s hands, thin enough to be nothing but bone covered in a layer of dry, cracked skin, scrabble at the sheets, unable to get a grip. “I- I don’t- please, just- just help me, I don’t- I don’t understand- who am I? Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I see?”

“You… you’re going to be okay,” Martin repeats, and he- he can’t stop himself. He reaches forward, hesitantly, and lays a careful hand on top of Jon’s. Jon flinches instinctively, and Martin’s stomach twists as he begins to move his hand back. Then, tentatively, Jon relaxes against Martin’s touch.

“You…” Jon swallows, and his voice is so ragged. “You’re so warm.” A pause. Then: “Will… will you hold me? I- I’m sorry, I- I don’t even know if you know me, but- but I’m just so cold, and—”

Jon’s voice breaks off, and Martin realizes that he’s crying. “And I think I’m dying,” he says, barely more than a whisper, and it breaks Martin’s heart into a thousand tiny shards.

“Of course,” Martin says, and he’s sure that the tears that are now flowing freely down his face are wet and sticky against Jon’s neck as he pulls Jon tightly to him, trying desperately to commit to memory the way that Jon smells, even now, like lavender and sandalwood, and the way that Jon’s curls tickle his cheeks as Jon tucks his head into the crook of Martin’s neck, and the way that Jon sighs, ever so slightly, as his arms wrap around Martin’s back and his hands fist in the soft material of Martin’s shirt. Martin can hardly breathe, but he focuses on those sensations and tells himself the lie that this isn’t the last time, because otherwise he thinks he’ll crumble entirely. “Of course,” he repeats. Then, because he can’t help himself: “I love you, Jon. So, so much. I- I just wanted you to know.”

Jon’s breathing hitches, and Martin thinks he’s going to pull away—that it was too much, he knows it was too much, that he shouldn’t have said it—but after a moment, he just squeezes Martin tighter. “I- I wish I could say the same. But I… I don’t think I know what love feels like anymore. It… it’s just gone.” Jon swallows, and then says, in a quiet and pleading voice, “Could… could you describe it to me?”

Martin tries to think of a way—a way to describe how it feels, to be completely consumed with affection and warmth and radiance and Jon—and comes up empty. So he pulls back, just enough to study the lines of Jon’s face, and begins to tell him about cups of tea placed on hardwood desks, and quiet moments spent walking with hands clasped through rolling, grassy hills, and holding onto one another unwaveringly when the world wanted nothing more than to pull them apart.

At some point, Martin feels the gentle rise and fall of Jon’s chest still. But he keeps talking, even as he lays Jon down gently on the bed, and brushes Jon’s hair away from his face, and presses a soft kiss to his forehead.

“It was nice, you know?” Martin says, his voice thick with tears but unable to help the small, sad smile that comes across his face. “The time we had. I just wish…”

No. There’s really no point anymore, is there?

Martin steps away from the bed, and looks away. “Goodbye, Jon,” he says. He lets himself stand there, just a moment more. Then, he draws in a shaking breath, and makes the call.

#whumptober2020 #no.13 #memory loss #altprompt #the magnus archives #fic

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skeletonsloverockcandy · 5 years ago

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New Magnus Episode! 175!

I have no idea what an “Epoch” is so

Don’t what this episode is about yet

A lamp? Oooooookay????

No idea what fear this episode is about, Extinction? Maybe?

Lots of pollution, Corruption, maybe??

Ohh this is like that one statement with the concrete men and junk creatures in the jungle

Ohhh cool you can hear subtle sirens in the background, cool sound design AJN

Yep, definitely Extinction

A laughable umbrella 😂

(Tbh I wasn’t even sure Extinction was real)

Man he dragggggggin that umbrella 😂😂 what did he do to you boo?

I like that this statement is kind of like a zoology book (with the exception of the umbrella)

The extinction is right at home in the apocalypse

“Whose bone is this???” 😂

The delivery on that line was great

Ew she writing with her rib?? She got you beat Jon

Martin is so done, “You know what? I am sitting down” he does not care, “I have been on my feet for a literally uncountable amount of time” 😂

Martin, being completely unsubtle: “it’s a two seater”

Jon, who doesn’t want to sit on that nasty couch: “yes it is” 😂

So yeah, I was right, it is an extinction episode

“So Peter was lying” Martin sounds so bitter with that

Huh, the fears are a lot less concrete than people make it out to be, nice explanation Jon, I see you’re trying

They’re asking about the afterlife?? Okay I guess???

That’s kinda sad... :(

Martin’s like, heck, I’ll take any help I can get

Oh! Basira and Daisy are in the domain!!

Martin😂😂😂

“Oh my goodness really! And here’s me thinking the apocalypse was going oh so swimmingly!” 😂😂😂 Mr. Blackwood I care u

Martin says “we can help them now” and Jon says “yeah” not at all convincingly am I’m like 👀👀👀👀

Can you not help them?? Are you not telling Martin something Jon??? The end of Act 1 is next week so I’m heckin scared

The Magnus Archives Ep. 175

#tma #the magnus archives #tma jon #tma martin #mag 175 #jonmartin #tma liveblog #live blogging #my post #original post #skele talks

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somuchbetterthanthat · 5 years ago

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Inspired by “I know those eyes”, by the musical Count of Monte Cristo. A snippet of a dear Victorian AU I have, which is almost zero percent about Jonelias and most definitely 99% about Martin Blackwood and tender aching Jonmartin, but that has definitely a jonelias kind of ending. I suppose this may count as Stories for People I love, so since the whole jonelias part is half @protectmartinblackwood , this is dedicated to you, Artemis. Thanks for always being here.

The nurse that opens the door looks surprised and wary as she takes in Henri’s expensive coat and gloves. Henri takes his hat off, the picture of politeness, and inquires about Mr Jonathan Sims.

“He does not receive many visitors these days,” she says primly.

“Oh, he’ll receive me,” Henri tells her. “I am... an old friend.”

It’s not a very good lie, admittedly; Sir Henri Baringhton has a youthful face, lean and beautiful, and he barely looks a day older than twenty-three when he is already thirty. A innocuous detail that is sometimes quite annoying to deal with, as youth is rarely taken seriously. Something to consider, for centuries to come, he thinks, and steps into the house, offering the nurse a gentle, softer smile.

“I won’t be long,” he promises. “I know he is in poor health. Same sickness that took the late Mr Blackwood, he told me.”

This time, the nurse’s shoulders relax ever so slightly. “Yes,” she says, carefully. “Who should I announce?”

“Oh, no need for that,” Henri waves. “I know the room.”

Before the nurse can question him more, he strides forwards through the main corridor and breathes quietly as he reaches the bedroom’s door. Through the portrait of Mr Blackwood, which hangs inside, he allows himself a prequel of what’s to come. Jon is sitting in bed, hair flat and grey, face wrinkled with old age, his skin botched and paper-thin. He is pretending to read, though his fever is high and his motivation low. There is nothing left of the sharp, beautiful man that he was fifty years ago, except --

Jon raises his eyes abruptly towards the painting; for a brief instant, Henri feels pinned under his gaze and, dizzy with sudden fondness and familiarity, and he feels himself smile. Then, he knocks and enters properly into the room. Jon’s deep, piercing dark eyes follow him, studying him with an intensity that’s as suffocating as lover’s embrace.

“How --” Jon starts, voice raspy and fragile.

Always the same man, underneath it all; Henri doesn’t bother with pretenses; there will be no secret here.

“Hello, Jon.” He sits calmly on the bed, as if he had done so a billion times before, and Jon draws a sharp breath that ends in a cough. The sight unnerves Henri more than he’d thought. He licks his lips and offers Jon his handkerchief. Jon’s fingers brush over it without taking it. Ah, well. Unsurprising.

“Jonah.”

Henri’s eyes flutter. He smiles wider. “Oh, I haven’t heard that name in a couple of years now, my dear.”

“But it’s you,” Jon murmurs. There’s dread in his tone, and awe, and wonder; he raises a shaky hand, gripping Henri’s wrist. “Your eyes -- it is you.”

“Well,” Jonah allows. “I suppose, If anyone should still call me by that name, it ought to be you.” He envelops Jon’s fingers with his own. “I thought I might see you before it all ends.”

Jon huffs, but he doesn’t try to move away. “To gloat?”

“To offer you one last gift,” Jonah corrects.

“I won’t run from death as you did, Jonah. I have no interest in immortality and whatever gifts the Watcher had given me has long faded anyway --”

“Oh, Jon,” Jonah cuts him off fondly. “We both know the Eye needs an Archivist, however -- undisciplined he is. But don’t fret. I’ve learnt my lesson a long time ago. A man can ask only so many times without hurting his pride.”

“I doubt you were hurt long,” Jon breathes softly.

“You’ve always been so quick to judge me heartless.”

“Was I wrong?” Jon retorts, sharp and unforgiving, a judgmental frown crossing his face. Jonah, just to contradict him perhaps, feels his heart skip a beat at that familiar expression, a sudden, absurd desire to lean in to kiss the frown away shaking him uneasily. “Whose body is that, Jonah? Whose life have you stolen?”

The compulsion is so weak that it is children’s play to swallow the answer it demands. Oh, my Jonathan, he thinks, with a hint of disappointment. Promised to such power, reduced to this, days away from disappearing entirely from this world with nothing to show for it apart a curious library in a ridiculously small village -- and for what? For whom?

Jonah spares at glance at Mr Blackwood’s portrait; the clever eyes and the amused smile, the round cheeks and the love that transpires still out of the precise rendering of each of his freckles. He sighs.

“In a moment, Jon,” he answers at last. “Tell me first: were you happy?”

Jon looks startled at first; then wary. But whatever he sees in Jonah’s face must convince him of his sincerity for, slowly, his eyes soften. “Yes,” he says. “Yes. I was. I’ve had a long, happy life.” he hesitates, half a second, and then whispers: “Were you?”

Was he? Happiness was never Jonah’s primary goal. “I have many years to find happiness,” he says and because Jon looks sad, he decides to distract them both by raising Jon’s hand to his mouth, kissing his fragile knuckles with a tenderness he hasn’t let himself shown in a very, very long time.

“I hope you find it,” Jon says quietly. “I hope you realize the world doesn’t need to burn in order for you to get what you wish.”

Jonah laughs. “Oh Jon. Jon, I’ve missed you.”

“Me too,” Jon admits, and that -- that is a surprise. Jonah stills. “Some days.”

“Some days,” Jonah repeats. “Well. I am here now. One last gift.”

“What is it?”

Jonah kisses his palm, and smiles at him, endeared and fervent. “Fear, of course, my love. Monstrous, horrific tales; and Jonah Magnus’ life, if you’re keen for more.”

For a moment, Jon seems to stop breathing altogether, before he starts coughing again, violently; this time, Jonah caresses his cheek, the back of his hair and neck, his jaw, waiting for it to end. When it is over, he takes back the handkerchief left between them, and carefully wipes away the blood at the corner of Jon’s mouth.

“Are you ready, Archivist?” he whispers.

Jon’s eyes are as beautifully dark and hungry as they were when they met, all those years ago. “Tell me,” he orders, and this time, Jonah lets the words pour out of him with no resistance at all.

#i feel like i've already written this? somehow? oh well.#now to go to bed #the magnus archives #tma stories

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chip-foster · 4 years ago

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technically, a timeline

What on earth has Chip Foster, the recently christened Gamemaker, been up to? The Capitol Inquirer is digging deeper!

(For the sake of saving page space, we have paraphrased some responses and removed stammering statements.)

I: Mr. Foster, how are you doing?

CF: Who the fuck are you?

I: Mr. Foster, it was your birthday just last month! How did you celebrate?

CF: By myself.

I: That sounds sad! Are you making any new Gamemaking friends?

CF: Sure.

I: We heard you escorted Ms. Blackwell to the ball, anything to say on that?

CF: I did?

I: Anyway, we also heard you went to visit your home district! Was it fun to see old friends?

CF: Sure.

I: Did you do anything interesting?

CF: Met with schoolteachers. Talked about what they’re teaching kids.

I: Oh, that’s not interesting. What else did you do?

CF: Talked to the mayor.

I: Oh...okay. So you just went to Three to talk to people? You? Just to talk?

CF: [Did not respond, only nodded.]

I: Alright. Whatever. Did you at least see Isabelle Blackwood? How is she coping with divorce? Horribly?

CF: Doing well. Everyone’s healthy.

I: Fine. Did anyone have any issue with you visiting Three?

CF: No, I gave vacation notice to Head Gamemaker Vultur.

I: Aha! You called him! You called him...his official name. How do you like working for Head Gamemaker Vutlur?

CF: He’s fine.

I: Thank you, Mr. Foster, for your always articulate responses.

As always, we must reiterate we have no connection to The Capitol Gazette.

Left on the cutting room floor:

Chip Foster visited District Three after the Victor’s Ball. While there, he met with teachers, students, principals and the mayor of District Three. They discussed technology available to students in the district. Chip, with the help of a hired consultant, made his proposal. He would invest a certain amount of his victor’s salary every year to fund extra pay for teachers to stay after hours to teach interested students how to learn more about computers than just putting them together on an assembly line. Most of these kids, even the teachers, would probably be bored, but it was a start. It was a place to be, a place to earn money, without having to go work on those assembly lines.

It was a start.

Also, Chip Foster said “fuck you” when the interview called the conversation articulate. There’s different types of blood; and there’s different types of rebel blood, too.

#th:self #self-para #para #headcanon #about #technically a timeline #123

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aspiring-wildfire · 4 years ago

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MAG 177

And we’re back!! Let’s do this

Am I several days late? Yes

Do I care? No not at all let’s go!!

Martin being the voice of emotional reason as always Mr Blackwood I love u

Okay I’m torn bc on one hand I feel rly awful for Basira bc clearly she has had an incredibly not good time but also be nice to my boys!! Don’t be mean!!! Why would you make actual hell worse!!

God I saw a post saying this (the tma brightspots one for 177 maybe??) but Martin and Jon have grown so well around each other and they complement each other perfectly- you can rly see it in their contrasting ways of handling Basira

BASIRA STOP MAKING MY BOY FEEL GUILTIER FOR THE APOCALYPSE WE WERE MAKING PROGRESS

#protectjonathansims2kforever

“He can’t do hypotheticals” “what did I just say??” I love Martin explaining Jons superpowers he’s so cute and exasperated

“You couldn’t” dude the POWER—

Jon’s just trying to fill in the details you don’t know Basira be nice to him

Every time Jon and martin have a meaningful relationship talk where they Communicate it makes my heart grow a new pair of wings

Fabric rustles!! Yay!!!

“When did I become everyone’s sat nav??” *simultaneously* “Jon.” “Jon-” god he’s such a little shit I love him

“Oh dear” “mhmm” I love my babes

Dude I love Martin and basiras back and forth

“And you trust him to do that?” “Yes. I do.” YES ASSERT YOUR TRUST AND LOVE MARTIN I LOVE U

“He says it’s a blind spot” “convenient” actually it kinda makes perfect sense???? Basira cmon you’re all abt logic

“Is that like a euphemism, or??” “Ew no!! :((“ THEYRE SO CUTE

Basira listening in on the statement aww sis cmon

OOP NO I HATE THIS GOD

All the gaslighting and reaffirmation of the shit mental illness says I am Not A Fan

God the “whatever little game you’re playing” line NO THANKS

Oh no no no the making you question any progress youve made by making you doubt your meds and everything!! As someone who’s medicated I hate this

The gaslighting in this conversation is genuinely really unsettling

The whole idea of “you’re just making things up and lying so we’ll believe you but it won’t work- maybe you tricked the others but not us!” Really hits different when it’s mixed w imposter syndrome huh

“Some childish attempt to feel special?” HEY NOPE STOP PLEASE

Oh god the sound of anxiety but the idea of it as a real, factual truth nope nope nope nope nope I hate this

God I’ve never had to skip a statement but I’m. I’m really getting close there on this one

“Five years, can we please not start that again” the gaslighting about the timeframe I’m-

God the laugh after his weird joke the pauses for breath and then the very sudden “I joke.” God it’s so incredibly unsettling the spiral is SO MUCH

“You seem fine though, so I’m sure it can’t have been that bad” TOO CLOSE TO HOME

“You remember your mother? What you made her do because you couldn’t be bothered to pull yourself together” oh my god and there’s the guilt about what you’re inflicting on the people around you bc you’re not good enough I hate it I hate it I hate it

DOCTOR DAVID MEET ME IN THE PIT

“Satisfied?” “...fuck.” Yeah p much

“It’s built on the fear that you’re mental health problems aren’t actually real” “wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Spoken like someone who’s never dealt w serious mental illness

I already knew I was hella lucky to not have had negative experiences w therapy but now I like REALLY know

Dude the siege mentality of Basira and Daisy’s relationship never ever doesn’t fuck with me

Jon forcing Basira to finally face daisy’s history of police brutality is incredible and I love him

“You can’t hunt a monster that you refuse to see” and Jonny’s back w the incredibly raw lines shit man

Helen!!! Yay :D

Helen and martin being lowkey bros is delightful

“Sorry, darling! :)” god she’s the WORST i LOVE HER

Jon consistently being so tired of the people around him listening to Helen I love him

“Basira is a strong, independent woman! She doesn’t need you two holding her hand” #women(?)supportingwomen

“And he was rubbish compared to me!” growth?

Basiras sticking w the boys! Yay!!

Helen lecturing Jon about being a drag is simultaneously very funny but also REALLY UPSETTING in context of the fact that Jon definitely sees himself the way dr David was talking to the victim and that makes me SO SAD

tl;dr: Jon and martin are so good for each other, Basira needs help but also that doesn’t mean she gets to be mean to my son, Martin is still the smartest and most genre-savvy character in the series, Helen really does love to cause problems on purpose, and the less said about that statement the better (it was wonderfully well written, to be clear, but also I have never come so close to skipping an ep and if you struggle w mental health and imposter syndrome and self doubt and stuff definitely consider skipping this one)

#tma #the magnus archives #mag 177 #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #basira hussein #helen richardson #lexi screams into the void

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ostentenacity · 4 years ago

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If you're still doing the wip asks, I'm curious about sunless skies x tma?

heck yeah!

(From this ask meme.)

This one is a crossover which..... got away from me just a little bit...... the current word count is hovering somewhere around 20k, last I checked. Unfortunately it needs an almost total rewrite because the plot is Not Working, but I’m planning on reusing significant chunks of the first draft once I figure out what I’m doing. (For anyone not already familiar, Sunless Skies is a delightfully weird steampunk horror video game that has you pilot a steam locomotive IN SPACE.)

Long snippet because it was surprisingly hard to find anything shorter that made any sense without a lot of explanation:

“You absolutely cannot bring that creature aboard my engine, Mr Blackwood,” says the Archivist.

The Irritating Assistant sighs. “I know.”

The Archivist feels guilty. He doesn’t like it. “There isn’t enough room,” he says. “Besides, it’s too dangerous. He could get hurt.”

The Assistant winces. “Oh. That’s… that’s a good point, actually.”

There is a pause while the Assistant and the slobbery menace give each other identical sad looks.

“I’ll help you find a good home for him,” says the Archivist, already groaning internally.

---

You are the Bright-Eyed Archivist, and you have recovered from your recent nauseating run-in with the transit relay, thanks ever so much.

Port Prosper is a drab little town, but the food is decent and the price of locomotive fuel doesn’t stretch your budget too badly. You won’t be sorry to see it go, but you suspect you will be pleased to see it again the next time you come through this way.

...Which will no doubt also be the next time you use the transit relay, as there isn’t much else to recommend this corner of the heavens. Oh dear.

Ah, but you were wondering about your crew, weren’t you? The roster has not changed since you left Albion; your Assistant’s attempts to recruit the Inadvisably Big Dog were unsuccessful.

You heartless, heartless man.

Want to find out about any of my other WIPs? I posted a list here.

#mine #my fic #ask meme #tag game #ghostbustermelanieking #tma #sunless skies

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stunkbug · 5 years ago

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MAG 166 Thoughts

spoilers ahead!

annabelle cane is in this one!!!!! hello!!!!!!!

bitchy martin rights

so i killed it! :)

aw the buried.. no wait

helen!! silly helen

like a FUCKING tourist

epic jon moment: opening up about his feelings

“get our murder on” martin kissable blackwood i would die for you

FULL KILL BILL

“dont be strangers” funky!

top ten jonmartin moments 😍 why did martin sound so sad 🥺

oho okay the buried here we go

the buried never scared me but. this episode might change that

the worm sounds are so gross mr alexander j newall you’re doing amazing sweetie i love you

jonny said FUCK capitalism

the idea of a full grown man wriggling through the dirt is, of course, disturbing, but also very funny

no really fuck capitalism

HFJSHDH THERES NO S U N JONNY!!!! THAT GAVE ME CHILLS

oh oh oh the rain-

im still not scared of the buried but god....... the sam and richard thing was scawwy

ohohohoho

“god i hate the buried” jon i care you so so much

is annabelle cane coming now 👁👁

martin adhd rights

??? what’s happening

spade??? weird phone????

annabelle!!!!

stop being mean to martin 🥺

IS THAT IT??? HELLO

as always thank you kindly mr jonny sims

#tma spoilers #tma #mag 166 #liveblog

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fiendfluid · 5 years ago

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it is an unmooring of the mind

Chapter 1/10

Summary:

He learns to stay below decks at night.

On the one such night he decided to take a walk around the open deck for some air--nightmares, even this far from home, still find ways to reach him--he finds himself falling almost into a trance upon reaching the top of the stairs, gazing out at the ocean, hidden under a light chill of fog. There is nothing for as far as the eye can see in the dark, and he feels impossibly small with the fact.

He only startles out of his daze when the mist seems to crawl up the side of the ship, like some ghost of a leviathan, tendrils reaching for him, snaring out cloud white vines to creep around his ankles.

Martin trips halfway down the stairs in his haste to return to his bunk, and his dreams are plagued not by his usual nightmares, but of thick, suffocating fog.

Contrary to popular belief, Martin isn't an idiot, despite what his peers or his mother might think otherwise. He hasn’t gotten this far in his life to not have enough sense to know when something is shady, and he knows there's something...off about this job.

The ship he finds himself on isn't small, in fact it’s big enough to warrant a sizable amount of people to keep it running, and that striding across without running into another crew member is odd, and yet he never does. His fellows seem to ghost away, always just out of line of sight, like cold mirages. They are faceless, unknown. Sometimes he hears their jovial laughter from below decks, but they seem to clear out the moment he sets foot on the steps down.

But they aren’t ghosts, they’re just people. People that didn’t care for Martin Blackwood.

All in all it's strange, and incredibly lonely.

He tries to keep his head up, he isn't here to make friends or anything. He shouldn't be here at all; he is vastly under qualified for the job, with barely a lick of sailing knowledge under his belt--unless you count that one time he went fishing with his father when he was very small, before the man up and vanished. But he is in need of the money, so he puts on a winning smile in front of their captain, and feigns his way through everything he can.

Not that there’s much to do anyways, no one really gives him any tasks, and most days he just wonders what would happen if he opened one of the cargo containers, just to take a peek. He doesn’t though, he needs the job and snooping around would definitely get him sacked.

Even so, it’s more then a little alarming when he's given a pair of knuckles on his third day aboard, when it’s already far too late to back out. To be fair, they’re very well made, if a bit worn. Heavy and made solidly of silver or iron, he can’t rightly tell. He holds them up to the light and carved into the sides are two twin ships, simplistically depicted and entrenched in fog.

"Trust me, you'll find a use for them aboard the Tundra." is the only explanation he's given from their mysterious captain before the elusive man retreats into his cabin. Though the effect is somewhat ruined by the bright tune screeching out from his ancient flip phone as he goes.

He learns to stay below decks at night.

Martin trips halfway down the stairs in his haste to return to his bunk, and his dreams are plagued not by his usual nightmares, but of thick, suffocating fog.

The next morning he is unsurprised to find the mess is deserted, of course. Though it bears signs of past use; dishes cluttered in their return stations, a spare jacket laying atop one of the benches, forgotten. Martin sits gingerly, with a sad portion of something that might have once qualified as vegetables and some stale tasting toast on his plate, picking at it while he works up the courage to eat.

He is equal parts startled and intensely relieved when the sound of footsteps grows steadily louder, until a figure fills the doorframe.

This feeling somewhat lessens when it turns out to just be his captain, and not any of the elusive crew mates. Did Martin do something wrong? It was rather likely, now that he thought about it. Did he smell?

He realizes, belatedly, that he is silently staring at the man from across the room as he goes about obtaining his own plate of disgusting mush, and feels an oh-so familiar wave of anxiety wash over him.

“Oh, hello! It’s uh-nice weather out today?” Martin says to break the uncomfortable silence, laughing nervously. He cringes--too loud, too obvious. “Is the weather usually so...weird?”

The captain eyes him, a quick glance up and down and then smiles. “All things at sea tend to lean into the strange, the weather included.”

“So it gets foggy a lot then, Mr Lukas?”

“Please, call me Peter.”

He absolutely will not. “Right, sure.”

“But to answer your question, yes.”

Peter Lukas is not a strange looking man, nor is he particularly interesting. His clothes are drab, and his eyes are soft in a way that is not kindly, like steel wool. He should not be getting his meals from the crews’ kitchen, but the fact that he is doesn’t strike Martin as weird until much later.

“Is it usually, um.” Martin struggles, wringing his hands together. “Has it--have you ever felt like-hm. Nevermind, I’m just tired and--”

“What does it feel like?”

He can feel Lukas’ gaze on him, pinning him down and holding him in place. His ears ring in the silence, not even the chug of the engines nor the crash of the waves can overcome it, and sweat slides slowly down his back.

“Empty.” he says, his mouth moves and pulls the words from his mind against his better judgement. “Just empty, like there’s nothing else in the world. Just me, alone.”

He blinks rapidly, feeling the heat of embarrassment hot on his face and the back of his neck. But Lukas nods in agreement, though he can’t guess for the life of him why. “I wouldn’t fret much over it, Martin.” he replies, “the mind plays dangerous games out here, tricks your senses.”

“Right!” Martin says with a half hearted attempt at a laugh. “‘Course.”

“Anyways, I do hope you’ve been adjusting well, please let me know if the crew are...” Lukas pauses, as if searching for the right word. “overzealous, they get excited by new recruits.”

Lukas mimes an elbow nudge, as if he isn’t a good ten feet away. He gives a cheery little wave as he departs, tray in hand.

He’s still nodding along amicably before the words catch up with Martin's anxiety stressed brain. They go against everything he’s known to be true about his crew mates, which were closer kin to ghosts then friendly coworkers for all he cared. But the thought that they were really a close knit community of people, laughing and joking over breakfast before Martin even woke…

A sickly, hollow feeling fills him, and he nudges his tray of food away.

(Link to read the rest on AO3 in the reblogs)

#the magnus archives #jonmartin #unmooring preview #idk how to tag or post this

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