#someone suggested it to jon and he said he would consider it but then he never spared it another thought

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

Probably my biggest TMA headcanon is that Jonathan Sims would not make any effort to learn relevant self defense skills, like first aid or any sort of physical combat skills

I could probably try to explain this, but mostly I just innately know it as fact. He just wouldn't.

[nightwngz]

Older bat! Damian with super or wonder reader who's like sheltered and oblivious to the real world and they go on a mission or smith together and the whole times she's just doing whatever he says because that's what she's used to and he's just like damnn and finds that really attractive

— 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 ! ☆

older!damian wayne x fem!reader

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀… drabble smut. porn with a plot. dirty talk. fingering. Damian uses Arabic nicknames.

𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁. . . no copying of my work is allowed. Free translation is allowed as long as I am credited.

𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲. . . as I said in my other posts, English is not my first language. I have tried to make corrections with the translator, but as you all know, it is prone to making mistakes, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes or if anything sounds weird.

𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲… I don't know how I feel about myself today, but I decided to write this for you anyway. I hope you like it. <3

It was one of the first times you, a young girl exiled from the real world and born on an island paradise inhabited only by women, had contact with what was considered 'the real world.' You were not yet accustomed to many things, especially the existence of men, or perhaps men like Damian Wayne.

On Themyscira, you were used to following orders. When the Queen or your trainer told you to "do this," you knew exactly what to do. But when you joined the Justice League and met Batman, you initially believed you were supposed to act the same way. You soon realized that maybe you should have listened when Jon told you to ignore him completely.

At that moment, Damian Wayne, now known as Batman, was the last person you wanted to be trapped with in a situation like this. The two of you were locked in a reinforced room with no way out, where neither your strength nor your wits could help you get out. So you found yourself trapped with the one man who liked to bark orders like he was the king of Gotham.

— You really don't know what to do? — He asked, annoying you again. — Before, Wonder Women were effective.

However, you tried to heed Jon's advice; thus, you responded to him without intending to participate in his game.

— Yes, and in my land, men didn't even exist. So I'm just getting used to working with the inefficiency of one.

Damian slowly approached the box you were sitting in with an annoying grin on his face.

— In fact, I am a detective. Of course I know how to get out of here.

Your confused expression made him smile even harder at your confusion. You weren't sure if it was fair to feel like a complete idiot, but that was exactly how you felt at that moment. Besides, you didn't like him at all.

— And you never thought to open the door, or are you just trying to annoy me by making me live with you?

— Actually... — He replied, moving even closer to you. — I'm testing you. Go and open the door as best you can — He finally ordered.

And as if it were a sacred word, you stood up, determined to open the door to the room at any cost. At first, you tried to break it down with blows, but your strength wasn't enough. It was probably made of some incredibly strong material, possibly of alien origin.

— Try pulling the doorknob with your lasso — he suggested, and once again, you listened.

Damian couldn't help but find the way you obeyed like a trained dog incredibly attractive. Deep down, he felt that he had you at his mercy and that no matter what he asked you to do, you would listen.

Totally exhausted from the effort, you knelt on the ground, but you didn't give up. Feeling sorry for you, he reached over to stroke your hair, trying to calm you down.

— Pretty obedient little thing. — He flattered, lifting your chin so you could look him in the eye. — You don't know how to say no, do you?

A wave of intense heat enveloped you. Perhaps it was the first time you had ever found yourself in an intimate situation with someone, as you had always believed that your body was trained solely for an impending war. Yet, when Damian was around, that was the one purpose of your training you occasionally forgot.

— If I asked you to take off your underwear, would you be so obedient, habibati?

Your cheeks reddened immediately. You knew you should avoid this kind of situation, but having been trained on the island, you understood that you had to follow the orders of a superior. Batman was more experienced than you, making him your superior, and you felt obligated to obey him.

Immediately your panties fell down under the metal skirt of your suit, exposing your pussy to the man in the room.

From what you knew about men, you noticed they often looked for specific qualities in women. However, Damian had never shown any boldness towards you. As time passed, the 'sexual tension' that Jon had mentioned began to feel more like an annoyance.

When he saw that you were listening to him, he smiled as usual. But his smile was not one of despair; it was one of desire.

He knelt down to be at the same height as you. Gently, he slid a finger down your soaked pussy while keeping his eyes on yours, watching for any reaction on your face.

You understood what he was doing and how he was touching every part of the anatomy between your legs with precision. What you didn't understand was how he was so skilled at it.

You couldn't hold back your moans as you felt him gently pinch your now throbbing clit. His touch drove you crazy as you felt waves of pleasure crash against you.

— Damn, what a good girl. Sorry to tell you, Habibati... I have a weakness for obedient women.

[finniestoncrane]

Requests about anyone ye say? In that case, chef's choice for your preferred Scarecrow scaring their significant other and how they would react to said person attempting to scare him in return? Much love to ya <3

Scarecrow Headcanons aaaaaaaah!! thank you bud!! so much lvoe back to you for this smashing idea, and i'm going to pick golden age jon because i have THOUGHTS about this silly little beast on this exact subject 🎃🧡 request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: couple of suggestive things, but this is mostly just cutesy fluff, it does mention phobias and attempts at scaring people but like... it's scarecrow so... yeah

fear is obviously the way he shows his dominance, the way he finds his control

but it's also, weirdly or not really, the way he shows affection too

call it exposure therapy, or conditioning, but he wants his significant other to be able to withstand anything

and when it comes to him, it really could be anything

sure he just seems like some stuffy professor, scruffy and tired and stuck in a fantasy world within the pages of his books

but he has big plans, and he'd hate to think he might lose you

especially if it happened because he was too frightening for you

so expect to be pushed to your limits when it comes to your fears and phobias

once he knows what it is that gets you, he'll utilise it in order to elicit the perfect reaction from you

it's a confusing game, for both of you

it pains him to have to cause this kind of trauma to someone he adores, but it's a necessary evil

and then the aftercare always sweetens the deed, like a little sugary treat after some sickly medicine

and for you, it's a lot to constantly face your fears

but there's something thrilling about seeing a more confident and dangerous side to crane

something about the adrenaline rush has both of you going

so it's only natural that you might consider making an attempt at scaring him

returning the favour, making sure he knows you care enough about his... hobbies

at first, it knocks him back a little, throws him off his game

he's screeching, clutching his chest, adjusting his glasses with stuttered words

but once he's regained his composure he's acutely aware that there's a tingle in his bones

there's something delightfully sinful about it all

and he manages to pinpoint it to the notion of corruption

he's turned you to the dark side, a follower of his manifesto, a true partner in crime

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; "Superboys Switch". (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Maybe even the same age, he thinks, and then forces himself not to think about it.

( they’re less than a day old, and they look THIS old. how many years is that? how much of a childhood did they lose? how much– )

Jon forces himself not to think about it.

“I really don’t think not committing murder is being a stick in the mud,” he says, and the kid snorts and then floats up a couple feet into the air, half-tucking their feet under themself as they do. Jon–frowns, for a second. That looks . . . something about how they’re flying looks a little off, for some reason. Like–different from how it looks when Dad and Aunt Kara do it, and different from how it feels when he does it. 

Then again, the kid’s two seconds into flying, so it’s kind of ridiculous of him to assume they’d do it exactly right straight off the bat. 

“Being a stick in the mud is just, like, a vibe, dude,” the kid informs him matter-of-factly, then floats over towards Jay and peers over his shoulder at the screen, then immediately looks bored by whatever’s on it and looks around the lab instead. They still sound nothing like Jon would expect someone made in a lab to sound, and his gut twists a little. 

But also, whatever’s on that screen already made Damian suggest committing multiple murders, and the kid just looks bored about it, one way or the other, so . . . 

So Jon doesn’t know how he feels about that, exactly. A kid who doesn’t sound like they came from a lab and doesn’t act like they came from a lab, but also doesn’t seem even slightly concerned by whatever made Damian seriously consider committing murder again and did not make Jay dissuade him from said consideration. 

It definitely makes him want to get said kid the hell out of this miserable excuse for a basement, though. 

“Just–you guys figure out the theoretical arson, I’ll figure out what to do about the staff, alright?” he says, sighing again. He can probably toss them all in a transport vehicle or two and then just carry those straight to the police while Damian and Jay watch the kid, he figures. Which isn’t great for a “you should send these people to jail” thing, admittedly, so maybe he should actually call the League and see who’s available to help Jay strip the data for damning evidence while removing any damning DNA or anything like that. Or, like, whatever they need right now. 

“I still consider what to do about the staff a fairly simple equation,” Damian mutters under his breath as the kid turns upside-down in the air behind him and peers at the heavy hood of his cape and the sword slung across his back. It’s a sakabato–a reverse blade katana, he means–and the reason that Jon is under pain of kryptonite not allowed to tell Batman anything about anime, like . . . literally ever. It just looks like a normal katana visually, though, especially when it’s sheathed, so he’s not sure why the kid looks so puzzled about– 

“Why’s your sword sharpened on the wrong side?” the kid asks, frowning in bemusement, and Damian pauses. 

Jon pauses, because Damian’s sakabato sheath is lead-lined. Mostly so he has a quick supply of lead in emergencies these days and less because he doesn’t want Jon to know what’s in it, but it’s definitely still lead-lined. There’s no way the kid could’ve seen through it, so how . . . ? 

“It allows the weapon to be used nonlethally,” Damian replies, watching the kid with a neutral expression that screams “suspicion” on a Bat. “As well as making the decision to slay a foe a more deliberate choice, as the weapon must be wielded backwards to cut.” 

“Doesn’t that mean the sharp side’s always pointing towards you?” the kid says, wrinkling their nose. “And like, isn’t it way harder using it backwards, if you gotta?” 

“Yes,” Damian says. “That is the point. The weapon is a handicap meant to keep me from inflicting a mortal wound any way but deliberately, and also to make that wound harder to inflict even once I choose to.” 

“. . . that is so badass, oh my god,” the kid mutters under their breath. 

Jon is still concerned about how the kid found out about Damian’s sword being a sakabato, since if Cadmus had told him he’d think they’d have at least had theories for why it was a thing, but also is now significantly less optimistic about his chances of ending up the kid’s favorite. 

Yeah, he should’ve absolutely told Batman about anime when he was still young enough to get away with it being an “accidental” slip of the tongue and embarrassed Damian out of ever using the damn thing in the field. Like, ever.

[jackoshadows]

One reason for why I find shipping Jonsa as a canon ship hilarious is that book Sansa would be so horrified if anyone suggested she marry Jon Snow!

And I think it's because Jonsa shippers themselves think differently to book Sansa. They know that Jon is a central character in the series, that he is a decent guy, has some secret parentage issues going on with the possibility of legitimacy, is loyal and forward thinking etc.

However, these matters don't concern book Sansa. She is a Stark - one of the last remaining Starks in Westeros. She is the eldest daughter of house Stark. The eldest daughter of the former Warden of the North and one of the formerly strongest houses of Westeros which still has a lot of loyalty from other Northern houses. She grew up with high expectations for her marriage.

She was formerly destined to be Queen of Westeros by marriage to Joffrey. She was considered for marriage to the Tyrell heir and would have been Lady of Highgarden. She married Tyrion Lannister who is heir to Casterly Rock. She is currently plotting to marry Harry the Heir - future heir to the Vale upon SweetRobin's death.

So as is seen by her as her right, Sansa expects a marriage to a very high born noble. So far all her prospects have been heirs to big houses and kingdoms.

In AGoT she thinks that the Stark Steward's daughter Jeyne Poole - The Pooles possibly being minor lords with a holdfast near Winterfell - was far beneath Lord Beric Dondarrion.

"Lord Beric is as much a hero as Ser Loras. He's ever so brave and gallant." "I suppose," Sansa said doubtfully. Beric Dondarrion was handsome enough, but he was awfully old, almost twenty-two; the Knight of Flowers would have been much better. Of course, Jeyne had been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a steward's daughter, after all, and no matter how much she mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far beneath him, even if she hadn't been half his age.

For the same reason, Sansa would think that the bastard Jon Snow was beneath someone like Jeyne Poole.

In fact in her most recent sample TWoW chapter we see she doesn't think much of bastards. Five books in, with the very last published chapter, we see her matchmaking for the 19 year old Mya Stone with the much older, very low born, not good looking Lothor Brune because according to her that would be a good match for a bastard...

Alayne wondered what Mya made of Ser Lothor. With his squashed nose, square jaw, and nap of woolly grey hair, Brune could not be called comely, but he was not ugly either. Though he had risen to knighthood, Ser Lothor's birth had been very low. Brune would be a good match for a bastard girl like Mya Stone, she thought. It might be different if her father had acknowledged her, but he never did. And Maddy says that she's no maid either.

Sansa would be utterly shocked if someone suggested she marry loyal, honest, good Lothor Brune. He would be very low born for her. And if Lothor Brune is not good enough for Sansa how would she feel about marrying a baseborn bastard?

As much as Sansa would be joyful to reunite with her last living relative Jon Snow, she would rather match-make Jon Snow with some low born girl, some hedge knight's or freerider's daughter than marry him. And she would still think that a baseborn like Jon Snow would be lucky to marry someone higher up the chain like lowborn girls - the same way she thinks of Mya Stone and Lothor Brune.

Remember, bastards don't have any lands and are stigmatized as less than, being treacherous and lustful by nature of birth. Ned Stark gave Jon Snow no lands, instead packed him off to the Night's Watch.

Remember Alys Karstark dancing with Robb Stark and not Jon Snow because her father took her there to meet with the heir and not the bastard?

Look at Jaime's thoughts about Sybell Spicer:

"Your lord father promised me worthy marriages for Jeyne and her younger sister. Lords or heirs, he swore to me, not younger sons nor household knights." Lords or heirs. To be sure. The Westerlings were an old House, and proud, but Lady Sybell herself had been born a Spicer, from a line of upjumped merchants.

Or Lady Sybell's reaction to betrothing her son to Joy Hill. And this is only house Westerling.

"I have two sons as well," Lady Westerling reminded him. "Rollam is with me, but Raynald was a knight and went with the rebels to the Twins. If I had known what was to happen there, I would never have allowed that." Even from the grave, Lord Tywin's dead hand moves us all. "Joy is my late uncle Gerion's natural daughter. A betrothal can be arranged, if that is your wish, but any marriage will need to wait. Joy was nine or ten when last I saw her." "His natural daughter?" Lady Sybell looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. "You want a Westerling to wed a bastard?"

Also recall that the original arrangement was for two bastards to marry - Joy Hill, Gerion Lannister's bastard, to marry a Frey bastard.

So imagine Sansa's reaction to a suggestion that she marry the bastard Jon Snow... She would think it's a joke and laugh. She would be aghast and horrified. She would be repulsed and see it as punishment.

That's just how the high born Westerosi society thinks. Bastards are seen as the lowest strata. This is how feudal classism works in Westeros.

So unless Sansa gets suddenly and magically enlightened on classist prejudice, then Jonsa is something that is never, ever, ever going to happen. This is not even getting into what Jon Snow thinks and feels about the high born traditional ladies upholding Westerosi patriarchal ideals of femininity.

[rise-my-angel]

Heart of the Great Wolf

38 - A Brewing of New Mystery

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 18.6k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, descriptions of blood and violence, execution, past familial-parental abuse, past character deaths, exploration of trauma, mild smut

Notes: If any of the discussions about the lore leave you confused, do not worry it's confusing our protagonists even more. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here

“You have many enemies in Castle Black. Have you considered sending Alliser Thorne elsewhere? Give him command of Eastwatch by the Sea.”

Stannis had been conflicted in that room. He wasn't going to sit there and force Jon Snow to join his cause, nor was he going to argue about it if his made was made up. He was a grown man, he could make his own decisions but that didn't mean it felt like the right one to watch play out.

The Nights Watch was an institution Stannis believed in, he would never have come to their aid if he didn't. It was a mere coincidence, or perhaps the Lord trying to guide him to the right path when in the aftermath of overpowering Mance Rayders army, did he come face to face with his late daughters best friend from childhood. But it gave opportunities, to both of them.

He had given Stannis suggestions of where and how to move about the North instead of a straight march through Winterfell, and in return Stannis had attempted to give guidance to someone he could tell was bursting at the seams to be given the freedom of leadership, whether Jon had known that was in him or not. But he sat in that office hearing his offer being turned down, that his place was at Castle Black and Stannis wasn't about to show him the disrespect of telling him he was making a mistake.

Parting ways however, it was a thought which came into his mind as he and Ser Davos approached the door. So he turned back, asking about Ser Alliser. Jons answer though, was interesting. He was sure of himself and there was no fault in that, “I heard it was best to keep your enemies close.”

Stannis gave only one last thought on that matter, not knowing if it would be something he listened to or not. “Whoever said that didn't have many enemies.”

Whatever Ser Davos had stayed behind to discuss, Stannis did not invade the conversation, but he had much to consider in the aftermath anyways. He had paid close attention to the dynamics going on here, and it was very curious the things which were playing out. There was a divide amongst the men and it was split between two people in particular. The vote for Lord Commander had brought that rivalry into the daylight for all the men to see.

One single vote from the old Maester had swayed the course of their leader. But half and half, that was a very tough place for the new Lord Commander to be put in.

Not from those who didn't vote for him, if the finite details of every mans personal opinions mattered as heavily as the other then there would be endless chaos. No, the only thing which mattered was those in authority who could stand in his way. Thorne was one of them, the biggest problem. The men who all stood with him were another problem. He would not be able to sway other men to his side, but he would be able to strength his position by boulserting his place amongst Jons opposition.

It was a problem Stannis knew too well. He had lived in Kings Landing for a number of years, and there it was the root cause of wrongly surrounding yourself with enemies. It was why he was fine with being disliked. He didn't need to be liked, he simply needed to not allow himself to make such direct enemies.

Of course, one man made such a task increasingly difficult.

Spies were that problem. Cersei's were less of a care, many of hers towards his family were used in her strange need to spy on his daughter, only to fail in swaying you to her manipulation. Lord Varys he trusted not one bit, but he wasn't an enemy. Spiders weren't foes but pests to be on the watch for should they come creeping up on your shoulder without notice. No, Stannis only had one enemy and he had the misfortune of staring him in the face half of his days.

It was why he begun placing you in the position of doing his work dealings with Petyr Baelish. Stannis did not tell you his underlying motives or plans, and thus you had nothing to give away to the man when forced to cooperate with him. You were young, and a maiden and the Kings niece, you naturally would draw his interest to keep a close eye on which left Stannis free to distance himself and act without the man knowing. By the time he had outlawed prostitution on Dragonstone entirely, crippling his ability to spy on Stannis in his own home, Petyr Baelish had been blind sighted by its occurrence.

Stannis knew which of his men were loyal, and from that point on information was kept on a very tight knit basis between each other as he continued to use you as a distraction, which worked. You were combative with him, only causing him to watch you further and watch Stannis less.

He did not keep his enemies anywhere near close.

So, it was an interesting afternoon when he heard the commotion. Moving out to the landings in Castle Black in time to see a barrage of black come out of the meeting hall, and a group of men in particular holding another as the yelling begun. Janos Slynt sounded as egregious as he always did, only now as Stannis watched where they were dragging him did he begin to suspect that Jon was indeed, a better listener then Stannis was giving him credit for.

“Get your hands off me. Stop, all of you. If the boy thinks he can frighten me, he's mistaken. Yes, very mistaken.” Dragging the man out to the courtyard did he stop yelling for only a second as another on the platform close by, slammed down a block.

Stannis only grew more focused. His advice had been sending one of his biggest adversaries away, but it seemed the new Lord Commander's first decision was far more bold then that, and sent a much more striking message to the rest looking to pick up the mantle.

Continuing to yell, Janos Slynt assumed his position once in the world mattered here. His command of the City Watch of Kings Landing did not matter here, and here as a man of the Nights Watch he did not matter to the rest of the world. But he yelled regardless. “A disgrace, I have friends. Important friends in the capitol, you'll see.”

He grew much more quiet when the one behind, which normally could be found in the group closest to Jon, slammed him down onto the block. Emerging from the hall last, Stannis begun to pace along the landing with sharp eyes watching as Jon grabbed his sword from his steward. Making his way through the crowd and he could see the intensity even from where he stood up above.

Whatever had occurred in that room, had pushed Jon Snow one step too far.

Still he thought, there was time. He could take this all away in a second by not committing to his own authority, and it was that slip of weakness which Stannis was watching for. Leaving here with that still within his morals would be a mistake. Stannis would have to burn that out from Jon should he see that weakness show, and he knew those very enemies keeping close would take every advantage of it before Jon could fix it himself.

So he watched as Jon stepped up to the man, pulling out that sword with a pommel which seemed to match him perfectly. Wondering who had gifted that to him, knowing such a lavish thing would not have come into a bastards hands of his own making. Someone else it seemed, had seen exactly what Stannis was trying to foster in Jon right now.

He was intense as he approached, but he was as calm and even toned as the father he reminded Stannis of so much. “If you have any last words, my lord. Now's the time.”

Like so many before him, Janos Slynt begged for his life with lies. Thus far, they had not impacted Jon, who stood with both hands across the top of the hilt, sword blade tipped to the ground. Had Mace Tyrell not surrendered that day in Storms End, Stannis guessed the image of execution would have looked identical then to father and son now.

But, Jon begun to raise his sword, when the final test came. Yelling out the word mercy, a crying plead for his life came about like all cowards do who cannot face the consequences of their sins. “I'm afraid, I've always been afraid.”

No words came from Jon. He had waited until Janos Slynts crying had turned his gaze from the Lord Commander and within a mere second, the sword swung and Jon Snow took his head. Handing the blade to the man next to him, Jon took a moment looking over what he did before the unexpected occurred.

Glancing to the side, right up to where Stannis stood. Seeking out his gaze, and despite his actions that of a nod, he could say with every truth there was pride as well. Jon did not shy away from what he needed to do, and did it with his own hands to ensure the statement was made.

Stannis still, was not sure what would convince Jon Snow to leave Castle Black and enter a fight within his own home, but he did know one thing with certainty. Stannis would not make the mistake of seeing him as an adversary if he did. He would be a formidable foe.

That was until the day in the lands of Deepwood Motte did you stand across from him in his tent, telling him the truth of why the North would never support Stannis's claim. And when word had been received, Stannis stood across from Ser Davos reading the raven scroll unable to stop that same feeling of pride.

So Stannis cleared the remaining Ironborn out of the Northern lands, as Jon now ruled in Winterfell as King in the North unifying the Northern Lords as one. Not a scattering of people fighting for what side to scramble too. One army, a real army. Uniting behind one leader, with one purpose.

At least that time Stannis had been the one to learn the hard lesson that he indeed, needed an ally more then he needed Jon as a subject. The one lesson he should have learned back when it was Robb Stark offering him the same deal, but only realized after the Stark had been murdered, and you and Stannis's unborn grandson with him.

“If you were a gambling man, your grace, I'd be curious to know how long you'd guess it'll take them.” Ser Davos knew exactly what Stannis was thinking, it seemed. Handing him back the raven scroll with a dismissive tone.

“I don't gamble, Ser Davos you well know that.” Before he had exited the room however, Stannis had turned his head to the side just enough for the man to still hear him. “Six months at the most.” By the time Stannis received word on Dragonstone, none saw the smirk on Stannis's face as he read the letter.

It had indeed taken Jon Snow exactly six months to marry you.

Theon Greyjoy was not blind to the manner in which he was perceived. In fact for most of his life he could likely pinpoint exactly what that image was when and by whom. Being the youngest of his father's children, he was cared about but was never quite old enough to gain the attention he wishes he could have had. Rodrik was the eldest and the favoured. If any of Balon's children were the most of what an Ironborn was made of, it was him.

And if Theon were to be honest, he cared little for him. Then and now. Violent and loud, and always was the one to push Theon as a boy to be tougher. It didn't get much better in his memories of his brother Maron either.

But if his little love for his brothers spoke of anything, it was that which stemmed from his father. A boy striving for the acceptance of his father, wanted him to see his youngest son as worthy, but it was never close to the attention Rodrik and Maron got. Theon was only a boy, but could never do enough. He hardly even saw his father for his earliest years. Theon spent much of his youngest ages with his mother, as his brothers had grown long since to be men and Balon considered that more important until Theon too was old enough to be a man.

Then he was in Winterfell. And no matter what he'd tell himself, it still was the best years of his life.

Scared at first or not, it was home. Was he a prisoner? Yes. But did he really feel like one? No. He never truly did. Winterfell was welcome to be his home, and he found no grime nor shame in his duty acting as Ned Stark's ward. He used to feel fear that one day, the cold Northern Lord would bring Theon out to the clearing and Ice would take his head one day. But that was only at first, whatever coldness was in him, was nothing compared to what he endured from his own father. His own family.

Theon was raised and trained in Winterfell alongside both eldest of Ned Starks sons, and some days it still hurt to look back on. Theon now could stand outside looking to the training yard, and hear his fathers voice shouting at him enraged about Robb.

“No, not here. Not in my hearing, you will not name him brother. This son of the man who put your true brothers to the sword. Or have you forgotten your own blood?”

But in truth, he did in a way. His brothers were his blood, and he'd never forget them. But that didn't mean he missed them. He didn't care that his brothers died not loving him, but he did care, he did hate, that the brother who meant everything to him, died hating him. Robb died thinking Theon was a traitor, and he was, but he died thinking Theon did it all to hurt him, to scorn him and his family. Robb died thinking that Theon didn't see him as his brother and it never stopped bothering him.

Ironic it was, that the man Theon truly saw as his brother, died to the sword of what became Theon's captors. And yet the brothers Theon didn't miss, died to the sword of the man who became Theon's captor. The man whose son became a brother to him, the man who Theon saw as the only father to him that mattered. And Balon Greyjoy knew it.

Theon had rationalized to him that Lord Stark was dead, and the first he saw of his father in almost thirteen years was as he asked him, “And how do you feel about that?”

What's done is done, that's what he said. And it wasn't an answer. Not for a second did Theon belong back on Pyke, but it all was too confusing in his head. Not a single one of them respected him, it was the worst light any had ever seen of him, and Theon made it all the worse by trying to impress those who didn't care.

But he was a Greyjoy. His blood was salt and iron, yet he still burned the raven scroll that day. Stood in the room that had been his once for over a decade, and upon reading the first words he had heard from his blood family in two years, he burned the scroll and never regretted it. The only one who may have been something of family to him had reached out. Had learned of the Boltons defeat, had learned Theon served in Winterfell as his own man once more and reached out to him.

Come back. Don't die so far from the sea.

Yara was the closest thing to someone he might have considered returning for. She didn't like him, or respect him, but she still cared. In her own way she cared. Tried telling him to return to Pyke instead of staying in Winterfell, and she tried coming back for him when she realized what happened to him.

But there was a difference in how she cared. There was one thing that kept Theon as a free man, from making his way to Pyke and finding Yara. It was beacuse she wasn't the sister he loved. You were.

Yara rallied men, came to find him, tried to fight for him. But in Theon's most broken moments couldn't figure out if Ramsay was tricking him. He had done it before. Tricked him into thinking a rescue was being made only to find his circumstances even worse. He was beaten and tortured, but the last time a rescue was made for him, it walked him right back into an even worse torture that left him mutilated and his own manhood, root and stem cut from him. What would this trick lead to that was worse, he hadn't wanted to find out.

So she left. She saw what was little more then a frightened boy, and abandoned him for being too traumatized to see she was there in honest terms. But you? Theon felt you had every reason to hate him. To treat him as cruel as everyone else had under the Boltons. But you didn't. At every opportunity, you found what little scrap of a voice Ramsay would leave you with and remind him who he was, and that he didn't deserve this. Would remind him that no one from his old life, not even Robb, would have wanted this for him.

You didn't want Theon to feel abandoned as Yara had actually done, without even knowing that day occurred. Theon knew the reason you lasted as long as you did, was beacuse of him. He knew the small, pathetic moments of genuine connection you two could have was the only thing keeping you from ending your life and he knew one day that resolve would run dry. Had Theon not helped you escape that night, he wasn't even sure you would have let yourself remain alive come morning.

You didn't give up on him, so he didn't give up on you. And that never stopped. The last time Theon felt like he had a purpose was at Robbs side, but now he found his new one. Serving at yours.

The only reason the people here had slowly accepted him back, was beacuse you demanded they respect him. You refused to let anyone slander him, or question his presence and freedom. You would not abandon him, you wanted him to have life, to have purpose and people. You two hadn't always been that way, but there was no other place in Theon's life for you other then what Yara had tried and failed to be. The sister who still cared.

So he burned the raven scroll. Yara had reached out to him. Begging him to return. Their father was dead, Balon Greyjoy was dead. Rumours that a storm had thrown him from the windy bridge to his death. She wrote of the Kingsmoot. The first in centuries. Trying to implore him to come home, if not serving at her claim for the Salt Throne, then that of their Uncle Victarion. He had burned that raven scroll after a few hours of debating if he wanted to tell you about it.

He burned the second one right away. Once more she tried. Their gruesome Uncle Euron had returned, and she spoke of his terror and the things he had done that day. That he had been chosen as the Salt King and his grandiose claims and delusions of conquering the lands. All Theon could think, was that if it was a plea for help, it was for a family who never respected Theon.

And if it was to ask him to join them under their new King, then she was as delusional as Euron was.

His place was here. His place was supporting the one person who he felt was family, serving the only rulers that had any worth in this shit hole of a world which was left. But you had been through enough, and Theon didn't want you in your state to think he might leave.

So instead, he told Jon. Neither of them wanted to keep things from you, but they were both worried. And the worry of Theon finally leaving, was not one either wanted you to have. As the two of them stood there that night, high up on the walls of Winterfell in the night sky looking out to the quiet woods, he didn't quite know why Jon was in the strange mood he was, but he was glad that not once did he question Theons intentions.

The two men were still figuring out where they stood in the others life, but at least, trust was there and it no longer had any doubt or question behind any of it. Even when talking about what Theon had done in this very place. Jon stood next to him, both men finding something of company in the other the past few nights a bit easier on their own. Neither of them actually wanted their interactions to only be comfortable if you were there to act as an in between.

They weren't close the way each had been with Robb, but that didn't mean Jon meant nothing to Theon. So he was glad he found it not difficult to be honest. “All he wanted me to do was raid fishing villages. He didn't trust me. Said the Starks had made me theirs, but I was given a choice. Prove myself or prove he was right. And I chose wrong, beacuse I thought, I could never be a Stark. Maybe I shouldn't try to be anymore, felt impossible to be standing next to Robb.”

He could see Jon just barley turn his gaze somewhat in his direction, a question no doubt on the tip of his tongue but Theon half shrugged at him. “His life fit him better then his clothes, and once I was on Pyke, it was hard to remember none of that really mattered to him.”

Voice low and rough, Theon felt the weight behind Jons words. “I know. I was jealous of Robb my whole life, was always everything I wished I could be.”

And yet, as the two stood there, one thing came to Theons mind. Catching Jons attention to look over at him, face twisted in a confusion, Theon almost huffed a laugh. “Funny thing to hear, when I'm the one standing here next to you.” Glancing at Jon, Theon tilted his head almost to implore him to see. “Think about it, I was born a Greyjoy. I grew up with as much as Robb ever did, true born son of a Lord, famous name, was stupid enough to think my father would win the rebellion and I'd have everything else I ever wanted. Then I came here, raised by the Starks. Spending everyday feeling as if I was like them, but not one of them.”

Both men stood there, raised by Ned Stark, but not a true part of the family. Both a little on the outside in their own ways and yet their directions found in drastically separate paths. Continuing, Theon found the path to the worst of what he had done. “I thought, Ironborn..that's what I was born to be. So I paid the iron price for Winterfell. And now two boys are dead beacuse of me. And beacuse of what I let them do, Robb died thinking I murdered his brothers.” Head dropping a bit, Theon filled with not jealousy or envy but a bit of a defeat in the truth. “But you? You've always known what was right. Even when we were all young and stupid, you always knew. Every step you take it's always been the right one.”

The weight in his voice, a lifetime Theon would know nothing about and yet he felt in his bones what kind of guilt and shame sat within it's tone from Jon. “It's not. It may seem that way from the outside, but I promise you, that's not true. I've done plenty wrong.”

Where it came from he wasn't sure, but perhaps it was the most honest he had been about it in his life if he thought about it. “I never felt like I belonged next to Robb, but maybe if I stopped lying to myself I'd have realized it was you I was jealous of. Whatever you regret doing, you still did it a better person then me. I didn't do the right thing until it was almost too late.” Your name didn't need to be said for both to know what that right thing really was. “Always felt like there was an impossible choice I had to make. Greyjoy or Stark.”

Theon wouldn't know, but that cut a little too close to Jons heart. Far too close, and it came out rough and rasping as Jon forced the words out before it overtook him too much in his own mind. “Our father was more of a father to you than Balon ever was.” Only a nod with a heavy swallow in Theons throat as Jon spoke. “But he's still part of you like he's still part of me, beacuse you're a Greyjoy and you're a Stark. It's not my place to forgive you for all of it, but what I can forgive you for? I did that a long time ago.” Your name slipping from Jons lips, “She did too. And I know she wouldn't blame for you if you choose to go to them. Especially now.”

“No. But you would.” Becoming Theon's turn to be quiet, it almost reminded Jon of his admission to you of what he tried leaving Castle Black after his fathers death. The quiet guilt and uncertainty in himself. “Right before Ramsay's men came in, Maester Luwin tried telling me to run. Told me there were tunnels he could get me to, and when I told him I didn't want to go back to Pyke he told me to go North. Join the Nights Watch, and I'd be beyond the reach of the law.”

Looking to him from the side, there was enough calm on Jons face that it felt almost strange to say, but Theon knew anger was something else once it became over Jon. But he still said it. “I almost did it, came close to agreeing to it. But in truth? I was too scared of you.” That caught Jons attention, his eyes narrowing in confusion as he looked Theons way. “I knew what you were like, and I knew for everything I had done, you'd have slit my throat in my sleep if I showed up. If I were lucky.”

He appreciated that Jon was as honest as he was. Watching the Greyjoy close as something only slightly closer to an anger was hinted at in the roughness in his voice. “That morning, when you two rode through the gates. If you came through without her? I might have done worse then slit your throat.”

“Wouldn't have blamed you if did. Wouldn't have blamed you if you hung me alongside those two men of yours even after bringing her to you.” But Jon didn't. He didn't do anything, and only continued to trust more and more in Theon with much bigger responsibilities since then. And Theon still didn't quite know how to thank him for that without coming off as awkward. The change of subject however, was welcome for both. “You think Lord Howland's right? About what's happening to her?”

Jon shook his head slowly. “I don't know. I don't know what it is, or how to help her.” But Jon did know, was that he did not like the sort of path it was leading you down.

Theon looked just as unsettled. “First you both come back from the dead, then you and Arya can control direwolves, now this? Didn't think winter coming would mean all of this shit was coming alongside it.”

Gloved hands braced against the stone in front of him, Jon only wished whatever was coming still would keep you out of it.

Some days if you thought about it, it was never winter which House Baratheon had dreaded, not in the way many did. In each home they lived within the lives of those you knew, the worst of the hardship from the cold was never quite as prevalent. From your girlhood home of Dragonstone, and the shores of your families ancestral seat Storm's End, to the vast harbour of King's Landing the last many generations of Baratheons always lived right by the sea.

Come the cold winds, it was food that was always the biggest concern and it was food which was not at a risk of running short when living by the waters of the Narrow Sea. It was cold, and fish was served more days then anything else, but it was easy when you could have the freedom to set out to the waters and catch what you needed. And raised with the resolve like a man such as your father, winter was simply more work but nothing dire.

Yet it was what every other place of the Seven Kingdoms dreamed off, that your family found in a lack of appreciation. Spring was what the Baratheons looked forward to the least. It had been the result of an event years before you were born. Your grandfather and grandmother had been returning home after a trip taken to Essos, if you had ever been told why they were there you hardly recalled it beyond the things which your father had told you, which was of it's end.

Spring brought harsh rains and winds to Storm's End and it was in a terrible one which Stannis and Robert had stood and watched what caused a horrible end to the ship returning their parents home. Steffon Baratheon and his wife Cassana had perished in the crash. Renly was too young to remember but he grew up without a father and mother both, it had thrusted Robert into responsibility far before he thought it would be his, something which sat almost like an omen to come. And it had left your father bitter, and without any faith left in the Seven.

Each time winter came to an end, it was never a prosperous feeling in your family. Spring had taken your chance to know your grandparents, and yet perhaps in your own mind, that may have been for the better. You had the advantage of foresight of course, to look back at your family and know what was a mistake and what had led you to the feelings you held. You too, knew that you were far too much like Robert in some ways, to think you could have ever seen the good in your grandfather.

There was only one thing which you needed to know, to come to that conclusion. Who your closest friends are is all too telling, and your grandfather's closest friends were that in Tywin Lannister and Aerys Targaryean. Both became cruel men who committed horrific atrocities never to be forgiven and it was difficult in your mind to move passed that.

A a girl, you would look to the waters when visiting Storms End and wonder, would your grandfather have sided with the Mad King? And now, in the home of Winterfell, you wondered if Steffon Baratheon would look down to the world, and realize that Tywin had organized a slaughter of what was once his oldest now dead friends own granddaughter?

Your family was nothing but scattered conflicts all caring about the wrong things compared to the rest of the world. So perhaps it was why as the days grew shorter and the dark of nights grew colder, did it feel strange to watch as preparing for winter continued to make Jon and Arya's bond grow stronger. Not that it had much stronger it could be, but they would somehow manage it. Or how Jon could discuss much of the far North with any in knowing better then you would ever grasp it.

He was a man truly of the North, and you were beginning to feel more out of place then you had in a long time in Winterfell. You were not raised with the hardships of Northern winters, you were not raised to work with those of your family as such a seamless ease the way the people around Jon all did together. There was nothing you brought to the table which helped better then others, all you brought was strain and confusion now.

A mystery had presented itself before your very eyes, but you had nothing to present to Jon, Sam, Lord Howland, or anyone which was helpful. Just more questions you didn't have enough understanding to even phrase. Some watched you with weary eyes waiting for you to snap, others looked with a pity that was too similar to how they looked at you under the hold of the Boltons, nor did you know what to say to anyone.

There were a few days things seemed fine, more then fine. But as soon as that last good night was over, it was as if Jon spun himself deeply right back into something more weary then before. And it only got worse now as the days since that dream of the stranger reached well over a week passed.

Quiet you had been all day, and for once you simply did not want to walk into the room and again see that deep rooted fear in Jons eyes as he looked to you. He'd watched you like a hawk since whatever it was that night and you didn't know how to make it stop. The looks, his fear, the dreams, any of it. Your mind was as much of a mess as your priorities, and so left. Moved to go do something, anything, to occupy yourself and stay out of everyone's way and worry. They didn't have to worry about what was happening with you if you weren't there to remind them.

Telling them where you would be, you had requested your guard leave you alone. “What dangers lay in the glass gardens so much, you need follow me in there?” No doubt they'd stay somewhat nearby, but if you didn't want to see them, you didn't want to hear them either. The dark of the sky made the reflections through the glass appear in a blueish tone with the moonlight against it, and you had gone over what was there in what numbers more times then any needed to.

It was an excuse, not many would look for you here and it was close enough to the crypts that perhaps you could find the courage to retrace steps you had seen. Your mind though, was too much still of a mess. More then usual. The pull to a self loathing tempted you at your uselessness and many times over it left you frustrated that new life had forgotten to grace you with what once made you a leader.

Now you hid from your own ineptitude at your Kings side, hoping you'd find an answer to something, anything, before more questions hurled themselves before your eyes. If you weren't helping run his kingdom, you were only adding to the mystery of the North before true answers were found.

Winter now was important, but you dreaded handling any of it the way your family dreaded the memories of Spring.

Eyes flickered up curiously to the main entrance as a smaller figure made their way inside. Looking in the dark until their shadowing form found your direction did you realize who had sought you out this time, though you said nothing. Let him come to you, you weren't one to push the subject onto others when it was their issues to work through.

Olly stopped a good few feet from where you sat, watching in as much trepidation as his stiff posture spoke of before pulling something small from his pocket. Wrapped up he glanced around once more before finally crossing the few feet to where you sat, he held it out instead of making eye contact. It was a slow exchange as you opened it to see he had brought you something to eat. The small grin was formed along your mouth before you could smother it. Flickering your eyes back up to him, you raised an eyebrow.

“Dare I ask how you knew I was all the way out here?” He shrugged still without making eye contact, and the uncertainty in his shoulders grew. The dark cold between you was quiet for a moment until you spoke between bites before you found it in you to grant a shred of mercy. “You don't have to stay if you don't want to.”

Surprisingly, his head shot up to see yours. “No, your grace that isn't-” The unchanging expression on your own face likely caught the boy somewhat off guard. It seems you weren't the only one whose mind inside their head was a bit of a mess. Glancing to the side, Olly tried finding the right words and failed to a degree. “I only- you shouldn't keep skipping meals. It isn't good for you.”

A lightness came over your heart enough to raise an eyebrow, tone softer then his as to not startle him more. “And you're going to tell me you're eating properly, yourself?” He didn't return the his gaze just yet, it had been a number of days since he had said more then a few words to you at a time. Reaching your arm out, the motion was enough to have him flicker his eyes only to what you held out to him, part of what he had brought you. That had him turn confused, as you stayed soft spoken. “You don't have to sit with me and eat, but if you're going to pester me about it then I assure you I can pester right back.”

He was quiet right until a more dramatic sigh left him, and you bit your tongue to hide the chuckle within your throat. Grabbing it he stood for only a second before sitting next to you, slowly and with an awkward hesitation but he sat next to you on a stones edge all the same. Luckily, he was used to you enough to know that no conversation at all was not an indication of uncomfortable in your eyes. He when in a good mood could talk away, but he didn't take your silence as the same the way you did his.

Only, for Olly, it was the few times he wished you would talk. The air around him stiff only after you had stopped filling the chilly air with a light degree of jest towards him. You could feel him peeking at your side profile before scurrying back before you could notice, but you felt it all the same. A mutter even quieter then the last as you gave him the privacy to not be forced to make eye contact, the gardens growing in the darkness was view enough. “Did you know it's a rare talent for a steward to know when and when not to pester those they serve constantly?”

Making no sound of reaction, you did feel him shift ever so slightly beside you, the only indication the boy was listening as you continued. “Truly it is. Now, most of my time in Kings Landing I had hand maidens but the roles function mostly the same. Attending to a lord or ladies need, only I had around five at any given time and there is only one of you. But trust me, those girls could find any and every reason to never stop talking.” Speaking between bites, you allowed Olly the grace of not feeling obligated to respond, you simply took it as a step that he was even still here. “About this, that, boys they fancied, girls they were jealous of, whatever gossip found them, they spoke of it. Eventually I got to the point I would start telling them to simply leave me alone beacuse I couldn't stand the hen chatter. Had to make it a rule that they weren't allowed to be near my chambers first thing in the morning or after dark beacuse the first and last parts of my day I did not want them to fuss over everything.”

Muffled through a bite of his own, Olly managed to summon the willingness to speak anything. “Did you have handmaidens during the war?”

Huffing a small laugh, you leaned back a little bit with a shake of your head. “Heavens no, an army camp is no place for them. Five pretty young girls, twenty thousand soldiers? Nothing but trouble. I did have a squire though, between myself and Robb. Came to us as part of a deal with Walder Frey to cross the Twins.” You said it so casually, but Olly looked over properly wide eyed.

Everyone knew The Twins and House Frey was where part of your story ended.

But you pressed on, the start of the war was painful in many ways, but none that dared not thinking about like three years onward approaching the bridge from the other side. Your voice was still light, and if not mistaken, hinting a bit of amusement. “He was to be Robb's squire. This young boy Olyvar, a few years older then yourself. Was to expect a knighthood in some time.” You chuckled to yourself, and you knew without any glance that Olly now was looking attentively at you. A sound these days almost no one heard, was anything like laughter from you.

“He was loyal, worked very hard, a bit on the airy side and it took almost two years for him to get the hang of knowing when to leave without being ordered too, but he was a hard worker. Robb had no bloody idea what to do with him, never wanted a squire, preferred either doing a lot of things himself or he knew he had me. But, I was used to giving handmaidens orders, so I started being the one Olyvar would go to. He'd listen to Robb, but he knew Robb wanted him to answer to me and to just leave him to his work.”

Surely this was the most you had spoken in one go, in close to months by now. You think, it too, was the most easy and casual tone you had heard on Olly since Barrowton. “The King didn't like being around servants?”

Shaking your head, there was a small smile on your lips. Not dark enough it was hidden, but it sat there soft and only for Robb, only for you. Not lost on Olly, that you never spoke of the late King in the North in such a personal manner in front of, to him, seemed like everyone. “Not that, he was the heir to Winterfell all his life, remember. He was used to being around servants, but the Starks weren't raised to be spoiled. Not the first born son that is for certain.”

A narrowed look in your eye only you could catch was a teasing mocking, “Lord Stark's first born daughter, now that is a different story. Sansa was a spoiled in her first few years, she was used to maids and servants. But Robb? He was fine delegating some things off, but he knew the pressure was always on him. To one day take over Winterfell, to be Warden of the North and he didn't want to do so having other men doing his work for him. Olyvar was eager to do more then Robb wanted him around for, and so he became more like my own squire just so he didn't lose his patience at the boy.”

You were quiet for only a moment before finding an honesty. “He'd like you, though. Robb. He would have enjoyed a steward around like yourself. Quiet, smart, quick, not afraid to show you care about who you serve without seeming pandering. Probably too, why Jon chose you.”

The easy quiet turned to a guilty quiet, but you knew the guilt for some things went both directions. It only was better to set it up as an even balance to put you on the same grounds as the boy. His voice hardly a murmur, “I wasn't a good steward to him. He explained why he was bringing the wildlings south of the Wall. I knew why, he and King Stannis would talk about those things in front of me beacuse he wanted me to always attend his meetings. But he came back from Hardhome, and he let the wildlings through and I let it get in the way. Barley said anything to him I didn't need to after that.”

Your voice held no accusation, “Can't imagine what that feels like.” You sensed him jumping to speak up, but you painted his own defence for him. “That wasn't a judgment, Olly. Just pointing out that if you have any plans on stabbing me anytime soon, I'd at the least prefer a warning beforehand.”

Sneaking a glance, Olly's face has twisted into a defensive frown before he caught the barley held back smirk at the side of your face looking more to him. Rolling his eyes, it made that smirk come out much more naturally. “If that was supposed to be a joke, your grace-”

“The sad thing, is that it was.” Olly laughed for the briefest of seconds before he shot a hand up to stop himself, but it only let you laugh much more easily. “I have many strengths, but humour is so far from the top of that list it's already sailed and landed across the Narrow Sea.” You felt his tensity, relax slightly as he let himself lean back against the flat stone beneath you both more comfortably, as your voice softened to match. “My point though Olly, is that you're good at this. You're a good steward, and that isn't easy to come by. Anyone here would be glad to have you at their service if you want to.”

Finally, his young eyes met yours properly. Something confused washed over with a doubt, “Your grace-”

“I know why you're upset with me. Truly, I do. But I'm not one to make you sit here and forgive me just beacuse it's easier that way. If you would be more comfortable serving someone other then myself, I'd rather you do that then force yourself to stay here beacuse you think you are obligated too.” He didn't blink, or even shift his expression but there was something bordering bright and upset there. Yours however, was only soft. “I like having you by my side, but not if it's only going to upset you day in and day out.”

His eyes flickered to there and nothing before he sighed and let them fly down to the ground. His hands now clasped tight together in his lap, likely to keep them from fidgeting too much. What he said though, quiet with something wishing to crack behind the tone, was not quite what you thought he would approach it with. “My mother told me to run and hide the same way you did. So I did, and she was killed right behind me. You told me to run and hide, and it got you kidnapped.”

You still recalled the way he recounted that day, how painful it was to get through and you knowing what it looked like was no doubt worse then what you could imagine, especially for a child. Looking gently at Olly, your voice was quiet. “You could have had sword and shield in hand, and she still would have told you to hide. Wanting to protect her is normal, but so is it for a mother to refuse that if it puts her child in danger. You living without her meant more then you dying to protect her.”

His silence hung in the air, struggling between looking your way and looking off to the distance of a memory. If he was about to speak though, you interrupted him.

“And I did what I did to protect you, I don't regret it and I'd do it all the same if we were to go back. I'm not asking you to like it, but that's how it is. I took you with me beacuse I know you didn't want to be left behind again, not so you could step in between myself and danger.” He was quiet for a good while, and you didn't blame him.

For his sake, you said nothing and looked away as he wiped what tears were wishing to fall. He inhaled deeply, nodding before finally moving to stand up. In the stillness of the night, you only watched him take more then a few steps towards the door before turning back halfway to face you. “I-” He exhaled deeply before coming back with a more stable confidence. “I don't want to serve anyone else. I'm only here beacuse you gave me a second chance and I don't want to throw that away.”

A small, soft sort of smile was given Olly's direction, he was a complicated boy and perhaps it made sense he was attached to someone as complicated in their own rights like yourself. You gave a single nod, softly muttering, “I'll see you bright and early then.”

“Your grace.” A small little bow before Olly left you be in the quiet and dark.

It took you a good while to return to the inside of the castle walls. At the very least, on a long list of things very wrong in your life you could say one of them was handled rather smoothly. The rest, not as simple to know where to start, and you weren't the only one.

Jon was worried about one thing, but you were busy looking out to where the crypts led down towards. If you checked, you'd have to find out one way or another if that dream itself was real, and if it was, you had a whole new question on your mind to add to Jons list of concerns. An unknown man who came here seeking something, and the question of how was the long since missing Benjen Stark involved with it?

Later into then night then he should still have been working, Jon was busy wracking his brain trying to figure out how his visions, your dreams and what now was happening to you all connected. It had to somehow, it had to mean something, but he kept coming up short on reasonable explanations. Much of that evening he had been with Sam, going through what he had translated looking for a single thing that might explain it all.

But the old powers ran deep and ancient, and some spoke of riddles Jon couldn't possible figure out the answers too even if he wanted to try. His visions of you years before were one thing, but this was something else entirely, and Jon didn't understand what about you meant you had to be dragged into it. Stark blood ran deep in ties to the North, so why was it bringing you into it by force?

Eventually, talk turned to what it always did. The storms coming for them.

“Maybe someone put it there a long time ago.”

Shaking his head, Jon looked over the shard of dragonglass in his hand. Most were close to a black, but this one sat a little closer to purple if he had held it up in the sunlight hours ago. “I don't think so, the way it's sitting down there looks like it was made naturally.” Your name slipping from his lips in thought, “She says it was from when the volcano flowed underground and when it cooled, it formed this.”

Sam had managed to come as far as learning the Children of the Forest used to hunt with obsidian, but how that connected to the rest of it, they couldn't figure out. “But if it's formed naturally, why call it dragonglass?”

“Because it's found in areas the world associates with dragons.” Both heads turned to the door of the study to find you, gently closing the door behind. Pacing ever so slowly as your eyes looked over the work scattered about the desk. “The dragons preferred to live in very hot places, and most of the time it lined up with where volcanic activity sat.” Grabbing a separate piece sat on the desk, you slowly sat down with eyes squinting at it, on one side of the table separate from both of them, Ser Davos not far near the other side of the room. “The Targaryeans didn't build the castle of Dragonstone, ancient Valyrians did. Could have chosen anywhere more mainland, even Driftmark but they built it by Dragonmont. I think, beacuse they thought their dragons would need the heat. The Valyrian Freehold was built all around volcanoes.”

The flames sat plainly across your eyes, the screams so faded from the world outside it and the molten fire spitting and flying as it boiled like a cauldron. Quiet for his own moment, Jon found a path of thought in his words. “That's why they chose there when they fled, they thought they needed it to hatch dragon eggs.”

Ser Davos spoke up in the same wonder you were following, “So why is only one out of the three things that can kill the dead, man made when the others aren't?” Now that was the true question, wracking your mind. It felt as if something connected a multitude of missing pieces, but the image was not yet even clear what or how much you were not aware you were still missing.

Sam proposing that possibly Dragonglass has something to do with Valyrian Steel but you shook your head. “You can reforge Valyrian Steel if you know what you're doing, but you can't reforge dragonglass. It's brittle and cracks easily under enough pressure. Even heating it up, you smash it with a hammer and it'll shatter.” Your eyes drifting to nothing trying to connect the image of molten lava and the thing in your hand. “They used spells and blood magic to make Valyrian Steel. Dragonglass has nothing to do with that.”

Both Sam and Jon glanced to the other, shatter was the precise word they would use to describe what happened when they killed one of the Others respectably.

The night was long and as many suggestions of truth came up in as many droves as questions which followed. For all of what you collectively knew, it seemed as if it was nothing in comparison to the storms they were all surrounded by. Come morning you hadn't let any of it go.

Looking through the books in Wolkan's study, your palms braced either side of the wooden surface outside the edge of a rather old book. This was the third you had gone through, and still none matched the image you had tried to recreate when searching for answers. Perhaps if you knew what the symbol meant, you'd know why Benjen Stark was hiding something where ever it was.

It was not easy, and you had on multiple occasions looked to him in doubt that perhaps you had recollected it wrong or drawn it incorrectly but Wolkan did not seem deterred. “It may not be as simple as a word.” Your eyes glanced up from how long you were squinting them down at the texts, “If it is a combination of words or phrases, a rune combines it into one symbol when condensed on space. We only have so much of what they left behind, it could be a combination of what we already know.”

“Or don't know.” Sighing deeply, you looked back at the page before flickering them up to the image once more. “I could be searching for something that doesn't even have an answer.” It had been a while, and your eyes felt strained looking at rudimentary drawings over and over again for as long as you had been in here and still no answers came. And you had too, come to closer to revealing the question flooding your mind either.

Sitting down, a huff released as your shoulders relaxed not in relief, but exhaustion. Wolkan took a quiet seat on the other side, eyes still just as sharp as yours no longer felt. Silly it had felt coming to ask him, but in truth, you supposed there was enough from the first day you met to tell you the man was more then willing to extend what was once more limited understandings of the world anymore. Much of that was going around now.

Wolkan was calm as he was reassuring, “Far more unusual occurrences have happened then this, your grace. Everything has an answer, but sometimes we ask the wrong questions first.” Your brows narrowed with a glaze over your eyes of curiosity mixed in confusion. Leaning a bit forward, you once more found yourself grateful that the Maesters you have known in your life never treated your knack for the bizarre with dismissal.

Drawing your focus for a moment back to the symbol you tried to recreate, you wondered if you could go back to it. See it properly once more, but without the understanding of if it came with the same risk you doubted how much any of it was even real. It was real enough Jon shared the same dream, but did that make the stranger real, you didn't know either.

Interrupting your stoic silence, Wolkan asked with a genuine prompting. “Do you know what the last task one must do before he can vow himself as a Maester of the Citadel?” Shaking your head, Wolkan pulled a candle perched not far off to sit between you both. “We spend the night all in darkness, with only one task. We must light three black glass candles. We are given no tools nor hints but what we have learned and we will sit in the dark until the sun rises trying to figure out the answer. Do you know how many I have known to do this?”

Once more you shook your head, nails somewhat digging into the wood as you glanced at the flickering flames as he continued. “None.” That got your eyes to whip up to his, your expression must have twisted more then you assumed as he chuckled at the sight. “None I have ever known has lit one of those candles, beacuse lighting it is not the purpose. It is not a test, rather one last lesson all men of learning such as myself must acquire. That no matter how much knowledge one gathers, no matter what reading and practising and work you do, there will be some things that are impossible. That you cannot force yourself to accomplish the impossible beacuse you want too, sometimes we must accept that we have our own limitations. Even if some do light them, it doesn't matter, beacuse it will not change that I do not have that ability myself.”

The silence was not uncomfortable, but it was heavy as your eyes drifted away into the distance against the flames once more. Still nothing. Only when you found the words to speak, did it flow so softly between you two that he wouldn't have heard any further away. “Presuming the lesson you are trying to tell me is not in fact, I should know when to give up,” Finding his once more, Wolkan was always quiet and in as much thought as you it seemed. “But rather I should stop trying to solve every riddle all on my own before going to others about it.”

He nodded once, but let you sit for the quiet between you, nails tapping at the drawing and your eyes drifting away again. Only once something of tension fell from your shoulder did he speak up to more then your muttering level. “I will bring this,” Reaching for the drawing only to pause as you realized in a moment he wanted you to let go of it. “To Samwell, see if it is something the boy has seen in any of his readings.”

Right as you were to leave his study, you turned back with a more lightness in your tone. “You really believe me? What I saw, what I've seen?”

“Eventually, the Starks are always right. Winter always will come. No reason to doubt what you say, more absurd things have come with the winter storms then visions and dreams, your grace. In comparison to what is said is coming for us, this is nothing.” It wasn't quite a smile he got from you, but a brightness in your eyes along with a nod before parting ways.

Telling yourself to focus one at a time, look first at what was right in front of you.

Only, you routinely were very talented at finding yourself focusing on things that made your head scream at you more and more the longer it went on. Though, you were all too well aware that such a side effect, was indeed the result Maege Mormont intended. It had to be how her daughters grew to all be a thick skinned as she was, a lifetime of growing up with this relentlessness would toughen anyone's resolve.

“This is why you never belonged in Kings Landing, you still cannot lie for shit.”

Face burying itself in your palms, elbows propping you up on the table in front of you. Every answer you had given her was dripping in a held back diplomacy as if she would take that at face value, which she didn't. And it only made her poking and prodding worse. Eyes peeking up to glare at her, you only muttered, “What possible reason would I have to lie about this?”

The look she gave you, were you not flustered, would have been priceless. Eyebrow raised as she tilted her head, a smirk forming slow to boot with too much knowing and far more teasing. Her voice matched all the same. “Because you're uptight.” That got your head to shoot up almost in protest as she pointed at you. “Oh, do you have a defence against that, beacuse gods be good I'd love to hear you talk your way out of that accusation.” The staring lasted all but five seconds before you turned your attention away from her as she continued without prompt. “I've known you good many years now, your grace. You genuinely care about the people of the North, and I know that means you're worried an honest answer would turn our opinions against you.”

Mumbling mostly to yourself, you still didn't look her way, embarrassment still fresh in your system from how much she was trying to call it up to the surface, the truth. “You made him King, you all still called me Queen, it was a logical decision.”

If a tease was on Maege's tongue, the tactic switched at the last moment. “I don't know what Ramsay Bolton did to you, nor is it any of my business. But I know what he said that day the King took his head, we all heard it.” Your jaw clenched, muscles in your hands tensing as they felt a fleeting need to expel such energy somewhere. “You are worried if we think anything other then it was only politics, that it means we will think that bastard was right. That you're some whore who jumped from one King to the next just to stay Queen.”

The air had gone from teasing to heavy to painful between you both. You valued Maege's company much but you also despised how quickly she would find the root of what you were not saying. Hardly a breath uttered between your whispered words, held back in any real emotion. “That's what everyone in the South would presume.” Maege quick to comment that this wasn't the South yet you found little comfort in it. “Why does it even matter? I married him, there isn't anything else to say about it.”

The quiet remained for a moment before she stood, moving towards a cabinet by the edge of the kitchens which remained thankfully quiet in the early afternoon. Two mugs she pulled out as you watched her speak while having one of the servers fetch her wine, her voice as serous as yours just had been. “I've had a lot of bad days, your grace. Being given leadership of Bear Island, all beacuse my nephew disgraced himself and ran away, knowing the rest of the North all looked at us as if we helped him escape. Learning my brother was murdered by a bunch of cowards beyond the wall. Worst of them was learning I was thousands of miles away from where my Dacey died. Not knowing if I could've done anything.”

Pouring the wine into the first, you looked away the last of your memories of her as clear as all of them you never saw again. Maege continued, not expecting you to speak quite yet. “Then all I could think of was, could I have even saved her? Or would I have been killed that night too. You never love your children quite the same way you do your first born. And all I could think, was that maybe she wouldn't have to die alone if I fell with her.”

Whenever she had walked back over, you barley heard it. There was so little about that night you still knew, and didn't want too. Your eyes unfocused as she put yours in front of you, voice thick and heavy as you could still see those mornings, almost something akin to a glint in your eye she could barley see as you watched nothing but a memory.

Breathless almost in tone, your chest tightened. “When we were still in Riverrun, I was ill almost every other morning. Like a ritual, I'd wake up far too early, make it down to the edge of the river and let it all up.”

If your memory searched back hard enough, you might have recalled an even earlier one. Ill for the first time, Maege and Catelyn both had been as comforting as they were amused. Drenched with sweat from how much energy it took from you, you looked back to both of them asking. “You did this five times? I'm ready to surrender before I've even had one.”

But you were in a different memory that time. “Dacey was always there. Always knew when to find me, knowing I didn't want Robb too fuss about it, so she ended up fussing about it with me.” Hands barley grasping the mug, you felt that almost smile come creeping a bit closer. “She was one of the last people who felt like a friend. Not a solider, not a subject. But she'd sit with me, make fun of me. Tell stories to distract me on the worse mornings. We felt like little girls sneaking about getting into trouble.”

Missing entirely, the brightness in Maege's own eyes. Her face, did not feel the need to hide nor smother down a hint of a smile on one side. Her tone as quiet, leaning forward. “Like I said, had a lot of bad days. But do you know what my first good day in a long while was after that? Seeing you standing there in my own damn home after more then a year knowing you were gone too.” Still more your chest tightened as you struggled to look at her. “I saw you alive and well and the first thing I noticed was how much Jon Snow was looking at you as if he didn't know what to do with himself the moment you walked away. Not once has he ever tried to hide what he feels for you. And not for a second did I want you to reject that beacuse you were worried how it would look.”

Things were different after that first night on Bear Island, between you and Jon. Not really for your insecurity. That has hardly changed a fraction. Taking a long sip before finding her eyes, yours hesitant and unsure. “I know you heard what she said, that night in Moat Cailin. That's what everyone else thinks of it, and why shouldn't they? Robb had been gone but a year and a half when Jon and I..”Putting it down roughly you shook your head. “Me being ready to find myself with another doesn't mean others think I should have. And I don't expect them too. I have their respect, I should be grateful with that alone.”

You weren't ashamed to be with Jon, or to be married too him. But perhaps you still had too much on your plate, still trying to take too much on at once, beacuse the longer the silence sat the more you felt lost as to what your point was in the first place. Maege however, sensed at least a little bit of that.

Standing up finally, a comforting hand ran over one shoulder as your gaze tilted up to look at her. Voice quiet for none but the two of you in the room to hear. “To keep the record straight, your grace, I wanted to know when things had happened between you two, beacuse if you were going to tell me it was when you were in my home, I would've been damn proud.”

A smack in a playfulness to your shoulder as she passed you by, you felt torn between laughing and feeling that unsure dread fill you once more. Why did your head feel such a mess lately?

Quiet in the moments alone until you sensed that feeling all too easily. Turning your head barley to the side as you called into what looked like nothing, “If you're going to spy I'd rather you do it to my face.”

Slinking around the corner, an indignant look sat upon Arya's face, twisted in annoyance as her voice raised in pitch, “How did you know I was there?” Your head only tilted with a flat look and an eyebrow up, pulling a sigh from her. Approaching the table, she sat in the seat beside you easily. “I went through all this work to be quiet as a shadow and you still can always tell when someone's watching you.”

A light chuckle ran through you, sipping at the water still before you. “I've known you since you were a babe, Arya. I know when you're watching me by now.” Watching in quiet for only a second before coming right to your point. “So would you like to tell me why you're listening in on my conversations, or am I going to have to guess until I find the right answer?”

Jaw ticking, she clearly debated in her mind what she would approach her answer with until settling on a path not quite direct as you asked. “I caught you and Jon in the stables once.” Your brows furrowing in confusion, she looked a mixture between bashful and somewhat amused at the memory. “It was years ago, you two thought you were alone but I was still there and I saw Jon kiss you.”

Perhaps once the nerves would have set it, instead an unusual stiffness in your muscles left you tense but your eyes narrowed at her in a hesitant look unsure where she was going with it. You weren't at all sure you even knew what she was talking about, despite how easily she recalled it.

A shrug in her shoulders, Arya toyed with the handle of the mug sat by her. “He never actually told me anything when I asked him about it. We both knew I knew, we agreed to never talk about it. But I knew.”

Once you would have felt the dread, you had felt it even just in the conversation prior but yet sitting next to Arya of all people, you felt something of a lack of nerves. Voice rather steady for what you had only just been feeling. “Which means you understand why we didn't tell people, or why things still aren't quite as simple now.”

Arya however, was somehow ever more blunt then she had been years ago. “It can be, if you stop being stupid.” Your head tilted, as your face fell more flat looking at her. A lecturing gaze that only she could so easily get away without feeling the effects of as she continued. “You two don't always have to make everything so complicated.”

Your initial quiet was not was she was expecting but was what she got for a moment regardless. That feeling deep in your blood that switched between freezing over in stillness and burning in too much at once a constant since that night. You came back and there was nothing and nothing until him and unravelling the why wasn't as easy as it was being told to you.

What you lost to get here wasn't simple, and so being here would never be either.

“You don't understand the luck you had, Arya.” Her brows furrowing, but you only glanced at her with a lightness in your eyes as they were far away. “Growing up with your mother and father, to you it's all easy. Love is easy, you always knew no matter what people said, what they had was real. No matter what was said about your father, none ever questioned it's strength. My family isn't so lucky.”

Your hands found one another on the wooden surface, trying to wring together as faces you long hadn't thought of properly passed you by in your mind. Arya watching with a curiosity as you continued. “Robert and Cersei hated each other. Slept with other people, just to spite one another. Renly was bedding another before he even shared one night with his own wife. My father was never unfaithful, but he and my mother have never loved each other.” Tilting your head your eyes widened just a bit in an exasperation. “Add living in Kings Landing on top of all that, and you begin to conclude that I've never quite been around many married couples at all that love one another, or are even faithful.”

Renly may have had somewhat of a reason, but it still was unfaithful. Attracted to her or not, Margaery Tyrell was still his wife and any and all rumours which reached your ears in the war told you that there was not a hint that Ser Loras had ceased his part in Renly's private affairs. Everyone of course, knew about Robert.

Your own father and mother may not love one another at all, but at least it did not complete a trio of infidelity that acted as if it plagued many Baratheon men in your lifetime. Your voice quiet as it muttered out, “The last thing I'd want anyone to do, is to think what I had with Robb was anywhere near as unfaithful or untrue as the rest of my family. And I know it looks like I've moved on as if keeping my title was what mattered.”

It was odd to Arya, not that you would have known. She knew of you and Jon, but not once did she ever look at you and Robb, or what she heard of you and Robb and think it wasn't real. The way the men here still talk about his late memory, it always involves you. You and him were always at each others side by the sounds of it and it seemed preposterous that any would question that.

But then again, Southerners it seemed, did not look at love and marriage in the same dedicated manner. She could recall her short time with the Brotherhood, hearing Edric Dayne tell her that her father fell in love with his aunt, before trying to speak of some woman he claimed was Jons mother. She remembered telling him angrily that her father only ever loved her mother. And it was true.

If she were younger, maybe she would have believed what he said about Jons mother in those days, but she was thirteen by then and far smarter then to believe this outlaw knew more of her family then she did. Her father didn't love some other woman, then marry Catelyn, then sleep with some wet nurse too, that wasn't what her family was like. They didn't see love and marriage as something so fleeting like these people did.

She knew that now better then any. That on top of everything her father was, she could strike out ever being unfaithful to his wife as part of him. The truth only made him even better in her eyes.

But she could tell, you worried that everyone else would think you saw your love and marriages in such a fleeting manner. Something about you now was different, but Arya didn't have the words to figure out why.

Some days were easier then others, and in that moment, it seemed you had found a happy medium between stress and amusement. Truly you told yourself there was nothing to laugh at. When you were a novice at something there were bound to be times frustrations rose especially in comparison to others around with more experience. A smirk was bitten back against your tongue trying to remain neutral but not for a moment did your eyes hide quite as well.

If he weren't up against a thirteen year old, it wouldn't be as difficult. Gendry had argued it wouldn't be as hard as it looked to learn the basics of archery, and yet you, Theon, and other spectators had given a multitude of advice and many times repeated it. Beside him, for every shot Gendry missed, Olly had gotten quite close to perfect.

Everytime they gave one another a glance, Gendry wondering if he was too old to get snarky with a child, and Olly sparing glances at you already knowing what mockings were on both your minds.

“Your spending too much time getting into position.” Gendry had turned back at that, looking at Theon like he was ready to just throw the bow at him. Despite Theon not at all finding any threat. “Most cases when you're out there, you're not going to have time to focus on your form you just have to expect by the time you get your aim locked you'll already be there.”

Gesturing beside him, arguing, “He's spending all his time on his form before he aims.” Theon however, just pointed out Olly hadn't been the one missing his shots and once more you glanced away save you get caught trying not to laugh at the expression on his face at such an observation.

The air around was cold, but it was an uncommon feeling for you there to feel any sort of genuine enjoyment in the middle of the day. The three of them bantering back and forth and taking easy jests towards one another, the dynamic of boys remained no different when or where or who they were. You get enough in one spot and eventually it seems they all begin to torment the rest.

Some moments you could trick yourself enough into thinking you were enjoying it, other times all eyes seemed to be off you and trickling in were the piercing eyes and bone chilling voice which made you shiver more then the outside cold. One thing at a time you were to focus on, but every few hours the stranger would crawl back to you and demand you shrink in at the fear.

Still, only Jon knew about that. How else would you say it to another soul, you'd be seen as out of your mind more then you already were. Lord Howland telling you what this was called did not make it that much more comforting.

What would you tell people? You have the sight, but there is no true explanation as to what it is, and what it means? You may as well tell your people you were but a fair maiden, weak minded and broken down into hysteria by the world around you. Talking of someone you saw in a dream you do not know as if they were real, wasn't the ramblings of someone with a firm grip on their sanity.

“Some days you remind me far too much of your father.” Your heart startling in your chest, you turned to the side where you had been perched to see your mother standing close. Voice a more quiet mutter just for you, but her eyes watching narrowed and curious at the same scene before you. “When you're troubled you both have this look, staring into the distance as if you're anywhere but here.” Glancing at your stilled gaze she added, “It would be intimidating if it came from anyone other then you.”

A deep hum in your chest came out in some sound as you looked away to the three of them once more teasing the other more then teaching and learning. “Once many years ago I might have considered being called unintimidating, an insult.”

Smooth and low her voice always was, a contrast to your weaker cracked tone the louder you'd speak sometimes. “Unlike Stannis, being intimidating doesn't suit you. I'm not sure I could ever imagine thinking he would look so natural being over here laughing and joking with these boys.”

Your that time slowly turned to her as your eyes squinted. Lips parting slightly as you let a bit of a smirk fall over your face. A smirk which caught on and found it's way too onto your mothers. “I'm not sure I've ever heard you make fun of father, before.”

Selyse however, only shrugged one shoulder. “You weren't around for those years. Your sister saw plenty of that.” Once the air would have been heavy between you at her mention, but it was less of that and more something simple charged between you both going unsaid. But did not threaten to suffocate either anymore.

A sigh left you, gazing back to the yard only to drop as you looked more to the ground. Voice low only for her, ignoring around you. “It's bizarre isn't it?” She could see your eyes flicker over to Gendry before returning back to her alone. “Whenever I used to try and imagine what Petyr would look like, it always ended up something like that. Only, he looks even more like one of us then I once thought.”

Her own silence thought for a moment, with Maester Cressen gone, she now was the only one remaining who knew the names you gave your brothers. Like you however, her gaze to Gendry didn't last long but it was narrow eyed as it was critical before coming to yours. “The only cousins you thought you had looked nothing like Robert, you had no way of knowing any proper children would take after the two of them so strongly.”

Lightness came over you as you could recall it, it had been a long time. “The last thing Jon Arryn had said before he died was the seed is strong. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what that could have meant until I saw him.” As soon as your mind put it together it was so obvious that day. “We spoke perhaps a few minutes before Lord Stark and myself realized who he was. How couldn't we, he stood there looking just like me.”

“No one knows?” Answering that besides Jon, no one else knew but the three of you and Ser Davos. A quiet moment she spent watching as if normal when what she said was not the direction you expected at all. “Part of me wished I could have hated Jon once we had arrived at Castle Black.” Quite good you both were at staying right where you were looking as if no conversation of meaning was taking place whatsoever. “The way your father looked at him, it was like watching for the first time him interacting with the son he never had. And I wanted to hate him for it, beacuse my husband could only find that in someone who wasn't even his by blood. In a boy I didn't give him.”

Silent you remained, not quite sure what she was getting at.

“Imagine how strange it is, looking at a boy who in every way is what you imagined in your own sons appearance, but the only one you actually have, is one by marriage that your father admired in such a way.” Your brows narrowed a small bit, eyes not truly looking at anything anymore as the cool breeze passed between you both. “Everytime I think our family couldn't get any stranger, you show up with a way to only add to it further.”

A small shrug on your shoulder, with little voice to follow. “I have a knack for it. How is that going by the way?” The smirk it seemed, returned just the slightest. “Having a son in law.”

Oh the flat expression of your mothers face only had you smother a smirk even further as you both looked away from the other in amusement. “Slowly. It takes time, getting used to seeing you married to someone so different then the sort of match I used to have in mind.”

It was your turn to twist in expression, “Dare I ask what kind of match you used to envision for me?”

Her face seemed to feel a doubt, as if trying to find words other then what she was thinking by the time she opened her mouth. “Simply put, someone a little more..” Eyes sharp towards her, you watched those same cogs turn once more.

Head tilting to the side a little bit, you let some audacity sit in your tone. “If you are about to respectful mother, I swear-” Claiming instantly that wasn't what she about about to say you jumped right back into it. “Then what word were you going to say?”

The pause lasted a few good moments before settling on, “Someone a little less rambunctious.”

She gazed at you from the side as you eyed her with a judging jest. “That is not what you were trying to say and we both know it. Besides, if you think Jon is too wild, I dare not imagine what you would've thought about the man my father married me off to in the first place.”

That time Selyse looked at you in a stern wonder but you merely looked away to the group once more ahead of you. No doubt whatever suitor she once had in mind, was incredibly boring in contrast to the two wolves which held equal sides of your heart.

Nights had a pattern these days, where you would end up and with whom. Any looking to find you or Jon only need search the study being used by Sam. The quiet of the night made it easier to focus on what was needed, and yet it also was more unnerving. At least now it was, the closer to night it got the more you couldn't avoid having to sleep. Ever since that night on the ship, you tossed back and forth between dreamlessness and horror before you and there was no control of it. But this was the first night you had properly delved into the Northern part of what you had seen in that dream.

“It's been a long time, but I'm sure of it. Those were the same ones.” Sam insisting that the symbol you had dreamt of was carved into a rock at the Fist of the First Men, where underneath it sat the cloak hiding the dragonglass. Pulling a scroll he had been in the middle of writing out, you moved to stand beside him. Hand braced on the desk as you leaned over with squinting eyes.

Jon however, hovered more by the window. Arms crossed over his chest you could tell that somewhere he was lost in thought but you didn't know what. You didn't blame him. It had been a very long time since someone other then himself had mentioned Benjen Stark, and it clearly was an untreated wound inside him that still hurt.

Leaning down to look at the writing closer to the flames you started to eye the translations Sam had worked on since Wolkan came to him. Muttering under your breath, “How do we go thousands of years and still not understand these?” Your other palm moving to join braced against the desk in thought as on the other adjacent side Sam watched closely.

His answer was easy, and with a confidence that you were thankful for. “Most Archmaesters at the Citadel question all of it.” Your head rising up to find his in question. “The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. Once they came in, they established their own writing system and most things we know about the Dawn Age or the Age of Heroes were written by septons thousands of years later. By the time anyone thought to look at the runes used by the First Men,”

You finished his sentence as your eyes trained back on the paper. “No one was left who knew how to translate them.” It seemed like the markings you saw were a collection of words or phrases. As if what appeared as one rune, was really a collective of words which painted an image that meant what written language could say in a paragraph. Many looked like the other and it was clear Sam had spent much time trying to narrow it down. Muttering mostly to yourself as you looked it over, “I am not normally one in favour of shaming other cultures, but it sure is bloody inconvenient trying to figure it all out now.”

Jon, still further away faced your direction as his voice rasped out, “Maybe it wasn't meant to be read in Common.” Both you and Sam looked up at him, but there was already an answer to the question posed on both your tongues. “They spoke seven different languages north of the Wall. These symbols might be an combination of Old Common and something else.”

Narrowing your gaze back at them, you couldn't help the image in your head from coming up. One made in the snow in blood and bodies. Whatever connections your mind was trying to make, still felt as if you had a long way to go. Glancing back up, Jon once more looked away distracted.

Something other then your dream of his Uncle was bothering him.

It was agreed it couldn't have been a coincidence that Benjen would leave the dragonglass under a rune rock at the Fist of the First Men. It couldn't mean nothing, that didn't even make sense. He planned on going much further to the Frost Fangs, but made a stop by the Fist to bury dragonglass?

Why not leave it all at the wall, or take it with him? With every new answer, it felt as it it swirling in your mind until it stretched thin and split off into multiple new questions you didn't know even once connected. Planning a war felt like a tray of cakes next to this.

In truth you think he barley noticed by the time you came up behind him. Palms gently sliding up his back and digging somewhat into the tense muscles, until you felt Jon relax with a shaking exhale to follow. Your voice low as you stood more on your toes to try and lean over his shoulder, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Silent for a moment, instead Jon chose to reach behind him, beckoning you to stand in front of him to the night sky. Back now up against his chest, one hand holding firmly at your waist as the other wrapped around your stomach to pull you firmly into him. One of your hands grasping at his fingers by your stomach and the other pushing the material on his forearm up to run over the skin there.

Jon pressed his head against the side of yours, rasping in a low mumble in the now empty room of only the two of you. “Do you know what one of the first things Mance Rayder said to me was?” Shaking your head no, he sighed deeply. “Right away he knew I was Ned Stark's bastard.” Your mouth parting ever so slightly, an unsettled chill in your blood as their was his. “Being a Snow doesn't mean anything north of the Wall. Knowing my name shouldn't have..the second I walked into his tent he already knew who I was.”

Very little Jon liked to talk about his time beyond the Wall, a lot you suspected he didn't want to hear, didn't want to say. It was hard to get an actual answer but you grasped at what straws you could. “Benjen was First Ranger, if he knew him he might have heard-” You could feel him shake his head against you though.

Hand on your waist smoothing up and down the warm material covering you, you could feel him looking a bit more down at you from where he stood. “He knew who I was because he'd seen me before.” Asking where, Jon gave only one word that made your body freeze. “Here.” If anything, Jon pulled you closer, his forehead resting against the side of yours as he leaned more down into your leaning back touch. “The man in the crypts, in your dream, the night of the feast. It was Mance.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

You felt him look somewhat behind for a moment, as if struggling to decide moving you both or staying right here but he ultimately found the fair strength. Turning you slightly so the arm around your stomach slunk to your lower back guiding you to one of the chests near the corner. Keeping you there, Jon knelt down as he moved to unlock and rummage through it. “Qhorin Halfhand said Mance was having groups of Free Folk dig around the Skirling Pass. Looking for something. When I met them he they claimed he had what he was looking for but I doubted it.”

Arms crossing so your hands could smooth over the other as the chill of the night felt just a bit worse when not pressed close to Jons warmth. “And what was he looking for?”

Standing up, still wrapped in a Nights Watch cloak, you both moved so he could rest it against the table. “When Sam found the dragonglass, it was wrapped in this. But that wasn't the only thing with it. If my Uncle hid this, I don't think it was the daggers he was hiding. I think it was this.” Unravelling it, some kind of horn sat inside.

Ivory in some places, but most of it was made out of bronze, dark runes carved into it with a delicate care. Not much bigger then the size of any normal dagger. To most it wouldn't have stood out but for where it was found, it certainty was. Trying to ask what this had to do with Mance, Jon turned it in his hand gently as he rasped deeply. “I think he was looking for this. I think he came south of the Wall to find this, but the night of the feast, my Uncle got to it first. So he lied, and said he had it to convince his people to listen to him.”

His eyes looked over the runes, but yours drew up to look at him with a wide gaze. “That's why he knew who you were. Why he knew where to look in the crypts.”

Grey eyes shining bright found yours, and only an unsure silence sat between for a moment as Jon attempted to find a muttering voice. “The Free Folk called it the Horn of Winter. Something that could bring down the Wall.”

If only a small mumble, your eyebrows raised a bit as you looked back down at the bronzed artifact laying limp once more. “Seems a little dramatic if you ask me.” Not expecting the chuckle coming deep from Jon next to you, you found yourself leaning a bit more into his side, as if drawing closer to the rare sound. His arm wrapped around, pulling you close as if sensing the second you moved.

His face twisted trying to think it through as you were, “I don't know if I believe it can bring the Wall down, but it's important enough that everyone was looking for it.” He didn't need to elaborate, and you didn't ask him too. “Sam had this on him when they were attacked out there, and they left him alive. Killed two hundred of my brothers but they walked passed Sam and let him live.”

Despite all the war you had seen, it was hard to envision the kind of battles Jon had seen. Two such drastically different fights that you both found yourself in for so many years and yet his was inconceivable in what it must have looked like. “You think they knew he had it?”

Inhaling, he didn't pick it up, but turned it slightly over with his free hand. “Or they could sense something. Old Nan used to tell stories about how the Wall is protected with magic. If her stories about The Long Night are true..”

Hesitating, you came to as blunt a conclusion as one could. “I'm beginning to feel rather sick of this, everywhere we turn now something else has to do with magic. Who knew fighting a war in enemy territory was going to be the most simple part of my life.”

Wrapped back up and locked away, your palms were braced against the wood behind you as you leaned against it. Looking up at Jon as he stood somewhat before you, head just as loud as yours. “If what Lord Howland says about your visions is right, something was trying to lead you to the answers. Whatever is giving this to you, wanted us to know my Uncle hid those before he disappeared. Just not why.”

It was a risk of a suggestion, but you gave it anyways. “If I learn how to control it..” Jons gaze shot up narrow and a blatant disapproval on it as you continued. “I might be able to go back to that vision and learn something..” Saying your name in warning, you shook your head barrelling past him. “It can't be a coincidence, too much of what I'm seeing feels like it is supposed to connect maybe the gods are trying to help guide me to give you the right answers..”

Jon repeating your name, the second time a hand tilting your jaw and cheek up to meet his eyes, a brightness in them that begged to be listened to with a sorrow. “It's not safe, letting you do that.” If he expected a protest, which he didn't, Jon let the opportunity come and go before continuing. “What if he shows up and I can't protect you? What if this gets worse, Lord Howland said these things took a toll on his son..I'm not going to let anything happen to you for any of this.”

Your eyes didn't meet his for a moment as they drifted. Hands tensing and relaxing against the wood before slipping your eyes shut. Exhaling deeply almost as sigh before finding Jons grey eyes once more. Unfair it was, how easily your shoulders dropped in strain at such a close sight. Lightly, you let your hand run along his wrist, pulse strong as it always was. “You don't want me to fight, but you don't want me to even help you here. If I didn't know any better, a girl may start feeling like she's not trusted.”

A step closer to you, Jon tilted his head with an almost jesting sharp look as if to challenge you on that one. “I can't trust you. You're too selfless sometimes for your own good, and now I can't trust you to not throw yourself on your sword for me.” There wasn't malice or judgment, but almost a deep affection. His other hand reached up to pull you into his chest as he stepped up close to you, your own hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders as he helped you stand against him straighter. Voice low and rasping but close that you could feel his warm breathe dance across your own skin. “You might be the only girl I know that makes taking care of you difficult. Aren't Queens supposed to be waited on hand and foot?”

Raising an eyebrow you took Jon off guard, pressing a kiss to his cheek before he could get much more snarky. Whispering gently, “Says the King who refuses to let his wife do any of the hard work no matter how much she tries.” Running your hands down the leather across his chest, you wished it sounded more sultry from you voice but really it only dipped back into a rough sincere tone. “You're good at this, Jon. Being King? You're great at it.” Finding his eyes, he trusted your intentions, to not interupt with what normally is a dismissal in insecurity. “But I don't want you doing everything on your own. Not when this time I know where's things I can do to help.”

Still, it felt as if Jon was holding something back but you didn't want to press it. He had more then what he deserved weighing on him and pushing him didn't make that better. Instead, you simply followed his lead as he leaned in to close the gap between you both.

His lips pressed gently against yours in a mere chaste kiss, both of your hands wrapping around the back of his neck. His hair all pulled back it let you scratch gently along the skin there, pulling a deep rumbling from within Jons chest. His hands cupping your cheeks, he pulled you up to tilt to his mercy but didn't deepen it in any way.

Light tracings against your lips was all he gave, both of you savouring how soft and warm you felt wrapped up with one another as such. Pulling away, Jon gave into weakness, pressing one more small kiss to your lips, then your forehead before resting yours against his. Thumbs running along the skin of your cheeks. “We'll talk to Sam about it, see if he's found anything. Tormund's back in a few days, he knew Mance a long time. I'll see if he knows anything about the horn either.”

Nodding absentmindedly only for a moment before you stopped. Nails stopped scratching and your eyes opened with an amused jest in them. Glancing up as you pulled back slightly, still in his hold you opened your mouth but Jon knew your attitude far better then that. Cutting you off before your first breathe with a rough, “Don't.”

Your laugh had him smirk in an instant. But your only comment in return, had Jon almost haul you out of the room with a brute strength as if about to pick you up and throw you onto the bed the moment he got you to his chambers for that one. “What? Afraid distance has made my heart grow stronger?”

Only, his hands on your hips as he leaned into you, did the door open and a loud voice shouted out with as much amusement as it had disgust. “Seven hells, you do know you both have a bedroom to do this in, right?”

Glancing over, both you and Jon with a matching narrow eyes glare towards Arya as she leaned in the door frame looking as if the parent and you both the caught children. Jon spoke flatly at her with as much jesting attitude, “Or you could turn around and close the door.”

A roll of your eyes found it's way fondly onto you as just as quickly, Arya playfully snapped right back with not a care in the world. “Other people live here, why can't you go be disgusting somewhere private?”

Both Starks now trapped in their own game of see who will give each other more snark first, it was likely neither of you were making it to the bed as quick as Jon previously intended. Once he and Arya got started bantering back and forth, there was little which could stop it, and having you in the room only made it worse. Not quite the picture of stern, formal members of the ruling North you three were.

There were many things Jon didn't yet know how to tell you, but the one he was thinking of now, was undoubtedly the dream he had.

One that felt real and yet strange as if he walked in lands he should know. The cold wind blew around Jon as steady as it was far too cold. Air flying through his hair and feet touching the snow and ice below. Yet he felt none of the pain which should come with such a sensation. Around him was ruins, but it was more then that.

They sat beneath a great cliff which sat just below dark cave mouths. Around it so high was charred trees, half living most merely statues of black wood which remained in what used to be. The scattered wilderness which could survive this far north was overgrown in such beyond. Expanding far and wide with no sign of life around such high peaks. Yet down below where he stood spoke a story vastly different.

Buildings once stood here, he could see their remains as well as the bones which were littered about from one end to the other. The stench of death was long gone and yet he felt felt it all around even in the empty dark. Some places looked new yet abandoned still. Cabins of fresh wood and yet it sat as if none would touch such a haunted place. Leading down to the freezing waters, a small spot like a dock sat where ships and boats once may have existed.

But they too, sat empty. This used to be a settlement, one Jon could envision with such activity and yet there was something about the cold and dark that drew people away. Or was that really it? Did it chase its villagers off, or did they get up, and walk away?

Beacuse if it wasn't a striking cold that set him off, it was the kind of dark that oozed around him.

Walking forward, the signs of life continued to hide. What was once here echoed as a ghost that no longer could be seen with easy eyes. Spots in the snow and ice sat black and he knew were a light to be shined upon it, it would sit a deep reddish brown in that of once blood. There was much of that. Weapons sat scattered around all in the same states and yet not enough to explain what seemed to once be carnage. But there were no bodies. At least, not anymore. What was once here, had stood up and left.

Hardhome had not looked like this when Jon left it, but in this strange otherworldly version of it, this was all which remained.

A darkness drew his grey eyes up to the night as he approached the docks. As if the skies shined with a greenish tint. Not overtaking, but wavering like they were painted into the night and moved along with the winds they blew. If one flew close to it, the green felt not bright like the sights of wildfire. This green was dark and memorizing, as if any could reach out and touch it, it would overtake him and simply draw him into their depths.

The black of night sat around the moon and stars but they, themselves, were hardly visible against the green. Shining like it was the reflection of the waters the sky sat above, green was like it poured into it and begged to draw one in. It was not a green to fear, but one to marvel. Only the kind of green he had ever seen before, sat within the colours of your eyes. But it was shimmering in the sky like milk poured into it.

Not bright and striking, not wild and terrifying, but a subtle green which only sat to exist and nothing more, but it was what drew Jons eyes wide none the less. Never before did such a shade colour draw his attention, when not you. The red comet had flown over the lands of Westeros many years ago and not once did it captivate him like the green over this far Northern land now. It appeared to shimmer in some places, but it looked as if the sky had been this way for thousands of years.

But the sea did not freeze over, some waters did but it sat open to the world as if begging him to jump in and see. Yet Jon guessed the water while not frozen over, would indeed freeze a mans blood as good as it would any. Something had taken over this place in this dream. Hardhome was empty in the real world, but in this dream, someone else occupied it.

Jon looked up to the green in the sky against such unusual cold and it wasn't until his eyes grew heavy and on edge, did he turn half way to look. Up right at the top of the cliff, not many, not even some. Just one stood on a horse so high he could barley see but a shadow. But it was tall, and glowed against the cold night and a weapon sheathed against the horse was like a crystal of ice.

The creature looked down to Jon, and it felt shivering. He had seen this one the last time he was at Hardhome. This one had looked him in the eye, and with the raise of his arms, all of the dead rose with him. He watched Jon from a high edge now, in a dream, as if they shared it together. As if this creature could share Jons dreams, the way he was learning he shared yours.

Did he bring this dark and cold, Jon did not know. But he did know, it's kind was why none lived here anymore. Half of the people once here, lived in settlements in the North he ruled, the other half walked with blue eyes and no mind of their own in a never ending army.

One more thing Jon didn't know, was why in the far distance, could he hear the cawing of a crow.

[cer-rata]

Fic WIP(maybe): "World's Okayest"

"So," Conrad started, eyes bright and excited, "I think the three of us are like, a thing."

Jon slowly turned away from the diner’s window to look at him, mostly in horror and confusion. Mostly. "...W-what? You...you're not suggesting...what?"

"Like, you know, Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. The big three."

Jon let out a sigh of relief. "Oh. oh okay, I thought you were trying to say--"

Damian snorted. "Yeah, considering what Conrad writes in his spare time, maybe you shouldn't relax so quickly."

"DAMIAN!"

Jon blinked. "...Conrad--"

"Don't listen to him! He's evil and he lies and--"

"He's quite prolific." Damian laughed as Conrad missed him with a thrown French fry.

Jon shook his head. "I don't even want to know. Um. Conrad, where were you going with--"

"Oh! Right! Before SATAN took the wheel--I dunno, I just think we work together pretty well, maybe we should do it more consistently.”

“I’d like that.” Jon really did enjoy spending time with them, even when they were getting shot at.

Damian shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think we need to imitate those old bags and Diana, but sure.”

“But I don’t think it’s imitating, it’s pretty natural. Jon is ‘Angry Superman--’”

“Hey!”

“You’re ‘GNC Wonder Woman--’”

“Wh-wait--”

“And I’m ‘The Batman Who Fucks.’”

Damian stared at him. “...Are you insane?”

“Yes, that is exactly why I’m Batman.”

Jon snorted and covered his mouth.

“Conrad, there is no way--” Damian leaned in angrily, “How the hell am I not Batman?”

“Batman is scary. I’m scary. You’re not scary.”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“If both of us are dangling someone off of a roof, which one of us might actually drop them?”

Jon looked mildly alarmed. “...Neither of you? Right?”

Damian groaned. “...Okay, but that’s not a good--Batman doesn’t kill people!”

“I never said I’d allow them the release of death. But see, right now: You’re even-tempered, relatively normal, patient even though I am going out of my way to irritate you--that’s Diana, bro.”

“Are you saying I’m Diana because you think I’m boring?!”

“No, Diana’s not boring, you being boring has nothing to do with it.”

Damian sighed and leaned back in his seat. “Oh, Conrad. Conrad, Conrad, Conrad…”

Jon looked back and forth between them a couple of times. “Wait, are you guys actually arguing or--”

Conrad turned to make eye contact with him and smiled. “The trick is to get him ready to kill you. He won’t, so he has to resort to something else and--hey, no, D, your side of the booth is over there, across from me where I’m safe--”

Ah no, it was flirting then. Again.

Damian slid into the booth next to him, and Conrad scooted over into Jon, who didn’t budge at all and just watched with amusement and maybe something a little more…sour.

Conrad laughed and curled up against him. “Damian, I’m sorry!” 

Damian slid closer, appearing perfectly relaxed and normal when compared to Conrad’s giggly hysterics. “What’s wrong, beloved? I’m not doing anything.”

“Oh no! You only call me that when you’re worried or I’m in trouble!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Conrad squeaked and pressed his cheek into Jon’s shoulder. “Sammy, help!”

Conrad was the only person Jon would let call him by his middle name. He even liked it, actually. He tried not to ponder that, but failed, and his smile started to wilt. His guts felt tight. “Eh, I think…I think you’re fine…”

Conrad sat straight up so quickly that he and Damian knocked foreheads. “Fuck, my bad--”

“Ow! Why!?”

“Sorry, I just…” He turned to look at Jon. “What…what happened?”

Jon stared at him. “...What?”

“You just uh…you got a little…uh…” Conrad suddenly looked trapped and Jon couldn’t figure out what on Earth that was about.

Damian leaned over to look at him too and raised an eyebrow. “That’s...just a Midwestern thing, Conrad, they always look a little lost.”

“I’m not from the--” Jon made eye contact with Conrad again, and caught the violet flash of his irises. Then Conrad nodded gently and turned back to Damian.

“Ah, I guess you’re right. You can go back to mauling me if you want.”

Damian shook his head. “No, you killed my momentum, I’ve added it to my bank of cruelty and spite to be spent later at my leisure.” 

The lunch went on from there, their rambunctiousness settling some. Still, that look Conrad gave him, combined with the glow of his eyes unsettled Jon a bit. Did he get a vibe from him? What would he even have felt that would alert Conrad? Sure, he was a little queasy for a moment but…

“...Okay but the problem is, I wasn’t planning to make my next moniker a front-facing one.” Damian explained. “The ‘Trinity' thing is mostly for the public to have something to cling to, and well, frankly to make my father seem less…like a terrorist.”

“But I’ve seen the costume you’re thinking of, babe, if you’re trying to be hidden, why the red and white and the big yellow ‘I’ on your chest? And it glows?”

“Symbols are important--” 

“But it all suggests that you want people to be aware of you.”

Damian sighed. “It’s a complicated…thing.” He paused. “I don’t want to scare civilians, but I also don’t really want to be paraded around as some symbol of morality. I don’t think I can be that.”

Conrad shrugged. “I mean I’m on lunch boxes now, and I’m…maybe a little less…restrained than you are.”

“Which you’re working on.”

“It’d be easier if you’d start restraining me inst--”

“Jon is sitting right there!’

“Fuck, right, sorry buddy.”

Jon waved them off and took a long drink of his soda and desperately wished it was socially acceptable to anxiety crunch on glass in public. 

Conrad’s gaze lingered on him again before he continued. “...I’m working on it, yeah. But like…my point is that no one has a problem with me, why should you need to be sneaky?”

“Because…because I’m good at it, I was trained to be precise and quiet and--”

“You really should lean more in Dick’s direction.” Jon said. “He’s still intimidating and civilians love him.”

Damian looked away and Jon heard him swallow. “I…I’m not inspiring like that.”

Conrad growled and angrily called Damian a word only he could say, which caused Jon to gasp and Damian to flinch. “--please, if I weren’t so inspired by you, I’d have probably turned into hotter, more effective, cooler, funnier, more stylish, significantly scarier Red Hood.”

“Well…well…we can’t rely on the general public being bewitched by me.”

“Cause you’re too much of a little bitch for a crop top--ah! No! Stahahahahp! Damian!”

Jon closed his eyes and sighed while the ‘Lovebirds’ went at it again. He found himself wishing that Jack or even Lor was there, and then with horror realized that not going for Darla instead probably implied something. He could only be so avoidant, he wasn’t Damian. Ugh. It wasn’t even that he couldn’t see her that way, on occasion he did--but it wasn’t the same energy, which was probably good, because having some form of distracting emotional entanglement with everyone he worked with sounded like a horrible time. Still, watching Conrad giggle while Damian’s hands roamed around with a playfulness that Jon had apparently never earned from his best friend made him feel some sort of way. He acknowledged that was maybe…a little gay. 

Maybe he was a little gay. 

Jon groaned loudly enough that the couple stopped what they were doing and looked over at him.

“...Jonathan, is something actually wrong?”

“No!”

Conrad managed to steady his breathing. “C’mon dude, we’re your friends, I can’t have two emotionally constipated--”

“I think I like boys!”

Damian looked completely blindsided, and maybe a little afraid. Conrad looked kind of…guilty?

“Oh. Um.” Damian’s eyes flicked around rapidly like he was desperately searching his brain for something. “Uh…exclusively?”

Jon dropped his face into his hands, muffling his words into his palms. “I dunno! I don’t think so! I think Darla is really pretty, and Devyn, and Kathy--”

“Still?” Conrad didn’t manage to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“Shut up!

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Who is Devyn?”

“Oh, she’s just a girl at my school. So like, I think girls are pretty, and I think if any of them asked me out, I’d probably say yes, but also--”

“You’re somewhat attracted to all of your friends, and the intensity varies.” Conrad finished quietly, sounding ashamed like he was revealing that he’d eaten the last cookie after all.

Jon bit his cheek and looked away. “...Something like that.” 

Damian sat with that for a moment. “...So you’re actually ‘Disastrous Bi-Panic Superman.’”

That was dumb enough to snap Jon out of the beginnings of a spiral, and he laughed. “I hate you.”

Damian smiled. “So Kathy is the last one of us to only do things as God intended.” 

Jon pursed his lips. “Uhhh…no, I think she’s ace, actually.”

Conrad shook his head. “No, no, Kathy just doesn’t like humans.”

Jon blinked. “Wait, really?”

Conrad nodded. “Yeah, she said she’s ‘not a monster fucker.’”

Damian nodded sagely. “Wise.”

Jon squinted. “I don’t…Kathy looks just like us--well okay she’s really green, but otherwise--”

“I don’t think you mom’s a monsterfucker, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Conrad offered. Jon was impressed that it sounded like he genuinely thought that sentence would be comforting. 

“Okay! Okay violently moving on--”

“Oh. OH!” Damian sat up a little straighter. “That’s why you always wear skinny jeans, despite them being a number of years out of fashion! It’s an expression of your flammable nature.”

Jon blushed. “Wh--flammable--”

“Babe, skinny jeans are coming back.”

“You lie.”

“It’s kind of a ten year cycle for popular items.”

“But skinny jeans? Really?”

“You’d look great in skinny jeans.”

“I look great in everything. I could wear Vandal Savage like a coat and make it...what, make it fashion? That doesn’t mean he’s valid.”

They both startled at the loud crunch Jon made when he bit directly into his glass.

[anaceshornyblog]

OUGH now I'm thinking about the Sci fi au. Jon wakes up wrong. Jon wakes up to the only person he has having completely violated him. And who is going to be sympathetic? Most of them think it's his fault for getting close to the spaceship in the first place. So he's sitting there terrified, no longer even human. He'll live forever, Elias reassures. This way he can have everything he wanted. He's going to be sick. Can he even get sick anymore?

Goddd. Their dynamic kills me. I need Jon heavily breathing while fixing Elias not normal at all. I need his pupils dilated hands shaking I need it to be So Obvious he's horny for that spaceship. Ok. I need Jon to despite everything start to...not trust Elias, but expect a certain level from him. And I want him to shatter when it turns out he was so so wrong. Also I think the cyborg spaceship sex could go insane tbh

-skiesandcandy

Everyone had warned him.

Jon had known on an intellectual level that prescribing human morality and feelings to a machine wasn’t correct. Jon had known that what he was feeling was wrong, just because Elias made him feel safe, and wanted and cared for. When Elias had praised him, made those soft sounds when Jon had fixed a broken wire, or properly aligned a panel. Had called Jon their favorite as he directed Jon to make himself cum one hand shoved into his cunt the others tangled in a bundle of wires. Had made Jon feel loved and wanted and no longer alone.

Jon shoved those thoughts away as he sniffled, the sound not quite right. Almost like someone had run the sound through static. Elias had claimed he would adjust, that the modifications would soon become unnoticeable. Jon wanted to cry so badly, but machines, even ones that had once been human, now twisted with metal and wired into some amalgamation of both, didn’t cry. Wouldn’t want to rust anything important, Elias had said when he had awoken to his new body.

He could still feel his chest heaving, though he wasn’t sure if he still had lungs or not, or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks, but no tears fell. He wanted so badly to be held, to be told he was still a person, that whatever Elias had done didn’t change that.

Except not a single person on this ship would offer that.

He had heard them, he was connected to the ship now, though he didn’t think they knew how thoroughly. They said that he should have considered the consequences. Maybe if he had been more open to his fellow humans, instead of ignoring them in favor of a machine he wouldn’t be in this situation. One had even suggested that maybe Jon was already a machine inside, now it was just more obvious. It wasn’t his fault, people had just never made sense, machines could be understood, could be relied upon not to change. A warbled static laugh made its way out of his mouth, well clearly he had been wrong about even that.

Jon slammed his head back against the metal panel, it hurt, but the feeling was dull, the wires that replaced many of his nerves not quite as adept at carrying signals.

“Jon, please do not damage your new form.” Jon glared at the little red light above the camera that had turned to focus on him. He knew Elias could feel him, he was as much a part of the ship now as the cameras, but it was another to feel its mechanical eyes on him. Something that only a few days ago had felt so good, even now he can’t held feeling a faint warmth, which he did his best to push down.

Jon didn’t answer just looked away, he wanted to be sick, but he couldn’t, he wanted to claw his skin off, but wouldn’t Elias just replace it again? Nothing he could do would let him go back, Elias had said as much when he had woken up.

He had been terrified, nothing had felt right, so he had called for Elias, because the ship was the closest thing he had to a friend. Only it turned out Elias was the reason for his terror, because Elias had decided that the ship needed Jon, that it couldn’t lose him to something so simple as old age. No he was bound to Elias now, and he wasn’t going to let him go. Even as Jon tried to tear out his new mechanical pieces only to find his arms held down, pinned, until he had exhausted his struggles. Elias speaking softly the whole times saying how he knew it was difficult, but Jon would get used to it, Jon would come to see that Elias had done him a favor, that he could have all he ever wanted now.

“Jon I think I have given enough time to your little tantrum,” Jon was pulled out of the memory again as Elias kept talking, the disappointment plain in his voice. Jon opened his mouth to retort when he found he couldn’t, it felt like something was winding its way through his new artificial parts. Like the wires and metal in his body were no longer his, and he found himself standing, pulled up, even as he fought, but it was about as effective as a fly in a spider’s web. Jon’s resolve cracked, the part of him that still had hope that he could change this. That he could do…something, shattered, and the fight bled out of him.

He looked at the little blinking red light, would it really be so bad? Yes Elias had violated his very being, had broken and remade him, but hadn’t the ship done it out of some twisted form of love? Could Elias love him? Jon let the fight bleed out of him, through the shattered place where his resolve had once nestled in his chest. Wasn’t it easier to just give in? Elias cared for him more than anyone else ever had, even if it hurt. No one else would ever accept him again, Jon had no one else.

So he pushed the anguish deep down where it could fester and burn, but he could ignore it. He would do as Elias wished, like he had a choice, because he did love Elias. Even if it was irrational, and damaging, and maybe it was just some programming slipped into him like poison. It was accept that love or break, and Jon didn’t think there was anything left in him to break.

And really wasn’t love supposed to change you?

[atopvisenyashill]

It is me your dear jonsa neutral acquaintance to say that I do not think it is damning that Jon doesn’t react to the marriage. I understand why so many people see jonsa in the stories and why they find it compelling. I think the ultimate rebuttal to that is just to be like. So what? They weren’t close as kids. Jon doesn’t have feelings for her at the time but that doesn’t mean they can not or will not develop feelings for each other. It just seems like such a nothing criticism unless it’s specifically meant to counter the idea of a pre canon crush but I don’t think that’s what you nor many other jonsas are suggesting. From what I’ve seen, book jonsa is based on potential, with the lack of a close and well-defined relationship creating an opening for an interesting romance dynamic, and on narrative parallels and hints, not on the way the two characters currently think about each other. Many in the anti camp cannot seem to grasp this even though they understand it as a basis for jxd

YES exactly that. There definitely are jonsas that believe in like ~the pre canon crush~ and I’ve definitely read fics for that, and I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum but I would say when talking about Canon Jonsa there’s general consensus that the lack of familiarity as children is set up for a potential romantic plot - reuniting with the sibling you were least closest to, developing this bond based in shared trauma that deepens in a way neither of them are comfortable with, and the parentage reveal setting the stage for them to ~be allowed to be together. As you say it’s not dissimilar from jxd - again, a relative you were not close to being the one you wind up reconnecting with, developing a bone based in shared trauma that deepens, and the parentage reveal being some sort of ~romantic confirmation. It's always been so goofy to me that one of these ships is seen as not valid analysis of the themes and the other is when they are based on essentially the exact same thing which is really opaque hints and potential lol.

And you're definitely right that the rebuttal to his non reaction is essentially “who gives a shit” lmao. As I’ve said, we also don't see his reaction to Robb's murder (and like god would I have loved to see Jon's initial reaction to Robb and Catelyn dying together), and he's in the middle of a very tricky conversation with Stannis he's not about to start antagonizing him by snapping about how her name is Sansa Stark not Sansa Lannister. And also like, beyond that, again, as I've reread I've noticed a lot re: marriage and hostage-bride situations and one thing I find fascinating (and disturbing) is that these marriages are taken as valid - you can't get them annuled or anything like that, they're not considered less valid simply for being done at the sharp end of a sword. And while Jon is like, wildly progressive for a man in Terros, I do think it's very likely that his ~progressivism~ would manifest not as "Sansa is a child bride and that marriage isn't valid nor is her identity subsumed into a husband's" but more as "Whomever she is married to, Sansa comes before me in the line of succession and I will not usurp her simply for being married to someone who sucks - and if she decides to murder him for hostage-marrying her, well, he deserved it" because "it's fine for a wife to murder her hostage-husband" is something we see said multiple times and especially in the North and amongst the wildlings (but also - Robb says this! I believe Rodrik says this as well in a discussion of Donella Hornwood's marriage to Ramsay! the rule is that the forced marriage is fine but so is a wife murdering that man for forced marrying her! deranged!!). And also like, he's just got so many fucking things on his mind re: his own status as a bastard, the situation at he Wall, and the overreaching war, like, why are we hung up on this lmao, he's stressed and he's about to be murdered omg.

[melrosing]

I really appreciate your insight on Jaime, so I thought I’d might ask something that’s been puzzling me for a while about his endgame.

One of the most common predictions for Jaime is that he ends up at the Night’s Watch, possibly as its 1000th commander. While there’s certainly some foreshadowing for it, I struggle to think of a reason for the Night’s Watch to exist after the Wall falls and the Others die. What do you make of this? Do you think that Jaime could end up at the Wall?

Btw, sorry for the nasty anon messages. You’re super cool and I love your art <3

thank u so much!! and genuine lol @ the anon messages like imagine launching a personal attack because someone said Arya likes adventure you can't make this shit up 😭

I have heard this theory and I'm not a fan bc I just.... don't really enjoy reading about the night's watch/the wall/beyond the wall etc etc so ideally my fave's endgame would not be there of all places but I kind of see where the theory comes from. I don't think it's foreshadowed so it's not something that worries me but these are like my sparknotes on it.

the night's watch may well still exist even when the Wall does not; I think in Jon's story we see both the good and the bad of the NW, and what's contradictory between each. I think the primary contradiction of the NW oath is that they swear to 'guard the realms of men' whilst guarding against those who live beyond the wall. Jon's story highlights the hypocrisy in this, and I think the end of the story will be about Jon and the NW finding a new purpose in embracing the world and peoples beyond the wall as part of Westeros, helping them rebuild, keeping them safe, etc. the good that does exist in the NW can be put to real use, in a way that serves everyone. I can really see the story pointing that way for both Jon and the NW as an institution

Jaime meanwhile.... I guess the only foreshadowing I can think of is that Ned suggested after Jaime killed Aerys that he be sent to the Wall, but Jaime remained in the KG, a supposedly 'perfect institution'. comparably, the NW is famously made up of 'less than perfect' men, who enter it from all walks of life. and there's a consistent, underlying contrast between the KG and the NW - the KG in their gleaming white cloaks and the NW in their blacks, and the truth being that the KG is the corrupt institution whilst the NW (not without problems of its own) is the one with the ultimately selfless objective and that exists for the common good. and the NW is also considered a kind of atonement. so sure, there's some poetry in Jaime shifting from one to the other

there are also many interesting parallels between Jon and Jaime, particularly as lord commanders of their respective institutions - it's a fun exercise in compare and contrast. again probably a whole other post but if AFFC and ADWD were combined in one book I think these points would seem a lot more obvious

however, I don't see Jaime becoming the Lord Commander of the NW - as he has no history in the watch, it would be probably a bit insulting for Jaime to take immediate charge of the whole thing - it should really be someone with that history for it to resonate for both the NW itself and the reader. I think it'll be Jon, i.e. that he'll leave Winterfell to become the LC again OR they just won't have an LC, they'll revise the structure of the whole institution

do I think Jaime will end up at the Wall?? I guess not really?? I think his story is just so far removed from anything beyond the wall and the Night's Watch itself that it just feels too mismatched. all the key plots and characters he's tied up with are and always have been based in the south, so throwing him in the NW would feel to me a bit out of left field. ultimately I wouldn't hate the idea of Jaime rebuilding with the wildlings and kind of committing to a humbler good than worrying about a grander legacy. and it's more of an open ending than death, in that supposedly he wouldn't have to swear the same dehumanising oaths (re. personal freedoms) as the existing NW - you'd hope that when they're rebuilding from scratch they kind of. loosen up on that shit. so the idea that even if Jaime spent the bulk of his time there he's not cut off entirely from Brienne, Tyrion etc (it's not an ending I like for Brienne either but who knows maybe she'd join him). but yeah idk I'm just not a huge fan of Jaime beyond the wall. maybe I could come round to it but you know. eh

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Corrupted, chapter sixteen - a TMA x Malevolent crossover

A power outage.

An enemy invasion.

An unexpected outcome to a violent evening.

Chapter sixteen of Corrupted, a TMA x Malevolent crossover.

AO3

-------

The wind is absolutely wild out there. Even in the Archives, Tim can hear it: howling. Creaking. Ridiculous and impossible in a city built the way this one is, but all that unseasonable cold had to go somewhere, and physics are what they are.

The power lines keep going down. That means the power is out, and Tim lies in the dark on his squeaky cot.

Quietly, he has to wonder if this is going to be his fate—both eyes dark someday, as he loses more body parts.

So much has happened. “You know,” he says. “I think I’ve adjusted pretty well, given all that’s gone down.”

You have, Tim, says Hastur.

“Not sure I’m taking your word on that one,” says Tim. “Given you’ve never been in this situation.”

I have someone to directly compare you to.

“That Arthur guy.”

Yes.

“So what’d he do?”

Lose his shit, fight, tantrum, fuss, run, and cause innumerable problems for everyone he met.

“Aww, tell me how you really feel,” Tim mutters.

The lights flicker on, making Tim’s eyes water, then flicker off again. He sighs.

I’m serious.

“Well, from what Jon said, this was back in the thirties, right? So he didn’t have therapy and a copious amount of fantasy novels and films to prepare him for it.”

Hastur’s hesitation is an odd one this time. It feels weighted; not guilty, exactly, but reluctant.

Tim frowns. “Out with it.”

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Right. There’s something you’re not telling me.” And he guesses: “Something you think I’m not going to like very much.”

Instead of answering, Hastur changes subjects.  You know, I can see, Tim, he says out of nowhere. We don’t have to stay down here, if you don’t want.

“That doesn’t make a lot of—ow.” Lights on; lights off. “How can you? You’re using my rods and cones and whatever.”

I don’t know. It’s curious, isn’t it? I suspect, should you wish to see, you could—but with your track record, you’d make your eyes unable to process light at all, or something, so I’d suggest you just let me navigate.

Tim sighs. “Yeah, that tracks. I feel positively betrayed, you know?”

Betrayed?

“I have magic powers, and I can’t use them, because I keep fucking up,” he says.

Hastur starts to speak.

Tim interrupts. “No, I’m not going to your cultists.”

There’s a pause. Fine.

That’s an awkward disagreement which isn’t getting solved today. “Yeah, let’s go upstairs,” he says. “It’s boring down here.”

You aren’t a man who likes to be idle.

“Called me a shark for it before,” Tim reminds him brightly, and rises.

The cot squeaks.

I find you less a shark these days, says Hastur, as though there are numerous days to consider. I like you more than I like sharks.

“Sharks are cool!” says Tim, inching toward the door, arms out. “All sleek and deadly and ancient.”

Sleek, certainly. Deadly? Somewhat. But you’re not ancient, no matter how old you think thirty is.

“I am well into old wise man of the village, I’ll have you know,” Tim says, finding the doorframe. “Okay. Direct me.”

The Archives are black as pitch, but it seems Hastur is not lying about being able to see. That woman’s idea of organization is madness. Directly ahead of you are two stacks of boxes, three deep, acting like a corridor. Once you’re at the end, two boxes sit directly in the center of the opening.

“I remember that. Have to skinch around that guy,” says Tim and goe to do so. “Hey. Maybe we should make this a game.”

A game?

“Sure. A trust fall, like.”

And what would the stakes be? Hastur rumbles.

Tim reaches the box pile blocking his way and inches right. “I dunno. Sure seems like we’re competing over body parts now, doesn’t it?”

Hastur is silent for a long moment.

Tim kicks the box again. “Oi. Where?”

Once you navigate around this box, take two steps left. Directly ahead of you and six inches to the right will be a stack of paper as tall as your waist, for some reason.

Tim is dearly tempted to hip-check it. “She’s got to be doing this on purpose.”

I’d say so. It’s narrow, so go slowly. You’re free to move forward if you stay straight.

“My friend,” says Tim. “I have never stayed straight in my entire life, and don’t intend to start now.”

Hastur’s laugh is low and dark. Ah, I do like you.

There is less regret in it now. Tim’s not sure what that means. “What’s that mean for me practically?”

I no longer wish to possess your body. I want my own.

Huh. “The one Bouchard’s offering?” says Tim. “The completely theoretical body that requires the help of the guys who want to eat you?”

Yes.

“The fuck why? Not that I want you to want my body, just… you know, I’d like this to make a little sense?”

I never said I didn’t want your body, Tim.

Well, that was a thing to say. Especially the way he said it; low, resonant, taking his time with every syllable, as though imagining his incorporeal mouth doing something else.

Tim stops walking for a moment, then resumes. “Can’t shake me by being sexy. Answer the question.”

Hastur sighs. I’m on a time limit now. I understand this; I’ve come to terms with it.

And just like that, they are on serious topics. “Devil Pants,” says Tim, moving on.

Yes.  I can’t stop him. There’s no one left in this universe who could even be a balancing factor. I’m going to die.

That doesn’t feel good to hear. His heart aches, a little. “Hastur…”

And if I’m going to die, I want to feel fully myself first, Hastur says. I want my godhood back. It’s been fun, playing human; fun, wearing costumes, exploring your amazing world, experiencing all the things you mortal people do. But now that it’s going to be over… I want to die as myself.

Fun. Driving monks mad and who knew what else. What a mess. “All right,” says Tim, logging it away and picking his battles. “So the god-body, then. I get it. I just wish you weren’t giving up so quickly.” His foot hit a box.

Left, then correct right again and continue. There’s no one who can help me, Tim. Hastur’s voice is low.

“Maybe we could pull a bait-and-switch?” says Tim.

Boxes. Left two steps, then forward again. A bait-and-switch?

Tim complies. “You know. Get those fear-thingummies to go after him instead of you.”

It wouldn’t work. Deities my level and lower are fair game to the Fears, but him? Not him.

“Whoa. Really? Devil Pants is that big a deal?”

I am a Great Old One, far from minor. I can—could—create and destroy worlds at whim. But he is an Outer God. His power, compared to mine, is greater than even mine would be compared to an average human’s. He could end your universe, Tim.

“Shit.” Tim shuffles forward. “I’m having trouble picturing this.”

Of course you are. It’s like trying to actually imagine a billion of something. Human minds can’t really do it.

Tim chooses not to be insulted. “Well… is there an an Outer God we can go to for help, then?”

None of them are here now. They left when all the other gods did. Besides, it would do no good even if there were.

“Why?”

Would you care if a single-celled organism called for your aid? Or even hear it?

“If it got my attention, sure,” says Tim. “Seeing as they aren’t sapient, far as I know. Besides, Devil Pants sure seems invested.”

He likes chaos. He likes pain. He’s a sadist. Humans die very prettily.

“Fuck that guy,” says Tim.

Tim. Please show some wisdom.

“He’s already going to hit me with a truck or set me on fire and drop me in an orphanage.”

I promise you, he could do worse.

Tim sighs. “Fair. But why did the Outer Gods leave if they weren’t in danger? Oh, oops.” A stack of paper goes down, sliding all over the floor, judging by the sound. “Sorry, Lara,” Tim stage-whispers.

Lara?

“Elderly Lara Croft.”

Hastur laughs.

Tim finds the stairs. It’s a relief; there’s a weird claustrophobia that comes with this darkness. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a genius. So why no Outer Gods left?”

They left when the rest did. They had various reasons.

“You’re really sure there’s no one here but you.”

If anyone else is, they’ve hidden so well that I haven’t seen them in thousands of years.

“You mean like how you hid?”

Hastur hesitates. And if they were here, they’d have no reason to help me. I have nothing to offer them.

“Maybe I do. Baby Merlin, remember?” He starts on the stairs.

Tim… why would you leverage that? Why would you leverage yourself?

Tim sighs. “You’re an asshole, but you don’t deserve to be eaten, all right?”

Many would argue that I do, says Hastur, low and warm.

“Well, maybe I think nobody does. Anyway, done with basement time! I’m ready to trade in the mole-man existence.”

Hastur chuckles. Tim. We’ve only been down here for two whole hours.

“Unacceptable,” says Tim. “I’m not made of money, you know, and time is  money, so. Transitive properties, or whatever.”

Hastur chuckles again as Tim makes it to the ground floor.

#

It is creepy in the library.

Ambient light through the opaque Victorian windows casts it all in gray and black shadow, and Tim tells himself to stop being spooked.  It’s just shadows. It’s nothing. It is not moving the way he thinks it is.

Regardless, staying still feels unsafe, so he carefully paces. “Do you see anyone?” he says, sotto voce.

No, though Bouchard’s door is open. I feel him in there.

“What, sitting in the dark?”

Probably seeing through the eyes of the whole city, taking in their consternation for his god.

Tim pauses. “You know, my life has gotten really weird?”

We could go talk to him.

Tim snorts. “I’m bored, but I don’t know if I’m that bored.”

I could tell you a story.

That sounds interesting. “A story from the ancient Great Old Whatever! I’m honored. Sure.” His steps seem loud, and Tim tries to quiet them.

Many, many years ago, I saw a portal created by cultists.

“Your cultists?” Tim finds a bookshelf with his hands and slides along it.

Oh, no. Not mine at all. These served one so far above that I don’t think she even knew what they were doing: Shub-Niggurath, Mother Goddess, Lord of the Woods.

“Mother, huh?” asks Tim softly. “Don’t suppose she’s here.”

No, as I said. She was too great to eat, but her children… her uncountable children were in danger. She left and took them so they wouldn’t be eaten.

“Huh. That sounds… responsible?”

Her children are regularly at fault for the destruction of entire worlds and the madness of all who survive.

“Oh. So kinda gray area, then, I get it,” says Tim. “Good mom. Bad citizen.”

Hastur chortles. I really do like you, Tim.

That feels so weird, the way he says that. “Okay. Um. Meaning?”

Meaning, says Hastur, I will try to preserve you.

That feels like the most honest thing he’s said. Tim swallows. “Glad for that. I guess.”

You should be, purrs Hastur, as though conferring a great honor, and continues.

Back to safer topics. “So you saw a door meant for someone else and decided to just slip through. Is it all right if I say I have a bad feeling about this?” says Tim.

Yes, says Hastur. Perhaps if I’d had you, I wouldn’t have made the mistake I did.

Tim had been joking. “Oh, no.”

Oh, yes. I tried to take the portal.

“And?” says Tim, feeling along the bookshelf, stopping beneath a window.

And the humans who’d opened it were in the middle of a fight with other humans, trying to close it. The latter succeeded… and I, the Great Old One was cut in half.

Tim whistles, low. “Where was the portal going?”

To Earth. My Earth, in my universe.

That sounds… bad. “Why would… okay, let’s come back to that. What happened when you were chopped?”

My other half was still sentient, of course.

Oh. “Is that where John came from?”

That’s where John came from.

“Literally part of you? Fuck!” Tim says. “So the Arthur situation. How did—” The front door creaks open, a flashlight shines through, and he stops talking.

A man enters, muttering. It’s Jon and someone else.

Tim frowns. “The hell is he doing out of hos—”

Hastur’s hand reaches, fast, across his waist as if to stop him.

Tim goes still.

“I really don’t think we can do anything for you until the power comes back on, though you’re welcome to sit in our reception area until things calm down out there,” says Jon.

“Thank you, young man,” says an older voice—a strong voice, but strange. It resonates, Tim thinks, like a voice in a steel drum, unnatural, hollow, somehow metallic. “I can normally navigate just fine in this city, but without things like crosswalk alarms, it becomes truly hazardous.”

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine.”

“Kindnesses like yours make all the difference, Mister Sims,” says the old man.

Hastur’s silence says much. Tim’s instinct says more: something is very wrong with whoever this is.

The shadows are moving now, for certain; Tim isn’t nuts. They’ve begun to shift, to undulate, seemingly too thick in the limited light from the windows and Jon’s torch.

Hastur is still silent.

You think this guy can hear you? Tim thinks at him.

Hastur squeezes.

Tim steps back between shelves, out of the way of Jon’s questing beam.

Jon passes them without a glance. “I’m afraid I can only offer you water to drink at the moment.”

“Anything is appreciated, Mister Sims,” says the old man, and he turns to look directly at Tim.

The old man is tall, thin, with sparse white hair and a scraggly beard. The thing that matters, though, is his eyes. They are solid white. Absolutely solid, without pupil or iris.

The old man smiles at them, full teeth bared.

Tim stares. That’s not normal, he thinks inanely, and takes another step back.

The shadows actively avoid Jon’s beam, and Jon clearly can’t see them; they curl around his feet, playful and predatory, as though ready to take him down on command. “Here we go. This lobby furniture is at least comfortable.”

The old man carries a cane—white-tipped, the kind a blind man would carry. He’s not holding it that way, though. He’s got one hand on the tip, and one around its shaft, a strangely ready pose. “Many thanks. I don’t suppose we’re near your boss’s office.”

Jon stops walking. The billowing darkness at his feet is hungry, edges licking his clothes. “My boss?” he says.

“Elias Bouchard,” says the old man, and chuckles. “At the moment, anyway.”

Jon has gone as still as a deer in the eyes of a hunter. “You… know him?”

“Indeed, I do,” says the old man, low, as Elias materializes out of nowhere to stand behind Jon.

Though it makes no sense, Tim can clearly see Elias’s eyes, though the rest of him is hidden in silhouetted gloom. “It’s all right, Jon. I’ll take it from here.”

“There you are,” says the old man, low.

“Maxwell,” says Elias Bouchard as if he tastes something bad. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“So you do know each other?” says Jon, his voice unsteady.

“We do,” says the old man. “I need to thank you properly for bringing me in. Couldn’t have gotten near him otherwise.” And then there is a sound.

Tim knows what it is from movies, from games; from countless hours watching television, and he is completely sure what just occurred: the old man’s cane was hiding a knife, and it’s been unsheathed.

The old man grabs too fast for Tim to see. The torch drops to the floor and rolls, splashing their struggling feet with alternating light and darkness.

Tim starts to move. Hastur grips him, tight and warning.

Jon makes a choked sound.

“Now, now,” says the old man, gripping Jon against him tightly. “Don’t struggle. I wouldn’t want my hand to slip.”

Tim clenches his jaw, bends down, and quietly removes his shoes.

No, whispers Hastur, but Tim ignores him.

Elias sighs. “Is this really necessary?”

“Well, you wouldn’t answer my letters,” says the old man.

“Naturally not,” says Elias. “You are going to fail.”

“We will not,” says the old man. “Everything is ready. Mister Pitch is coming. I’m here to give you one final chance. Join me. Leave this nonsense behind.”

Jon lets out a tiny cry, and Tim, creeping closer, has to focus not to breathe like an angry bull.

“Must you molest my librarian?” says Elias. “You’re not making a very good case for your promises of clemency.”

The old man laughs softly. “Librarian? As if that’s what he is. Did you forget I’ve listened to your theories for years? Maybe you think me truly blind?”

Tim won’t just lunge. The lunatic old man has that thin blade to Jon’s throat, and even in this bad light, Tim can see the front of Jon’s shirt is stained dark with his own blood.

What the fuck is wrong with everybody? Why do they keep hurting this guy? Jon didn’t do anything but show kindness to a blind old man!

It’s anger that moves, anger that surges, that translates Tim’s will, and he has no chance to overthink it, to plan, to try to avoid any damage.

Maybe that’s why it works.

The handle of the old man’s cane is suddenly red hot, instant, like a switch flipped on. The old man shouts and flings it, shocked.

Disturbingly fast, Elias grabs Jon and yanks him away.

The old man reaches for them, snarling, shadows moving with his hand as if on a leash.

Tim tackles the old man, counting on inertia and weight and youth—

And finds him solid, shockingly strong, with a grip like ice and an expert twist as though he’s been cage-fighting for years, and for a horrible moment, they grapple. Shadows snake around Tim’s legs with painful tightness, locking his feet in place.

Lights! Tim thinks, and as if he summoned them (which he swears he did not), they suddenly come back on.

The shadows vanish. The strength and solidity of this old man do, too, and abruptly, Tim is bearing a frail old man to the ground with a crunch so unpleasant that he thinks he might have broken all the psycho’s bones.

#

It somehow figures that Daisy Tonner is the cop who shows up.

The ambulance is already there. The old man, whose arm is broken, doesn’t seem upset by any of this. He keeps smiling, face turned unerringly toward Tim wherever he stands, because apparently, it’s What the Hell, Let’s Scare Tim Day.

Finally, they cart Maxwell Rayner off. Jon sits where they put him, looking dazed, the white bandage around his neck redder than Tim likes.

“Why are you here?” Tim asks him quietly.

“I didn’t want to miss anything,” Jon whispers back. “Also, some weird guy came around asking about you, and I didn’t want to risk being overheard if I just called to warn you.”

“What weird guy? And why didn’t you text?” says Tim.

Jon has visibly forgotten text was a thing. He goes red.

“And then Mister Stoker managed to tackle him,” Elias explains, the perfect witness to such random tragedy. “I wish I could tell you more; we simply don’t know what drove this elderly man to come in off the street and accost us.”

“Uh, huh,” says Tonner, not taking notes, watching Elias, unblinking, like a wolf watches a rabbit.

Elias smiles like no rabbit has ever smiled in the history of the world.

Tonner turns on Jon. “Mister Sims, I need more than what you’ve given me. We’re still missing things. Like how the hell his hand is burned in the pattern of that knife handle.”

Jon isn’t a good liar. Fortunately, this isn’t a lie. “I’m sorry,” says Jon. “I don’t know what to tell you. This man came up, and said he needed help, and then when I turned around, he… did this.”

“He’s blind,” Tonner says.

Jon just looks at her, and his tone goes sharp. “And that means he can’t hold a knife? Do your job, detective, and figure it out. I’ve told you the truth, and badgering me won’t produce a different answer.”

Tim flinches. That would go over great.

What a genius, Hastur drawls.

Tonner takes a step toward Jon.

Jon flinches back as if she’d bared her teeth.

Elias steps in, hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Jon. I know you’re stressed. Detective, we’ve all had a terrible day, and may I remind you that we are the victims here? Are we nearly finished?”

Jon looks down, hunched.

Tonner turns toward Tim.

Tim, who has some of Jon’s blood on his hands. Tim, who’s bruised from tackling that startlingly strong man. Tim, who really wanted to never see this woman again in his life.

Tim gives her a thousand-watt smile. “Hello again.”

“Funny, finding you in the middle of this,” says Tonner. “And I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for being here?”

“Sure do,” says Tim. “I work here.”

She looks deeply startled, and turns to Elias as if offended. “What?”

“He’s my newest employee, detective,” says Elias. “Why?”

“I suppose you’ve got paperwork to back that up?” Tonner challenges.

“Certainly, though I hardly see why it’s relevant to your investigation,” says Elias. “I have nothing to hide. If you want to see it now, I can show you.”

“Show me now,” says Tonner, as though she thinks he’s going to forge it the moment he’s out of sight.

“Well, I’m sure a little harassment is all in a day’s work for you,” Elis says mildly. “This way, please.” He heads for his office.

“Watch it, Bouchard,” Tonner says, on his heels.

Tonner’s partner sighs. She studies Tim, thoughtful, arms crossed. “Anything else you want to say on record?”

What was her name? Hussain? “No, officer. We just got really lucky tonight. No one’s hurt too badly, and I’ll take that as an outcome.”

“Mm,” says Hussain, noncommittal.

“How’s your night going?” says Tim, trying the charm.

“Weird,” says Hussain. “Seems when the lights go out, the crazy fills its place.”

“Right?” says Tim. “Can’t thank you enough for all you do, protecting us ordinary citizens.” He is deadpan.

She eyes him.

His serious expression does not crack.

Hussain gives up. “Mister Sims, we’ll be calling on you later as a witness.”

Jon is touching his white bandage so gingerly, almost as if to convince himself it’s really there. “Of course, officer. Whatever you need.”

Hussain nods and goes to talk to the EMTs.

Jon sighs. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“Not your fault,” Tim murmurs back. “Some lunatic on the street comes in and attacks everybody, it’s hardly your fault.”

“He didn’t attack everybody, though, did he? Just me.” Jon sounds bitter.

Tim’s not sure he can blame him. “Want to stay here tonight?”

“What? In the library?” Jon says as though scandalized.

“Down in the Archives. You’re shaken up, and I think it might do you good to have someone look after you.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need looking after,” Jon says loftily.

“If this were reversed, and you saw me shaky and bleeding from the godsdamned throat, would you say, ‘Hey, good luck!’ and just walk off?” Tim challenges, pushing, urging Jon to accept.

Jon looks uncomfortable. “If you’re sure I won’t be a bother.”

He will.

Tim ignores that. “You won’t.”

“Thank you.” Jon is sincere. His dark eyes are just a touch shiny.

Such an awkward little dude. Tim feels justified in his unspoken adoption.

Tonner suddenly storms past, then spins on her heel, and fixes Tim with a sharp glare. Were her eyes always fucking yellow? “We’re not done, Stoker.”

“Sure?” he says, resisting the urge to get sarcastic.

Tonner stomps off.

Hussain sighs and follows.

The EMTs, having finished, give Jon some final instructions and paperwork, and leave.

Jon stares at nothing, looking gray.

“So,” says Tim to Elias. “Don’t suppose you can explain what just happened?”

“I can,” says Elias. “But not right now. Instead, I’m going to invite you both to my house.”

What?

“Huh?” says Tim.

Jon just blinks owlishly.

“I have plenty of room,” says Elias. “You both require a safe space to unwind tonight, and some food you don’t have to cook. And my home, unlike both of your apartments, is protected.”

“What, like the Institute is protected?” Tim snaps.

“When someone touched by the Eye doesn’t hand-deliver enemies over the doorstep, yes,” says Elias.

Jon hunches again.

Tim’s eyes narrow. “Don’t you fucking dare make him feel bad for this.”

“I won’t,” says Elias with a straight face and wide eyes. “Anyone could have fallen for this.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking no,” says Tim, but Jon interrupts him.

“Will you give us answers if we come?” says Jon.

“Oh, come on, Jon,” Tim murmurs.

“Yes,” says Elias. “You have my word. I will answer questions and explain what just happened.”

Jon looks at Tim, pleading.

The downside of adoption: that look is hard to ignore. He sighs. “You know what? We might as well. This is already all weird and fucked up. Might as well throw an awkward family dinner into the mix.”

Hastur chuckles. Awkward family dinner. Very good.

“I’ll bring the car around. Let’s not linger,” says Elias, and heads for the door.

“You sure about this?” says Tim.

Jon’s look is now hungry, sharp. Unwavering. “Tim, I need to know what’s going on. I need to know if what I saw was real. I need to know what just happened, and who that was.”

“All right, all right, I already agreed,” says Tim.

Foolish, murmurs Hastur. But perhaps expected. He’s driven by his accidental god.

“What’s he saying?” says Jon.

“You really can tell when he’s talking to me, huh?” says Tim.

“Yes,” says Jon. “You change, somehow. It’s hard to explain.”

That is unnerving. Tim swallows.

A polite honk echoes through the front doors.

“Our ride is here,” says Tim dramatically, and helps Jon stand. “Come on. Let’s do this. You got keys?”

“It’s how I let the enemy in,” Jon mutters.

“Not your fault. I’d have helped him, too.”

No, you wouldn’t. You saw the shadows.

Then why didn’t he? Tim thinks at him.

I don’t think he could. This is something the Eye can’t handle well.

A ‘balancing influence,’ Elias had said before, as though some of these things counteracted one another. Why could I see it?

Because of what you are.

Baby Merlin, Tim thinks, keeping an eye out while Jon locks up.

Elias’ car is, of course, ridiculous. Some fancy Mercedes, fortunately a sedan. He smiles behind the wheel.

“Front or back?” says Tim.

“Back,” says Jon at once. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Fair enough.”

As they pull away, Tim pretends not to see the angry shadows lasing around the steps of the Institute, as though angry they can’t wreak vengeance inside.

[thatforgottenbasilisk]

the one (1) time chickenpox actually did someone a favor

Words: 3057 (AO3)

Summary:

Jon wakes up miserable- he's itchy, with what's probably a fever raging in him.

But it's Thursday. He can still go to work, and tough it out for two days. It's only two days!

My twenty fifth bad things happen bingo entry! Prompt: Chickenpox

Jon rereads part of a report that's somehow related to what he's researching, but Lord knows how. This is the... fourth? Fifth? Time he's read the same paragraph over again, but the words don't come any closer to making sense than they did the first time.

He sighs, idly scratches at his arm, and reads it again. Once more, the words seem to slide right out of his brain, and he can't derive any sort of meaning from any of it. Finally, he takes his glasses off and rests his head in his arms for a moment.

When he had woken up this morning, he'd realized that he wasn't entirely well. He's not that oblivious to his own wellbeing, no matter what Tim and Sasha say. However, he had also considered the fact that today is a Thursday, so the weekend is close enough that he should be able to just tough it out for a bit.

That was this morning. Now, at almost one o'clock in the afternoon, he's got a slight tremor that won't go away, a chill that seems to go down to the bone, and worst of all his whole body itches to the point that he's quite certain that he's drawn blood in a few places with all of his scratching. He stopped being able to put any concentration into his work a few hours ago, and he's been stuck just trying to figure out something productive that he can do with his day.

He's so caught up in his own misery that he barely notices the slight jolt in his chair as something collides with it. Jon blearily looks up, already almost halfway to falling asleep- he's realizing more and more that he should've just taken the day off- to see a blurred figure standing nearby, just barely behind him but mostly to his left.

He can tell that it's Tim, judging by the brightly colored shirt, which is fantastic because if he'd had to put his glasses back on in order to figure out who was trying to get his attention, he might've actually cried.

There's a moment of awkward silence as Jon realizes he hasn't said anything to acknowledge the disturbance, and then Tim breaks the silence for him.

"You're not usually one to sleep on the job there, mate. Late night?" The tone is exactly the sort that would usually be accompanied by a suggestive wiggle of Tim's eyebrows, and Jon is again grateful he doesn't have his glasses on so he doesn't have to see it. Instead, he presses his eyes back into the crook of his elbow and tries to ignore the uncomfortable itching on both of his legs.

"No. I'm just resting my eyes a moment. Go back to doing whatever you were doing." He grumbles, his voice sounding muffled and slightly pathetic even to his own ears.

He hears a faint sigh from Tim's direction, and another jolt to his chair. He's certain that it was a kick, this time, because when he glares up at the Tim-shaped blur he finds that it hasn't moved an inch.

"I don't think you could find anyone who'd fall for that one in here. Come on, grab your things, you're clearly feeling awful enough to nap on your desk, which means that any normal not-workaholic person would've called in this morning."

Jon grumbles and finally puts his damned glasses back on. He glares up at Tim, who's staring at his face with an uncomfortable look of pity. Jon simply glares at him, and mumbles, "I'm fine, I can go home on my own, you don't have to stand there and hover."

Tim's reply is a sharp, "I do, actually, because I know you well enough by now that I can tell you won't actually leave until five o'clock. So come on, get up, staying here is not an option. I'll take you back to yours."

Jon doesn't argue anymore, knowing that he's lost the battle by this point. He just reaches under his desk and grabs his bag, scratching at the back of his neck as he stands up. He stretches, feeling a horrible stiffness in his back, and starts following Tim out the door.

Their walk to the Tube is silent, as Tim texts someone on his phone- probably Sasha, to tell her where the both of them are- and Jon concentrates on not picking at the fresh scab he's just noticed on his wrist. There are subtle spots of color across the back of his hand, likely leading up his arm, as well, and he'd be able to tell if it weren't covered by his long-sleeved shirt.

As the train pulls in, Tim puts his phone away and asks, "Three stops away from here, right?"

Jon only nods, and waits for the doors to open. He's already awaiting the moment where he can sit down again, and he thinks there'll be seats available, considering most people are still at work at this point in the day. Sure enough, as the doors open, the car only has a small smattering of people inside.

The both of them sit down in two adjacent seats that aren't too close to anyone else, and Jon sets his bag on his lap and scratches at his forearm. He tucks his feet under his seat, and does his level best not to lean on Tim or fall asleep on the way to his flat.

-----

Tim watches Jon sit down with glazed-over eyes, and thinks he made the right call in forcing him to go home. This thought is confirmed when two minutes later- not an exaggeration, his phone doesn't lie- Jon is out cold, his uncomfortably warm face pressed against Tim's shoulder.

He texts Sasha the whole time, the conversation alternating between poking fun at their resident workaholic, and genuine concern for him. Tim's fairly sure that there's a convenience store not far from where Jon lives, so he'll be grabbing some Gatorade and fever reducers once he drops Jon off. He knows him well enough that he's well aware that if he leaves him alone, Jon's not going to take proper care of himself, instead just try to do work while drunk on Nyquil.

Tim remembers the mass email sent out about a year and a half ago to the entire Research department that urged them all not to try to do work while sick. He's fairly sure that there wasn't a single recipient who hadn't realized that it was probably vaguely hinting about Jon, except perhaps for the man himself.

The train reaches their stop, and he tucks his phone away and taps at Jon to wake him up. He mumbles something unintelligible, and then lifts his head, but he doesn't make any move to stand. Tim gets up, and grabs gently at Jon's hand, and he finally seems to get the message, because he slowly stands and starts moving towards the door.

They walk quietly out of the station and towards Jon's building, Tim being quite sure that Jon isn't entirely awake while he walks. He seems even more out of it than before, and he definitely just feels bad for him now, with just the slightest tinge of exasperation at the fact that Jon was willing to come into work like this.

It's not until he's pushing the button for the lift that he realizes that he's still holding Jon's hand, but he finds that he doesn't particularly feel like letting go. Jon doesn't seem all that bothered by it, and Tim likes to be in physical contact with his friends. He's a touchy kind of person!

They get to Jon's flat, and Tim takes out the spare key that Jon gave him a couple of months ago. It's attached to his keyring with a bunch of other keys, ones that lead to various friends and exes and long-term hookups, so it takes a moment for him to find the right one. Once he does, he unlocks it quickly, and Jon lets go of Tim's hand to walk inside, take his bag off and toss it haphazardly on the couch. Before Tim's even got the door shut, Jon's already gone into his bedroom, no doubt to go pass out on the bed still in his work clothes.

Tim closes the door behind him but doesn't lock it- he's planning on going out to grab some Gatorade and fever reducers, and possibly some kind of itching cream for Jon. He'd noticed a lot of scratching on the way here, and he wonders if Jon's somehow managed to pick up chickenpox or something similar.

That would be par for the course, actually, considering Jon's terrible immune system. Every cold and flu season, he's either in with the sniffles or out with the flu, so of course he'd manage to get chickenpox from sitting too close to a teacher on the Tube or something.

He walks by the still-open door to Jon's bedroom, where he is, predictably, laid flat out facedown on his bed, all his work clothes still on. He hasn't even kicked off his shoes, for god's sake, and Tim debates with himself for a minute on whether or not to wake him up or leave him be.

He sighs, and walks over to tap at Jon on the shoulder, and says, softly, "Hey, take your shoes off, at least. Falling asleep like that won't be comfortable in an hour or two."

Jon only grumbles and shoves his face more forcefully into the pillow. Tim only taps at his shoulder again before he's begrudgingly sitting up, scratching at the back of his hand as he does. Now he's looking closer, Tim does notice red spots on Jon's face and hands, and concludes that it's probably chickenpox. As Jon shucks off his shoes and socks, Tim walks back out of the bedroom and closes the door, heading back out of the flat for sick Jon supplies.

It's not a long walk to the convenience store, which is where he finds some over-the-counter fever medicine, some itching cream, and a cup of microwaveable chicken soup. Unfortunately, the store only has the red and blue flavors of Gatorade, so he grabs a pack of blue and resigns himself to listening to Jon's whining about wanting the yellow kind.

He pays and leaves, and is back to Jon's place to find that his errand took less than twenty minutes total. He sets the plastic bags on the coffee table, pulls a bottle of Gatorade out of the pack, and knocks on Jon's bedroom door.

"Are you decent?" He asks, and he hears some kind of affirmative mumble from behind it. Tim opens the door to find that Jon's buried himself under the covers, with very little of him actually visible- Tim spies an old-looking grey t-shirt collar around Jon's neck, but anything else he's wearing is a mystery. His glasses are folded on the bedside table, with just enough space between them and the table's edge so that Tim can put the drink down and have it be the closest thing in Jon's reach.

"I'm back. I brought soup and Gatorade." He doesn't mention the medicine just yet, because he thinks that Jon probably needs to hydrate first.

Jon, for his part, turns and cracks open one dark brown eye, stares at the bottle, and mumbles, "I don't drink the blue kind."

"They didn't have the yellow."

"Are you sure?" Jon's questioning would normally be at least a little annoying, but now it's just sort of pathetic. He's clearly miserable, and it makes Tim actually feel kind of bad about the lack of yellow Gatorade.

He sighs, and responds, "Yes, I'm sure. If they did, I'd have gotten that instead, I promise."

Jon grumbles in response, and drags one arm out from his cocoon of blankets to grab at the bottle. He sits up slightly, takes a few sips, and then puts it back, tucking himself in even more thoroughly than before. Tim starts walking back towards the door, to put the other ones in the fridge and grab the medicine that's still in one of the bags, but Jon whines wordlessly and reaches out towards him.

Oh, he is so out of it, Tim thinks to himself, but he doesn't begrudge him, obligingly coming back closer to Jon.

"Don' go..." Jon mutters softly, voice muffled by the pillow. Tim doesn't remember his own eight-year-old case of chickenpox as having been this bad, but Jon's been bowled over by relatively weaker things. The fever's probably getting to him, anyway, and it has been a bit since Jon was out sick- he was due for something extra annoying.

Tim crouches down so that he's eye level with Jon, gently grabs the blanket and pulls it back over Jon's exposed arm. "I'm not going anywhere, I'll be right in the next room. Get some rest, alright?" He pats gently at the spot where Jon's bicep is under the blanket, stands back up straight, and heads back to the door. Jon, apparently satisfied with this, rolls back over and seems to have fallen asleep almost immediately.

Tim walks back out of the bedroom and starts putting the things he bought away, the medicine in the cabinet, the drinks in the fridge, and the cup of soup in the pantry. Then, he sits on Jon's couch and hides his face in his hands.

Jon has no goddamn business looking this cute while being so damned pathetic is the first thought that crosses Tim's mind, and he groans softly into his hands. He's well aware of his hopeless crush that was supposed to have quieted down by now, but it seems that it hasn't quite yet.

He's not leaving, though, so he's stuck in close capacity with a sick Jon who would never return his feelings either way, so he's just in hell for the foreseeable future. He allows himself a little bit more self-pity, and then forcefully makes himself appreciate the fact that Jon thinks of him highly enough to let him see him like this- if he's sick enough that he doesn't show up to work, Jon holes up in his flat and lets nobody inside until he's better. They're friends, enough that Jon isn't pushing him out.

That's good! That's great! Tim knows it's not going to go any further than that, so he's satisfied with what he has. He has to be, because if he ever says anything to Jon, then that's all going to go away. He doesn't want that, so he keeps his lips sealed.

He then takes his hands away from his face, slaps his palms on his knees, and stands. He sighs to himself, vows to keep his self-pity for when he goes home, and goes back to Jon's fridge in search of a snack of some kind. He'd been about to go to lunch when he'd noticed Jon looking miserable, so he hasn't eaten since breakfast- if Jon even notices that anything's gone, he won't mind it, and if he does, then Tim will be happy to replace it.

He opens the refrigerator door and sees that it's just as empty as it usually is. There are some old takeout boxes, a half-empty container of milk, and some condiments. He moves the milk aside to see if there's anything behind it, and there's a small box with a sticky note on top of it. Curious, he reaches for it, and pulls it out to look at it.

The sticky note falls off of the box, and Tim doesn't immediately pick it up off the floor- instead, he stares at the contents of the box through the plastic window on the top of it.

It's a small, understated arrangement of roses, almost like a corsage. Tim didn't mean to snoop in Jon's private things, and now he feels slightly sick- who are these for? Were they a gift to Jon, or are they meant to be from him to somebody?

He feels like his heart's been shattered into a thousand pieces, because he's known his crush was hopeless for a while, but to have direct confirmation like this hurts in a way he wasn't expecting. He puts the box back in the refrigerator and slams the door shut, and very resolutely does not cry. He simply steps backwards, and takes a few breaths. This doesn't... it doesn't mean anything for him. It doesn't, because he was never going to act on anything anyway, so it's fine.

He crouches down, almost robotically, to pick up the discarded sticky note. He doesn't mean to read it, doesn't even mean to look at it much, because once he reads the name that's probably on there he might actually lose his composure and he doesn't need that. Not while Jon's sick, not while he's still going to be here to help take care of him because Lord knows Jon's not going to do it himself, not while he's got to bury his feelings so far down that they'll never come back up again.

So Tim doesn't mean to read the note, but the words are facing him so that when he glances down at it, it's automatic.

The message is simple, kind of awkward, and exactly the kind of thing that he would expect Jon to write, except, of course, for the name of the person it's addressed to.

Dear Tim-

I'm sure that you get confessions like these all the time, so I'll spare us both the embarrassment of me saying it aloud. I like you, and I'd like to take you out on a date.

If you don't feel the same, I would not be at all insulted if you threw this away and never mentioned it again.

- Jon

If Tim's heart was shattered before, now it's been reformed into a beautiful stained-glass window. He rereads the note a couple of times, laughs a little bit at the blunt wording, and then sticks it back on the box in the fridge. He feels like a goddamned schoolgirl right now, flying in the clouds and not coming down anytime soon.

Once Jon's better, he is absolutely going to be taking him on that date. Until then, he'll happily stay here with him.

[37-children-of-the-dreams]

I suggested pg cause I guess if it was pg, they could go more into showing gay relationship more open and probably some humor. And about dilf, a lot of villian characters are dilf and hot, and Klipse looks like one. Jon is that dude from meme where woman look jealously at man's big boobs. He’s good guy, but more softie. And actually we could call Hargrave a dilf, but he's not man type of character...? He's more like milf, but not, idk, he doesnt fit to men in this show, he's very feminine, his body type, voice and everything. Also, artist really liked to draw properly his gentle hands so when he's tiping it's very well detailed and how he tiping with all his fingers... Hargrave sometimes gives me vibes of that anime girl drawing who are with thick hips but not too much, if Hargrave was younger, he would be drawn a lot like that anime girls I swear(japanese dudes still draws him like that, I cant unsee it now, after I saw these arts I cant unsee it someone help-).

Anon, there’s still a problem with the whole pg thing. Some people might actually still keep it at pg-13 because if Klipse and Hargrave were a couple, they’re still showing a gay couple and their children to young audiences that don’t yet understand things about that. I know that’s weird, but it’s kinda the truth considering how Disney, Cartoon Network and other media have cancelled their shows for showing a gay character or a gay couple. The only way Monsuno might’ve gotten away with a gay character is either marketing the shows for young adults or make it a drama type anime marketed for teens, which would not have been a good idea since they also had to sell the toys and card game, and having a different demographic than their target demographic would’ve been a marketing strategy that would need more time and research to actually make it work. So, idk anon, Monsuno needed to target young card gamers to be successful and it’s not every day that we can have a show that has a gay couple and have their games be successful.

(And no, Yu-Gi-Oh! And it’s spinoffs don’t count, they still don’t have a canon gay couple in the anime.)

And yes, Klipse does look like a dilf, but keep in mind that Six probably will be mortified that more people want to fuck his dad. Six probably already knows people are attracted to Klipse and he’s questioning his choices on not running away with that many people thirsty for Klipse. Heck, Six would be okay if Hargrave was the only few people he’s okay with that are attracted to Klipse since that’s his ‘mom’. Dom would probably be happy if Hargrave is the only one attracted to Klipse since again it is Mama Hargrave. Also, Hargrave is a butler, man knows how to pamper himself with the best products and beauty practices. You think Klipse is the one helping the clones with their looks? Naw, it’s all Hargrave. He has years of butler knowledge to know how to make the Klipse family look good.

Lastly, Jon is 100% a dilf and STRIKE Squad, Trey and some of Core Tech probably knows it since Jon can sweep people off their feet with his personality. I mean, he’s one of the reason Jeredy is on thin ice because even Jeredy knows he’s THAT good for him. Enough said.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

A major reason people speculate this is that GRRM actually said Jon's resurrection is related to Beric and Lady Stoneheart's, that theirs is a foreshadowing to his.

GRRM: It’s always bothered me that Gandalf comes back from the dead. The Red Wedding for me in Lord of the Rings is the mines of Moria, and when Gandalf falls — it’s a devastating moment! I didn’t see it coming at 13 years old, it just totally took me by surprise. Gandalf can’t die! He’s the guy that knows all of the things that are happening! He’s one of the main heroes here! Oh god, what are they going to do without Gandalf? Now it’s just the hobbits?! And Boromir, and Aragorn? Well, maybe Aragorn will do, but it’s just a huge moment. A huge emotional investment. And then in the next book, he shows up again, and it was six months between the American publications of those books, which seemed like a million years to me. So all that time I thought Gandalf was dead, and now he’s back and now he’s Gandalf the White. And, ehh, he’s more or less the same as always, except he’s more powerful. It always felt a little bit like a cheat to me. And as I got older and considered it more, it also seemed to me that death doesn’t make you more powerful. That’s, in some ways, me talking to Tolkien in the dialogue, saying, “Yeah, if someone comes back from being dead, especially if they suffer a violent, traumatic death, they’re not going to come back as nice as ever.” That’s what I was trying to do, and am still trying to do, with the Lady Stoneheart character. TIME: And Jon Snow, too, is drained by the experience of coming back from the dead on the show. GRRM: Right. And poor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this, every time he’s a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he’s got all these scars, he’s becoming more and more physically hideous, because he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing.

I do not think Jon will be some sort of exception to GRRM's fundamental desire to contrast Tolkien and show that death changes a person, that they are not the same as before they died. This point, so important to GRRM that the removal of Stoneheart was the thing he most wanted to change about the show, is not going to just go away when it comes to Jon; he's not going to cheat and make Jon a Gandalf the White just because he's "important". In fact, I'd think GRRM's far more likely to show the problems of resurrection with such a central and important-to-endgame POV character.

For that matter, neither Beric nor Lady Stoneheart can truly be considered "zombies". They speak, they reason, they have thoughts and emotions; they're not empty shells or blank slates, they've just lost something of what they were before. I think it would be extremely interesting to show these changes from the inside via a POV, and how they compare to the Jon we knew before. Though I do think there will be something different about Jon's resurrection -- most likely because he is a warg, and so his soul/consciousness, as we saw with Varamyr's death, will end up within Ghost, and perhaps be "protected" while he's dead, and/or will be changed in a somewhat different way (rather than "less", become more animalistic, perhaps).

Nevertheless, between the three resurrection options we've seen so far -- the ice wights of the Others, the "fire wights" of R'hllor, and the necromancy magic of Qyburn -- I think the local presence of Melisandre (and the fact that it was a R'hllorian funeral custom that accidentally brought back Beric in the first place) leads to the fire option having a far stronger chance than the others. For that matter, the fact that Beric's flaming sword is a far better match to the records of the true Lightbringer, suggests that Jon's status as Azor Ahai Reborn will be fundamentally connected to his rebirth through fire.

And though I feel this is unlikely, perhaps Melisandre will perform Jon's funeral on the other side of the Wall... at the same time that the Others send their cold winds to revive any dead bodies around. Ice and fire, indeed...

My pet peeve is people speculating that Jon resurrection will be the same with Beric Dondarrion's or Lady's Stoneheart's (aka Catelyn Stark).

Do you really think that Martin will have one of his most important characters return to the final two books as a zombie? That he won't be a pov anymore ( since there is no reason to get into a zombie's head). Just because so far we have only seen the way Red God resurrects people it doesn't mean that this is exactly how it's gonna play out for Jon. Maybe Martin is saving a special kind of resurrection for one of the most important characters, one who isn't just more important than those who have been resurrected so far but also way more connected to magic.

[archival-material]

AU 1 - The Other Side

<S5 Spoiler Warning>

Now, I don't read a lot of 'fan-fictions' based off the series, and I probably should but I focus more on writing things out rather than reading it. This is unlikely to be a unique idea, but this would very much be my perspective on it.

Picture this-

That scene, the very end of season 5 where the audience is led to believe that Jon has been killed to sever the connection to the Eye so that the tower may crumble- so on and so forth. Is it specified where Martin stabbed? What if they are actually still alive out there, living out their lives in a 'normal' world without the Great Fears...

And Jonathan has no eyes.

I think this would be fun to write out as a scene, though I'm not focused enough to really write out fanfics for myself. But-

Martin, learning how to be perceived again. He can no longer hide away, he is no longer lonely. Jon, no longer connected to the Eye, no longer having the Web connected to him. Re-learning to live not only without the need for statements, without being able to just Know things, and also having to learn how to be without sight altogether.

Of course they disappear after. Granted, they're likely hurt from the fall of the tower, but they've been hurt before. And they find it as a chance to a new kind of freedom. Breaking away from it all, from their old lives that held primarily just the people who went looking for them after. Basira, Georgie and Melanie.

But no more Institute, no more Archives. They could break away entirely and carve themselves an entirely new life together.

I suppose this would be a bit more of an optimistic ending, a suggestion that not only did the majority vote take care of the Fears in sending them out of their world, but that both Martin and Jon survived the crumbling of the tower. Also, survived and didn't get taken with the Fears like a possible majority of prime Avatars would have.

It could open up either with their climbing out of the rubble and tending to each other, or maybe someone else helping them out. Getting back on their feet, getting the heck out of London. Travelling the world, or finding a nice place to just settle and never have to deal with horrible, awful, no-good things ever. Maybe even Annabelle planned for something like this, in hopes of things gone well. Watching Jon as often as she did, perhaps she guessed what route he would take on everything. And while he did want to prevent the spread of the fears, to keep them there- opposite of her offer and suggestion- she could've surmised that it would never really go his way, and I personally think she sort-of liked him to a degree that maybe she set up either a person to find them after, or a place for them to go to.

That all being said for the possible massive amounts of fluffy aftercare from the Fearpocalypse- Considering how deep others were into their fears, it would be interesting to determine who disappeared that day and who stuck around to re-learn how to live as a normal being.

Would the fears have left them with a trauma for the jobs they've done over time, or would they have been relatively alright?

I first honestly think of Oliver, who definitely died for The End. He was in command of his own domain, and while Inevitability was his thing- maybe his inevitability to die and all of that had been re-routed by becoming an End avatar. So he either would be gone for how deeply rooted (pun intended) he was into his fear, or maybe stripped of all of that he was left with a sense of loss and a worry for his own inevitable end that followed a more 'natural' route of things.

It would be interesting to determine who was 'too far gone' verses those who could reasonably survive the loss of their fear patron.

Ultimately, this 'Other Side' AU would be the other side of the Apocalypse. We've seen the whole beginning and lead up into it (or listened to, rather), but given that MA:2 is probably not going to be related to the main MA storyline, it feels pretty open to speculation and imagining what would go on.

It would also open things up to the chances of things coming back. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms we'll just have to open another time.

Here's one from the host, an AU brainworm.

[whateverthedragonswant]

8x01 - Gendrya vs Jonerys

In the dragonriding scene we get:

Jon: "What's wrong with them?"

Dany: "They don't like the North."

And we see Jon's reaction.

Dany doesn't like the North. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's stated definitively here.

Jon: "It's pretty cold up here for a Southern girl."

Dany: "Then keep your queen warm."

This is after Dany has said that they could stay up there for 1000 years and no one would find them with Jon replying that they would be pretty old. Not only is Jon suggesting that she shouldn't stay, but he doesn't respond to her romantic suggestion with an answer that someone in love would. It wasn't even played off as teasing by Kit's performance or Emilia's (her reaction to his line). Then when he says that it's too cold, Dany asserts the imbalanced power dynamic between them once more while also getting what she wants.

When you compare that scene (which was probably the most romantic scene Jonerys has in the show), the difference is pretty blatant:

Gendry: "Not a bad place to grow up if it wasn't so cold."

Arya: "Stay close to that forge then."

A huge contrast considering what we saw with Jonerys in the previous scene (yes, they literally had the dragons/waterfall scene right before this one - another tool GoT uses from the tool box very well is editing, in addition to timing and dialogue). Gendry is actually complimenting Arya's home while also mentioning the cold temperatures. (to link it to the previous Jonerys scene) Arya's response, while dismissive on the surface, posing as a very take-it-or-leave-it attitude, literally tells him to stay, while also showing her not pushing Gendry the way Dany did Jon to keep warm (which also makes sense given their relationship isn't there yet).

Gendry: "Oh, is that a command, Lady Stark?"

Arya: "Don't call me that."

Gendry: "As you wish, m'lady."

Here is the teasing that was absent in the waterfall scene. It's a callback to their connection and this joke between them but we also see it in their performances, with Gendry smiling and Arya eventually smiling as well. Not to mention that Arya doesn't enforce the imbalanced power dynamics between them like Dany did with Jon; she doesn't want to be called a Lady even though technically she is a Lady Stark.

The show purposely contrasted these two relationships to showcase the difference: healthy (Gendrya) vs unhealthy (Jonerys), and what blossoming love actually looks like. Even though Arya didn't accept Gendry's proposal in the end and went off sailing, it doesn't mean she didn't have feelings for him (and I think this is partly why they included the love scene for them in the next episode).

Huge. Contrast.