#the last thing u see when u try to hurt martin

[behoright]

electricity (holy series) l b. burns x a. svechnikov x m. nečas

call me, something / no one, else calls me

summary: andrei and neci cannot seem to get their first night at burnzie's out of their head. especially you. thankfully, their older teammate decides it's time for them to participate.

wordcount:  7k

song: electricity - arctic monkeys

warnings: MINORS DNI. 18+ only. mostly pure smut. includes cursing, dd/lg relationship, dirty talk, baby talk, anal play, bondage, overstimulation, m&f sex toys, orgasm control. slight choking and foot fetish.

PSA: an incredibly bastardized version of a BDSM encounter. please remember things like this require MUCH more communication than what’s portrayed. be safe n take care of yourselves. 

a/n: i.... don't know what to say. this might become a series I THINK IDK. I'm too horny my head hurts. enjoy. love u. honorable mentions to @hoesforthecanes @thejoeburrow @ryanpulock @thejerksquad

𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂

“Print that in your fucking heads and try to do the same when you touch a girl. Every time you see anyone from now on, you’ll think about this, this right here, and how good I can make her feel, just come apart in my hands.”

Martin hadn’t been able to get that out of his head ever since he had gone with the boys to Burnzie’s. The experience was so hot, and so, unfortunately for him, incredibly humbling, that he hadn’t even gone out to try and meet any new girls. Brent had a point, and it was delivered clearly to all of them. Just like him, Andrei had been spending most of his time at the rink as well. The security guards were tired of waiting late for him, sitting around by the doors, with their keys in their hands, but he didn’t care. The more he skated, the less he thought about the way Burnzie had him tie your hands. Any free moment and his mind would get flooded with the memory of you bouncing on Brent; your smell, your moans. 

The guys had talked about what happened amongst each other, but very little. They all seemed pretty functional, going back to the clubs and the dating apps. It was no coincidence that the only two that were struggling were Andrei and Neci - they were, after all , the only ones that had participated last time. 

So, Burnzie had known this was coming ever since he first send that text. At least one of them was bound to the back to ask for more. 

The tension was there, and he had caught them more than a couple of times staring and whispering. 

It was just a matter of time. And courage, which they seemed to lack. As more time went by, the more they would act more secretive and overall strange towards Burnzie, the more tiresome it was becoming for him. So one day, right after practice, the rubberband snapped. 

“What’s up, kids?” he said, not even bothering to turn around. He could feel their eyes, burning into him as he packed his bag. 

“Uh, we were just wondering about-, uh-”

“About the room.” Burnzie helped them finish their sentence. He couldn’t believe that they were in their 20s, acting like children that didn’t know how to ask for candy. 

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Uh, do you-, do that a lot?”

“Frequently. Why?”

“We just thought maybe…”

“We could come back.” Andrei spewed out.

“And why do you want to come back?” Brent said, eyes still focused on his gear. 

“Maybe we can watch more.” The boys said, looking at each other. 

“You two are the only ones that entered the room, and now you’re the only ones asking to come back. You think I believe you only want to watch?”

“We thought maybe, we could just, learn more.”

“More hands-on.” Martin tried to clarify. 

Brent smirked.

“Expect a text from me.”

They quietly celebrated. Burnzie finally turned around to face them.

“And don’t expect anything else. Remember that.”

𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂𓏸 ₊ 📹 ⋆ ݂

“Don’t expect anything else.”

What in the world could that have meant? Andrei wondered as he sped through the deserted roads that led to Burnzie’s property. It was a chilly Friday night, the moon shining bright in the clear sky, when the two guys found themselves driving back to the place they craved to be in the most. 

They were at the door right on time, as the text instructed. 5 minutes earlier, or 5 minutes later, and they would have lost their chance. The same maid led them down the long hallway, right up to the same door. This time, right as they were inserting their phones in the locked box, two forms expected them on the table that was adjacent. 

“Read it and sign it. I’m going to need that if you want to come in this time.” the maid uttered. 

Their pulse sped up as their eyes scanned through the words.

over 21 years old….

…..agreement of my own free will…..

….private agreement not to be disclosed with third parties…

agree to consent in all or some of the following sexual practices…..

God. 

They looked at each other, picked up the pen, and signed it before handing it over to the maid. 

What in the world had they gotten themselves into?

They walked into the dark viewing room, which was set up the same as last time. Tonight, there was no exploring it or wandering around. Both of them sat immediately, no words exchanged. Only the sound of anxious breaths filled up the space. A waiver meant that they were definitely participating. 

The bedroom looked as spectacular as last time, today with added features. Right in between the bed and the fireplace sat a normal, very simple wooden chair, with two small side tables posing at each side. 

The fireplace was on and roaring with flames. Andrei noticed Brent’s cufflinks already set on the nightstand, just like last time. He guessed that there was not going to be an introduction this time. 

Their breaths loudly hitched as soon as the door to the bedroom opened, Brent walking you in, already naked. 

“Sit here, baby.”

Tonight there was no kissing, no talking, no preparation.

When you sat down, Martin took note of a little clear droplet running down your leg. He wondered if you had already started before they got there. 

“Daddy’s friends are going to help today, baby, remember?” You nodded, body quivering with anticipation.

“Use your words.”

“Yes.”

“That’s much better, isn’t it.” he said, placing a kiss on your forehead before revealing a dark cloth in his hands. He wasted no time in wrapping it tightly around your eyes. 

“Come here. Hurry the fuck up.” Brent barked, for the first time tonight facing the window. The two guys scrambled to get up and head through the small door, now walking back into the room that had haunted their dreams ever since they first encountered it. 

“Don’t even fucking dare to look at her.”

Burnzie stood behind both guys, his face close to their ears. 

“If you need to stop, at any point, you say red. If you’re feeling uncomfortable, yellow. Green is go, as you know, and only to be said when I ask. Speaking up is necessary, here. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes.” they said in unison.

“Do not do anything that I don’t tell you to do. I need you to be honest, here. Don’t pretend you know something if you don’t. We need to keep it safe. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes.” Brent could hear the trembling and tightness in his teammates’ voices.

“I won’t touch you, okay? You’re not here for me, you’re here for her. You can leave at any moment, boys.” Burnzie reassured them, patting their back. “It’ll be fun.”

And just like that, his demeanor changed again, as he walked over back to you.

Brent stood behind the chair. He pointed at Martin and signaled for him to come over. 

“Stand here. Don’t move. Look forward.” he said, positioning Neci directly behind you.

“Come.” he motioned to Andrei, now standing in front of you. “Don’t look at her.”

The boys saw Brent walk over to the dresser in the corner of their eyes. The silence felt heavy in the room, as the anticipation was slowly bringing the temperature up. The older man came back, hands armed with goodies.

“Did I tell you to look somewhere else, or did I tell you to look forward, Neci?” Brent barked as he laid out the objects on the side table that sat a few feet from the chair.

“Uh- sorry.” Martin said, sharply turning his head back forward. Somehow, with his back turned, he had felt Neci’s gaze move. Shit. 

They did their best to not look at each other but instead directly beyond, with their chins raised. 

“Hold this.”

Brent handed Andrei some rope. He didn’t dare to look down at it, but it felt different than the one he had him use last time. This one felt thinner and much softer than the thick, beige rope from the other night. He couldn’t really tell, but he was mostly sure that Neci was holding some rope as well.

“You’re being so patient, princess. Are you ready, baby?”

“Yes.”

Brent surprised Andrei by moving behind him and placing a strong hand on his shoulder, pushing him down to his knees. 

“How much do you remember from what you did last time, Andrei?” he said, towering over him. 

“Most of it.” 

Brent’s eyebrows shot up.

“You’ve never lacked confidence, kid.” he chuckled. “So you know how to handle it and feel it now. Let’s try something new.”

Brent squatted next to the kneeling Russian and began to instruct him how to tie your ankles to the legs of the chair. 

“You see how this part’s looped? That’s called the bite.”

“Now bring this part through.”

“Split that in half, and wrap it in between her leg and the chair. Yes.”

“Do a square knot like last time. Yes, over and under, good.” 

No matter how many times you’d done this, you had never gotten tired of the feeling of the rope. The slight scratching of the fibers on your skin as his fingers looped it around you, the way it moved your body unwillingly as it pulled you in different directions, it never failed to make you shiver. It allowed you to only feel some parts of their hands - a graze of his palm, the tough tip of his finger, or even a tiny tickle from the hair on his arm. 

You could hear Brent instructing Andrei, keeping his voice low and strong, on how to safely secure your ankle and eventually run the rope up your leg to loop it around your shin, right under your knee, to solidify the knots altogether.

“You see how this part runs parallel to the leg of the chair? That’s how we keep her from moving too much. Can you move, flower?”

You wiggled your leg - the rope only gave you a tiny space to move.

“Good. Let’s do the same on the other one.”

While the two men moved over to tie your other leg, Martin had done his best not to look. You could feel the heat coming off of him, his body so close to your back. Eventually, as you found your bottom limbs mostly immobile, Brent stood back up and walked over to Neci.

He thought that out of the two, he looked the most nervous, but perhaps it was too hard to tell how fast Andrei’s heart was beating, with his eyes stuck on the ground below him. He was to remain on his knees, and so he did. Try everything once, right?

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Uh, no.”

“That’s fine. This one’s not too hard. Give us your hands, my love.” he instructed you. You moved your hands so that your forearms touched the sides of the chair rest. 

“Don’t touch her hands. Start by looping the rope at the end like this. Try it.”

You could feel Martin shake as he began to slowly and carefully wrap the rope around your wrists. Before he knew it, you were secured to the chair. Neci’s chest puffed, a small smile spreading on his face. Maybe he could do this; perhaps this could be his life. He dreamed about having his own property, his own dream house, filled with rooms with hidden ropes and bondage chairs. Brent was quick to pop Martin’s bubble, pushing him to his knees, just as Andrei was sitting on the other side of the chair. 

“Keep looking down.”

Neither of them had ever been in a humbling position like this before. Andrei thought about all of the times he had pushed a girl to her knees in the countless hotel rooms he’d been in. Is this what it felt like? All the times Martin had taken pleasure in letting his erection spring into a girl’s face. No one could have ever told them to get on their knees for someone else. Well, no one until now. 

What surprised them both was how their bodies responded to it all. It was possible that their pants felt extra tight thanks to your naked body, sitting spread open and helpless in front of them, but even then, they weren’t looking at you. They really hadn’t gotten a good look at you this whole time. And it was obvious that they had no control over you. As much as they were dying to, they weren’t able to do whatever they wanted to you. 

So why were their cocks throbbing so hard already?

“You did so amazing at sitting so still while we tied you up, little one. I think it’s about time we give you what you need, don’t you think?”. Brent said as his fingers worked to undo the knot that kept black cloth over your eyes. Looking down, you saw the two boys exactly how you thought they’d be - both kneeling, one in front of you and one behind you, panting so hard you could feel their breaths on your feet and legs. 

“Are you wet, angel?” 

You bit your lip and nodded, your eyes, big and sparkling with lust, staring up at Brent.

“Yeah? Did it make you wet when you felt the boys tying you up?”

Andrei gulped, as quietly as possible. They both hoped it wasn’t too obvious how straining this was starting to become for them, their cocks quickly swelling up in their pants. It was so much, and they hadn’t even taken their clothes off just yet.

“I bet Andrei would love to see your wet little pussy.” he said, as you keep nodding slowly. “That’s too bad he can’t”. You tilted your head towards him, still towering over you.

“You can look down at him, my sweet, he’s not allowed to look at you.” You tentatively peeled your eyes off Brent to look at the kneeling Russian in front of you. You could see the flush that had overtaken his body, his ears, and the back of his neck boiling with heat. 

“Do you know why, petal?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Because they’re not fucking worthy, that’s why.” he said aggressively, his hand bringing up your chin to push past your lips with his tongue. 

Brent began one of his favorite dances with you, engulfing your mouth with his tongue and spit. He loved to see you all flushed and short of breath when he pulled back, your lips now rough and blushed due to his beard scratching your delicate skin. You kept your mouth open, making Brent’s cock twitch, before getting on his knees to grab your face and kiss you again. The harder the kiss was, the more dramatically the boys’ chests would heave, and the more restless you became. 

“Is this turning you on, dove?” he whispered, his lips still grazing yours. “Look at you, trying to move your hips against those tight binds. Are you craving touch down there, my baby?”

“Yes, yes.” you answered, your eyes still closed in exasperation, patiently hoping to feel his lips back on yours again. 

“I can’t believe I’ve made you wait that long, princess. How awful of me.” he said, in between pecks, one of his hands reaching towards the small table behind him. 

“Focus on me, baby. Give me your sweet, sweet tongue again.” he said, so close that his nose was touching yours. You obediently stuck out your tongue, craving more of his mouth on yours. Brent’s green eyes focused on your open mouth, opening his own. He licked your tongue slowly, at first with little kitten licks and eventually wrapping himself wholly around you, bringing on another feverish makeout session. It was so dirty, letting his spit dribble in your mouth like that, and it made your cunt feel so, so empty. It felt so good that you didn’t notice the rubbery touch of a vibrator now positioned right on your clit until Brent turned it on. 

The initial vibrations caught you by surprise, letting out a loud moan into Burnzie’s mouth. 

“That’s right, baby, there it is. I bet it feels so good, doesn’t it?” he coaxed, making sure to keep it steadily pressed on your sensitive bud.

The whole scene had been making the boys more and more impatient. Seeing as how you were both so enthralled with each other, Andrei was getting away with slowly grinding his hips up in the air. Martin, meanwhile, was focusing on his breath, attempting to control the overwhelming urge to undo his pants. 

But Brent noticed. Of course, he noticed. Everything that went on in that room was always under his control. He moved over behind Andrei, his arm long enough to keep the vibrator pushing against you. 

“Take your shirts off.” he ordered. 

Before he could blink, both of his teammates were now kneeling shirtless. They were so desperate Brent almost felt bad for them. He took Andrei’s sweaty hand and positioned it on the barrel of the vibrator. 

“Keep it there. Make her cum, and don’t look at her.”

Andrei tried to stay as immobile as he could, making sure that the toy stayed on your clit. Never before had he felt so… ashamed? It was a strange feeling, and it was hard to take it when all of his senses were getting so consumed so easily. The mix of your moans, your smell, the vibrations that recoiled in his clammy palms and his teammate’s heavy breathing were starting to make him feel dizzy. Not to even mention how hard his cock was already. 

Martin’s mouth dropped when he realized it was Andrei that was in charge of the vibrator. If he was sitting in front of you, and that was his job, then what was Burnzie going to make him do?

“Do you know what these are?” Brent asked him.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever used them before?”

“No.” he gulped.

“Dip them in here. Go very, very slow.”

“Arch your back for us, love. Yeah, just like that.” 

It was difficult in the most delicious way to keep your back arched. The young man sitting in front of you was trying so hard to keep the toy still, despite your trembling, that it was almost endearing. It turned you on to no end when Brent told you what to do; but when you saw him instruct other people, it was game over. Andrei’s hand started shaking, distracting you from the conversation that Brent was having behind you. You were getting closer and closer to your orgasm, the situation already proving too much for your system. Just when you thought you couldn’t take it anymore, a cold feeling filled your asshole. You were brought back to the murmurs of the men behind you, a gasp accompanying yours as the cold feeling returned again. And again. 

Anal beads. Brent really did know how to work you right. 

“Is he doing good, my girl?” you heard Brent coax. 

“Fuck, yes, yes. Oh, please, Daddy.”

“Yeah, you’re going to cum, aren’t you? Already, my sensitive girl, look how much you’re trembling.”

Andrei was basically huffing and moaning at this point, his knuckles white as he gripped the wand so hard. 

“Can-can I-, I-” you attempted to get out.

“Oh, you don’t have to ask today, baby. Cum all you want, my good girl.” Brent interrupted, placing a strong hand on your head. You moaned, louder than intended, as your orgasm ripped right through you. Fortunately, you only got louder when Brent ordered Neci to slowly pull out the beads from you, which only contrasted how tight you were squeezing your sex as waves of pleasure washed over you. 

“Again.” Brent barked, and not at you. 

The boys kept going, and you only got more restless, your wrists becoming raw from pulling at your restraints so hard as you came. 

Andrei couldn’t keep his gaze on his floor. He noticed that as you got more overstimulated and closer to your peak once again, your toes would wiggle more and more, your legs fighting against the rope. It reminded Andrei of the last time he was here, and he finally understood why Burnzie had instructed him to look at your feet that night. There was something about seeing the pleasure take over your whole being, even your feet, unable to stay steady from what he was doing to you. He was yanked out of his thoughts when he saw a string of fluid come into his peripheral vision. He turned his head back to the floor, now a tiny puddle of juices forming right before his eyes. 

You were dripping off the chair. 

The more came down, the louder Andrei whimpered, which along with Neci’s cursing sent you over the edge, seeing stars once again in just a few minutes. 

Brent yanked the vibrator out of Andrei’s hand, turning it off and placing it away, leaving you breathless and whimpering.

“You made such a mess, my baby. You know how Daddy feels about messes.”

You could only moan, overstimulation taking over you, as Neci was getting the hang of how to touch you right. 

“Someone’s going to have to clean this up.”

Andrei’s heart dropped. All he wanted was to taste you, touch you, or fuck, even just see you. See how good you looked all swollen and ready to be filled up. He didn’t think he’d get there, but honestly, he would have done anything to get any relief. 

Out of the blue, his eyes suddenly became covered by the dark cloth of a blindfold.

“Color, Andrei?”

“Green.”

“Make her feel good, Svech.”

He immediately lunged forward, getting what he was dreaming of, his tongue eagerly licking every single patch of wet skin, bead of cum, every corner, every fold of you. He would thrust his tongue into your opening to overwhelm his senses with waves of your sweet nectar, just to widen his mouth and spread it all over your cunt. The motion of Andrei’s actions, the whole bottom of his face working overtime, added to the feeling of Neci’s digits, who was randomly alternating his fingers and the cold, metal beads in and out of you, was making you scream. You were dripping from every hole with spit, lube and cum, and it felt so fucking dirty. Martin was absolutely mesmerized at how easily your body would welcome the toy, how your fingers would twitch whenever he pulled the silver beads out of you. The closer Andrei was getting you to another orgasm, the tighter your asshole would get, shifting the objects inside you, causing the utmost pleasure for you, and consequently for the viewing pleasure of Neci. He had become a mess, grinding fully into nothing, joining you with his own moans and groans every time he would see one of the beads come out of your body. 

“Look how much they adore you, my girl. They’d do anything for you right now, you see?”

“Oh, fuck, yes, Daddy.” you whimpered. 

Brent was standing so close, a big wet spot on his boxers. Sticking your tongue out, you tried to reach for him. His eyes rolled, pelvis subconsciously moving forward towards you.

“Oh, such a good girl.” he said, as you licked his cock over his boxers.

“You could have all the men in the world at your feet, and you’d still choose your Daddy over them, wouldn’t you?.” You nodded, keeping the tip of your tongue focused on the head of his cock, which was pushing hard against the fabric of his underwear.

“Taste me, doll. Only me.” he uttered, taking his underwear off and guiding himself into your mouth. “Slowly, angel. Savor me. This is what you fucking do to me, my girl.” 

Brent’s salty precum burst on your tongue as you swirled his head slowly. He loved it when you took your time with him, getting him off for your pleasure only. Seeing you lick his member, tracing every single vein and ridge with the tip of your tongue, your eyes so satisfactorily attempting to look at him, ripped groans out of his chest every single time. 

“You’re so, so good. Have I told you today, princess?”

You nodded, starting to tremble again from the three men taking over your body.

“You’re so perfect. You look so good with your holes all filled up.” 

You moaned, sending vibrations through Brent’s cock again.

“Yeah, you fucking like that, don’t you, flower? Daddy’s friends are making you feel so good.

You want to know a secret? Daddy only invited them because he knew how sexy you’d look all filled up like this. He doesn’t give a fuck about them. I only care about you, petal.”

Hearing those words made Brent’s teammates work overtime, causing your eyes to roll back into your head as you released yourself once again, all over Andrei’s tongue.

“Yeah, let it go, my baby. Just like that, good girl.” he said, walking you through your orgasm. 

As soon as you came down, Brent pushed both guys away from you, swiftly undoing your ropes.

“Go fucking get her some water. Fast.” 

They must have found it quickly, because as soon as the ropes touched the ground, Brent held you up, gently pouring cold, fresh water in your mouth.

“That’s okay, love. Good job, like that. Breathe deep, my baby. You’re doing okay?” he asked, his eyes studying your face. 

“Yes. Thank you, Daddy.” you said, feeling refreshed.

“My sweet girl. Are you ready to keep going?”

“Yes.” you said, welcoming a smile from Burnzie.

“Take your pants off. Go sit.” he instructed the guys.

They sat in the chairs next to the side of the bed, both flushed and sweaty, too horny to even care about what they looked like. 

You got on your knees in front of them, right in the middle of the two chairs. Brent took a seat on the bed behind you, facing his two teammates. 

Slowly, you finally touched them, running your hands on both of their thighs. They had never felt so much pleasure from a such simple touch. They both threw their head back, the softness of your palm sending waves of electricity through their bodies. You kept moving closer to their cocks, hard and throbbing, wishing to feel a twinge of pressure. Your fingertip circled close to Andrei’s hip, coming in contact with his pubic hair, while your other hand ran up and down the inside of Martin’s thigh, inching closer to the base of his cock. They couldn’t help but twitch, every tiny movement another surge of heat and pleasure. 

The metallic, clicking sound took them out of their heat wave, realizing that they weren’t able to move their feet. While you were teasing them, building up now ruined anticipation, you used your other hand to lock their feet into the metal cuffs that came attached to the bondage chair. 

“Is this okay?” you asked, almost innocently. “Could you do this for me?” You could basically hear Brent’s smirk from behind you.

Speechless, the two young men nodded slowly. Andrei’s hand, firmly gripped his hair, while Neci tried his best to keep his whimpers to a low volume. Both of their feet were now shackled to the chairs; they couldn’t move from their chairs at all.

“Oh, my little mischievous girl. I bet you didn’t think she’d be this naughty, huh?

Yeah, you guys thought you’d come in here and have your way with her. You had no clue how playful she is. She’s had you wrapped around her finger since the moment you saw her for the first time, and you stupidly thought it was the other way around.” Brent said, walking up to you and petting your head tenderly. 

“Did you think she’d be so clueless, boys? That this is not a two-way relationship? You thought I keep her in this big house, always ready for me, and that she just gets used for me.

No, boys. She knows just as much as me, and way more than you do. And that’s exactly why you won’t get to touch her again today.”

Brent walked back over to you, holding out his hand to help you up and bring you two behind Andrei and Martin.  

“That’s okay. You get to be this bad because deep down, we know you’re only good for me, right?” he said, giving you a heated kiss.

Martin thought he was going to have a heart attack once he felt your hand on his shoulder. Just the way it felt on his burning skin made him buckle his hips, aggressively enough that the chair moved up with him. 

“Take a deep breath.” you whispered in his ear while Brent got the toys ready behind you. “You’re doing okay?” 

“Yes, fuck, yes, I just need-, I need you to-”

“You don’t need her to fucking do anything.” Brent chimed in, aggressively.

“Just take a deep breath for me.” you reminded him.

Martin breathed deeply, and so did Andrei, who was listening to the conversation as well. 

Neci’s eyes had been shut for a while now, way too consumed with the way the desire felt running through his veins, so much so that he didn’t realize you moving a toy in front of him. 

Andrei had never seen anything like it before. It was cylindrical and white, with some buttons on top, and as you hovered it above Neci’s cock, lube came out of it, dripping onto his swollen head. The cold feeling made him whimper loudly, right before moaning ripped out of him as soon as you placed the sex toy all the way down to his base. 

“Hold it, just like that.” you said, kindly, before moving on to stand behind Andrei. Just as quickly as it happened to his teammate, the feeling that wrapped around his dick caused his flushed stomach to tighten with pleasure. It felt wet, and warm, and nothing like what he had felt before. If you didn’t have to tell Martin twice, you didn’t have to tell Andrei once, who grabbed onto the toy fast, pushing his hips up into it. He looked back at you, his eyelids only halfway open, as he began to fuck the sex toy as diligently as he could with his legs constricted. He watched your face as he moaned incredibly loudly, almost groaning, inching to get more and more from the toy. You wiped a sweat bead off of his eyebrow, just as Brent’s arms wrapped around you. 

“You’re way too kind, my dove.” he muttered into your temple. “Say fucking thank you.” Brent barked at Andrei.

“Th-, thank you. So much.” he stumbled out in between moans. 

“Come, flower. Let’s show them who you belong to.” he said, picking you up bridal style and throwing you onto the mattress. 

Finally, your hot, big Dom was positioning himself at your entrance. Not before grabbing his phone, and to their surprise, turning on the toys for the guys. If they were moaning loudly before, the suction and vibrations that initiated around their cocks basically caused primal growls to fill the room. 

Brent entered you, swiftly, the swollen head of his thick dick coming flush with your cervix in the most pleasurable pain. 

“Oh, fuck, Daddy.”

“I cannot wait any longer, little one. I want to claim you so badly.” he said, moving his hips harshly against yours. Brent was a sweet Dom, but when he claimed you, he fucked hard, and you loved every second of it. The room was filled with the sounds of men moaning for you, making you even weaker than before. 

“My girl. You’re my fucking girl, yeah, baby?”. You moaned dramatically in response.

“Who do you belong to? Tell me, angel.”

“You, you, you,” you repeated, your eyes stuck at the back of your head as he kept pounding himself inside you.

It had finally dawned on them. Andrei and Martin understood, as they were being consumed by pleasure, what it was. The power dynamic, the push and pull. The fact that you had them at your disposal and you couldn’t care less. The fact that they had suffered for so long, had made you cum countless times, and all they had gotten in return was… a sex toy. At the end of it all, the whole team could have been in the room, on their knees, sweating and panting, reaching for you, and you only would have looked at Brent. You only wanted to get on your knees for Brent. You trusted him enough to bring random men into the room, to blindfold you and tie you up, but only him. And it hadn’t felt forced. They had only seen you smile at him. You only giggled when he picked you up. All those times that Andrei had used a cheap pair of handcuffs on a whatever short-term girlfriend, craving something more; times that they had tried spanking their date, or been called Daddy - it just ended up making them cringe. They didn’t believe it. What they were missing was… this. 

The motorized toy was doing wonders for them, picking up the pace and pressure just right, and slowing down right when they felt they were getting too close. But that was starting to take a toll.

“Oh, shit. Oh, oh, shit.” Martin moaned, getting too close to his peak.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Brent growled at him while he turned you around, placing you on your hands and knees. The way your mouth dropped open when he entered you again made Andrei’s chest, now completely flushed, heave really hard, moving the chair slightly at his twitches and thrusts.

“No one gets to cum before she does.” Brent said, pounding over and over into you.

“Oh Daddy, slow it down for them.”

 you said, attempting to reach out to the phone sitting on the nightstand. Brent’s hand easily reached out to you, grabbing your wrist and holding it behind your back.

“They’re here for you. Not the other way around. Don’t fucking forget it.”

“Do you need to be reminded, flower?” Brent uttered, his hips now slamming even harder against your ass. 

“Do you need to cum more, baby? So you can remember what your purpose here is?

"Look at them. Look at how fucking pathetic they look. They’d do anything to touch you right now. A graze of your skin, a drop of your cum on their tongue would make them explode.”

“Fucking say it. Tell her.”

“I’d- I’d do anything to touch you.” Martin repeated, his normal tone muffled by the pleasure. 

Andrei couldn’t fight it; he knew Burnzie was right. He felt incredibly pathetic. But he didn’t care. He couldn’t care less that the chair was moving, and he was fighting hard against the restraints while fucking his length hard into the sex toy. He moaned harder and louder than he ever had before in an attempt to control his orgasm from coming early. The top of the toy had sealed, creating a vacuum that only heightened the pleasure, torturing them both more.

“Блядь, блядь, блядь.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

All of his inhibitions had gone out of the window. He was needy, and desperate for touch, and spit and cum and release like never before. He couldn’t even hear his teammate next to him moaning anymore. It had all blended into the most overstimulating sound for him.

“Это так чертовски горячо.”

This is so fucking hot.

He simply couldn’t bring himself to try and keep it together. No English, nothing. He was one hundred percent under the spell of you, someone who was ironically getting fucked by his older teammate.

“Я должен был сидеть там, с твоей киски капало прямо передо мной, сливки заливали весь стул и пол, и я, блядь, я ничего не мог сделать.”

I had to sit there with your pussy dripping right in front of me, creaming all over the chair and the floor and I fucking, I couldn't do anything.

Martin heard him speak, but didn’t know if he was losing it from holding it in so much, or if his friend was rambling in Russian next to him.

“Я не могу поверить, что мне пришлось, мне пришлось сидеть так долго, слыша твои стоны и, черт возьми, звук шариков, входящих и выходящих из тебя, боже, детка, черт возьми.”

I can't believe I had to, I had to sit for so long, hearing you moan and, fuck, the sound of the beads moving in and out of you, god, baby, fuck.

The more they held back their orgasm, the harder they seemed to move their hips up, chairs scratching the hardwood floor underneath them. Andrei couldn’t even see you clearly anymore, his eyes blurred by lust and sweat.

“Это так приятно, но, о черт, я чертовски сильно хочу, чтобы твой рот был на мне, твоя грязная девчонка. То, как ты позволяешь ему делать с тобой все, что угодно, тебе даже наплевать на нас, когда я сижу здесь и умоляю скользнуть в твою прелестную пизду. О, детка. Я хочу этого так чертовски сильно.”

“This feels so good but, oh fuck, I want your mouth on me so fucking bad, you dirty girl. The way you let him do anything to you, you don't even care about us, when I sit here and I beg to slide in your pretty cunt. Oh, baby. I want it so fucking bad.”

“I-, I can’t fucking hold it in anymore.” Martin whimpered pathetically. “I’m going to fucking, explode, oh fuck, so soon.” 

“Когда, когда я наконец прикоснулся к тебе губами, я думал, что кончу себе в штаны, я так сильно хотел тебя.”

“When, when I finally put my lips on you, I thought I was going to cum in my pants I wanted you so bad.” 

Your back arched, staring at the two guys lost in pleasure in front of you. Brent had grabbed you by the throat, his beard tickling your shoulder as he mumbled praises in your ear. Praises that were muffled, almost unheard, covered by the noise of the chairs creaking as they moved, Brent’s balls hitting your clit every time he bottomed out inside you, Russian mixed with moaning and the ringing that came from your ears as soon as you released yourself all over him and the bed; sticky, slick juices exploding out of your swollen cunt, covering Brent’s thighs.

“Я собираюсь вернуться, куколка. Я должен вернуться и, блядь, заставить тебя кончить на меня, устроить беспорядок на мне, черт.”

I'm going to be back, doll. I have to come back and fucking have you cum all over me, make a mess all over me, shit. 

“Good fucking girl, baby. I’m going to mark you, my doll. You’re going to be mine forever now, shit.” Brent growled in your ear before squeezing your body tight, releasing himself and pumping you full with so much cum that it seeped over before he was even done, or before you had a chance to catch your breath.

“Fuck, that’s hot. Fuck, oh, fuck!” Martin exclaimed as he finally released in the sex toy, primitive noises ripping out from his chest.

Andrei was the last one to finish, and a sight to see. He fucked himself done inside the toy hard, cumming harder than ever before with a piercing growl and a clenched jaw. He sat and watched his cum run down his pelvis and legs as he pulled the toy off of him, tossing it aside as he heaved heavily, on the border of hyperventilation, his bright red face and chest dripping in sweat.

Brent left you empty on the bed, scrambling to unlock his teammates and bringing them over to his California king mattress for a rest. Before laying down with you, he grabbed candy and water from the nightstand, tossing it to his friends as he held you again.

“You’re alright, dove?” he asked, holding your face. It was a miracle that your eyes were even putting up a struggle to stay open. “No, no, no, doll, stay with me. Open your eyes.” he said, sitting up alarmingly. 

The guys heard how his tone of voice switched and set aside their own exhaustion to come around you. 

“Stay awake, baby, I need to know that you’re okay.” he repeated, setting your head on his chest. Andrei opened his bag and placed a piece of candy on your lips. The burst of sugar and citric acid woke you up, welcoming the sweetness inside your mouth. You began sucking diligently on the piece of candy as you cuddled up to Brent, placing kisses on his scruffy neck. 

“Atta girl, much better.” he coaxed, now more relaxed. “Eat some up, boys, it’ll help.” he said, watching his friends chug from the water bottles. 

It was nice that you could all sit together and cuddle in silence, replenishing themselves and slowly feeding you candy, water, and kisses. 

“All good, love?” Brent asked in between pecks.

“Yes.” you whispered.

“Much better. Take your nap now.” he said, with a kiss on your forehead. 

You fell asleep, soundly in his arms, and Brent was left with two tired and still very giddy boys in his bed. Their eyes sparkling, waiting for him to say… something.

“You guys did well. Want to come back next week?”

[panfluidme]

Could you please write something with Martin being hurt (potentially fatal) and Chris trying his best to save him or at least keep him alive long enough to get proper help (please no death I just finished reading all your wild kratts fics and I can't deal with another Martin death)

Sorry that it's taken me so long to get this out. My brain is just like "f u" recently, and writing has not been wanting to work with me. Then I've also been doing high school graduation, so that's fun

ALMOST GONE

Martin was out like a light, Chris' own brain was a little fuzzy as he tried to remember what happened.

The last thing he had recalled was the two jumping around in the trees. They had been following a group of monkeys, so...

So how did they end up down here? Had they fallen or something?

But both of them at the same time? Normally one person would fall, but very rarely would both of them fall. At the same time and right next to each other.

Chris was snapped out of his thoughts when Martin groaned quietly. He shook his head and went to check on him. He could see some blood coming from the top of Martin's head, which wasn't exactly reassuring.

"Hey, Martin, can you look at me?"

Martin opened his eyes, wincing a little. "It's bright," he mumbled.

"I know, I know." Chris wiped some of the blood off Martin's face. "Do you remember who I am?"

"You're Chris, my little brother." Martin leaned back, finding it hard to keep his head up.

Chris gently kept his hand on Martin's shoulder, frowning a little. "Stay awake, okay? I know you can. I'm going to get us somewhere the Tortuga can easily find us then call Aviva, okay?"

Martin furrowed his eyebrows together. "Aviva?"

"Yes, do you remember who she is?"

The blond had to pause to think before he shook his head. Chris frowned more as he gently tried to pick Martin up. With how much taller Martin was than Chris, and the fact that Chris didn't have as much muscle strength as Chris, Chris struggled a lot. In the end, he put Martin back onto the ground, leaning against a tall tree.

The brunet grabbed his creature pod and called Aviva, hoping that she would be able to help. However, his creature pod died right before she could answer. Odd, he normally was much better at charging it, but it wasn't the first time that he's needed it and it was dead.

He grabbed Martin's, but it was smashed up. This wasn't ideal at all, Chris needed to call Aviva so he could get Martin help.

Okay, so what was the best way to go about this? Martin was hurt, likely having some brain damage since he didn't remember who Aviva was. He couldn't call the Tortuga with either of their creature pods, him calling then 'hanging' up probably freaked everyone else out.

Chris paced a little, ignoring the slight pain in his ankle. It was up to him to get Martin and himself to safety. Logically, Chris knew he might also have a concussion, but it was much smaller than Martin's. Logically, Chris knew he and Martin had other injuries, but that was pushed to the back of his mind.

He hummed to himself as he thought. Nodding to himself, Chris looped his arms under Martin's armpits and started to drag him. He was careful, walking backwards. He looked over his shoulder a lot to make sure he wouldn't trip.

Martin groaned softly, Chris quietly reassuring him and telling him to stay awake. The older tried to do so, his head spinning and stomach churning.

Slowly, but surely, Chris made his way to the Tortuga. It took him hours to do so, partly because he had to stop and rest and take care of Martin, and walking backwards in a forest was a slow process anyway.

"Aviva!" Chris shouted. Martin groaned at the loud noise, but Chris had to ignore him.

The woman in question ran over and helped Chris bring Martin to the med bay. Relief washed over Chris while he watched her take care of Martin, quietly answering Koki's questions while she took care of his injuries.

Everything was going to be okay, and Chris was happy with that.

[sparkedblaze]

[whispering so u won’t notice i’m continuing to bother you while you’re busy]

oscar’s always been casually aware that morris is pretty. he thinks it’s obvious, anyone with working eyes can see his brother’s got a nice face. but morris has never actually been Told that he’s attractive, aside from maybe being mocked by people like pa and snyder. he thinks he’s ugly, ‘cause he’s… him. he’s mean and rude, and all covered in scars. he’s always mottled with bruises and cuts, dirty and bloody.

the first time a guy calls morris pretty, he’s trying to use or manipulate him. oscar tells him exactly as much, inevitably overhearing or finding out after the fact when morris tells him.

the next time a guy calls morris pretty, he’s being entirely genuine, eyes sparkling as he takes in morris’ features.

morris scoffs. “gonna have to try harder’n that, ‘f’you wanna make fun a’ me.”

“what’re you talkin’ about? you ain’t got a mirror? you got a face right out of a movie.”

(I will never actually be mad at you for putting things here)

*

Jojo was beaming at Morris, though it was slowly falling as the other looked... almost hurt. "You got a face right out the films. I ain't makin' fun."

Morris scowled, curling up tighter on Miss Medda's couch. "You ain't gonna get me that easy. I ain't gonna let you."

Jojo's brows furrowed. "Wha'dya mean?"

"You ain't trickin' me," Morris mumbled, pulling his blankie tighter to his chest.

"I'm not," Jojo agreed, sitting on the floor by Morris's head. "I'm being absolutely serious."

He looked around for Oscar, not wanting to be trashed by the older Delancey for talking to his little brother. He seemed to be outside, with most everyone else, enjoying the nice weather after the winter freeze.

"You ain't... You jus' like Martin..." Morris shook his head. "I ain't gon' let you do tha'."

"Martin?" Jojo asked softly, brows furrowing further. "Who's Martin?"

Morris pressed his lips together, shaking his head. "Don' matt'a."

"If he did something to you, then it matters. We can help keep you safe."

He shook his head again, harder this time. "Nuh-uh."

"No?" Jojo asked him quietly. "Why not?"

"Not s'posed to talk 'bout it," Morris mumbled, looking around, probably for Oscar.

"It's okay, Morris. You don't have to talk about it. Just..." Jojo tried to figure out how to word it without Morris getting upset. "Just know that I'm here if you want to, okay?"

Morris stared at him, frowning. He couldn't be serious. He wasn't being kind. He was... he was trying to get to Morris. Trying to pick his brain and mess him up. Just like Marty.

Oscar would tell him as much.

He sat up, nearly tripping over himself trying to stand. "Os!"

Jojo stood as well, sighing softly, backing against the far wall.

Morris scrambled for the door, meeting Oscar at the door.

The older Delancey immediately started looking over Morris, checking him for any injuries. He glared over Morris's shoulder at Jojo, who was shrinking against the fireplace.

"What'sa matter Mo?" he asked his little brother, cupping his cheeks.

"Get'd lonely," Morris mumbled, looking around outside. "Wan'ed Os 'n mama."

"Come on out then, Momo. She's over there," Oscar pointed to the crowd around the unlit firepit.

Morris glanced back at Jojo one last time before taking Oscar by the hand and making his way over to Medda.

No one else would do that again. He wasn't gonna disappoint Os again.

Ever.

[catboy-draws]

First Jon sketch in this artstyle that I like (might digitalize and animate later)

[theficplug]

Can I Come Home {Atticus (lovecraft country) Fic}

Atticus Freeman x Black Reader 

Warnings: smut (21+)

(Ayida-Weddo is a loa of fertility, rainbows, wind, water, fire, and snakes)

(Atticus wants to come home after his little adventures. Reader isn’t having it.)

The incessant knocking at your door pulled you out of your concentration on rolling the last bit of your hair. It had been a week of perms and presses. You were more than ready to listen to your vinyls and relax by yourself away from the troubles of whatever was going on in this hell of a country. 

The person at the other end of this door had other plans for you apparently and as an adventurous woman living alone you weren’t about to take any chances.

You grab the small pistol out of your brown fur coat on the rack and closed your eyes as your fingertips begin to spark little flames. 

As you slowly creak the door open, Tic lowers his glasses and his face comes into view. 

You let out a deep sigh of relief as you lower the pistol to the ground and the fire simmered down. 

“BOY! You play too much knocking on my damn door at this hour of the night! I almost blew your ass clean to Mississippi, Atti !  I figured you’d drag yourself here after you finished parading around God knows where else with Miss Letitia Fucking Lewis.” you say reluctantly unlatching your screen door to look at your ex boyfriend face to face. 

Even in the moonlight you could still see the bronze glow cascading from his sculpted cheeks, to his beautiful broad nose, and down to his cupids bow. He was standing there biting at his plump bottom lip nervously while awaiting you.

“Whoa . HEY. HEY . HEY!” He yelled with his hands up as he ducked down. 

“Now, baby look, i-” Tic stammers across his words trying to plead his case as you press the cold bottle of Cola to your reddened lips as you give him the cold shoulder. 

You shook your head and closed your eyes to summon snakes around his ankles as he hopped side to side kicking off the illusions.

“Town is small, Atti. Everybody talks. A postcard to know that your knucklehead ass is still alive would’ve been nice. But to hear from Betty with the uneven bob at the salon that you’re back in town running around with Leti of all people. You know good and well we haven’t seen eye to eye since junior high. I know we broke up but that don’t mean you had to disappear on me like that. Your triflin behind ain't no good Atti-. Why are you even here?” You ask him pointedly instead of going off on your tangent. 

The audacity of him to show up after months of barely 3 postcards from him and a few dodgy and quick calls in the middle of night spewing all types of things about monsters and shapeshifters and both kinds of wizards. 

He grabs you gently around the arms and presses a soft kiss to your lips while holding your chin between his fingers. 

“Just wanted to see you, that’s all.” He says simply in that tone he uses when he wants you to let him inside. Granted, you knew you were gonna let him inside and come inside but you wanted to watch him sweat. 

“I should summon rain over your head...You hungry?” 

After huffing and puffing you decide to ease the screen door open fully so that he could embrace you properly.

You turn your head and his kiss lands on your cheek instead. His gaze fell upon you intensely as he caressed over your cheek where his lips had been moments before. Atticus’s gaze falls from your warm oak coloured eyes to your neck, to your collarbones, and down further where your robe was slightly open and the neckline of your silk red gown had fallen lower. 

You lean in to breathe into his long black coat. The Chanel Pour Monsieur that you gifted to him before he left for the war evaded your senses. You hiss softly before smiling against him, feeling his large calloused and frigid hands run up the back of your thighs to cup under your butt and lift you onto him. 

“What, you run around all summer and come back here in the winter when you're cold and lonely and realize that she wasn’t gon’ stick around? Is that it? Your summer fling is back on the road?”  you question with a huff and a roll of your eyes. 

He chuckles deeply and shakes his head as he walks with you still wrapped around him into your small quiet little cozy candlelit home with Ella Fitzgerald , These Foolish Things playing softly in the background. 

“Town talk goes both ways, baby. I heard you were playing backseat bingo with Martin Thompson, the preacher? Really?” he questions as he licks over your neck and jawline pressing kisses along the way.

“And what is there for a lonely young woman to do when her man writes her a letter trying to rationalize falling in love with a goddamn ninetail fox. I saw Letitia coming. Seen that a mile away. I knew there would be women and men along the way for us. But, a fox, well baby you had me beat on that one. A descendant of Ayida-Weddo herself wasn’t enough? Bible Boy was good to me. He would make sure I made it home safe and sound every night from the shop. Bought me that fur coat and everything.” you say and he drops his head with a chagrined expression. 

Atticus sits you down on your own two feet and looks at you for a moment. Both of his hands on your hips.

“And what did you do for him, hmm?” He asks tracing his hands over the ties of your robe letting it fall open in one swoop.

“You really wanna know?” You scoff and swat at his hands for asking such a witless and invasive question. 

“I’m sorry, baby.” he whispers before lowering to his knees. He places one of your shea butter lathered feet in his hand kissing it softly before moving to the other.

Atticus wraps his strong arms around your waist and kisses your belly button. 

You push his mouth from suckling open mouth kisses onto your clothed mound and saunter away from him and over to the record player.

You search through the collection until you reach Big Mama Thornton. You laugh to yourself as “Hound Dog” starts to echo throughout the room.

“You’re ever the jokester ain’t you?” Atticus says with a laugh of his own as you sway your hips to the music and dance over to him.

“Dance with me” you call out to him as he comes up behind you and you gasp at the feeling of how hard he is just from caressing you moments before.

He meets your movements grinding with a shimmy of his own as he matches your movements of doing the twist and you sway your hips flush against him. His hands ghost against your thighs again and up your body. He takes note that you’re not wearing anything under your silk nightgown. 

Atticus  caresses over your breasts carefully massaging over the almond coloured buds as you let out a soft moan and place your hands over his.

You turn your head to kiss him again this time less innocently than before as you guide his hands in yours and slide them down your body while never losing the beat of the song. 

Goosebumps begin to pepper your skin  and your breath hitches as his hands settle between your thighs. He brings his fingers to his mouth before moving between your legs again.

Atticus’s nails drag softly up your left thigh as he grips it and brings you closer to feel how he’s already hardening for you. You ride his hand for a moment trying to control your temperature that’s already too high for the average human body. 

The flames of the candles dance as your excitement and wetness heightens and you tap against his thigh to warn him. 

He laughs deeply as he works over your clit skillfully and methodically. “I remember” he says simply and your eyes roll back as you utter the word “out” assertively. 

All of the candles burn out instantly and you revel in the feeling of his fingers treating your body and your flower like a Shenzhen Nongke Orchid. 

“You’re two seconds away from making me nut in my trousers like we’re back in your dorm all over again.” he mumbles while nipping at your neck and your deep dark chestnut eyes slowly fade to a golden hue to a soft glow of scarlett red.  

You nod giving him your consent as you lay over the couch. You wiggle your ass in the air , knowing that he’s watching while working his boxers down too.

He slowly works his way into you before slowly pulling out and watching his member glisten fully saturated by your nectar as he works his length up and down you before entering you again. 

The little gasp you let out echoed through the room and the candles were lit again momentarily with the flames dancing around as you bury your face into the couch pillow.

He gripped your hips firmly bringing you back and down onto him as his other hand gripped your silk gown. 

“Mhmmm, hmmph.” was all that left Atticus’s mouth as he sinks into your warmth the second time. 

“Careful. Slowly, I don’t want to hurt you.” you rasp as he circles his hips finding the right rhythm for both of you as the little pants and shrieks fall from your lips when he pushes deeper into the right spot.

“All the times I’ve made love to you and you haven’t hurt me once. I won’t mention the time you singed off one of my eyebrows though. That was my fault, I shouldn’t have tried to wake you up like that.” he soothes as he moves your silk gown up further to massage over your back and cheeks.

His large hands soothing over and kneading the knots and kinks from standing on your feet most days doing countless amounts of roller sets and bang cuts. 

“I know.” you whisper to him with a small laugh of your own. You drop your head slightly and arch your back when his hips finally rests flushed against your cheeks.

Your mouth goes slack as he picks up his pace but then pulls out.

“What the hell was that?” you question as you turn to face him. 

“Just wanted to see that’s all. Wanna look at this pretty face all glossy eyed and reciting my name like a poem.” he teases as he leans in to connect his lips to yours again, this time letting his tongue glide over your bottom lip until you’re suckling it softly.

He’s massaging his dick against you slowly as you pout and huff against his lips. Your legs begin to shake slightly and you can feel yourself heating up more.

“Shh shh shh, what do you want? Use your words.” he asks as his fingertips ghost over your breasts up to the sides of your face. The chill of his hands feeling like bursts of fresh air against you. 

Atticus lifts you once more to set you on the edge of the couch, his fingers tracing over your inner thighs. 

“You’re really going to tease me after I’ve already waited months to feel you. I really don’t want to get Martin to finish the job especially when you have the best d-” you let out a muffled moan as he places his fingers into your mouth and thrust into you again. 

You suckle his fingers, envisioning something else much bigger as he leans you on the edge of the couch and gives you what you’ve been missing for months. 

Resting your forehead on his shoulder you close your eyes enjoying the feeling of being full of him. 

You can feel him twitching inside of you as you begin to work down onto him, bouncing and coating his dick with you. 

You caress your own body letting your hand wander to your clit , skillfully massaging as Atticus watches on.

Both of your moans and sounds of him pounding into you flows with the music as you both cry out into each other’s mouths as your orgasm rocks through you both. 

Your fireplace goes out abruptly as you throw your head back and let out little uh uh mhhmmms.

Atticus leans down to place tender kisses between your breasts as he cums inside. 

You slowly continue your rhythm riding out the little waves of aftershock as his hips stutter and he lets his own praises of you fall from his lips this time. 

He slowly pulls out and swipes his thumb over next to your lips trying to fix your lipstick.

“Leave it, I was getting ready for a shower and the bed anyways. . . I’m sorry Atti.” you say to him softly as your fingertips trace his soft skin now donning a purple deep burgundy colour after being pressed against you for so long. 

“You’ve made me feel the best I've felt all damn year. You ain't got a thing to be sorry for. I’m the one that came to apologize. I was just too bullheaded  to realise that everything isn’t about just me. I regretted it the moment I got there. . The war. Ji-Ha. You finding out about Leti the way you did. It wasn’t like that in the beginning. I was supposed to go off and figure all out on my own. Somewhere down the line after you see enough crazy shit together. Things get all mixed up.. I’m sorry for all of that too.  I just wanna come home. Tired of all these things that don’t make no sense when everything that makes perfect sense has been here the whole time.” he explains and you nod along listening to his words, mulling them over. 

“Well you definitely scared the shit outta me… I checked that mailbox everyday for months waiting for a letter from you. And I think whatever you were searching for out there scared the shit outta you too. I think all of this made us both realise that we don’t really wanna be without each other..But next time if you’re gonna go off, play detective, and uncover some great family mystery,the smartest decision would be to take  the walking fireball with you. Yeah? And who’s Christina? ” you ask him as he carries you off with him towards your bathroom. 

“The dreams. I was wondering why I kept seeing snakes every day for a week. I ain't going nowhere. It’s gon’ take me all weekend just to explain all the shit I’ve seen in the last 6 months as it is-” 

(not my best but i still hope yall enjoy! i’m knocking the writing rust off after a few weeks of not writing new stuff. seasonal depressive be hitting different. alright my boos x ) 

[voiceless-terror]

okokokok jongerrymartin prompt!!!! jon is having a Very Bad Not Good Day, and his two spouses come give him hugs!!! lots of sleepy happy cuddles until he feels ok :) hope u have a good day!!

Got in the mood to finished the promised jongerrymartin, so here you are! Just soft husbands in a no-powers AU where Jon gets some desperately needed love. Hope you like!

Jon threw his bag against the wall, an exhausted sigh on his lips. “Sorry I’m late.”

“S’alright. Dinner’s in the fridge.”

Gerry’s curled up on the couch, a worn paperback novel in his hands. He looks so cozy, like he’s been there for hours. He probably has. They usually have dinner around six most days and it’s nine right now. He can hear the shower running- must be Martin. It’s so achingly domestic. The two of them work all day at the bookshop, trading off the evening shift so they can have dinner together. Dinner that Jon never makes it too. He feels jealous only for a moment before it turns into guilt. What right does he have to be upset? He’s the one who comes home late, who spends more time at work than he does with his spouses. It would be inevitable that they’d grow apart, that Martin and Gerry would naturally become closer. It wouldn’t be anyone’s fault but his own.

He must have been standing in the doorway for far too long, as Gerry looks up from his book with a concerned glance. “You alright, love?”

Jon feels his face heat up at the name and tries in vain to stop a sniffle from escaping. “M’fine.”

Gerry gives him a dubious look. “No you’re not. C’mere.” He opens his arms and Jon makes his way over, falling into them with another sigh. He hides his face in Gerry’s worn t-shirt, trying to leech any warmth he can get. “God, you’re tense,” Gerry remarks as he runs a hand down his back. “What did Bouchard do today?”

“Nothing,” Jon replies, the answer muffled as he refuses to relinquish his spot on Gerry’s chest. “It’s my fault, really. I’ve got deadlines and I’m not meeting them. Need to put in a bit more work.”

“Jon, you’re there every night,” Gerry sounds exasperated, a tone that’s used by most people when it comes to Jon. “You don’t even get overtime. Can’t Tim and Sasha help?”

“It’s not their problem,” he tries to explain, lifting his face to meet Gerry’s eyes. It’s hard to look at them, so full of unwarranted worry and care. It’s almost enough to make him tear up again.

“They’re your assistants. You should let them assist you.”

Jon hears the shower stop; Martin will be out soon. He has to get his emotions under control, he’s acting like a child. That’s the last thing the two of them need at the end of the day.

“I might have to work this weekend-”

“No. Not again.” Gerry sits them up, giving him a stern and slightly angry gaze. Jon moves back instinctively, though he doesn’t mean to flinch.

“I-I’m sorry,” he starts, getting a bit choked up. Damn it. He casts his eyes to the ground as if it’ll help control the tears. “I know I haven’t been the best partner as of late, but it’s been r-really hard at work and I’m t-trying-”

“That’s not what I meant,” Gerry’s voice immediately quiets, his eyes going soft. He runs a hand down Jon’s side and he shivers at the touch. “Of course we miss you, but we’re more worried about you. You’re always stuck at work, Martin’s going around making phantom cups of tea-”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hush, don’t apologize.” Gerry pulls him close again, the touch grounding him. “It’s just- you’re wasting away, Bouchard’s running you ragged. You’ve got to push back against those deadlines, it’s not like the archive’s going anywhere. I know you look up to the man but really, it isn’t right what he’s got you doing-”

“I heard unnecessary apologies. Is Jon home?”

Jon looks up to see Martin in the hallway with his flannel pajamas on, running a hand through damp hair. He must look a mess because Martin’s face instantly falls. “Oh, Jon.” The tender way he says his name restarts the tears in earnest.

“G-God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

“Jon-” Martin’s settling against his back and he can feel that comforting warmth on all sides now. And yet he still can’t control the panic of having disappointed his partners, the only ones who care enough to help him when he’s like this.

“S-Sorry. I mean-” He clenches his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut. “God, I hate that I get like this, I don’t mean to- to be-” Jon can feel his fingers digging into his palms, filling in the familiar crescent-shaped indents from times before. 

“Hey, what did we say about that?” Gerry’s got his hands around his, gently but firmly uncurling them until his palm lays flat. Martin hisses in sympathy at the sight of the inflamed red marks.

“Sorry,” Jon whispers out again, before wincing at the word choice. “I’m- I’m always so dramatic. I don’t know how you two stand it.”

“Okay, one, I love your drama,” Martin insists, giving him a gentle kiss on the top of his head. “But that’s not what this is. Elias is taking advantage of you, and that’s not okay. You see that, right?”

Jon shakes his head. They don’t understand- he didn’t deserve this promotion, and now he’s got to prove that he’s worth the trouble. Elias is trying to help him, not hurt him. It’s just going to take a bit of extra work, a few busy weekends. Elias assured him that once everything was up and running, he’d be able to relax. Never mind that it’s been months- he has no frame of reference for how long these things take. Elias would know. 

“It’s my job,” he whispers, leaning back into Martin's chest in an attempt to get him to play with his hair. It works. “It’s what’s expected.”

“Did you forget I used to work there?” Gerry’s doing that thing again, massaging Jon’s hands in a way that’s guaranteed to make him melt. “And I have spies on the inside. You do not have a healthy work environment.”

“I wish you wouldn’t gossip with Tim and Sasha,” Jon mumbles, his eyes half-closed in contentment. It’s hard to stay awake when faced with this much tenderness. “Very unprofessional.”

“That’s one thing I’ve never claimed to be.”

“You know,” Martin starts lightly, as if what he’s about to suggest hasn’t been said a million times before. “You could always work at the shop with Gerry and me. We could use your help with the remodeling. You can organize the new non-fiction section!”

“We’ll even let you put the poetry section in the back, by the toilet-”

“We will not.”

The banter is comfortable and familiar. Jon smiles. “Would be nice.”

Martin does that dreamy sigh of his as his fingers gently run through Jon’s hair. “Reckon it would.” 

“In the meantime,” Gerry yawns and leans back against the cushions, though he doesn’t let go of Jon’s hands. “Could always call Gertrude. We didn’t part on the best of terms, but she’d never miss a chance to put the fear of God in Elias Bouchard.”

Jon snorts, though the idea isn’t half-bad. “That’s unnecessary.” He settles back against Martin, reveling in the quiet peace of the evening. It’s the first time he’s relaxed all week. Perhaps he won’t go into work on Saturday, maybe he’ll just lie here forever. He pretends not to hear Martin whisper ‘Do it!’ and closes his eyes as Gerry pulls out his phone and begins to text. 

It’s nice, being at home. He should do this more often.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999294

[radiosandrecordings]

Ace fic request if ya feel: Jmart taking a bath together at Upton, w some nonsexual nudity/intimacy? Thank u!!

“Ahaha, I’ll ask for some ace fic prompts and do drabbles for it!” I said, naively. 3K words later. Thank you Gwyn for reading over this and fixing my typos because it is. now coming up to 5am because I decided to write 3K in one sitting

CWs for talk of nudity but no one ever gets full nakey. Jon also has a brief panic about not being able to protect Martin without the Eye.

Ao3 version too 

They’d probably been awake for an hour or so by the time the feeling of grime coating his skin became intolerable. 

It felt wrong, really, the juxtaposition of the soft, clean cotton under his head and the greasy knots his hair had woven itself into over the course of their journey. Like it was insulting to the pillow, the case of which, Jon guessed absently, was worth more than his entire bed back in his flat, if it was still standing.

And wasn’t that something? To have to guess that and not just be aware. As it normally was, the Beholding would inform him that that wasn’t quite true, as while the sheets on this bed were certainly nice they were more chosen for display purposes than with the intent of anyone truly sleeping in them. The house was a museum. The curators had not supposed upon the current scenario. 

The current scenario being that there were two men lying in it, half asleep, lying still and just staring at each other with an eye-watering fondness. They had spoken, when they first awoke. Got out all the words they wanted to say. The “Where are we” and the “How long were we asleep?” and the “Is it finally safe to rest?” and the “I love you so, so much.” 

Now the thing to break the silence was the sound of Martin’s stomach making its discontent known. This, of course, sent them both into peals of laughter, because when was the last time they’d felt mundane hunger? 

“Do you think they even have food here?” Martin asks, still buried up to his neck in duvet. 

“Perhaps? Salesa surely has to eat, if we do.” 

“Yeah, but Annabelle though,” Martin chews his lip in mock contemplation. “What if we go downstairs and open up all the cupboards and it’s just… Flies as far as the eye can see, all wrapped up for eating. There’s one in the fridge all done up on a platter like a Christmas ham. Cloves spiked into it and all.” 

Jon winces. “I’d really rather not picture that right now, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah, course,” Martin says, looking slightly sheepish as they lapse into silence again. “Should probably go check though. Don’t exactly want to have gotten through all that just to starve. Though I’d happily let this be my death bed, honestly. Don’t think I’ve slept that well in… Ever.” 

“Mmh, now that you mention it, I’m quite peckish as well… Odd, that. Had almost forgotten what it felt like.” Jon heaves himself into a sitting position, and takes stock of the door to his left. “Probably the bathroom. Ensuite. Very nice.” 

“You want to get cleaned up before we go scavenging?” Martin asks, prying the duvet away like he’s pulling teeth. Jon feels bad that they can’t just stay in bed all day. He hadn’t been able to sleep, in the safe house, but Martin had chosen to dream. He might be biased, but Jon figures that that was probably worse. Martin seemed now to be relishing the opportunity to relax.

“I think we rather need it. Not keen to embarrass ourselves in front of our hosts a second time, so I’d rather not appear downstairs looking like something the cat dragged in.” Jon shoves the duvet away and gets, somewhat shakily, to his feet. Damn. No Beholding means the pain from- Where- The wound… His leg hurts. It means his leg hurts something fierce. He hopes he can stand in the shower. 

When he makes his way over to the door and swings it open, it turns out not to be a concern. The bathroom, in the fashion of the rest of the house, has no shower. Instead, a comically beautiful bathtub sits against the opposing wall. It’s a clawfoot, gold varnish painted over its feet where porcelain turns to antique wood. 

“You want to go first then?” Martin asks, slowly pulling the duvet around himself again. 

Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’ll go on ahead. You enjoy the extra time.” 

Martin gives him a smug look and burrows down again. God, Jon really, really loves him. Which is why, when he puts his hand on the door handle to close it behind him, he freezes. 

Statement readings aside, this will be the first time Martin has been out of his sight in… However you choose to categorize the indefinite amount of time they spent roaming the hellscape. And even then, Jon had his powers. If anything threatened Martin he’d be there to help him. To save him. The Eye offers no such comfort now. Jon doesn’t want to close the door. He doesn’t want Martin out of his line of sight. Not with Annabelle here. He won't leave him alone, not now. 

“... Jon? You okay?”

Jon realises he’s been standing in the doorway for at least a minute now, hand frozen in indecision. He blinks a few times, trying to bring his eyes back into focus. He opens his mouth, and finds himself gaping slightly, looking for the words. 

Martin shifts, sitting back up again. “Jon, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

It comes out like a croak. “I- I don’t Know.”

Martin’s tone is gentle, placating, two hands gently offered out in Jon’s direction. “You don’t know what’s wrong?”

“No, I don’t Know,” he can feel tears beading at the corners of his eyes and tries to push down the lump in his throat. He’s gone this long without crying, why does he have to go and do it now, ruin the peaceful moment that he’d watch Martin lapse into like a drowning man with air. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Martin hushes, sliding out of bed and walking round from his side. He brings his arms around Jon and just lets them stay there, not pulling him against his chest in a restrictive grasp, but just laying his hands against his back, letting him know he’s there. 

Despite his best attempts, Jon lets out a hiccup. “And- And that should be a good thing. It should. I don’t want to Know. But it’s… I’ve spent so long with this constant presence at the back of my skull and now it feels… It’s raw and it’s vulnerable. Annabelle Cane could be a wall away and I’m vulnerable and that means you are too. If I’m in another room, I can’t Know if something is wrong, and more importantly, if something does go wrong I can’t save you.”

The right wrapped around to hold Jon’s left hip, Martin’s free hand has been tracing soothing patterns into his back through his shirt. It stills when Jon finishes. He takes a moment, before breathing out heavily through his nose. He leans back slightly so he can look down and match eye levels. 

“Jon,” he says, and his voice is as soft as that duvet felt. “I can’t imagine what that’s like. I’m so sorry. I thought being free of the Eye would be a good thing, I didn’t even consider how it would feel for you. I can’t promise nothing will go wrong, because… Well, our track record speaks for itself. But I can try and ease your fears.” He brushes Jon’s fringe out of the way, and presses a quick kiss to his forehead. “Tub seems pretty big. How do you feel about taking a bath together?” 

Jon feels his face, flushed from tears, pale. And oh what a relief, to feel a fear so comparatively… Mundane. To not be afraid of the cosmic monstrosity in the back of your brain, or the spiders with motives that scuttle across the ceiling, or the fact that you are responsible for the suffering of billions. Oh to be afraid of… Intimacy. 

Martin must feel him tense, because the hand on his back drops away, and the one at his hip loosens its grip. “I’m sorry, if that’s too much, we can just-”

“No,” Jon cuts him off, and is surprised at his own voice. “No, I… I would like that. That sounds nice.”

He knows it’s from his earlier anxieties, but Martin must still be able to feel Jon trembling slightly under his hand, because he continues to give Jon a sceptical look. 

“Forgive me for being blunt, but you really don’t seem up for that. If that’s not in your… Intimacy wheelhouse, I get it.” 

“I’m just a little shaken, is all,” Jon says, but he knows there’s a truth to Martin’s words. He knows Martin respects him and his orientation, they’d had long discussions about it in the safe house, about boundaries and desires and how Jon wanted to spend his days glued to Martin’s side but he under no circumstances wished to have sex with him. He knows that this isn’t what that is, that Martin means it in the most innocent fashion imaginable, but there’s still something about the idea of close, physical proximity while naked that makes the hairs on his arm stand on end and his stomach churn. 

It’s not that he was bashful about it. He’d seen Martin naked before, gotten changed in the same room most mornings and evenings in the safe house, but that was just a symptom of existing in the same space, never something actively done with the intent to exhibit. It had, predictably, stirred no feelings in him. The idea of them so close while not clothed… No, that wouldn’t be happening. 

“I- Can I make one request, though?” Jon asks, tilting his no longer watery eyes up to meet Martin’s. 

“Anything,” Martin replies, no hesitation to be found. 

Jon feels his face flush again, and the rapid pooling and draining of blood from his face must be doing terrible things to his circulation. “Can- Can we keep our underwear on? Please? God, sorry, that must sound horribly childish-” 

“No, no that’s okay. Whatever you need to feel comfortable,” Martin says and his voice is not so much laced with sincerity as built from bricks of it. 

They break apart and Martin ambles through the doorway and over to the bath, turning the water on. It sputters, clearly struggling after years of disuse, but after a few seconds it flows clear. Martin waits for the brackish residue to be cleaned away before popping the plug into place.

Jon preoccupies himself with looking over the shelves. They were well stocked, likely by Salesa, as Jon has a hard time believing that plastic bottles full of opalescent purple liquid were considered period appropriate set dressing. He pops the lid open on one and is met by a strong whiff of lavender. He tucks it under his arm before swiping a shampoo and matching conditioner. 

“Find something you like?” Martin asks, leaning against the edge of the tub. Jon hums a response before joining him. The tub was filling up quickly now, almost half way full and the water is pleasantly warm when he drags his fingers through it. Jon deposits two of the bottles where they can be grabbed when needed, before taking the lavender body wash and drawing swirls into the water until a layer of foam and bubbles begin to build on the surface. 

When Jon turns back to face Martin, his fingers are twitching at the hem of his t-shirt. Whoever was responsible for transferring them from cold marble floor to warm bed had also seen to it that their shoes were removed, as well as their bags and coats, which Jon had seen folded and placed over a chair in the corner of the bedroom. They were both down to their now ripped, muddied and bloodied trousers, and two v-neck t-shirts from the same set, Jon’s of which was tucked into his jeans to disguise the fact that it was several sizes too large. What possible conclusion could be drawn from that?

Martin cleared his throat. “Do you mind, then, if I…?”

“Yes, of course, go ahead.” 

Martin pulled his shirt over his head. 

It’s not that Jon didn’t find him attractive. He did, very much so, just in the romantic sense. So seeing Martin shirtless was similar to seeing him in a particularly flattering outfit. It didn’t change the way he felt about him, just intensified it. He was very handsome and Jon enjoyed getting to look at him. 

He pulls his own shirt over his head, before turning back to trail his hands through the water again, trying to gage the temperature and encourage more bubbles. When he turns back to face Martin again, he’s fiddling with his belt, eventually getting it undone and letting his trousers drop. Jon does the same. And then nothing more happens, and Jon breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not that he hadn’t trusted Martin to keep his word and not fully strip on him, it was just.. It was a relief. 

“Shall we?” Martin asks, gesturing towards the water. 

“Let’s,” Jon responds, hooking one leg over the edge before stepping fully into the bath, and letting himself sink below the water. 

He’s just about acclimated when suddenly the water is rising slightly as Martin joins him, placing himself at the other end of the tub. There’s not enough room for his legs, so he ends up with his knees close to his chest, sticking out of the water. Jon’s just about fit, stretching down to the other end of the bath and bracketing each side of Martin’s hips. 

If the bed was heaven, this is absolutely blissful. The warm water surrounds his aching joints, slowly massaging them as it laps around him. The water, just seconds earlier clean and pure, is already starting to take on a stale quality as the dirt begins to slough off of the two of them, but Jon can’t bring himself to care for relief that it’s no longer coating his skin. He thinks the lavender may have been a bad choice, because between it and the warmth he’s finding it hard not to fall asleep again. 

“This okay?” Martin asks, because he’s still worried about Jon and his comfort and that makes his heart ache with affection, that someone would care that much about him and his boundaries. 

“Far more than okay,” he responds, dragging one hand down the other arm in an attempt to get some stubborn filth off. Martin is doing the same, except he’s wisely taken a sponge from somewhere and is scrubbing at a spot on his ankle where his trouser and boot hadn’t quite met and the Buried had decided to leave a crusted circle in its wake. 

They sit in silence for quite a while, each taking care of their own needs before Jon reaches one arm out of the bath to make a swipe at the bottle of shampoo. 

“Here, let me,” Martin says, breaking the quiet. He shifts forward slightly, on instinct, before pausing and rocking back slightly. “If you want, that is. Do you?” 

“Do I what?” 

“Do you want me to do your hair? It’s just- It’s probably easier, y’know, than you trying to do it yourself.” 

“And far more romantic,” Jon adds, smiling as he leans over to press a kiss to Martin’s freshly cleaned cheek. 

“That too. Do you want to turn around?” 

Jon answers wordlessly by shifting until he’s facing away from Martin. He’s surprised, but not unpleasantly so, when Martin’s arms wrap around him and gently pull him backwards until his back is just shy of flush with Martin’s chest. It’s very intimate. It’s very nice. 

“That okay?” Martin asks again, and more than ‘I love you’, that’s a phrase Jon will never grow tired of hearing because it means Martin truly cares for his comfort. 

“Absolutely.” 

“Good,” Martin says, as he uncaps the shampoo and pours a small puddle of it into his hands. Even turned away, Jon can smell the wafts of artificial apple scenting in the stuff. 

When Martin starts to gently drag his fingers against Jon’s scalp, he can feel himself almost melt under the touch. His spine loses all tension and he lets himself fall back entirely against Martin’s chest, and it’s only the knowledge that he needs to keep still for Martin to actually do his job that stops him from turning and burrowing his face there. 

“I really hope that was a positive thing and you haven’t just fainted on me. Like, literally on me,” Martin says from behind him and this close, pressed up against him Jon can feel it reverberating in Martin’s chest. 

“Still conscious, don’t worry. That’s just… Very nice.” 

“Oh! Well… Good.” 

This continues for a few minutes, Martin slowly making his way from the scalp down to the roots of Jon’s hair, untangling it with his fingers and then repeating the process with the conditioner until his hair ran smooth under Martin’s hands. Even when Jon knows he’s long finished any actual hair care, Martin continues to run his fingers through the hair, just because. Jon loved him for it.

Eventually, both of Martin’s hands come to rest against Jon’s torso. “This okay?” 

“Yes. I don’t mind any of the touching, as long as it’s… Nowhere previously established to be out of bounds.” 

“Gotcha,” Martin says, pressing a kiss to Jon’s shoulder that makes his brain fizzle like fireworks. 

It takes Jon a minute to fully realise what Martin is doing. Two hands trace lines along his ribcage, one on each side, thumbs gently drawing and redrawing a pattern. His scars. 

Then, the hands travel upwards. Again, two lines along his chest, traced with as much tender care, and Jon’s brain has gone a little fuzzy. He’s unused to such casual touching. There is nothing hurried about it, no urgency, no purpose other than to make him feel good. To make him feel loved and cherished, and if he’s being honest, it’s working. No ulterior motive. This isn’t the lead up to anything. It just exists on it’s own as an experience he gets to have without worrying about what comes after, because he knows the answer is nothing. 

After, Martin shifts slightly, leaning forward. One hand cups Jon’s elbow, raising that arm out of the water as one by one, from shoulder to palm, Martin makes his way down pressing a soft kiss to each and every circular scar. He repeats the process with the other arm. As if to finish it off, he presses a slow, soft, close mouthed kiss to the line that stretches across the front of Jon’s neck.

He’s perfect. Martin Blackwood is perfect and Jon doesn’t know what he did to deserve… This. This quiet barrage of love, the consideration and care poured into it something Jon never thought he would be worthy of, let alone have become a reality.

Jon twists to lie sideways, pressed against Martin with his head tucked under Martin’s chin. Martin’s knees bracket his shoulders on either side and he feels safe. He is in the eye of the storm, a brief respite from the dreadful horrors that ravage the world outside their bubble, but with Martin Blackwood he is safe.

[nat-20s]

this is a Wild™ prompt so no pressure to actually do it, but i’ve had the scenario of “somehow s5 martin ends up in s1-s2, has to figure out how to deal with that” and if u want a narrower thing, maybe how he reacts to seeing someone again/for the first time? (Sasha, Juergen Leitner, Prentiss, etc)

Please have fun with Whatever this is:

“Don’t go wandering off in the middle of the apocalypse” seems like a pretty simple rule to follow. “Especially don’t go through any weird doors, Christ, Martin, how can that possibly be a good idea on any level, do you remember nothing from the last five years of your existence?” also seems like a generally easy thing to keep in mind. And yet, Martin is guilty of the same sin that appears to be intrinsic of all of those who find themselves under the influence of the eye, his need to know something overriding his common sense. In his defense, the door was only like 2 meters away and he wasn’t planning on going through it or even touching it at all. He just wanted to look, because it appeared to be made of a liquid version of frosted glass, and it was translucent enough that he could sort of make out the other side of it. As he got closer, he confirmed that the other side of the door a: definitely didn’t match the rest of their own little hell-scape, and b: seemed familiar in a way he couldn’t quite make sense of.  

Of course, in the dream logic of their reality, you don’t have to place your hand on the door knob in order for you to enter some place new. All it takes is getting within a foot of the door, squinting to futilely try and bring the scene across from him into better focus, and a blink and suddenly he is not where he’s supposed to be. Instead, he is staring down the hallway of his former apartment complex, watching as a familiar woman attired in a red dress and countless words is steadily knocking at his door. There’s a weight in his hands that wasn’t there before, and he looks down to find a fire extinguisher in prime position to be fired. Huh. How serendipitous.

Martin’s surprised to find that he doesn’t feel afraid, not in this moment. It appears that for all the two weeks spent hiding from her still frequent more often than not in his nightmares, for all that the sight of canned peaches still makes him nauseous, in his (probably) waking hours, she is far less intimidating than the myriad of horrors he has faced since. Or, perhaps, it’s simply that he is actually equipped to face her, and that takes away some of the teeth of his fear. Any semblance of preparation, of a plan, has given him comfort when he had little else, and that continues on now. Admittedly, though, while he does have preparation for this encounter, his plan is little more than “get Prentiss off of my fucking lawn and then see where we go from there” before he’s striding towards her.

He’s able to get close to her, about as close as he’s willing to get, before she takes any notice of him. Once he’s about five feet away, she turns her head, and briefly pauses that incessant, infuriating knocking. She gets as far as saying, “Oh, aren’t you inter-” before he sends a spray of foam directly to her face. It’s far from enough to kill her, but it’s enough to kill off some of the worms, so there’s no way that it doesn’t at least sting quite a bit. The CO2 makes her stutter and take several steps back, swatting at the foam at an attempt to get it off.

He considers pulling the handle once again, but he’s really more concerned with getting her to leave than hurting her further, and he doesn’t to run out of ammo this early should she recover and decide to go on the attack. However, he likes to think he’s not too much of a fool, so he keeps the nozzle trained on her as she becomes less frantic.

Finally she stills her swatting, breathing heavily and glaring at him, as much as she can make any sort of facial expression with what’s left of her face. “That was rather rude of you, little one. And we are trying to offer you an escape from being so tragically singular.”

Martin raises the nozzle slightly higher, just enough to bring focus to the motion as he replies, “Yeah, well, it was rude of you to stalk my apartment for two weeks and try to kill me and my coworkers, so forgive me if I don’t feel all that grateful for your oh so generous offer.”

“Hmm. So you are his future. That’s a shame. We are made so loneliness is impossible, it would not wrap itself so throughly into your form. Our love could still be given to you, in this time.”

“I have no interest in your hollow version of love. He has no interest in it. Now, leave.”

Prentiss give an airy wave of her hand, and the worms that had been trying to find any crack in the sealed door come crawling back to their home. “Fine, fine. This was just a bit of fun, anyway. I’ll be seeing him soon enough anyway.”

Martin makes a hum of acknowledgement, though he response makes little difference to her taking her leave. There’s a few silver-grey disgusting stragglers that be promptly and throughly kills with a combination of the fire extinguisher and some well placed stomps. It’s only after he finishes this that the hesitation hits him, the trepidation curling low in his stomach until it solidifies into something akin to fear. He’ll take a worm monster over facing himself any time of any day.

What would he even say to himself? Good luck, the next years of your life are completely fucked? Hey, congratulations, you actually made it to your 30s, so that’s a bit of surprise, but you’re almost certainly not going to get to 35? Don’t talk to a man named Peter Lukas, or maybe just avoid any Lukases in general? Maybe he should lie, tell him things are going to turn out okay when they’re definitely not?

Wait, okay, maybe he has something with the Peter tip. If there’s an opportunity to give this version of him some advice that could prevent future grief, he might as well go for it. It’s like, how badly could he actually mess up the time line with his interference? The world could end again? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Upon the realization that basically no matter what he does right now there’s basically no where to go up but up, he makes an executive decision to go in there and confront himself head on. Hell, maybe that’s the Thing that’s needed to get him back to Jon.

As he goes to turn the door handle he also, briefly, thinks that he should bring up that he’s madly in love with someone who feels the same. It’s not immediately relevant for trying to prevent some of the mistakes he’s made, but Martin remembers being 28, utterly convinced both that love was real and something that was completely unattainable for something like him. Being wrong on the second part of that conviction is one of the few true comforting things he can provide.

The door is, of course, locked, so he goes with plan B. Turns out fire extinguishers are rather handy for smashing things, and he brings it down several times in rapid succession until the knob breaks. There’s one step down, but he had forgotten about the furniture barricade that had been put in place. He can get the door open about 7 centimeters before it refuses to budge, and he begins to wonder if all of this is an exercise in futility. At least his voice won’t be muffled when he calls out, “Martin? You in there?”

There’s nothing but silence, and he sighs and leans his head against the apartment door. “Seriously, Martin, could you respond? And maybe move some of this furniture? If you’re dead that means things are way more messed up than I expected.”

After a beat, a strained voice calls out, “Oh, so a bad impersonation of me is part of your dumb monster powers now? Piss off!”

After a groan and an eyeroll, Martin calls back “I’m not-!” before cutting himself off. He meant to say “I’m not a monster, I’m you” but both of those things are only about 60-70% true. Instead he goes with, “I’m not an impersonation. If I was something pretending to be someone else to get inside, wouldn’t I pick one of your coworkers coming to get you? Like Tim or Jon or Sa- you know, um, one of them?”

Silence.

“You have a peephole, right? You could look through it, confirm that I’m not worm-infested?”

He doesn’t hear a response with words, but he does hear the sounds of motion coming from inside. After a few minutes, the furniture is pushed aside, and the door is opened for him. Jesus, the guy on the other side of the door looks like shit. He probably doesn’t look much better, apocalypse grime covering every inch of him, but still. The man in front of him has deep bags under his eyes and a gauntness to his face that will take a while to ease. Worst of all, he looks painfully young and painfully afraid, and while Martin can recognize himself on a logical level, there’s a forced disconnect that makes him feel like he’s looking at a stranger. The knife that’s being held between them probably doesn’t help matters.

His former self’s voice shakes with a mix of adrenaline and exhaustion. “You got the hair color wrong. And the age.”

“That’s because I’m 32. Also, still not an impersonation.”

“My hair goes white in 5 years?”

“Not in the natural way. You know those hokey stories where people are so scared their hair turns white? That’s...sort of what happened. And it’s not going to happen to you, if I can help it.”

That’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, as the younger Martin’s face twists up. It’s a lot, Martin thinks it’s a lot and he’s far more experienced in the reality of the esoteric, but sometimes things being a lot is unavoidable, and he’s pretty sure time travel is one of those cases. He shrugs in response to the younger’s confusion, and says, “Can I come in? I think I’m here to dole out some advice, and I’d honestly prefer to do while not standing in worm corpses.”

He’s studied for a few brief moments, before he’s told, “You broke my doorknob.”

“You’re never gonna live here again, and it’s not like you were getting the security deposit back anyway. Does it matter?”

The younger one’s face collapses, despondent when he replies, “But. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Martin’s been experiencing a nauseating mixture of anger, pity, and compassion while seeing his past self, but that’s enough to kick in his care-taking instincts, and he really just wants to wrap the guy in a blanket. That’s not going to help either of them, but what he says next might. With a frankly ridiculous wave of fondness for that uncomfortable cot (or, more accurately, for the memory of a certain someone offering said cot), “You will. After you go back to the institute, you, um, you won’t have to stay here again.”

Martin, junior edition, only looks more lost, but he does step aside to let Martin inside the apartment even if he doesn’t lose his death grip on the knife. Martin pulls the door behind him, and as he does so, it transforms into the door that got him in this mess, so looks like he made the right choice. It doesn’t immediately take him (hopefully) back to his own time, but Martin’s gut is telling him that he won’t be spending much longer here. “Okay, so, you have a notebook around here, right? Because I’m about to dump quite a bit of information on you all at once, and I happen to know that our memory for things of this sort is not fantastic.”

The younger one glances over to the table where a notebook and pen are laying and while he moves towards it, he’s clearly hesitant to occupy both his hands with writing. The precaution makes sense, but Martin’s getting tired of it nonetheless due to a combination of running out of time and generally being tired of people seeing him as a threat. With a sigh, he tries his best to evenly say, “The next few years are going to be, um, messed up, to say the least, but hopefully if you have more information than I did, they’ll be less messed up.”

Younger Martin finally concedes, putting the knife down to pick up the pen, and flips the notebook open. Primed to start writing, he gives slight nod of his head to tell Martin to keep talking. Martin takes a breath, lets it out, and spills everything he can think of. “Okay, most immediately, CO2 kills Prentiss’s worms, and enough of it will kill her. A fire suppressant system will do the trick, but make sure there’s a way to actually trigger it inside of the archives. Makes sure the weird spooky table doesn’t get destroyed, it seems like it should be destroyed, this instinct is wrong. Generally speaking, you should get a buddy system set up, as it’s usually when people go off on their own that particularly bad things start to happen, whether it’s on an investigation or going to America. Speaking of, don’t let Jon go to America. Don’t let Tim go to stop the Unknowing. The Unknowing won’t work anyway, but you’ll probably still want to have the circus blown up, just make sure everyone is doing it from a distance. Don’t let yourself work for Peter Lukas, actually don’t interact with Peter Lukas, except maybe to, I don’t know, hit him with a shovel. And most importantly, kill Elias Bouchard as soon as possible-”

“-What?!-”

“-and in particular make sure you destroy the eyes, that’s vital to this whole thing. Turns out he’s actually a 200 year old scumbag named Jonah Magnus, you know, the founder of the institute, and by getting rid of him, you’ll save yourself a quite literal world of pain.”

“I don’t, what, I don’t think I could kill somebody-”

Martin felt a sharp tug towards the door, and he knew his time here was up. “Oh, wow, I really have changed, huh. Anyway, uh, final notes: you’re not going to end up alone and unloved and forgotten before you’re even fully gone, so feel free to lay that fear that occupies a disconcertingly large amount of your mental space to rest. Good luck, and try not to die!”

Before he can hear his other self’s response, he’s back in the wastelands he currently calls a twisted version of home, and Jon’s arms are wrapped around his neck in a fierce hug. As far as he can tell, nothing’s changed from his little literal trip down memory lane. There’s a few explanations for it, but since Martin’s not going to go out of his way trying to prove any of them, he choses to believe in the one that’s the most hopeful; that somewhere, out there, with some well timed words, there’s a universe that has turned out kinder than their own.

[janekfan]

trying to think of a good prompt bc um. i love ur writing so much and looove some good angst/beating up jarchivist... do u have a take on the classic ‘i really loved you, you know’ possible misunderstanding (jon thinks martin doesn’t love him like that anymore, beats himself up about it & tries his hardest to respect what he perceives as martin’s boundaries/to not make him uncomfortable w the love he doesn’t think he wants from him anymore for reasons he can only guess at, tries to hide the toll everything is taking on him, martin thinks jon just saved him from the lonely bc he’s Jon, still thinks jon doesn’t feel that way about him, doesn’t let himself reach out for the comfort/contact he still needs & maybe has another scary brush with the lonely? cue self deprication mutual pining angst misunderstanding awkwardness distance maybe some tears! but then like. communication and realization and comfort and love love love?)???!

@transcendentalbf Thank you so much! It’s missing some detail but I hope it’s okay! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803027

He doesn’t want to see you.

Jon looked down at their hands, clasped tightly together in his lap as Martin slept against his bony shoulder. It couldn’t possibly be comfortable. It couldn’t. That was never a descriptor applied to Jonathan Sims. He worried at Martin’s fingers with his own, rubbing warmth back into them though he had none to spare. They were headed to Scotland. To a safe house, if anything could be called safe these days with eyes all around and everywhere and watching, watching, watching.

He doesn’t want to see you.

That’s alright. He wouldn’t have to. Jon would deliver him, protect him, do whatever he needed as long as it kept Martin here with him. He didn’t need anything more than that and while Jon was quite possibly the worst liar in the whole of the population, he would make sure he didn’t take anything more than that. Selfish and monstrous and Martin had to suffer his company. He couldn’t ask for more. He couldn’t ask for more because he was too late.

I really loved you, you know?

And he hadn’t, he really, really hadn’t. Not until it was too late. And now.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved

He'd taken too long, and maybe that foolish part of him always thought Martin would wait until--

Until when?

It was too late to love him because there wasn't much left of him to love. He wasn't worth it. Not anymore. Maybe not ever. Jon pressed a secret, trembling kiss to the top of his head. He’d committed so many crimes, what more harm could it cause to add one more to the list?

But he wouldn't abandon him again. Not for anything. And he would keep his own love a secret so Martin wasn't burdened with guilt. He could do so little for him, but he could do that.

“Up you come, Martin.” The train lurched to a stop.

“...Jon?” Exhausted and cold, wisps of fog clung to his hair, escaped his mouth with a sigh. It was like an infection, the Lonely. It would take time to recover. Lucky that. They didn’t have much more than time at the moment.

“Hm.” Jon hummed his assent, staggering under Martin’s taller, heavier bulk until he managed to get his feet under him. “Good, good. You’re doing so well.” The praise was clumsy, foriegn on his tongue and ill fitting in his mouth. Martin didn’t seem to notice, just shivered where they stood, and it was a relief. Cajoling, tugging, Jon got him off the train, bad leg beginning to buckle under their combined weight and he grit his teeth against the pain and pressure. “I know the way.” Voice light, Jon trudged forward, limp agonizing, slow, and they were a pair of ants scuttling up the hill under cover of darkness.

Finally, Martin was tucked up in bed, every spare blanket Jon could find piled on top of him, and he even got a glimpse of tired eyes before he lost him to sleep. Sinking to the floor, Jon tugged at his curls, distracting himself from the ache in his hip with a different sort of pain but with nothing else to focus on save for the slow inhale, exhale of Martin’s peaceful breathing, Jon couldn’t do much else other than endure. An exhausted sentinel trapped with his own spiraling thoughts.

He’d meant it. In that moment surrounded by fog and mist and menace, he meant it. He wanted more than to just survive. He'd known nothing but raw survival for what seemed like an eternity. He wanted so much more for the first time.

And he'd thrown away his chance.

Too hot, Martin shoved at the covers, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and staring up into unfamiliar rafters. The last thing he remembered was the smell of salt and the sound of the sea, wrapped up in a cloud’s soft, cloying embrace. It had been gentle there and he’d been there long enough that being so present, here and now, was overwhelming. There was an echo of a hand in his, smaller, fine boned and familiar. Pulling. Dragging. Leading. Him out of that place.

Jon.

Where was Jon?

Martin sat up, swinging his legs out of the bed and finding clean clothes laid out on the end of it. The scent of strong tea lingered in the pleasantly warm air and he followed it to the small kitchen, the familiar figure doing the washing up loosening the knot tied around his heart. He was here. He was safe. They were safe. At least for a little while.

“Jon.” The naked relief flooding through his veins was embarrassing, the little jump of surprise he’d caused endearing

“M’Martin!” Turning swiftly, Jon almost lost his footing, catching it quickly, mouth quirked in a half smile. “You, you look so much better.”

“I feel better.” Surprised when he found it was really true. A beat of silence passed between them, Jon growing more and more uncomfortable if the caginess about him said anything.

“Oh! Uh! Th’there’s tea. It, I’m sure it’s not as good as yours, it couldn’t possibly be.” He made room for Martin to pass by, jittery and shaking. “I’m sorry, I. Wasn’t sure what you’d want to eat but there’s some--”

“Jon.”

“--Nothing in the fridge of course but--”

“Jon.” With a little more force, punctuated by a step forward, and Martin heard his teeth click when his jaw snapped shut. “I’m sure whatever we have is fine.”

“Ah. Alright. Yes. Of course.” He wrung his scarred hands, something unidentifiable in his expression. “I’ll. I. Of course.” Jon practically fled the room, skirting Martin as if his touch might hurt him, and the ache it left in his wake was debilitating. But Martin had pulled away from him for a whole year; it was no wonder Jon didn’t want anything to do with him. He was altruistic. He saved people because that's what he did and he’d be the first to deny it.

So of course he’d saved Martin.

It wouldn’t do to attribute it to reciprocated feelings. Martin could barely remember what he’d said in the Lonely, what he’d said to Jon. But it felt like a confession. Was that the problem?

Did he Know his infatuation? Was he disgusted that someone like Martin dared love him?

Martin poured his tea, savoring it because of whose hands made it and found Jon in the sitting room, curled up with a book in an overstuffed chair.

“It’s good.” Jon chuffed, laughter like music.

“You’re too kind.” And the wry tone was so familiar and so Jon Martin chuckled along with him. They fell into a comfortable silence, at a comfortable distance.

And this was enough. Martin would make sure it was enough.

When Jon insisted on taking the couch because it wasn’t like he slept much anyway, that was enough too.

Days passed.

Jon withdrew.

Skittish and wan. A ghost skirting the edges of Martin’s periphery, and he wanted so badly to hold him close, ease his trembling, help him find even a measure of peace if there was any left to be found.

Jon thought he could do this. Thought he was strong enough to at least give Martin this one, small thing but the profound ache of what he’d lost without even knowing he’d had it in the first place carved him out and he hugged himself tighter lest his useless heart fall from the gaping wound that was his ribcage. Raw and empty, he wasn't strong enough to hold himself together against the sheer amount of love in him with nowhere to go and it was tearing him apart.

It’s only you. It’s only you. It’s only you.

When it overcame his childish sand castle walls, eating through them like the hungry surf in all directions, from all sides, Jon let the tears come. Quiet. Be quiet. Shh, shh, shh.

But I love him. I love him. I love him.

It wasn’t fair.

“Jon?” You idiot, he needs to rest and look what you’ve done. Selfish. Stupid. Please. “Please what, Jon? How can I help?”

“N’no, no. Go, go back to bed, y’y’you need to--” a sob choked him and he couldn’t finish speaking, could barely breathe, drowning in an unfamiliar want. Fingertips touched his jaw, applied pressure to lift his face and the look in Martin’s eyes stole the rest of the air in his lungs. “I love you.” He slammed his palms over his traitorous mouth, curling forward and inadvertently into Martin’s waiting arms and he was too weak to resist, instead babbling, crying, words night unintelligible. “I love you! And I, I know. I know y’you don't feel the same and I'm too late but. But I want in a way, in, it's frightening how much and I'm afraid I'll do s’something foolish when, when all I, I, I want to d’do is keep you safe.”

“Breathe, Jon. Breathe, it’s alright.”

“I've. I've t’tried to give you space. And. A’and not. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I've. I shouldn't have said anything and I'm so, s’so sorry.”

“Hush now, hush and look at me. Look at me, Jon.” Demanding carefully, and Jon turned to him like a worn and weathered bloom seeking out the sun. Martin immediately, desperately wanted to fold him back up again, touch him softly, kindly, because no one has done that for him in so long. Gently, Martin swept his thumbs beneath red eyes wrung with dark shadows, brushing away tears even when they showed no sign of stopping. “It’s alright, shh. It’s alright.” It’s not. It wasn’t alright and Jon shook his head, stiffening in his arms when Martin pressed him into his shoulder.

“M’sorry, m’sorry, M’Martin.” Greedy, never content with what was offered, always had to take. To take and take and take and he took more now, leaning heavily into Martin, pressing as close as possible, winding his arms around his waist and clutching his jumper.

“Okay, okay. Why did you think I needed space?” Soothing, his broad palm weighed heavy on his back, up, down, repeated. “Why so sorry?”

“I. I--you. Loved me.” Saying it like this was torture, a knife twisting in his gut. he never wanted to hear it again. He could. He could pretend. If he never heard it again. “And I. I never knew. Not until it was too l’late.”

I really loved you, you know?

You know?

Jon was exhausted. Upset and aching. Completely limp in his arms and so confused. Why hadn’t he pushed him away? He wasn’t obligated to keep holding Jon together. Especially not after he’d fallen into so many pieces.

“Jon. I think.” Martin hummed, lips close to his ear, breath a slow warmth against the shell of it. “I need to make something clear.”

“You don’t need to do anything.” Jon closed his eyes, stray tears slipped between damp lashes. “I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do.” Sweetly, Martin cupped the back of his head, brushed a kiss to his pulsepoint. “Because I do love you.”

“You don’t, you don’t have to say that.” Shaky, small.

“I do.” Martin pushed him back by the shoulders only to press their foreheads together. “I do. I love you, Jon. In the Lonely, I. It’s not important. Not right now.” Martin leaned back, bringing Jon with him, tucking him under his chin. “I love you. I’m excited that you love me too.” Muffled in a tight throat still choked with too much emotion.

“I think I’ve loved you for a long time, Martin.” Chaste, gentle, he pressed a kiss to the corner of Jon’s mouth, smiling when his lips turned up beneath his own.

“And I’m so glad for it.”

[bibliocratic]

i found writing proposal fic really fun !! or wedding planning :) maybe u would also find that fun? x

jonmartin post-160 proposal fic

Jon tries to write vows.

Hunched over, crow-spined and squinting in the feeble cast of the firelight, he scribbles, mutters, scratches out, furrows his brow and clenches his fingers and snarls under his breath in irritation, at his fumbling incapacity for words. He was not born with a poetic soul, and his admiration for Martin's humble offerings grows each passing minute. His words sputter out of him with all the ease of water from a broken tap.  

Jon has taken first watch, and it's a duty he approaches solemnly. They've broken into a boarded-up hairdressers, set up their sleeping bags and meagre provisions and the small fire in a waste-paper bin for warmth in the cramped office space at the back. Every noise, creak and snap and distant shriek has Jon straightening, widening the circle of his Knowing like a fishing net, giving it an exhausted push outwards that gets harder each time. The lawless world they are in has at least one advantage; nothing but the most fool-hardy of things wants to touch the architect of this nether-world of horrors, nothing skulking or spiralling or swooping wants to challenge an unfettered Avatar. It's more people, these days, that they have learned to avoid.

Martin twitches in his sleep. Sleeping bag pulled up over his face, head pillowed by folded-over barber capes,  his body snug against but turned away from Jon, who is sitting up, his back supported by plastic wrapped boxes of industrial-size shampoos and hair rollers. Jon frowns again, his lines only deepening as he listens to the soft, undisturbed in and out of Martin's breathing. Because he wants to get this one right. To place words like mosaic tiles to create the imagery of his intention, to capture everything he feels he needs to say.

Martin deserves this. Jon can give him so few words, these days. Jon wants to give him ones that will mean something.

His impatience is one of the few things that the last few years hasn't chewed out of him. He huffs, irritable and discontent, his frustration leaden under his skin, and scrunches up another paper to sacrifice to his petty mood.

When Martin takes the next watch, he finds a nest of fire-scourged paper balls dying in the embers.

–

Jon tries to find rings.

His intention is to be a few minutes. He unpeels himself around dawn from Martin's heavy arms, gently shushing the unhappy noise this draws from his mouth. The jewellers is ten minutes from where they've holed up today, and Jon steals away guiltily,  keeping his Eye on Martin long after he's left to make sure he doesn't wake up to find him gone.

Jon is away too long. He reaches the small, high-street shop with no issue, doesn't even need to pick the shattered lock of the door. Inside, he finds a scatter of rings and necklaces, but they're all soot-charred, twisted from an unnatural heat, their metals warped irreparable.  And then there is something tooth-filled in the recesses of the jewellers, something that smells the human stench of him and feels hungry, and it takes Jon an hour to give it the slip, leading it into a fog-bank half a mile away to be subsumed by the greedy pull of the mist.

He Looks out of himself, and against the borders of him, he feels a blanketing heat-shimmer of terror and knows it isn't his own.

His long legs take the streets at a run, huffing as he reaches the grey-stone public square at the centre of the city, exposed and empty of people. Getting nearer, he hears a looping, repetitive nightingale whistle, low and plaintive. It stops, waits, and starts up again.

Jon, with perfect mimicry, makes the high harsh caw of a crow in reply.

Martin is standing at the door of the Wagamama's they broke into, his feet unshod by shoes, his hair uncombed and flattened at one side. The creep of dawn is not so faint that Jon can't see the pale wash of his face, the tightness of his jaw, the relief that cascades across it like the release of a dammed-up waterfall when he sees Jon haring his way across the vacant, space of the square to greet him.

“Where were you?” Martin demands even before he reaches him.  His hands running over him as soon as Jon gets close enough, checking for hurt, injury, his voice high and pitchy and failing to translate his panic into something else. “God, I woke up, and – don't do that Jon! Anything could've – I had no idea where you'd – and what the hell were you thinking?”

Jon's hands motion, miserably, desperate to soothe and knowing it can't be that easy, sorry, sorry, sorry.

“Where did you go?” Martin repeats, insistent, almost angry but forcing it down to simmer at a panic-laced frustration. He doesn't usually push, usually recognises the limits of what Jon can communicate, allows them both space to sit down with paper and pencil and is patient with the slower exchange of this. But his shirt is coated with sweat around the throat and arms, his hands curling into fists to stop their juddering, nerve-shocked motions, and Jon tries to imagine how he would feel, should he wake up, and find Martin gone.

He pauses before opening his mouth.

“Looking for something,” he says carefully with a stolen clear-cut pronunciation, bathed in an entitled, self-absorbed air. Rifles through his records, despairing to find no words that he can chop-and-change together like a collage of explanation, glances up at Martin's distressed expression.

“Did you find it?”

Jon shakes his head.

“I feel like an idiot,” he tries again in a pleasant, justifying voice, and wishes someone had put to records some better expression of apology. Wishes someone had used the right words in the appropriate manner; stronger still, wishes his voice was his own again, a domain he could claim unsullied by the burden of his title. That he could say something, anything to wipe the blanket fear from Martin's scruffy face.

“Yeah, well,” Martin grumbles after a while, wiping at his eyes. “I knew that already.”

Sorry, Jon signs again, but Martin is stilling his hands, gentle even now, and bundles him into a tight, bone-squeeze of a hug.

“Don't do that to me again, Jon, please,” he whispers shakily.

Jon doesn't try and find rings again.

–

Jon tries to plan a proposal.

He knows, deep down, that the best intentioned version of himself is a planner. Likes order and alphabetized files and organisational stationery, is happiest with a well-crafted spreadsheet or a completed to-do list. Jonathan Sims is a man easily satisfied by things as they should be, appeased and engaged by the challenge of a logical puzzle, a knotty problem he can sort by analysis and application.

He also knows that there is another version of himself. The one that rashly takes an axe to possessed tables and jumps into fog-bound seascapes and soil-choked coffins after the people he loves.

He does try. He thinks of picturesque spots he can take Martin, places where the scenery isn't so horror-fucked, where there are still banks from which they can watch sunsets. But the picturesque spots, when they aren't shadow-infested or crawling with overzealous fungal growths that warn of Corruption nearby, are chilly, and there's not exactly time to stop and admire the views much anyway. The sunset-stained bank is a near success; drought-scoured and pocked with frost-damage, but the evening colours are unashamedly glorious. Jon spends hours trying to muster the courage and words and correct gestures, only for Martin, drained and wiped out  from a run-in with the Flesh, to fall asleep on Jon's shoulder, his hair flopping over his face, a comforting dead-weight. Jon adjusts them carefully so Martin's head is cushioned against his thigh, and scratches his fingers soothingly through his hair as he watches the sunset alone.  

But one day they're making their way through the Peak District, and they've found a tumbling river with a small waterfall. Martin's flicked water at him with a butter-wouldn't-melt smile, and Jon replied in kind, and Martin had made a shrieking giggling scandalised 'Jon!' as he continued splashing him. And it might have been the way the water dripped down his face and over his freckles, or the way the dim daylight caught his profile, or it might have been the bold and untempered heat that burnt like a forge in Jon's chest to hear the high, bright sound of his rare happiness, but whatever it was,  the other version of Jon resurfaces. Decides that he doesn't need romantic scenery or rings or vows or other people's words in his mouth, that life is short and this can't wait and he wants this, wants Martin, more than anything.

First, he drags Martin to him. On his tiptoes, arms locked around shoulders, feeling Martin hum, surprised but pleased as he kisses him.

It is a good kiss. One of his best. Jon feels a little bit smug about it when they separate and Martin is slightly out of breath, a comet-streak of heat across his face, looking a bit struck at Jon's forwardness.

Jon seals his first kiss with a second, smaller, softer kiss, making sure Martin's looking at him.

Then he lowers himself onto one knee.

“Jon, what are you – ?” Martin asks, his face creasing with confusion. But Jon has chosen the most unsubtle non-verbal gesture he can, and refuses to look away from him, gazing up and waiting for the penny to drop, even as his knees complain on the hard rocky ground, even as his own doubts swarm that Martin won't understand, Martin won't want to, Martin might say no.

Martin gives a little sucked-in gasp.

“Jon, are you, are you asking...?”

Jon is nodding, almost feverish, and Martin's face has gone the colour of a vibrant sunrise, moisture welling up in his eyes. Jon reaches out, takes one of Martin's hands in his smaller hold, touches with the pad of his thumb the space where, if he could, he would have slotted a ring.  

He lets go and precisely and delicately, he signs I love you. They don't have the vocabulary for grander expressions, but Jon doesn't have anything else he needs to say anyway.

“Jon, you – god, I love you,” Martin replies, damp-voiced and faint,  a broad and beaming  smile widening across and lighting up his face. There's not a pause before he's eagerly going to his knees to join Jon, pressing fierce, hopelessly charmed kisses against his lips, cradling his face in his hands, and Jon's so dazed by the onslaught, it takes him a minute to sign Yes? at Martin.

“I – oh, yeah, yeah! Of course, yes,” Martin replies, still struck by a thoughtless delighted giddiness.

Then: “Oh! Oh, oh, wait just a minute I – ”

He's digging his hands into his left trouser-pocket, tugging it out, pressing what he's found into Jon's hands.

Jon opens the travel-knocked, slightly cracked box to see two unpolished plain bands sat snugly in their display, and his own smile blossoms like a firework on his face.

send me prompts if you fancy!

[aspiring-wildfire]

MAG 178

Ooh back in Meatville™️

I am once again asking Basira to be nice to Jon

Martin reminding them to treat all the victims as people!!! Good for u bb I love u

“Why are they queuing?” “It’s a factory of the flesh. Use your imagination.” “...no. No, I don’t think I will” yeah good call babe

“I hate all of these loose ends... we’ll just have to tie them all up in one go, hmm? Around Elias’s neck.” MARTIN KARTIN BLACKWOOD TGE FLIP FROM ABSOLUTE COMPASSION TO MURDEROUS ANTI ELIAS THOUGHTS FUCKING STELLAR ILY BABY

“Tool cupboard. Safe enough place to wait.” “Fine.” *door opens* “Nope.” Martin you’re a fucking gem

“Could be worse, at least they’re clean” Jon you’re my favorite person in the whole wide world you fucking dork

Snarky Jon is my favorite Jon

Oh the concept of your “processing” being inevitable but the fear of it being pointless, of not being useful is rly interesting

The contract thing is very sign your life away I love it when Jonny says “fuck capitalism”

Yknow I wasn’t sure why bureaucracy was part of the flesh but it actually makes a lot of sense- the flesh is all about the fear that you’re just meat, and the uncaring bureaucracy goes a long way towards that depersonalization

Ohhh and that gives the whole “your pain is inevitable but it could be worse- it could be useless, pointless” thing a new level bc that’s what capitalism’s all about- accept your suffering, even be proud of it, bc you’re useful like this

God fuck capitalism man

Oof and the branding Jonny’s rly coming for capitalism’s dehumanizing “eat you up and spit you out” process w no qualifications or anything huh

“At last, the prospect of seeing what might happen if he runs from the line seems worth it to Tyler, but the realization sets in that it is far, far too late for that” god the whole idea of people’s fear of stepping out of line bc what if that’s even worse finally being overcome by the understanding that it couldn’t be worse than this but it’s too late to leave and you’ve missed your chance... shit man

“He could refuse. A final, petty act of rebellion against a system it feels like he has run through a hundred times. But what would be the point of that? It won’t save him. A wasted pile of discarded tissue is all that would be left. Is it not better, at least, to be useful?” God the absolute raw lines in this one fuck man I really get how you can expand very real societal systems into overwhelming cosmic horror through this it’s amazing and also oh my god

Amazing job Jonny

Also alex on the soundscaping! I’m having a Bad Time

Martin defending Jon to Basira!!! I’m soft

Martin continuing to treat the victims as people I love my boy

“Recognize her.” “...no. I don’t think I do” “that wasn’t a question” Jon forcing Basira to confront daisy’s police brutality!! Good job hun!! Acab!!!

“Someone has died! Show some respect! Or don’t you care?” get her Martin

“Daisy’s the only person I could ever rely on, and she... she did things, terrible things, and I... I refused to see it, or, said it was my duty, or whatever. I don’t know.”

THE BREAKDOWN OF THE SEIGE MENTALITY FUCK YEAH DUDE

“I wanted to help people, you know? When I first joined. Protect people. But then I saw what some of those same people were capable of, and... something changed. I wanted to hurt them, the ones that deserved it, and it... it felt good. It felt righteous. I thought I could feel the line though. I really did. Eventually, though, it was too much... I was going to quit. I couldn't take what I saw myself becoming. But... then I got sectioned, and suddenly... suddenly it turned out there were real monsters out there, and, well, that just made the power feel better. So things kept slipping. But Daisy was always there for me.” “All those innocent people...” “Were they? Innocent?” “Some. And if not? What crime warrants what was done to them?” 👏👏👏👏

“She was trying to be better” “she was. But she never asked me to forgive her.” “Forgive her?” “I’ve been scared, terrified for my life so many times these last few years. But I’ve never, not once, felt so horribly, abjectly, powerless as when she took me into that forest to kill me. I’ll never forget it.” Jon having the police brutality he faced as the most traumatic event of his life when he’s been so thoroughly traumatized in so many ways really drives that point home god

“Would you have forgiven her?” “No. But she never asked me. She knew she had no right.”

I’m very torn bc while I do totally get why a lot of people hate daisy and it’s absolutely fair I’m still sad that practically the only person who was really there for Jon in season four isn’t gonna be able to come back. I just want my boy to have a support network man

“No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most. Even me.” I AM CONCERNED

[smallestclowninthecircus]

Season 3 notes popping off

due to my desire to not completely fail all my classes this year i made myself slow down significantly while listening to this season, and the fact that the other person i'm listening along with had to catch up. We've managed to convert several other people to start listening and its pretty great.

ep 81: what does it even mean to be chosen by one of them? And if he was chosen by the eye. we know Gertrude wasnt? Because she cut the eyes out of the magazines?

ep 82: elias lmao. I understand why people like him so much bahshdhdk i thought he was gonna snitch on Jon but he didnt so he's fine. Ok but how do we think he knew all that stuff. Idk probably just institute connections. I love the fact that the recorder just wants to record stuff randomly bjahsjdhd. Elias feels a lot like Michael in the sense that he knows more than he should and talks in a way that implies he just wants to wait and see how things play out for his own benefit. I understand him knowing the things that happened but his description of her emotions implies something paranormal. Maybe he's connected to one of the entities. Which one I cannot guess.

ep 83: did a file get delivered randomly to the place he's staying at? Probably elias lmao. He thinks the mannequin is related to the stranger. Idk I would believe it.

ep 84: worms? I know he says earth worms but idk. Again? Is she making gordon golems out of trash? Martin popping off. You can tell the statements get to him more that they get to Jon. How come martin is so mad about it? I want to assume he just doesnt want her to get stuck there but idk. Jude Perry. The calliope organ. Jon heard a circus in one of the last episodes

ep 89: he's talking to perry? Like jude Perry? He says ... God? Is that what it is? Lmao. The Desolation. Jon is tired of ppl being vague and not telling him stuff lmao. Oh God Jon is so confused. Compel her? Is she assuming he has some kind of power? Does he have powers? Hmm. im agreeing with jon here please jesus christ why does everyone have to be so cryptic. Just say what you mean. "maybe you get an itchy eye" bahasjkdfklsjdf girl what. Agnes saved her? Oh this is the girl from the cafe story? So theres the Cult of the Lightless Flame? They worship whatever entity this is? The Desolation? Why do they all seem like they sorta worship her then? Is Gretchen gonna die oh god. fuckin michael. a different michael aaah. i see. dont do it shes gonna burn you. sir. please. sir dont you dare do- WHAT DID I SAY what did you think was gonna happen hhh.

ep 90: try to make it less obvious you're trying to get fired big T. Elias that doesnt sound like the most healthy thing to do. oh dear is this gonna be triggering for me. uuuuuh. uuuuuuuuuh. doesnt seem like it ok gonna keep listening. Jared. hmmmmm. Ok we've seen Keay and hotner or whatever his name was.

ep 91: Michael Crew. Oh is this the lightning scar guy. Mister jon sir did you just die. No? God everyone is so fuckin cryptic. Say normal things please. They all just like to go on about pain and agony and j e s u s c h r i s t we get it you got hurted by whatever thing. So theyre avatars? question mark? Jude Perry is an avatar of The Desolation? hhhh fractals. thats a spiral thing innit. Yup. messing with your perceptions. God they all talk about feeding their god and feeding that which feeds them and. hh what does that meann. Leave big J. please. uh oh. is it daisy? how come he has the web lighter still? the tape recorder just turns on sometimes you know how it is. So he can compel people? not that he knows it obviously but. a bit wack. powers go brr i guess? If the eye just wants knowledge i guess he feeds it by getting the statements? b/c i doubt it wants him to murder ppl or whatever.

ep 92: elias you all knowing fuck what do you know. (i guess all given what i just said) Lukas. Heard of them before. Mordecai Lukas. Loneliness. The lonely even. Jonah Magnus. Elias ur sounding like a bit of a dickhead rn. lmao jon's just like "i dont care" elias what is ur deal. Why does he want to tie her in. ohh i see. lmao theyre all just like "elias why" The Unknowing lol seems very much like something the eye wouldnt like. lol elias is gettin all philosophical. what does it really mean to be human. this still doesnt answer why gertrude wanted to destroy the archives tho.

ep 93: bahsjdfh he seems so dead inside rip. awww admiral. i love him already. ghh breacon and hope. purple mold. doesnt sound like anything we've seen so far. I think the funniest explanation for breacon and hope is that they dont actually serve the stranger they just kinda happen to be a random neutral party that cart around random spooky entity related stuff. ooooh. when we hear the slight static of the tape recorder it's cuz he's compelling ppl.

ep 94: the end! listen man they were all just grayed up for 4/13.

ep 95: the end also? death but also savagery/ animalistic shit. aww martin. lmao becerra. she's just been chillin in the corner.

ep 96: return to sender. haha minecraft go brr. prediction: breacon and hope? yup there we go. jon why is there an echo. are you in a stairwell? is he gonna eat it- yup. how did i call it. unsure abt what theyre talking about but ok. they kidnapped someone? Sarah Baldwin. ooooh that guy.

ok im just putting this here so i have notes for when nicholas gets to this part. It seems like (from jon's conversation with jude perry) that the desolation and the eye are kinda at odds with eachother? like i guess not directly but it seems like they dont really vibe? so how could be with both. Cuz if he has the heat powers and shit then we know he's an avatar of the desolation. but then why does he have so much eye imagery. also he got burned intentionally? like jude did when she went on her monologue about the feeling of burning? but then why did he wear the eye pendant. it stops him from being burned all the way which seems like he's not fully accepting the fire or whatever.

Nooooo I lost like a bunch of my notes rip. I keep forgetting to save.

Ep 104: tim gives a coherent statement without jon even being there. Ugh. Fucking robert smirk. Dont like him. Joey. Dont recognize the name. The show must go on. Clown. The spooky circus?

ep 105: total war... shogun 2? jon is just understanding languages again. "if i understood mandarin or cantonese" are you sure you dont big man?

ep 106: havent we heard this one already? mans in space? oh no this is just another episode in space. fairchild... uuuh. cant remember. oh! this is related to that! this is one of the ppl from the other side. sounds like a Vast thing. oh he's the one that the dude saw? but that guy didnt have a face... she's sorta like jon. wanting to dismiss the statements. lmao i love the workplace gossip. ace jon for the win! oh cmon elias dont be a dick. sunny meadows or whatever. thats the place we heard about.

ep 107: oh great is it jude perry again. Third Degree. bahahsdkfj she was arrested. sorry but imagining this old british lady getting arrested is funny. she was trying to resurrect him. using the skin book. he's not feeling well. jon take a nap. i wonder if this is what happens when he uses his powers too much. He gets into The Zone when he reads statements lol. didn't we have a burning train car in anothre statement? is it julia fairchild? bahahahs "kidnapped. Again." poor jon honestly. julia... about her dad. daughter of the murder shed guy? hunting like your dad liked to hunt or normal people hunting. oh hunting vampires!

ep 108: melanie has been suffering. poor martin peter lukas why do you have to be like this. can he not just use the front door? does he have to bother the ppl doing statements?

ep 109: how come he cut her off? kinda rude tbh. its either jon's influence or there was smth he didnt want her saying. is it gerard on the table? this sounds kinda like smth from one of the university episodes. is it the closed eye on the hand? yup. he's like one of the students! if the thing listening in is elias then... he can do that without the tape recorder yknow. plus who's to say it wont just turn itself on again

110: who wants to bet its a leitner?

111: Lukas related to The Lonely. I used to not like Gerard that much but i like him more now. but i thought there were 15? ohhh thats right isnt flesh newer? gerry for the win honestly. finally telling jon things.

112: lol "again" no one ever tells any of these ppl anything. tim and basira are just out of the loop constantly. music, like the war episodes. The hunt or the slaughter? probably the hunt. so Daisy is related to the hunt right? basira likes the reading, she's doing fine at the institute. daisy's getting worried...

113: it just turned on randomly. what is it lol. explossives! oh boy. why do they always assume he turned it on intentionally. melanie youre not making me like you that much. which entity is this about i cant tell. lol he was disappointed it was just the end. The title Breathing Room made me think it was gonna be about the buried but i guess not. So many of these entities deal with death but the end is one that deals in just death. it has no need for fancy deaths, just death is enough

114: more hilltop road statements? the tree. oh boy. ok the tree has 8 arms obviously theres the spider parallels. was she taken into an alternate universe? oh no. jon tries to phrase things so he's not asking questions. thats honestly good. "sometimes i was kidnapped" oh dear. they got gertrude. daisy ur so odd lmao. who wants to bet they dont know the tape recorder's running?

115: silaca? or whatever? antique man? meat grinder... related to the meat is meat episode? oh wow. they buy antiques from him. maybe dont antagonize this creature which can kill you?

116: lol theyre all just so done with elias. music? is it like the one band that if you hear them you die or wtvr. oh its chess? i am very much confused. mmm stranger go brr. gorilla skin? oh shit the dance. woah. this is so good. this is so gender. the words are wonderful. "you can just say tim" lmao trying to fool elias never feels like a good idea.

117: except elias lmaoo. oh shit. leitner getting some use for once idk. bruuh poor melanie she has been thru so much shit. martin you can just say youre worried about jon. lol he's so accurate in his jon impression. lol who was that. was that daisy? lmaoo. oop hi tim. oh god i hope tim doesnt die. i feel like i wouldve heard about that? but im not sure. destroying the source of knowledge is gonna be hard for jon. yay jon! you did a good thing. let him rest.

118: go off martin lmao. awww poor martin. oh god the tape gets that squealy quality and its awful.

119: woah. lots of things happening. uhh. POP OFF TIM!!

120: lmao elias giving a statement about jon's dreams lol. damn jon doesnt even get his own dreams? has to stay Watching even when he's asleep? f in the chat this man goes thru so much shit. oh boy its peter. lol martin my beloved. idk i dont trust peter.

[arce-elliot]

Magnus Archives - First Impressions (151-175)

We’re almost there, gang. Out of the Lonely and into the Eyepocalypse we go! Blah blah I had 75% of the series spoiled and am jotting down my thoughts, you know the drill.

EP 151 (Big Picture): - OH SIMON??? - okay okay Simon's kinda funny, you go you funky little sky grandpa - Martin Tell Her The TRUTH EP 152 (A Gravedigger's Envy): - oooh another ancient one - hey that's terrifying wtf - can someone please comfort jonny boy good lord EP 153 (Love Bombing): - Idk why the cult ones freak me out, maybe because cults are real? - oh god what's gonna happen to that dog - I literally just made my dinner with white wine vinegar that's a little old are you sHITTING ME - GIRL GET OUT OF THERE WHILE YOU HAVE A CHANCE YOU KNOW SOMETHING'S OFF - AYYY THE HUNTIN' GANG - tbh it was weird that they helped him even though they knew he wasn't human actually - DAISY!!!!! - Jon can you chill w/ the sass if you're not gonna help - Okay I'm gay but Daisy Growl Hot - Two dying monsters trying to reconcile their humanity, this is sad I hate it here EP 154 (Bloody Mary): - oh god it's This Episode I've been dreading it poor Eric - g o d Gertrude sounds so upset - I would die for Eric - "Eric I'm gonna count to ten and you're gonna tELL ME HOW YOU QUIT" - I'm already crying good god - "he needed me" o w - MARTIN GOT TO SAY FUCK!!!!! - O U C H - i am so upset FUCK this podcast - the catalogue of the dead is just the Delano-Keay family album EP 155 (Cost of Living): - CALL HER OUT JON - Tova, to this doctor's heart: it's free real estate - A FUCKING C H I L D?????? - ah yes, some more DIY surgery, who needs doctors when you have knives? EP 156 (Reflection): - ayyyy adelard how are ya - oh fun flesh time - oh? extinction? - also that was gross what the fuck - M A R T I N EP 157 (Rotten Core): - go save Martin before I cry - ADELARD!!! - ah no, I'm gonna miss this dude he was kinda cool - this hits different in corona times - okay this is actually pretty gross wtf - Martin's lonely because he chose to be, Jon is lonely because everyone hates him, poetic cinema EP 158 (Panopticon): - Ah Shit Here We Fucking Go - OH WHAT THE FUCK NOT!SASHA???? - AYYYYY THERE'S JONAH MAGNUS WELCOME HOME RAT BASTARD - uh oh bye bye Gertrude Time - mom and dad are fighting to be Martin's favorite parent lmao - no not the promise :C - Martin is the brain cell, he really just played both these men like kazoos - gdi Peter give me my boy back EP 159 (The Last): - hi I am Sad - Marto blease just go with the tired eyeball man - "i see you" MY B O Y S EP 160 (The Eye Opens) - oh lord here we go - at least we get some Jonmartin conversation - Monologue Time! - Jon: can I just say, from the bottom of my heart...my bad EP 161 (Dwelling): - welcome to the apocalypse bitches - FINALLY i've been waiting for these tapes for my entire life - TIMMMMMM! SASHAAAAA! - Elias being a normal person is unsettling - ALL THE EYE JOKES gdi I refuse to simp for eyeball man - THE JARRING "ARCHIVIST" I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD - "If I wish for all of you to go away do you think it'll work?" well it worked on Tim and Sasha - Elias: I'm a cool boss, I can drink wine - the image of Jon just huddled on the couch with a bag of tapes and listening to them over and over is so sad - sorry Gertrude no Sasha, just a sad little man - thank u for the powerpoint Gertrude - JON DON'T SNAP - i love them so much your honor EP 162 (Cosy Cabin): - GERRY GERRY GERRY - okay Gertrude and Gerry are adorable I love goth boy and his badass grandma - Gerry, ever the pragmatist: but what about TAXES gertrude - Tim and Sasha interacting is the sweetest thing ;_; - oh this is AFTER the hookup lmao - OH WAIT Sasha canonically knew about Danny??? I didn't know that oof - Oh Jon's getting a phone call I suppose - Jon's trying so hard to be dramatic and Martin's like "okay bitch grab ur backpack and lets go" EP 163 (In The Trenches): - "Tell everybooooody I'm ooon my waaay, new frieeends and new plaaaaces to seeeee" - YESSS LET MARTIN CURSE OVER THE GUNSHOTS AND BAGPIPES - "Martin can you stand over there and cover your ears while I cast Eldritch Ramble" EP 164 (The Sick Village): - another one that hits different in corona times - I hate the word soupy - what in the midsommar - if you can't find your own statements, DIY your own - Martin: fuck u Jon, Helen's my friend now - Martin: can I get an Uber, can I PLEASE get an Uber EP 165 (Revolutions): - this is my friend's favorite episode so I'm excited - oh circus music gross - THE RHYMINGGGGG OH I LOVE THIS - my arms are sore from happy stimming at this audio oh my god - SHUT UP JON IT WAS A GOOD POEM - GET HER ASS JON - is that our first "Ceaseless Watcher"?? I think it was! - Jon: Level Up! - Martin: that's hot EP 166 (The Worms): - HELL YES JON SAID FUCK - oh worm? - Martin answer your damn phone - awww Martin don't doubt yourself :C EP 167 (Curiousity): - Fiona: lmao watch this -passes out- - oh I didn't realize Eric was one of the OGs, their conversations make more sense now - Michael :c - Gertrude you got played like a fiddle damn EP 168 (Roots): - jealous Martin lmao - Jon just tell him why you woke up that would probably solve this - As someone who also freaks out about every little twinge this episode felt targeted EP 169 (Fire Escape): - desolation time? desolation time. can't wait to walk through hell - so aside from Smirke's 14 we have the 3 additional fears: the Extinction, the Scotland, and the Landlord - oh this one is terrifiyng i love it - OOOOH the "jons" slowly fading in was really clever - G O D martin sounds so defeated poor boy EP 170 (Recollection): - Martin finding tape recorders is the cutest thing - Oh fuck are we in the Lonely oh shit - this is so disconcerting i love it - someone get this man a better chair EP 171 (The Gardener): - Martin: damn that's a lot of bones - oh not THIS dude again I can barely understand him oh my GOD - well that was interesting EP 172 (Strung Out): - oh web? - oh this is sad shit - I think this is one of the worst domains yet for me personally this sounds like hell - g o d the web makes my brain hurt blease Jonny I'm stupid EP 173 (Night Night): - oh dark? - oh so the darkness is just the apocalypse daycare? nice - oh and this tween runs it, nice - Jon: are you SURE you want me to kill this middle schooler? - wow this is depressing EP 174 (The Great Beast): - oh hunt? - oh vast? lmao that's what i get for assumptions - Martin just wants to kill a man is that too much to ask someone give him a gun EP 175 (Epoch): - ex...tinct...ion? - “Peter was right” no FUCK YOU I refuse to give Peter any credit LOOK ADELARD WAS RIGHT, Adelard Decker laid the BLUEPRINT - poor Jon he's gettin these hard-hitting google searches - Basira and Daisy?????? OH WAIT THAT MEANS OH NO

[fencesandfrogs]

cloudtail’s daughter: jayfeather

alright, strap in, it's time for jayfeather. i've been holding it in on him for what feels like forever now; he's ya boy's favorite character

also, aside from dove and ivy, he's the character with the highest volume of changes to canon. even above cloudtail and brightheart, because they continue their lives, it's not a big deal. and lion and cinder go to the tribe, but like, that's it. (i'm figuring out if jay goes with them over the course of this essay. i think i said he did in holly? but he literally hasn't been mentioned once in that arc because there's a lot going on.) anyway lion and cinder don't get up to anything. but jay's priorities shift and we see that in his books. i'm really excited to write him but i need to finish arc 1 lmao.

but first, same deal as always. this is part of my cloudtail's daughter au, where dovekit and ivykit are born to cloudtail and brightheart. i don't know how well this will read preemptively, but i suspect it will be rather dependent on the others. cloudtail's daughter: dovewing and/or the long post that explains it are both good places to start, see the cloudtail's daughter tag on my blog.

[2.5k words, 14 minute read, one of the last warriors essays on this blog. i'm going to finish out with my character essays and then everything will be on new sideblog. so check out @mallowstep for more.]

section one: the leafpool business

at the beginning of this series, leafpool and jayfeather are on bad terms. they will stay on bad terms for basically the entirity of the book series. while one of my main complaints with po3/oots is the lack of acknowledgement of adoption, jayfeather has been lied to by his mother and his mentor, something neither hollyleaf or lionblaze have to contend with, and then his sister kills herself over it. obviously she doesn't, but from his perspective. so he blames leafpool because he was really close to hollyleaf and now she's gone, and it's his first real loss, and there's so much going on.

and so he's a grouch and he's unhappy and he's just trying to function when his whole support system has been dismantled over the course of what, like, a quarter moon? yeah so dovekit and ivykit are like "wow what a grouch he sucks" the same way they don't realize prey is dying of thirst & etc.

for the most part he's j chilling and then hollyleaf comes back and man is it some family drama. unfortunately it's postponed til book 4 because hollyleaf and jayfeather have journeys but anyway i'm getting ahead of myself, because this section should end and unlike the hollyleaf essay i want to actually have decent organization.

section two: hollyleaf is away (but jayfeather doesn't get to play)

holly, cinder, and dove go to deal with beavers. we only get jayfeather through lionblaze in the books, but jayfeather is...conflicted. he got his sister back and lost her again and oh i should say. i think jayfeather and hollyleaf are the closer pair of the siblings. not that they don't love lionblaze the same, but you know how cats pair bond? like, it's usually a trauma thing, but even in feral cats, you see very close friendships. anyway yeah so for other au's i've been sorting siblings n denmates into pairs for this purpose (mostly jaywing au because there's a lot re. dovepaw and jaypaw and remember they are reincarnated siblings they've got a close bond going.) and it's kind of...i don't know my point is jayfeather misses his sister because she's like, his best friend too. or she was. and then she died and now she's back and she left again, and lionblaze is more concerned about cinderheart, so jayfeather just comes off as grouchy all the time. but really he's lonely and sad.

so yeah, jayfeather is kind of moping around camp and then the tree falls and whoops now briarpaw/light is parapalegic.

and uhh this goes more or less as in canon but we don't get pov which is fine bc u can sub in canon. but jayfeather? he's still a sad boy but now he's a sad boy with purpose and that makes all the difference

yeah he's close with her. they're sweet. it's sweet. he's pressured by brambleclaw to take an apprentice. he's bristly and angry and "you're not my real father" you know?

beaver crew gets back. jayfeather, who had missed holly, is back to being angry for...angst and plot purpose, really.

but you know, when you love & miss someone and they leave and they come back and somehow that's worse because now they can leave you again? and you can't tell them you want them to stay because you're angry and hurt but you want them to stay? god i'm excited to write these chapters i love emotional turmoil.

he's protective of briarlight, he's trying to keep dovepaw from being a medicine cat, hollyleaf is apologizing but he's not ready to hear it and lionblaze and hollyleaf are beginning to reconnect and it feels like betrayal. so when cinderheart and lionblaze go to the tribe, he tags along. everyone, uh, strongly encourages he go. he is the big grouch.

section three: time travelling times

okay so the timeline for these books is...messy. if you track the chronology of my writing, it's messy. which is to say, i was thinking i could put forgotten warrior and distant whispers over the same time span, but that actually doesn't work, as i review my notes for FW because a big part of it is ivy and holly's relationship. so. fake news. whoops. that sucks.

or maybe it doesn't? idk i don't usually tell linear stories. i like messing with emotional impact of events. so writing 600k of very linear story telling is very not easy for me. but i'm trying.

right so basically the official order of events until i change my mind again is as follows (names abbreviated as DIHLJC because they're all unique): DCH returns from beavers, DILCJ go to tribe with some other random warrior undecided, J + rando return, JH start awkwardness (beginning of TFW, middle of DW), DILC return (end of DW), time travel stuff (middle to end of TFW). hopefully that was intelligble, but it is admittedly 85% for my own benefit.

alright so we've covered during beavers, now jayfeather and hmmmm let's say, uhhhh, let's say they go with, literally any interesting background character, uh, bumblestripe! he doesn't do anything in this au bumblestripe goes with them. also since his name starts w b i can still write DIHLJCB and have things be unambigious. and it means there are fewer bs in thunderclan and trust me you don't know how frustrating the existence of like 6 b characters is.

alright so we really have 3 sets of two pairs of cats here. maybe i won't go w bumblestripe, bc he doesn't have an existing relationship w jayfeather. i dunno. i'm a big fan of jay & briar, whether as a ship or just besties, but that's just out, and hollyleaf can't come a) because i said so and b) honestly maybe she can? actually wait hold on that solves my problems. hot damn so 6/6 of the pov cats go to the tribe and this will be one of the only times all six characters are plot relevant at the same time. but i'm going george r r martin on it and seperating the books not by time but into DICL + JH because they're two completely separate character arcs that happen to take place at the same time. (don't worry i'm going to resolve the fallen leaves thing. in this essay ig bc i've already covered hollyleaf.)

okay so yeah hollyleaf is sent bc jayfeather isn't planning on staying w tribe for long time. just short time. and he's all "firestar why"

"well jayfeather," firestar says, "you don't talk to your family."

"i talk to dovewing," jayfeather says

"you're not related to her," firestar says

"there's a whole prophecy about how i'm related to her," jayfeather says

"you know about that?" firestar says

and that's how the cat gets out of the bag.

so anyway. jayfeather and hollyleaf are sent because...hold on, spinning the wheel of reasons for a character to go on a field trip...because...because...because...because...jayfeather had one of those dreams. i don't know. rock or something. now he's going.

they get there, and this is where the books get a lil time wonky, bc jayfeather and hollyleaf stay for like a moon, during which jayfeather goes back in time. i think.

i haven't worked out the details and probably won't until i do an updated au synopsis because it's hard to keep track and i'm more concerned about character through lines. like, jayfeather does this and he feels sad, and hollyleaf is sad about her ghost boyfriend, and they're travelling back together, and hollyleaf is his sister and she doesn't make him feel like he needs protection and lionblaze is bad at that, and they start to talk again.

and yeah, they bond. again. it's kind of, on top of their old bond? like they don't repair anything, they bond like strangers. but it's not nothing, and that matters.

so jayfeather gets back, and we're moving into book five, and i don't remember when the last time i made a section break was or what number we're on, so...sorry.

section ???: old man yells at cloud

alright it's finally jayfeather's moment. you know, he's one of my favorite characters, and he only gets a book and a half. "but mateo," i hear you saying, "doesn't every character get a book and a half? and more importantly, 6x1.5 is 9, so how does every character get a book and a half?" well, yes, every character does, but dovewing and ivypool are relevant in books 1-3 and 6, cinderheart in 1-3 and 5, lionblaze in 1-3, and hollyleaf in 2-5 (and has a critical role in 1 and 6, just no character development), while jayfeather is just really essential to books 4-5, and has a background role in 3. that means he's about equal to lionblaze. he's equal to lionblaze. as far as the numbers go, i cannot tell you. it's a mystery.

right so the reason for this is because (a) jayfeather doesn't do that much in oots. i love him, but he's not, like, super important, and (b) he's going to work better in these books if he's concentrated. because his big theme is his relationship with hollyleaf and the past. they're both kind of stuck in it but in different ways. and that prevents them from ever properly healing. so jay never has a full arc in this. i mean he has a full arc, it's just not a satisfying one. and that means he's sort of got to be put in the containment units.

so anyway, he gets his real big moments in the fifth book, when he's reuniting starclan. i think this is one of the riskier decisions on my part: we'll see whether or not i can deliver on him the way i plan to. but i think i can pull it off so that his arc is more meaningful condensed as such.

right. so. jayfeather is decided. he is going to fix starclan. because dead cats need to get thier shit together and he dgaf.

he spends a decent amount of time arguing with yellowfang and bluestar, because basically no important cats have died. at least we're in omen of the stars so it still makes sense? i have no idea why yellow/blue are still so important. please kill more important cats. it makes us feel things.

but feathertail is also probably going to be involved, i don't know. i haven't read these books (specifically, books 4 and 5 of oots) in forever so i don't really remember what happens. but he's kind of, super done with everything. i think he'll probably try to get the support of mothwing and kestrelflight (which is canon i believe?) and try to work as a team. i feel like there's weirdness w shadowclan too i should sort out.

so yeah, there's some medicine cat bonding, everything is OK, sol is happening? but cinderheart is dealing with that. jayfeather is naturally very upset about disconnects with sol but like he's also dealing with stuff i...i really need to reread outcast and sign of the moon. well, they're on my list after "all of these fucking riverclan novels like why they don't show up in the main series but i still have to read a bunch to be able to write them that's not fair."

alright, well, with that very vague description of what happens, moving on, the prophecy gets revealed to the clans at a whole in like...the ending eighth of this book. trying to maximise the amount of exposure to other clans without messing with the pacing.

so jayfeather and undecided warrior B (definitively not hollyleaf) go to windclan. jayfeather is...very unhappy about this. he does not want to leave. thunderclan is his home, and he's blind, and it's really hard to adapt to a new space and he thinks everyone is going to treeat him badly.

and well, if you've read my culture posts, windclan is....very pro-medicine cats and pro-prophecy cats. funerals. mourning. prayer. is probably the best place to start, but to get to the meat of it, start with general clan culture. to summarize, windclan: religious. but kind of like catholics, they don't believe in an individual connection with starclan. only leaders, and medicine cats, and very rarely members of prophecies have a connection. so. jayfeather. he's twice over. that's very cool to windclan.

so cats are kind of falling over themselves to help him, and like. i mean jayfeather is a grouch and he hates that he needs someone to help him through the territory, but at least they don't treat it like a chore, or like he's pitiable. this is a desirable task. apprentices want to know about his powers. and kestrelflight is a respected part of the clan, arguably more important than onestar, and jayfeather has never really gotten over being shoved in the healer hole as a child like it was lesser or easier to be a medicine cat, and so it's a big change.

and yeah. so i mean. an unobservant reader might say jayfeather has sufficient ego. he does not need stroking. they, of course, would be wrong.

jayfeather has a complex, but it's not an ego issue. he's...he's been denied everything he's wanted, and he's jaded, and weary, and he's never really believed that his clan views him as able and equal. in canon, at present, he's lost almost every cat he's every cared about. alderheart is his strongest remaining tie, and his fear at losing him, but willingness to let him leave, is very telling.

so yeah, jayfeather enjoys being accepted. anyone would. he doesn't really have confidence issues, but....argh. i know why this is good i swear it'll come out in the writing.

anyway, that's...that's pretty much it. jayfeather? done.

[nanoland]

posting this again in a shameless bid for attention (the usual 2-3 people who already give me plenty of attention pls ignore and also i love u <3)

(Also on AO3.) 

Clean Hands, part 4

Crowley/Dean Winchester/Castiel

Warning: Demon deals, violence, mention of abuse and torture. Also: Crowley is an abuse + addiction survivor and also a cold-hearted arsehole with very little respect or empathy for abuse + addiction survivors, and this story is written from his POV. 

0

What was there to be done when you were enamoured of a man who hit you?

Leave him! the whole world cried back in one voice.

Which was a bit like telling someone trapped in a burning car to get out of the car. Yes. Quite. Thank you. Fully agree. But what if, for a moment, you assumed I wasn’t as stupid as a fucking dog?

That, incidentally, was one of a handful of ways the world had worsened since Crowley last drew breath.

Back in the fourteenth century, the women in the marketplace had noted his black eye and torn dress with immediate understanding. Instead of insisting he pack his bags and walk out of the house belonging to his wealthy shoemaker husband, the father of his child, the man on whom his safety and good reputation and continued ability to eat depended, the man he, for some fucking reason, still loved, they’d actually tried to help.

Sybil had given him willow bark for the pain. Rose had engaged him in long, rambling conversations, stretching the minutes until he had to return home. Jane had walked across the village and rapped on his door every evening she could, always armed with solid excuses, just when the bastard was well and truly in his cups and looking for something to damage.

If ever analytical minds were to try to account for Crowley’s misanthropy and sadism, they couldn’t honestly conclude that either was due to his never experiencing true, heartfelt human kindness.

Yes, Sybil and Rose and Jane had all thought he was a woman and addressed him accordingly, and it had hurt. But that wasn’t their fault. He’d not had the courage to tell them otherwise.

Crowley didn’t regret much. Regret, in this game, was a slow-killing poison.

Still, he did occasionally wonder how things might have turned out if he’d accepted Jane’s invitation and fled with her to London that one warm night, rather than hanging in for years until he finally snapped and beat his husband’s skull into tooth-sized pieces with an iron kettle.

Returning to the present:

As Crowley watched Dean’s fist barrel towards his face, and not for the first time, he reviewed the pros and cons of incinerating him with hellfire.

When fist and nose were one millionth of an inch apart, he teleported across the room.

“Squirrel,” he sighed, “this has nothing to do with you.”

Dean charged and took another swing at him. “Fuck you! He worked so hard! Clean for four years, you piece of shit!”

This time, Crowley reappeared sitting on top of the dead man’s wardrobe, where Dean couldn’t reach him. “Good for him. His family and friends won’t remember him as the thieving, lying wretch he was ten years ago when he sold his soul for a pound of meth. They’ll probably give him a nice funeral.”

“Why couldn’t you make an exception? Just once?”

“That’s not how this works, Dean! It wasn’t even my deal! The contract is in the hands of a relatively inexperienced subordinate and honestly, I’m glad that she pulled it off. She’s got potential. This is her first real win. It’ll increase her standing in Hell and make her more powerful, which will be useful because some older demons have taken to bullying h-…”

“I don’t give a damn about your minions,” he snarled, picking up a lamp sprinkled with blood and throwing it at him. Crowley ducked. “Every last one of you can take an angel blade to the face, for all I care. You’re fucking parasites.”

Evenly, Crowley replied, “Yes. We are. You know that. You’ve always known that. Why are you having a fit about it now? Good people get dragged to Hell all the time.”

Dean stared down at what remained of Martin Booke, now that the hellhounds had left. “He worked so hard. Christ. You could have made an exception. He came to us and I swore I’d help him out.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have cocking well done that, should you?” Crowley cried, throwing up his hands.

Eyes wet, Dean sneered at him. “Parasite. Get out of my sight before I wring your evil neck.”

Crowley left.

Upon arriving back in Hell, he went to the Admissions Department.

The soul of Martin Booke was sitting in one of the cheap blue plastic chairs, knees drawn up to his chest. Probably still reeling from the trauma of the hounds ripping his throat out, though no damage was evident on his form now.

“Mr Booke,” Crowley said, sauntering up with his hands in his pockets. “Could you come with me, please?”

A door appeared in the nearest wall and swung open silently.

Once they were both standing inside Crowley’s office, it swung shut and dissolved into nothingness.

Moving to his liquor cabinet, Crowley said, “I hear you’re a Harvard man.”

“Um… y-yeah. Yes. I was.” Thin voice. Midwestern accent.

“Promising career ahead of you before things – ah – went awry.”

Booke swallowed. “Tom. First boyfriend. Got me into meth. Got me into a lot of stuff. I figured it was okay because we were gonna be together forever and as long as I had him, I’d be fine. Then he went and died and I had to pick up the pieces on my own.”

Smiling thinly, Crowley said, “Isn’t romance grand? As it happens, you may still get your happily ever after. Thomas Abbott is currently waiting in the eternal queue – which, ordinarily, is where you’d be headed.”

“Yeah. Dean told me. Although… um…”

“You have a question? Spit it out. Cowards bore me.”

“Dean said that when you sell your soul, you go to Hell and demons torture you until you become a demon. But he also told me about the queue thing. So that’s confusing. I mean, queuing sucks but it’s not torture.”

Crowley poured himself a glass of bourbon and sat down behind his desk. “Clever boy. Yes; when I became King of Hell, I restructured things. Most of you end up in the queue. The hot knives and whips are a speciality service and, as such, are reserved for our elite clientele. The pedos and Nazis and so forth – and, of course, anyone who pisses me off too much. As for the process of becoming a demon; that doesn’t actually require torture. I know! Surprised me too! We always thought it did, back when Lilith was in charge. Then I started running some tests and it turns out that becoming a demon is a bit like catching a virus; it’ll happen to anyone who hangs around other demons long enough. Everyone in the queue will have black eyes by the end of their first century.”

Booke took off his glasses and nervously rubbed them on his sleeve. “You said that ‘ordinarily’ I’d go to the queue. So am I an – uh – ‘elite client’?”

“Hah! No. Your little life was staggeringly boring and barely impacted anyone in ways either negative or positive. No, the reason you’re here is Harvard. See, I had a snoop and it seems that before you dropped out, you were getting bloody good grades.”

A wistful smile. “I guess. Had big dreams, once.”

Sipping his bourbon, Crowley said, “On track for a Master’s in aeronautical engineering, I believe.”

“Yep. I wanted to work for NASA.”

“Cards on the table, Booke: I might have a job for you. There is, at present, space in one or two of our departments for a man with your talents. But first I need to ask a question.”

He cocked his head. “Um. Sure? Anything’s better than what I was expecting. Shoot.”

“Do you know how to crash a spaceship?”

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG179! TTwwwwwTT

- That was such a short statement! As far as Desolation goes, this one really reminded me of MAG107 for the fear of losing what and who’s precious to you (“What part of his life would he have to burn then? What thing he loved would he have to hurl into the flames? The apprehension is as familiar to him as the scent of burning hair. He knows what it means to wait, and see what he has lost.”), having to contribute to that loss, and the loss being always followed by another loss. I really like how it managed to develop its own implacable rhythm through the cycles of repetition becoming shorter and shorter: the succession of losses, the litany of “I got you”, “he had Colin’s back”/“Derek has his back”, “The first time”/“The second time”/“The third time”… stopping with Daisy’s irruption. It really felt like she was breaking an implacable series of routines – though by inflicting worse. I like how Derek and Colin’s relationship managed to indeed feel so deep, intricate and complicated in such a few lines – with the fact that Colin had helped Derek on so many occasions, including to ensure the disappearance of his father’s body (killed in self-defence while he was being abusive?), and… that gratefulness slowly becoming a burden dragging Derek down (taking Colin’s defence, taking the blame for him, losing more and more, sinking and being pushed even deeper by the “bored cop” – Daisy? – who just made things worse because they could). Their relationship being an anchor in both senses: the help to get out of a situation, and the thing pulling you down. It was already evoking Daisy and Basira’s partnership, already reminding us of Daisy’s crimes, and already indirectly coming for Basira’s throat.

It’s interesting that in this domain, Derek never seemed to have the certainty of the identity of the corpses or items he was incinerating? He worried about Tilly when seeing the toys, but it was not stated whether they were hers, and, in the same way, the corpse was never said to be Colin’s (“Derek doesn’t know the man who lies in the cart, lifeless eyes staring at him from a head split in two by a careless shovel-blow”) although it triggered the memories. Given how concrete Derek’s (life)story sounded before getting trapped in this domain (… which seems to be: the furnace of the junkyard where Colin worked, where the body of Derek’s father disappeared), down to his brush with the police, I wonder if these memories were fabricated by the Domain, or if some bits were genuine bits from his past life? We’ve seen some doubt flickering about whether or not Mehreen really had a family in the Vast domain (MAG174), it could be another case of the Fears creating memories to squeeze the most of their victims… but with Derek, we do have the certainty that he had encountered Daisy before the Change and that she had felt that he had “got away”, since she was hunting him…

(I also got hit by the realisation that… this might be the last Desolation statement/story we ever get in the series; 14-15 Fears means that statistically, each would get 2 to 3 statements per season. We might still get another Something related to the Desolation before the end of the show, about Agnes and/or Hill Top Road and/or the Web lighter and/or the fact that Web seems weak to Desolation and/or about the recurring motif of burning down the Archives… but this could have been the last one. It’s even likelier that we won’t get any more Flesh statement/domain after MAG178’s, and I had not realised when that one aired. It’s weird to think “this might be the last time we hear about x”, since the end of the series is approaching?)

- I’m still wondering about the “death” status:

(MAG177) BASIRA: She’s been killing. MARTIN: What? No – no, that can’t be right. I–I thought people weren’t even allowed to die any more. ARCHIVIST: Not permanently, but, uh… Ah.

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: “… Another victim. Another hunt. The pain and terror courses through him. Derek is still aware as she toys with him, pulls bits from his torso and chews them with a hundred sharpened teeth. He is aware, though not, perhaps, alive.”

We’ve seen her butcher this corpse (and she had been awful with the previous ones, too) – are they meant to respawn? To remain stuck in this state, technically “aware” without being alive? (Though: “aware, though not, perhaps, alive” might be a definition which could apply to… everyone trapped in the domains.)

- Still that thing about the sounds, when Jon gives his statements! It’s naturally been growing stronger: he creates his own soundscape when giving a statement, illustrating the main’s victim surroundings… and that soundscape fades away as soon as Jon is done. Is that a new power developing…? Is it because of dream logic, an extension of his role as a sort of story-teller (he’s supposed to make his audience imagine the sounds, and yet the sounds come to illustrate what he’s saying)…? This one was especially curious because we heard Daisy, who was… currently tearing into a body nearby (but not in the same room as Jon), as if she was present.

- AHAHA.

(MAG179) BASIRA: She’s here, then? ARCHIVIST: [SURPRISED] Basira? I… I–I didn’t hear you, uh… BASIRA: No. I figured you wouldn’t when you were… busy.

It sure feels like something screaming “JON HAS A WEAKNESS, AND IT MIGHT BE USED AGAINST HIM SOON”, in the same way as Annabelle highlighting that Jon was now forced to read a statement until its end once he had begun was followed by Jonah using that trick for his ritual ;; We’ve already seen this at work, how Martin had trouble shaking Jon off from giving a statement, in Jude’s domain; since the episode ended with Jon and Martin going off on their own again… Big Fear that at some point, Jon will come back to his surroundings to discover that Martin is just… gone.

After MAG170 (Martin getting lost in the Lonely house), it looked like Jon and Martin were a bit more cautious about getting separated in domains: instead of leaving Jon completely alone, Martin had stayed quite close or right next to him in a few instances (MAG171, MAG176, and MAG172 although Martin ended up wandering off). In the last two episodes, Basira had initially stayed with Martin: was it an additional security for Jon? I wonder what they’ll go back to, starting next episode – if Martin will stay close, or if they’ll go back to Jon doing his thing in his corner.

- ;________; Basira and Jon’s bantering felt… so nice?

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: I thought you were keeping watch. BASIRA: I was. Watched you sneak away. ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. BASIRA: You apologise too much. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] Martin says the same thing…! BASIRA: [CHUCKLING] Like he’s any better!

They felt like they genuinely liked each other again, were able to share things, even with dry teasing? It didn’t feel like Basira was trying to insult him, but rather that they shared the same sense of humour, here and there…

Jon’s FONDNESS when he explained that Martin tells him the same thing still kills me. AND TO BE FAIR, yeah, this season, Jon and Martin have the tendency to spontaneously say “sorry” for various things… a lot. And sometimes, it’s genuine and important “sorry”, or them apologising for something unpleasant they’re doing! But both Jon and Martin do say it a lot. (And displayed it in this episode, even! Martin apologising over Jon’s leg when performing first aid, Jon once again telling Basira that he couldn’t do anything for Daisy, and that he was “sorry” over what had to happen…)

- I really felt like Jon… wanted to spare Basira a bit, by not forcing her to face what Daisy had done to this victim. Is it because Basira had already agreed to look in the previous two cases, and was now ready to kill her? Because Jon’s point had come across, and that he didn’t want to kick Basira while she was already down and there was no need anymore? He had been way harsher towards her in the previous episode:

(MAG177) MARTIN: Wait. Wait, so… so, she’s hunting down criminals? People who she… thinks got away with stuff? BASIRA: … Sure. ARCHIVIST: Really? As simple as that? BASIRA: What’s your point? ARCHIVIST: What, you think he ended up in Wonderland House at random? We’re just going to ignore it, and write him off as a “nasty piece of work”? BASIRA: We don’t have time for this. ARCHIVIST: Then we should make time. You want to hear how he ended up blinding that man? Because it wasn’t a robbery. He was running away from Daisy, lashing out in a panic. The court believed it. But you believed her… BASIRA: [ANGRY] I told you not to look in my head! ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. And I won’t. But you can’t hunt a monster that you refuse to see.

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: Recognise her… BASIRA: … No… I don’t think I do. ARCHIVIST: That wasn’t a question. It was an instruction, we can’t… move on until you do. […] I told you before, we can’t hunt a monster you refuse to see.

(MAG179) BASIRA: … Why didn’t you want me to hear this one? ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: You weren’t this cagey about the other ones, meaning you wanted to keep this one secret. ARCHIVIST: U–uhh… Hum… BASIRA: Because this one was Daisy’s victim? ARCHIVIST: … Yes. BASIRA: … Didn’t think you knew what the statement was going to be before it happened? ARCHIVIST: I just had a sense of it. BASIRA: So… what? You thought I’d hear he was a murderer and I’d agree with her? Maybe I’d figure she was doing the apocalypse a favour by taking him out? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what I thought. BASIRA: Sure. ARCHIVIST: I don’t know, alright! I was… I was worried that if you listened, it might feel like an accusation. A–after everything we’ve already talked about, I–I mean… What good would it do for you to hear? What’s in this one that you don’t already know? People have their reasons for doing wrong? The system hurts everyone? … Just seemed kind of… pointless. BASIRA: Yeah. I guess. ARCHIVIST: [SELF-DEPRECATIVE SCOFF] Honestly, I just wanted to avoid this conversation. […] So… You did hear it, then? BASIRA: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: What, uh… What did you think? Did it… help? BASIRA: With what? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know…! BASIRA: … Me neither.

* So Jon is able to get a sense of what the domain’s statement will be about, before he even starts? Previously, he had known that they were in “Wonderland House” before beginning his statement, but I had the impression he mostly knew what the domain was about – not about… specific victims. It reminds me of what Annabelle had said about him regarding the written statements (MAG147: “I know the summaries have started to confuse you. Where did they come from, when you read a statement fresh? How do you just… sort of know what it’s about, before you even start to read it…?”), and how he had known about the overall subject of Floyd Matharu’s statement before hearing it. Martin only recently called what Jon has been doing in season 5 “make a statement”, and I really wonder if we’ll learn… what Jon is doing exactly, through those, when he overloads and needs to put the stories into words…

* Small things, here and there: in the previous episode, Basira had agreed to open up, had asked Jon for confirmations, had acknowledged that Jon knew the way towards Daisy and that she had to follow him. I like how nuanced it was, from Jon to want to hide this statement from Basira, that he didn’t want to feel like he was “accusing” her by insisting on things Basira had now understood? And how Basira still wants to know why he would do this – is it condescending, is it coming from a place of sympathy, from absolute awkwardness? (And there is something so fragile and precious in the fact that on the one hand, Jon might have wanted to protect Basira from this one; and on the other hand, Basira wanted to know why he would hide from her… but didn’t jump to his throat about it, and mostly wanted to know why?)

* Tiny progress on Jon’s part? Hearing him acknowledge that he didn’t really know his own reasons for wanting to hide this statement from Basira, and that not being treated like a big deal… seems like a tiny step, compared to his Web paranoia from season 4, when Jon was agonising over Beholding and The Web influencing his actions? Doing something and not knowing why, or rationalising afterwards, would usually be pinned on The Web, but it seems like Jon went back to treat it as something natural, that doesn’t need to be inspected further.

* I like how it really feels like Basira isn’t trying to flee anymore? Just… takes it all in, and accepts that Daisy had wronged someone else.

- Aouch, about the mention of the kidnappings ;_;

(MAG179) BASIRA: Should’ve been sneakier, then. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. … Never been my strong suit, has it? BASIRA: How many times have you been kidnapped at this point? ARCHIVIST: That depends if you– … Hm. BASIRA: … Say it. ARCHIVIST: Depends if you count Daisy. [TENSION & BREATHING]

… Because Basira already knew the answer, and used to be much more callous and mean about it in front of Jon:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: Look, I’ve… been where you are. BASIRA: Have you? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I have. Like you’re the only one responsible for everyone, the weight of all their lives on your shoulders: it leads to bad decisions. BASIRA: Yeah, well. When I get myself kidnapped three times in a row, maybe I’ll look to you for advice.

But this episode came after Jon explained how genuinely traumatising Daisy’s kidnapping had been… So it was a bittersweet example of light-hearted banter (Jon and Basira weren’t aggressive! They were joking with each other!) quickly turning sour, accidentally.

- Martin’s Life Is Hard And No One Understands:

(MAG179) [RUNNING FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, APPROACHING] MARTIN: [SLIGHTLY BREATHLESS] Hey-hey! Hey, she’s– she’s, she’s here! [PANTS] BASIRA: What, what? Now? MARTIN: Yeah–yeah, she just… she just tore into a guy, it was…! [SHAKEN] He was, oh, urgh… ARCHIVIST: Yes, we–we understand, Martin.

… Martin found ANOTHER corpse. Gertrude, Leitner, what’s-left-of-Jonah-though-not-technically-a-corpse-since-Martin-was-supposed-to-kill-him, Noah Thomson in MAG177, now this one… Martin, you corpse-magnet.

- Was it Derek’s, since Jon had just given the statement ending with Daisy tearing into him? Did Jon narrate it as it was happening? There is something very curious about the fact that Daisy could interact with both the domains’ victims and our little group – since she ended up injuring Jon, and was shot by Basira. We also got this with Trevor (who was “prey”, but still shot by Basira, who didn’t belong to that domain). Is it a characteristic of Hunters, able to go through the lines in the same way that they had the ability to kill avatars, before the Change? Martin did collide into people/projections last episode (and apologised for it), so it seems like they can interact with victims and not only avatars in the domains, and I wonder if Jon’s power might help them at some point…

- SOB that Daisy’s hunt was not solely about killing the people she labelled as “criminals who got away”. It was about desecrating them, making it as painful as possible (they’re “aware” of what is happening), and… consumption? (She had gotten thinner and had trouble eating towards the end of season 4, is that an echo of it, a way of trying to compensate…?)

- Second gigantic red flag of the episode:

(MAG179) BASIRA: You didn’t think this was worth mentioning!? ARCHIVIST: I didn’t notice, I was talking to you! BASIRA: Fine, whatever.

… The fact that Jon can get distracted and miss information about his surroundings when he’s focusing on something else. It’s extremely Elias-like (it’s how the Archives team had taken him down in season 3), and absolutely feels like something that could get used against Jon at some point…

- I missed Daisy so much, and the first time we hear her live again, she’s reintroduced through the sounds of her EATING THE CORPSE OF SOMEONE SHE JUST KILLED. Cries cries cries.

(Poor Martin: he was audibly upset by the carnage. Too close to Flesh? I remember how Jon had mentioned that he had trouble looking at pictures, in MAG072’s post-statement.)

- Martin’s small interruption made me wonder…

(MAG179) MARTIN: [SUDDEN GASP] [A WOODEN POLE FALLS OVER] [DAISY PAUSES, SNIFFS THE AIR, THEN RESUMES CONSUMPTION] BASIRA: [HUSHED, ANGRY] The hell was that!? MARTIN: Sorry! Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! ARCHIVIST: What happened? MARTIN: I–I thought you were about to fire! BASIRA: So you gasped just in case? MARTIN: Look, it’s a tense situation alright? I don’t know what I’m doing here, I’m not a sniper! BASIRA: Goddamnit!

… if this wasn’t him trying to sabotage the operation because he didn’t want Daisy to die ;_; Though I can absolutely believe that he really just… gasped in advance, because he was too tense. (Also, I LIVE for Martin’s rants about how he’s not equipped to face this kind of stuff.)

… However, meanwhile, Jon was… definitely trying to delay the inevitable:

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: [HUSHED] Is this a good enough angle? We can try and sneak round to the other side of the furnaces. But… then the smoke wouldn’t cover us– BASIRA: It’s fine. Shut up. I just need to focus. ARCHIVIST: … Alright. […] Basira, are you sure you’re up to this? It doesn’t need to be right now. W–we can always… back off, regroup, w–wait for a better situation, one where she isn’t… elbow deep in some poor sod’s corpse. BASIRA: Don’t do that. ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. MARTIN: What am I missing here? BASIRA: He knows, as well as I do, that the only reason we’re even able to get this close is because she’s busy with a kill. There isn’t going to be a better opportunity. MARTIN: … Now or never then. BASIRA: Yeah. I made her a promise. ARCHIVIST: You need to be certain. BASIRA: I am.

I didn’t feel like Jon thought that Basira wasn’t ready, or that the sight was too unsettling for him to bear… but more like it was Jon himself who wasn’t ready for Daisy to be killed, and didn’t want to admit it? While as for Basira, she clearly had progressed towards that resolution:

(MAG164) MARTIN: What’s Basira going to do? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: She… thinks she’s going to kill Daisy. Like she promised. [STATIC DECREASES] But she’s conflicted. MARTIN: And will she? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know, th–the future, th–that’s… that’s not something I can see.

(MAG178) BASIRA: [QUIET] … I really am going to have to kill her, aren’t I? ARCHIVIST: There’s no way to bring her back. Not any more. At this point, if I tried to take away her fear… it would destroy her anyway. BASIRA: Am I even going to be able to? ARCHIVIST: Yes. BASIRA: And she stays dead? ARCHIVIST: In this case… yes.

(MAG179) BASIRA: Yeah. I made her a promise. ARCHIVIST: You need to be certain. BASIRA: I am.

(I’m also proud of Martin for immediately asking for clarifications when he was lacking information! … Well, wasn’t exactly the moment to ask, but it’s good that he pointed out, right away, that he was out of the loop. Audience surrogate in action.)

- I lovelovelove TMA’s ability to give tension and also deliver the silliest scenes, while saying so much about its characters:

(MAG179) BASIRA: Would you stop staring at me like that?! ARCHIVIST: Like what? BASIRA: Like you’ve looked inside my head, and you don’t like what you see. ARCHIVIST: If that’s an accusation, then you’re wrong. I don’t do that. [FEASTING SOUNDS STOP] BASIRA: Right. Like you’re suddenly given infinite power and no consequences, and that’s when you decide to start respecting people’s privacy. ARCHIVIST: Is that really so hard to believe? MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Uh… BASIRA: Yeah, Jon. It is. MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Guys, guys… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] BASIRA: If you have something you want to say god-boy, just say it. MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Guys… ARCHIVIST: Look. I know it’s hard, and you have your reasons– MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Guys… ARCHIVIST: –but it is not my fault that you can’t bring yourself– MARTIN: [EXASPERATED, HUSHED] Shut up! Both of you! BASIRA: What? MARTIN: She’s gone! ARCHIVIST: Wait, what? … Oh. Oh no…

* It’s being hammered in pretty heavily that Jon is not looking in Basira’s or Martin’s heads.

* OUFT, Basira was absolutely on edge and it showed: she went back to one of her regular accusations regarding Jon’s powers, dating from season 4… with the same unfairness. Back then, Jon wasn’t really able to control his bits of Knowing; it’s not that he has “decided” to respect people’s privacy nowadays, it’s just that he couldn’t really do that back then, and is doing his best to do it now that he can.

* … And it says so much about Basira that she immediately assumes that someone with power would casually abuse it… given her own relationship with Daisy, and what Daisy used to do, who she used to be.

* I live for Basira’s pet names:

(MAG140) BASIRA: By this point, I just assume the Eyeball tells you.

(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: I told you, I know everything now, more or less. I can see her. With my, uh… BASIRA: … Magic horrorvision? ARCHIVIST: Sure.

(MAG179) BASIRA: If you have something you want to say god-boy, just say it.

* IT REMINDED ME OF ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SCENES!!!

(MAG113) ARCHIVIST: M–Martin! Stop trying to touch the plastic explosive! MARTIN: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. MELANIE: Guys… ARCHIVIST: Just put your hands in your pockets, or… something… MARTIN: Look, I said, I said I’m sorry… MELANIE: Guys! ARCHIVIST & MARTIN: What?

Team Archive, a bunch of adorable idiots.

* It was suuuuuch a cliché scene and I loved it to pieces, with special *chef kiss* to the sound of Daisy’s meal stopping, and Martin’s hushed outburst <3

- Overall, I really love how the scene was… almost underwhelming? It was messy and awkward, it wasn’t heroic and grand, it wasn't an iconic showdown with a mythical creature. It was mundane, didn’t even feel supernatural? Just… a big dog having grabbed Jon and not letting him go, and how it was affecting characters – Jon being in pain, Martin in absolute anguish over Jon, Basira still trying, a few last times, to pull Daisy back to reason.

- Oh, Martin… the fact that his reflex was still to worry for Jon and Jon’s safety:

(MAG179) MARTIN: Let him go! BASIRA: Get out the way! ARCHIVIST: Take the shot! MARTIN: No, you’ll hit Jon! ARCHIVIST: Uh, take the shot Basira! … Uh… [STRONGER GROWLS] Basira! Do it! MARTIN: Don’t!

… even though Jon is the least likely to get permanent damage from anything, and this was their only opportunity? Martin ;_;

- Crying a LOT all through it about… Basira’s attempts to bring Daisy back, although she had discussed the theory already (that Jon couldn’t do anything, that she would have to kill her, that Daisy was “happy” in her current state). But it was more difficult to apply in practice, and it’s heartbreaking that Basira couldn’t help but hope that a positive outcome was still possible:

(MAG179) BASIRA: Daisy, stop! Please. ARCHIVIST: [WHIMPER] [DAISY’S SPEECH IS LOW AND GUTTURAL, EXPRESSED WITH DIFFICULTY THROUGH A JAW UNFAMILIAR TO HUMAN WORDS – SOME CONSONANTS ELONGATED, SOME VOWELS SLURRED] DAISY: [AROUND A MOUTHFUL OF ARCHIVIST] … Basiraaa? BASIRA: Oh, god. Daisy… […] She knows who I am! She recognises me. MARTIN: B–Basira! BASIRA: Daisy, come back to us. You can come back. Please… […] Daisy, please… Jon, can you… Can you do anything? DAISY: Basiiira… ARCHIVIST: [BREATHLESS] I’m sorry, I told you, she’s… she’s too deep. I can’t do anything, not without killing her…! BASIRA: [PLEADINGLY] Daisy. It’s me. Come on, please…

And I HATE THAT I COULDN’T HELP BUT HOPE, TOO, GDI!!! Because Daisy was still listening (in a way) to what Basira was saying, since she released Jon, and since we had cases where it had been possible to bring someone back from the clutch of a Fear (Jon had managed to save Martin from The Lonely by making him “see” him, after all), so I couldn’t help but hope for something of the same kind… even though Daisy had been involved in The Hunt for almost her entire life, and had warned that returning to it would mean her end, and that Jon had explained in the previous episode that no, he couldn’t do anything to save her ;_;

- Crying about how even before Basira explained what Daisy was offering, there was a double-meaning in what she was saying:

(MAG179) DAISY: Basiraaa… C–come… Come on… BASIRA: … What? DAISY: Come. Got to… get them! […] DAISY: Partner. C–come. [STATIC RISES, FAINTLY] BASIRA: … Oh. I see. MARTIN: What? BASIRA: She… She wants me to join her. In the Hunt. MARTIN: What…? Could… Is that even possible? BASIRA: … Yes. I can… feel it. In the blood. ARCHIVIST: [WEAKLY] Basira…

Was it “Come on” as in “fulfil your promise and kill me”, or “come to me / kill them with me”? AND IT WAS THE SECOND ONE, GODSDAMNIT!!

- Extremely curious about Basira’s static: was it a trace of Beholding allowing her to know? Was it the call of The Hunt? Did it only happen because of Daisy and Basira’s connection? Did it only happen because they were each other’s “anchor”, in a very twisted and bittersweet way (just like Colin&Derek in the statement, the thing stabilising and saving you… and the think that can also drag you down and under)?

I’m not surprised that Basira had the potential in her to answer the call of The Hunt (down to hearing the Blood): she behaved like a Hunter in season 4 especially, and was on Daisy’s trail for all of this season, after all. But I’m sobbing about how instead of saving Daisy, the other possible outcome would have been for Basira to fall into The Hunt’s clutch, too – that until the end, there was still this echo of Basira and Daisy being “partners”, being identified as such by everyone:

(MAG082) MARTIN: I… I’m making a statement. Isn’t that what you want? My statement? DAISY: No. I just need you to answer the question. MARTIN: Oh. Okay. I mean, y–you wanted a statement last time. About… it was… when I found Gertrude. Or at least your partner did. […] ELIAS: And then they don’t ask any questions, as long as you keep it far away from official police channels. Except your partner leaving has made you sloppy. No notes, no proper interrogations, no back-up of any sort.

(MAG088) MARTIN: Well, I’m sure your partner will find him; I just hope she’s not as– BASIRA: No, I need to find him now! You’re sure you don’t know where she is?

(MAG092) ELIAS: She’s quite the killer, your partner. All in the public good, of course.

(MAG112) BASIRA: How about you? DAISY: Elias is… keeping me busy. Hunting. Takes a while. [FALTERS] I’m used to working… with a partner. … It’s fine. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: It’s fine. BASIRA: Right. … But it’s not, though, is it? […] DAISY: Fine. … Maybe you could ask Elias if you can join me on a case?

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: I think Basira is the same, she’s coming along to back-up Daisy, or so she says. I–I, I don't quite get those two, I suppose. What they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… It’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone. […] BASIRA: But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. We go in, we plant bombs, we leave we blow it all to hell. Or, we die. I don’t think I’ll ever have clarity like that. Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.

(MAG142) DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes.

… but in the negative way. When it comes to Basira&Daisy as a relationship, there is something extremely sad in the fact that they never managed to have the willingness to improve and “be better” at the same time: Daisy did it in season 4, when Basira was too obsessed with trying to compensate for her powerlessness and refused to hold Daisy accountable for her past actions; and Basira did it, early in her police career when she first thought about quitting, and in season 5 when she finally acknowledged the damage she had caused or allowed to be caused, when it was too late for Daisy.

I wonder if Daisy, as a beast, wasn’t a concentration of her most toxic traits? We know that she was punishing people whom she identified (pre-Coffin) as criminals that had gotten away. Her last attempt to drag Basira with her in this Hunt really feels… like a last attempt to get back the relationship they had as colleagues and partners? She had mentioned that she missed working with Basira, in season 3 (to the point of considering asking Elias to allow them to work on a case together)…

- ;_; Goodbye, Daisy…

(MAG179) BASIRA: I can’t leave her like this, she’s… always had my back. Always. MARTIN: Basira, don’t, please… DAISY: Partner… Come… [MORE FOOTSTEPS] BASIRA: … Not now. Not after everything. DAISY: [IMPATIENT] Basira, now! BASIRA: I… can’t…! DAISY: Basira! [GUNSHOT] [SNARLING] [TWO MORE GUNSHOTS] [DAISY COLLAPSES, DEAD] [THE DISTANT RUMBLE OF MACHINERY CONTINUES] [SILENCE BUT FOR BREATHS] MARTIN: … Basira, I– BASIRA: Shut up. MARTIN: … I’m sorry, I–I know– BASIRA: [DANGEROUSLY] Shut. Up.

* Same as with Daisy’s “Come on”, I got that doubt about whether was Basira’s “I can’t” meant “I can’t kill her”, or “I can’t join her in The Hunt”…

* Basira’s “she’s always had my back” HURT A LOT after Derek’s statement (“When the police came hassling them, he had Colin’s back. When some little dipshit didn’t show the proper respect, he had Colin’s back. When Colin needed someone by his side for a smash and grab, Derek had his back.”)… but it also demonstrated the difference, beautifully: the fact that Basira was now able to say Stop and No when it was going too far, the fact that she refused to keep being complicit.

* Basira rejecting The Hunt felt, to me, like Martin rejecting The Lonely in the house? They had the opportunity to take an “easier” path, less painful, allowing them to forget about the hurt they had suffered… and chose differently.

- Basira shot once, then twice.

So three shots in total.

Was it Alex’s audio revenge for the “Turns out Gertrude was too much of a badass to die from just a single gunshot” debacle. (=> Three bullets in total, but only one at first, and the other two happened, uh, at some point off-tape.)

- Martin exploding the Swear Budget and taking the lead this season if you don’t count per episode but per occurrences! /o/

(MAG179) BASIRA: I… Sure, just… let him go. [LOW SNARL FROM DAISY, THEN RELEASES THE ARCHIVIST] ARCHIVIST: [COLLAPSES WITH A GRUNT] MARTIN: Oh, Jon! Oh shit, shit–shit–shit! Okay, okay, okay, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. [MARTIN BEGINS FIRST AID] ARCHIVIST: Ah, ah, ah…! MARTIN: I’m sorry! Sorry! Sorry, you j–, you need to keep pressure on that leg while I, I sort this, hum…

(SOB ABOUT MARTIN’S “I got you”… also paralleling Colin&Derek (“I got you.” That’s what Colin had always said to him when they were kids. And he had always meant it. When Derek needed somewhere to stay when his dad was on the warpath: “I got you.” When Derek needed a little something to take the edge off: “I got you.” When the lifeless body of Derek’s father lay at the bottom of the stairs, limbs folded around the cricket bat he had hit him with: “I got you.”) On so many levels, it really feels like relationships can so easily become twisted and mutually toxic, or pushing people towards worse; the main difference we saw with Jon and Martin is that, meanwhile, they’ve actively communicated and tried to be better for each other, and navigate around principles, but it feels so easy to tip over the line…)

- Crying over Basira hours:

* It was a Desolation domain; the case that got her Sectioned (which stopped her from resigning when she had been thinking about it, and reinforced her ties with Daisy) had been a Desolation incident. (MAG043) Talking about loss, and Basira closing a chapter…

* … The event that directly led her to signing away her freedom to the Institute had been her saving Jon from Daisy (MAG091). When they reunited, out of anger, she said that she regretted having saved Jon back then (MAG177: “I should’ve known, I… I should’ve just let Daisy take you out at the start.”), and yet… she saved him from Daisy once again. This time by killing her.

- CRYING OVER JON HOURS:

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: Is it… Is it awful that I wish she’d recognised me? MARTIN: Daisy? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. I mean, she was… We were friends there, sort of, near the end. We went through so much and it just… I wish I could have actually said goodbye. MARTIN: Would it have made you feel any better about any of it? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know. Maybe? It’s hard to know how I feel about… anything these days. [SILENCE] MARTIN: We said our goodbyes to Daisy after the institute. This was just… This was just dealing with all the stuff she left behind. ARCHIVIST: … I suppose.

… I’m not so sure that she hadn’t recognised him. Amongst the three of them, it’s him that Daisy… so she might have been identifying him as “prey/criminal/monster who got away”… ;_;

I’m glad (AND SAD) that Jon acknowledged the fact that they had grown close in season 4, THAT THEY WERE “FRIENDS”, and heartbroken that he… is indeed hit by the lack of closure.

But what about Basira? True, Daisy “recognised” her, but it was… to try and drag her along into her monstrous life. As far as last words go, Basira did get a kind of goodbye, however:

(MAG158) DAISY: [PANTING] Mm, Basira… When this is over, you need to find me… and kill me. Promise me. BASIRA: No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out! NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] You can’t hide forever, Jon. DAISY: [PANTING] These last months, I… it was always borrowed time. Can’t outrun it forever. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: [PANTING] Promise me. BASIRA: … I promise. DAISY: Thanks. [BREATHLESS] Now, run…! BASIRA: Daisy…! DAISY: [GROWLING] Run!

Compared to Jon:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: What…? No! I– BASIRA: Don’t argue, just go. NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] Jooo–oooon~? ARCHIVIST: … Fine. Just don’t die. DAISY: Go.

… Or even worse, Martin:

(MAG144) MARTIN: Just leave. DAISY: Sorry? MARTIN: [INHALE] Get out. DAISY: Oh. Right. Sorry, I didn’t– MARTIN: It’s not difficult! Just get out! DAISY: Fine. … Fine. Just thought you– MARTIN: No! No, you didn’t! [DOOR OPENS] We’re not… we’re not friends, Daisy! None of us are! We’re all just trapped together, here, and–and kidding ourselves that we don’t hate it! Christ, there are more important things than, than “feelings”– DAISY: [INCREDULOUS EXHALE] MARTIN: –right now, all right, so just… leave me alone! For good! [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY AGGRESSIVE WRITING] DAISY: … Right. You got it.

I mean. Martin and Daisy only had One Good ConversationTM, but Martin. Martin, please. It was blatantly to protect Daisy from Peter, but your last words to her had basically been telling her to fork off. 

- I feel like Martin might be trying to compartmentalise now but about to shatter soon, because… he had mentioned being happy at the prospect of “helping” their “friends” back in MAG175. I agree that in Daisy’s case, helping and leading Basira to fulfil her promise was the best they could hope for, but it’s still… absolutely grim. Since they left the cabin, they’ve not helped victims, not even children, they’ve discovered that Jon’s powers were incredibly powerful but also making him “worse”, they’ve helped Basira to kill Daisy and… that’s it. Jon had told Martin that there was no “better” in this world, and it’s hard to disagree, with how things are right now.

Is Martin still firmly believing that the Institute will be different, that they can do something to help? Or will he grow a bit more desperate? Susceptible to Annabelle’s call, or to try to contact her to accept her “help” because he feels like their options are dwindling…?

- Oh, about Jon getting patched up…

(MAG179) [A BAG IS UNZIPPED] MARTIN: Come on. I need to patch that leg up properly, the last thing we need is a limp slowing us down. ARCHIVIST: [GRUNTS AND GASPS] MARTIN: Of course, that’s assuming the bandages haven’t transformed into snakes or something. ARCHIVIST: [DISTRACTED] Hmm? No, they’re, they’re fine. MARTIN: I’d forgotten we had them to be honest. I packed them before I realised what a celebrity you were out here…! ARCHIVIST: [DRY CHUCKLE]

* ;_; Parallel to their first “heart-to-heart talk”, in MAG039: when Jon had been wormed, specifically in his leg, and Sasha and Martin took care of it…

* Martin remembers the not!tea from the trailer, uh. (He was also the only one to read a statement involving snakes-like spooky creatures!)

* … Martin, that’s a lot of thread-like things you’re carrying or mentioning this season:

(MAG162) MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps.

(MAG178) MARTIN: … Yeah. I guess. [INHALE, EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] God, I hate all of these… loose ends…! ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry. MARTIN: It’s, it’s fine. [INHALE] We’ll just have to tie them all up in one go! ARCHIVIST: Hm? MARTIN: [SIGH] Around Elias’s neck.

(MAG179) MARTIN: Of course, that’s assuming the bandages haven’t transformed into snakes or something. […] I’d forgotten we had them to be honest. I packed them before I realised what a celebrity you were out here…!

This is how Web!Martin can still w-

(Though, genuinely, I’m a bit… suspicious that Martin hadn’t mentioned them until now and had “forgotten” he had them, and that Jon was ~distracted~ when he was talking about them? Had Martin really packed them before they left the cabin, or is that something he packed later during the journey, without noticing, such as when he was in the Web domain…?)

- THIRD big red flag regarding Jon’s powers in the episode:

(MAG179) MARTIN: I, I was starting to think I’d never need them. I’m surprised she could hurt you at all…! ARCHIVIST: Yes, that… came as a bit of a shock to me as well, actually…! MARTIN: You didn’t know? ARCHIVIST: I didn’t think to check, just, sort of… assumed it was safe. MARTIN: That’s a pretty big assumption, Jon! ARCHIVIST: Hmm, apparently. I mean, I know it sounds strange but it… it… felt right for Daisy to be able to hurt me. MARTIN: Dream logic again? ARCHIVIST: Mmm. The… “resonances” from our relationship before the Change carried over and– Ah! Ah…! MARTIN: Hold still.

… A clear limitation in his pseudo-omniscience/all-knowledge is that he can… still assume (incorrect) things. That’s pretty big, as far as his knowledge goes: this means he has to actively think about checking things before they happen. What more may have gone under his radar already…?

* I’m not sure specifically why Daisy was able to hurt him. Jon had explained that:

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.

Was it because she had hurt him so deeply in the forest, reviving that pain? Was it because they used to be friends, and Jon knew he was going to lose her, and only people Jon cares about can hurt him? Was it because of the mix of trauma&friendship, specific to her, that Daisy was bring with her?

* SOB over the fact that Daisy hurt him AGAIN… and had given him his Hunt mark in the forest… It wasn’t the first time they had interacted, but…

* Given the amount of things that run on dream-logic, and given how the Fears interact with their victims, it really feels like humans are both subjected to the Fears and shaping the world, themselves? I wonder if they’ll get some agency back through “feels right” logic, or if even that would get denied since, well, the Dread Powers work through pain and suffering, not… to help in anything.

* … Martin, please, was it accidental or did you squeeze hard because Jon was mentioning having an Important Relationship with someone else. (MARTIN BLEASE…)

- ;_; I’m not extremely surprised by Basira closing up and needing to do her mourning/to find her closure on her own… but it still breaks my heart so much, in the way she alternated between trying to be firm and dry, and pleading:

(MAG179) BASIRA: I’m… going to stay here. Burn the body. ARCHIVIST: Of course, we can wait. I still need to, uh… BASIRA: No. You go on. I’ll make my own way to London. [A BAG IS ZIPPED] MARTIN: … What? N–no, don’t be daft, it’s not a problem for us to wait while you deal with this! BASIRA: Please. Just go. MARTIN: … Wait… Seriously? ARCHIVIST: Basira, if you travel on your own, if you’re not with us, I… can’t guarantee your safety. BASIRA: Good. MARTIN: Basira, getting yourself hurt isn’t going to help anyone. BASIRA: It’s just… something I have to do. … You said follow the tower, right? ARCHIVIST: Right. MARTIN: No, no, this is ridiculous, you could die! BASIRA: I’ll do my best not to. MARTIN: This isn’t a joke, Basira! ARCHIVIST: Martin, this is what she needs. MARTIN: No, no! I–it’s…! BASIRA: It’ll… MARTIN: It’s completely– BASIRA: It’ll help me. All going well, I’ll meet you both in London. He’ll know where to find me. […] [SOFTLY] Martin. Please. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … [SIGH] You’d better look after yourself. BASIRA: I will. ARCHIVIST: [GENTLY] Come on. [FOOTSTEPS] [INHALE] For what it’s worth… I’m sorry it had to work out like this. BASIRA: … I’m not.

* Confirmation that Jon seems to have been protecting Martin and her from the domains’ influence so far, as long as they stayed close to him?

* “Basira, getting yourself hurt isn’t going to help anyone.” => mix of “who’s talking.” and “MARTIN. HAS. LEARNED!” (It’s what he did all through season 4 ;w; He knows that from personal experience…)

* I’M HAVING FEELINGS over that tiny Martin-Basira soft moment… gosh… (I’m remembering how Basira had been very cautious and defensive of Martin when she had explained to Jon that Martin had had a bad time… because he had lost his mother, at the beginning of season 4, and how she had clearly seen that it had impacted him… She was often harsh towards him, but she wasn’t heartless…)

* So Panopstitute is now a shared goal AND the point where they will supposedly meet up.

* Overall: I want to believe that Basira will be okay on her own journey, aaaaaaaaaah ;_; Clearly in pain, but I want to hope that she’ll be fine on her own, and getting a bit better…

* Proud of Jon for explicitly asking Basira’s permission to watch/know about her ;_; Consent! (And he’s worried, too!)

* I wonder if Jon’s leg was truly healing, as he claimed, since we didn’t hear static that would suggest a supernatural healing speed? It is truly getting better, or is he hiding the pain and injury since they have to leave now? (… Given the overall dream logic, I would almost expect the injury to not heal as long as Jon doesn’t truly process Daisy’s death, but we’ll see.)

* Sob for how Basira&Jon joked about his apologising too much… and the episode ended with Jon apologising over what had happened.

- H… Hey… Daisy was officially an Archival Assistant since season 4, since she had signed the contract in order to get rid of the dreams… So the curse of “one Assistant dies every odd-numbered season” has already been fulfilled, right…? So there doesn’t need to be any more death in the team this season, right? So there won’t be another Assistant death ever, unless Jonny writes a season 7, RIGHT…?

- Goodbye Daisy ;_; You were amazing in season 4, I couldn’t help but still cross fingers that there was a sliver of hope to get you back once again, and I’m SAD for you (and for Basira), and I hope that you can finally “listen to the quiet” again ;___;

Time to relisten to season 4 and think about you making Jon listen to The Archers.

I’m TwwwwT super sad (in a good way) about Jon lamenting that he would have liked to be able to say his goodbyes to Daisy, and acknowledging that they had been close (“FRIENDS”!!!), kinda hoping that the page is not turned (and-then-we-never-talked-about-Daisy-ever-again) but that instead the loss will cling to them a bit and that there will be Sadness about it. It’s… still a death, it’s still a loss, it’s still something that hurt and stung! ;w;

- … I feel like there might have been some implication contained within the fact that they agreed to kill Daisy in the current circumstances…? Jon said that he couldn’t do anything for her anymore because she was “too deep” in; but they chose to do it now, meaning that… she couldn’t have got better when/if they manage to turn the world back and stop the apocalypse. So either they’ve slowly grown accustomed to thinking that the world can’t get better, either… Daisy wouldn’t have survived anyway if the world were to be “fixed” and freed from the clutch of the Fears. So what does that mean about Jon, who is absolutely deep into Beholding? What would happen to Jon, the Archivist, the Archive, if the world was to be saved? Could he survive a Change Back, or would he just disappear like the Fears?

(- For once, I’m actually a bit surprised at the title since… “Accomplice” worked for the statement, it worked for Basira&Daisy’s relationship as it used to be, but it wasn’t really applying to Basira anymore – this is precisely the episode where she definitely refused to go back to being an “accomplice”. “Partner(s)” had been the word characteristic of Daisy&Basira’s relationship and would have been the title I would have expected for this episode, given their dynamic.

… So instead, it makes me whimp out the red string, and consider that the “accomplice(s)” might not have been the obvious ones. Can’t help but *SQUINT* at Martin this episode, because:

* We know that Basira and Martin talked about something in MAG178 when Jon was giving his statement, and we don’t know the details of it.

(MAG178) MARTIN: –I know, I know you find it hard whe– … Done already? ARCHIVIST: Yes. […] MARTIN: I was just… giving Basira some advice. ARCHIVIST: [GOOD-NATURED] Avatars are from Mars and humans are from Venus, that sort of thing? MARTIN: [TINY CHUCKLE] I mean… yeah? Sort of? ARCHIVIST: [BRIEF CHUCKLE] MARTIN: Well, w–we were pretty much done anyway.

(And in the same way: we don’t know for sure what happened to Martin when he ended up wandering off into The Web’s domain in MAG172. Did he tell Jon the whole story about it? Or did something happen that he managed to hide?)

* Last few episodes have been extremely insistent in reminding us that Jon is making active efforts to not look into Basira’s and Martin’s heads at all:

(MAG177) BASIRA: … What’s it like? Being with someone who can see the inside of your head? MARTIN: Hm? Oh! Oh no, he doesn’t. I told him not to, and so he tries to… look away? BASIRA: And you trust him to do that. MARTIN: [DECISIVE] Yes. I do. […] BASIRA: [ANGRY] I told you not to look in my head! ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. And I won’t.

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: Yes. [INHALE] Talking about me? BASIRA: … I assume that’s a rhetorical question. ARCHIVIST: I am trying to keep my powers to myself.

(MAG179) BASIRA: I am. [BASIRA TAKES AIM AGAIN, HESITATES AGAIN] Would you stop staring at me like that?! ARCHIVIST: Like what? BASIRA: Like you’ve looked inside my head, and you don’t like what you see. ARCHIVIST: If that’s an accusation, then you’re wrong. I don’t do that. [FEASTING SOUNDS STOP] BASIRA: Right. Like you’re suddenly given infinite power and no consequences, and that’s when you decide to start respecting people’s privacy. ARCHIVIST: Is that really so hard to believe? […] BASIRA: All going well, I’ll meet you both in London. He’ll know where to find me. ARCHIVIST: So, you won’t mind if I check up on you sometimes? BASIRA: If you must! But don’t overdo it. I don’t like being watched. ARCHIVIST: Understood.

* Martin was mostly fine about the concept of betraying the trust of someone you like and care for, as long as it’s in ~their best interest~:

(MAG176) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I don’t like betraying someone’s trust like this. MARTIN: It’s not a betrayal if you’re doing it to help. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I’m not so sure…! MARTIN: Look, if it was me in her shoes, I’m sure I’d forgive you. It–it’s for the best!

* Jon’s joke about “Methinks the Spider doth protest too much…!” (MAG167) when Martin asked him not to look inside his head… reminds me of the way the gang managed to convince Elias that it was in his best interest for Martin not to come along to the Unknowing, in MAG116: Martin’s offense and protests were staged in order to make it pass as innocuous that he would stay behind at the Institute; Jon asked for Martin to stay, but they needed Elias to feel like it was partly his own decision, hence Martin’s protests. Back then, we didn’t know that Elias had made a bet with Peter (so it’s unclear whether he was factoring in Jon potentially dying and his need for a back-up, or if it was mostly motivated by the fact that Martin had to stay alive in order to set up Jon’s Lonely mark), but the situation still is very reminiscent of the end of MAG179: character A makes a decision, Martin protests and tries to argue, until character B steps in to validate A and Martin has to agree with the others… about something that was A’s and his plan from the start. It’s basically Martin’s modus operandi, that he also used to make Elias focus in him in MAG118 (spilling his frustrations and pains) and to keep Peter’s attention on him during season 4 (genuinely wanting to stop The Extinction, being susceptible to The Lonely, but not wanting to serve Peter’s plans). Always mixing his genuine feelings in with some deception, to hide his endgame intentions.

… So what if, in the same way, Basira&Martin’s little opposition here had been staged because they needed Basira to be out of Jon’s radar for a while, and for Jon to feel like that was natural…?

(Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t believe that Martin is secretly evil or working against Jon; if Martin is currently plotting something, I really think it would because he needs Jon to not know about it (because of Jon’s status as the lynchpin of the apocalypse and The Eye’s favourite), and/or because it will require Martin to take risks and he knows that Jon would protest that. Overall, it’s surprising that, for now, Martin doesn’t explicitly have a plan – he’s been following Jon and seems to be focusing all his hopes on the Panopticon – while he used to be planning and scheming so easily before. So what if there was actually something currently in progress, in the blind spot of Jon’s vision and near-omniscience…?))

- Anyway, the points that Jon is not looking into Basira’s nor Martin’s heads, that he is distracted when talking with someone or giving a statement (… really reminiscent of Basira in season 3 explaining how Elias wasn’t able to focus on anyone and anything else when using his powers to traumatise Melanie, uh…), and that he can assume things that end up working out differently (so can think erroneously as long as he hasn’t thought to Know about it and asked the good questions to his pool of knowledge)… definitely feel like something about this is going to come back to bite them in the ass later. ;;

I have HIGH HOPES for EMOTIONAL PAIN with MAG180’s title! =D I’m thinking about grief and mourning – could be the occasion to get an episode a bit like MAG167, Jon “giving the statement” of people from before the Change? Maybe not even solely about Daisy, but about all the assistants&friends (Sasha, Tim, Gerry, Daisy) they have lost since signing up for the Archives? Or Jon and Martin thinking about the kind of internal/emotional/psychological journey they have to accomplish in order to reach the Panopticon, whether or not there is something preventing them from reaching it, in the same way that Basira had to face Daisy’s crimes and “see the monster” to be able to catch up to her?

If there is a domain: Vast and Buried could work in a very physical sense, End could fit too…