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bloodyhoon · 2 months

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the love club [ch 3]

genre: high school fanfiction, love triangle (park sunghoon x female!reader x sim jake) angst, fluff.

warnings: none. English is not my first language so there may be grammal or spelling errors.

words: 2.2K

taglist: open! send a ask or commented to be added.

masterlist.

The cloudy day that loomed through your bedroom window did not give you much hope as you were finishing getting ready, you knew that it was a matter of time until the rain would break out and with your bad luck it would happen right at the time you were going to leave to go to school.

"Y/n, you'll be late" your father's voice was heard from the other side of the door accompanied by two soft knocks.

You sighed and took one last look at your reflection as you smoothed the white shirt of your school uniform with your hands. The words that Yeji had said to you the day before still echoed in your mind and you looked at yourself once again in the mirror. You had never thought you were pretty, you didn't think you were ugly either, but you just saw yourself as just another ordinary girl. Your hair was long and extremely straight so you didn't know how to comb it and you always wore it loose on your shoulders, your face was quite pale and you had small dark circles under your eyes, but you didn't know how to use makeup so you never covered them. You only felt that you had a nice shape of eyes but because they were the same as your mother's. Thinking about that made you nostalgic and anguished, so you denied it several times to yourself and got up from your desk ready to meet your father.

"Good morning, my daughter" your father handed you your plate with breakfast while he drank from his cup of water.

You only had your dad to rely on, your mom had passed away when you were fifteen, so it was still sudden for you and you were trying to get used to the loneliness of living with only your father. It was not to misunderstand, you adored your father, but your mother had always been your faithful companion and you felt that you missed her in many ways. Your father had always been present and the moment he became widowed, he tried to be twice as present for you even though he was suffering as much as you, you would always thank him and at the same time you felt guilty that your father had not decided to live his grief to always be there for you, so you always supported each other.

"How are you doing at school?" he asked you while reading some random news on his cell phone like he used to do every morning before going to work.

"I think it's fine" you nodded. "I met up with Riki again and he introduced me to his group, they're friendly," you shrugged. You saw out of the corner of your eye how he looked up and thought about something.

"Riki? The same Riki I'm thinking of?" He gave you his full attention, you just nodded. "The boy who broke my daughter's heart?"

"Dad!" you lightly tapped the table showing indignation "He didn't break my heart... In fact, I'm glad I met him and that he helped me make friends" you smiled sincerely. Your father gave you an attentive look and sighed resigned.

He was not stupid and was very attentive to you. You were precisely his only daughter. He had noticed how from one day to another the boy had disappeared from your life and you stopped mentioning him, or taking him home. He noticed how you no longer saw each other after class and your mood had been noticeably affected. You looked sad all the time.

"I'm glad to see you well, little one," your father smiled at you. "And if you're okay being friends with that evil little boy, then-"

"Dad!" You complained again and your father let out a laugh as he crossed his hand on the table to hold yours tenderly.

(***)

Riki: Y/n, I won't go to class today, I'm a little sick.

Along with that message was an image of Riki covered in blankets and a cloth on his forehead. You sighed and wished him a speedy recovery as you put your cell phone in your bag and got off the bus, the bus stop was just a block away distance from the school so you walked calmly until you arrived.

It was a new challenge for you to enter classes and approach Riki's group without Riki. Although they already considered you one of them, you still had some distrust that some minimal interaction would go wrong and they would judge you. You had become so insecure that those thoughts always settled in your mind.

As you headed to your class you walked under the open sky that was beginning to drip slightly. Internally insulting yourself for not having grabbed an umbrella, you placed a hand on your head as if that would cover something of your body and continued walking, you still had a little left until you reached the overcast sky. Suddenly the rain stopped and you looked up, finding a black umbrella covering your entire view, you looked down to the side and your eyes met a big smile and bright eyes.

"Hey, Y/n."

"Jaeyun..." your body tensed a little when the boy approached you and took shelter next to you under that umbrella that was big, but not enough to cover both bodies.

"What are you doing in the rain? You're going to get sick" he scolded you gently. "And let me tell you, I think it would be a shame if your beautiful hair got wet."

You were surprised by the comment and your cheeks took on a slight pink color that did not go unnoticed in Jaeyun's eyes, but he preferred not to comment on it so as not to make you feel uncomfortable, instead he smiled and gently held your arm.

"Let me accompany you," he told you.

You didn't know what to say, you only thought about how the boy you had just met a day ago treated you, it was as if he had known you for a long time and you really were close friends, you felt strangely comfortable. The two of you walked until you reached the overcast sky and once you were sheltered, Jaeyun closed his umbrella. You noticed that his shoulder was wet while yours were completely dry.

"Hey" without thinking you touched his shoulder "You're going to get sick."

"Don't worry, it was just a few drops" Jaeyun let out a laugh, in fact almost all of his arm was soaked by the rain that had begun to fall harder 'You're dry, that's more important' accompanied by that comment, he winked at you.

"But-"

"Hasn't Ni-ki come?" Jaeyun cut you off before you could say anything else. “Has he abandoned you? That guy…"

"No, he's sick" you chose to show him the photo that the boy had sent you and Jaeyun laughed "By the way, thank you for this" you smiled at him for the first time and the brunette felt a slight electricity run through his body.

"It was my pleasure" the boy commented to you without thinking and then cleared his throat. "You must be late for class, here," he handed you the umbrella. You frowned in confusion. "Take it, when we meet at lunch you can give it back to me."

"A-at lunch?" you asked doubtfully.

"Of course!" Jaeyun exclaimed, smiling at you. "Don't tell me that because Ni-ki didn't come, you won't have lunch with us? We'll be waiting for you, you know, you're already one of our group."

"Oh" you twisted the black umbrella in your hands nervously and nodded "Y-yes of course, I'll have lunch with you" you didn't know where you had gotten the courage to say those words, but you couldn't take it back anymore and now you felt like you had a promise that achieve.

"Great!" Jaeyun was genuinely happy with your response. “So, see you later, Y/n.” He gently caught his lower lip between his teeth as he kept smiling at you.

You smiled back as you walked away from him, waving your hand in greeting to go to your class, not knowing that the boy was still in his place watching you walk away with an unconscious smile plastered on his face. As you continued on your way, you looked at the umbrella between your hands confused and wondering why he had given it to you if you were protected by the roof the entire way that remained.

(***)

Reality hit you firmly in the face. The lunch bell rang and you knew you had to go to the cafeteria and spend 20 minutes sitting next to Jaeyun and Sunghoon while they gave you those intense, penetrating looks. It's not that you didn't want to spend time with them, is because they both intimidated you too much to be able to handle having their full attention on you. You remembered Sunghoon telling you that he wanted your attention for himself and that made you even more nervous.

"Are you okay? You look pale" the voice of that boy with pretty cat-like eyes took you out of your thoughts. "Do you need to go see the nurse?"

"No!" You exclaimed, louder than you intended. "I'm fine, don't worry, Jungwon." You smiled at him in gratitude. The boy nodded, not very convinced, but he didn't insist and began to gather his things to go to lunch like everyone else in the class.

“Y/n, are you really feeling okay?” Yeji finished gathering her things and gave you her full attention. "You've been distracted for the last 10 minutes of class, I thought you were getting sick." She watched you with concern.

"Oh, it's nothing," you denied, while with trembling hands you gathered your things, killing time without realizing it. "It's the weather, you know. Almost no one likes the rain and it makes you feel down sometimes."

"Yes, you're right." Yeji rolled her eyes, looking annoyed. "Today my hair is horrible because of the humidity." You looked at her and you couldn't disagree more, in fact, the humidity gave her a little more volume and it looked even prettier than what she wore every day.

"You have perfect hair, Yeji," the girl smiled at the compliment, happy to hear it from you.

"Thank you, my friend," she gently caressed your head tenderly. "Do you want to have lunch with us? Since Ni-ki hasn't come." You were about to answer her question when the surprised gasps of the girls in the class pulled you out of your conversation with the black-haired girl.

"Hoon?" Yeji's voice sounded confused. You turned your face a little and found yourself face to face with Sunghoon, who was leaning next to you smiling softly at you, his body relaxed in the chair next to you and your faces almost at the same height. You leaned back, surprised that you hadn't heard him come in and land so close to you.

"Yeji, I love coming to see you but I'm not here for you, I'm sorry" he answered to his sister without looking at her, leaving her perplexed "Hello y/n" he greeted you when he noticed your attention on him.

“H-hello Sunghoon” you replied, your voice almost inaudible.

"You know, Jake and I want to know what's taking you so long, lunch time is almost over" the boy leaned back, waiting patiently "You told Jake you'd have lunch with us, are you going to break your promise?"

All the girls in the class were surprised by that scenario. How was it possible that you, being the new one, were already close to the most attractive and interesting boys in school? Some looked at you with admiration and others died of envy.

"Oh" Yeji intervened when she heard her brother "I was suggesting Y/n have lunch with us, but if you already had plans you should have told me, silly" the girl smiled at you, vaguely moving her hand, showing disinterest, then she looked at her brother. "Please be good to my new friend, Hoon."

"I promise that I will take care of her as if she were mine" Sunghoon blurted out that comment so lightly that you didn't know how to react, at this point you had lost count of how many times Sunghoon had left you speechless in such a short time "Now... would you come with me, Y/n?” He extended his hand, intending for you to take it.

You sighed deeply and got up from your desk, ignoring his hand without forgetting the umbrella that Jaeyun had given you and headed to the door under all the attentive gazes of your classmates. You honestly hated the attention, so you wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Sunghoon giggled and followed you, heading towards the cafeteria.

"Hey, y/n" he called to you "Wait, we're going together" he stood next to you and looked for your gaze, but you avoided him at all costs. "Why are you avoiding my gaze? Do I make you uncomfortable? I'm sorry." Once you felt how sincere he was with his words and how he stepped back in place, so you looked him in the eyes for the first time. Sunghoon's look showed concern and he waited for an answer.

"Yes, I'm uncomfortable" you admitted, choosing to be honest as well. "But it's because I don't know how to react to the things you always say to me." Sunghoon smiled slightly at you when he noticed that he hadn't done anything wrong to you, then he approached you again and bent down a little to be slightly at the height of your face, that day he discovered that he liked to look into your eyes and hold your gaze.

"Oh, so you're not uncomfortable. Excuse me... -his hand gently removed a strand of hair that fell on your delicate face, taking you by surprise but not bothering you at all "I make you nervous."

You simply nodded, accepting that it was really because he made you nervous, while you did your best to hold his gaze. Sunghoon smiled until his eyes disappeared from how small they became and you thought it was the cutest smile you had seen on the flirtatious boy so far. It was a tender and relaxed smile, mostly sincere.

"I'm sorry, pretty girl" then he extended his hand again for you to hold, ready to guide you to the cafeteria where Jaeyun was waiting for you. You hesitated but this time and for the first time, you put your insecurity aside and took his hand indecisive, now he was the one who was surprised by the act. Your pupils trembled when you looked into his eyes and he gently caressed your hand with his thumb, smiling at you, letting you understand with that action that you needed to have more confidence in yourself and do things without thinking too much about it.

reblogs and comments are appreciated!

tl: @minhypenreblogs @deobitifull

#enhypen scenarios #enhypen imagines #enhypen #enhypen drabbles #park sunghoon #sunghoon imagines #park sunghoon scenarios #sim jaeyun #sim jake #jake scenarios #jake imagines #enhypen fanfiction

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hellbornhades · 7 months

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(SUMMER)

As summer began to make its way, the couple had a lot to prepare for, especially in terms of finances. They were able to remodel the inside of their home and finally make a plan for their wedding, but that involved using a bit of their savings, so they're funds are pretty low.

With their new financial situation, Jaylah thought it was time to publish her books. She wasn't expecting fame to come out of it though… but boy does she make it look good.

And of course after a few days of being in the limelight, Jaylah had to admit, being famous wasn't as fun as she had hoped… yes she's finally being noticed by her job as a writer.. but now she's got to put more effort into everything she writes.

Just a few more days, and I'll be off of work for my wedding and honeymoon, Jaylah thought to herself.

During the next day, Travis was finishing some Wedding preparations while Jaylah slept, he just so happened to spot one of Jaylah's stans, waiting for her outside.

He grumbles to himself: "Got damned Sim stans… figuring out where we live… I told Jay not to give out too many autographs."

Travis decided he would handle this himself and let Jaylah rest, she's been working nonstop to produce a new bestseller on top of planning a wedding and just didn't want to add this to her plate.

Travis: "Look, I don't know who you are or how you found our home, but you need to go. Jaylah is just like any other Sim, she works and eats and has hobbies outside of this fame she's started to gain, just like the rest of us. Now, can you respectfully climb back down the hole you came from before I call the cops!"

Random Stan: "Oh, I uh… look at the time? I must be on my way!"

Despite Jaylah's newly developed fame and how hectic things had started to become for the two, the couple still had their eyes looking forward to making the best of their wedding day.

(The Next Day)

It was officially Jaylah and Travis' big day. After careful planning and much preparation, the wedded-couple-to-be reserved their wedding at a secluded and quiet spot in Sulani.

Excited was an understatement, these two have been dying to tie the knot ever since they made their relationship official.

Now standing face to face, Jaylah could swear her heart was beating so loudly that maybe even Travis could hear. Jaylah took Travis' hand and smiled, taking a slow, deep breath and began to recite her vows.

Jaylah: "Low and behold, it's finally the day of our union. The day our lives become one forever. It's one thing to talk about a life together and another thing to truly jump in and get our feet wet; to go forth and set our new lives in motion. Today, this very day, will be the start to our forever life."

Travis could no longer hide his giddy, nervous excitement, occasionally erupting into giggling fits like that of a teenage girl.

Jaylah smiled, continuing on: "Words are beautiful, but actions are what holds so much more meaning. Memories may fade and be forgotten, but together we can always create new ones. The past will always be important, but the future holds so many unforeseen possibilities. With all meaning and sincerity, I will love you forever and ever, Travis. Even when our vessels are returned to the Earth."

Travis took Jaylah's hand and started his vows, gently pushing the ring up her finger: "Gosh, I wish my vows were even close to being as beautiful as yours, but you, my dear, have always been poetic with your words. However, my eyes have never seen so clearly as it has since I've met you. The path I walked once complicated and rocky, has now grown smooth and clear of obstacles with you by my side. Often times, I wonder if I am floating. When I close my eyes, I dream of you and only you, just to awaken to see your beautiful face still fast asleep. My ears have never heard anything as sweet as the day I heard your voice say 'I love you.' My soul has found it's other half and I'm so eternally grateful that it's you, Jaylah."

[Wedding Day – Part 1]

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1zukuz · 3 years

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THEIR S/O IS A SIMP

KENMA, SUNA, HINATA, ATSUMU, BOKUTO, SAKUSA

INCLUDES: swearing, pregnancy talk for bokuto, just fluff <3

"WHY'RE YOU CRYING?" kenma softly asks, wiping away tears with his sleeve. the light glow of the T.V illuminating both of your faces, his concerned one and your watery smile plastered on your lips. you sniffle and shrug, averting your eyes sheepishly. "i dunno...you were just really sweet just now." kenma gave you a blank look, blinking for what seems like eternity. was this how low the bar has gotten? "all i did was ask if you wanted the sims." "'n i do! you read my mind!" kenma stumbles back against the couch, your arms laced around him while sitting in his lap. his cheeks warm and he rubs circles in your back like always, the feeling familiar yet foreign to him. how you loved him so much to shed tears over him would never fail to make his heart pound. "love you, ken." "i love you too. i'll buy you anything you want."

"OH, SUNA, Y/N HAS TOLD ME SO MUCH ABOUT YOU!" surprisingly relaxed, suna grips your hand while eating a slice of pie, a lazy handsome smile adorning his face. you freeze, sending pleading looks to your mom who only grinned back mischievously. "really? what about?" he asks, but only looking at your cute embarrassed expression. he wished he could take a picture of it in his mind, save the memory forever. "oh, just the usual! 'mom, i'm in loveee~' or 'mom i'm gonna have his kidsss~" "MOTHER!" you yelp, releasing your boyfriends hand and covering your face. suna's quiet laughter followed. "or my favorite, 'mom, i don't ever wanna see him with anyone else, i've been in love with him since 5th grade: now he's all mine.'" had this woman kept transcripts of your conversations with her?! you spared a glance at your boyfriend with hands still covering your face. his chin rested in his hand as his eyes filled with love, laughing lightly. your mom only smiled, feeling satisfied.

"AH, HINATA, 'M SO PROUD!" the orange middle blocker hugged you tightly and smiled in your neck. he had just won another game, finally returning home. though his muscles and feet killed him, you both seemed to run on the adrenaline that was his latest victory. you pull away from his grasp, grabbing his cheeks, describing how well he played. "and then he tried to block you, but nope! my baby got through and-" stopping your rant mid sentence he kisses you, panting breaths and all. smiling gleefully he gripped your waist tighter as if you were going to float away. you pulled away after a few seconds, peppering his face in kisses. "c'mon, you don't wanna keep the food waiting!" "aw, sunshine, you shouldn't have! thanks!"

ATSUMU blinks, the mess of the kitchen making him snort and then immediately stops once he notices your small pout while seated on the ground. he drops his duffel bag at the door and sits next to you, a deformed red cake in front of you. putting his arm around you he stifles laughter and you pout more, leaning on his shoulder. "ya wanna talk about it or do ya just wanna sit here with flour on our asses." sighing, you rubbed your eyes. "i was trying to make you a cake...it was gonna be a heart with our initials... but then the fuckin' cake cutter broke, put too much frosting and-" atsumu's blood runs cold. shit. was it a special occasion? anniversary? holiday? "sorry to cut ya off, angel, but... what for? what's today?" he asks quietly, afraid of the backlash. you look up at him, a confused tilt of your head. "huh? no, todays nothing special. just wanted to do something for you. but it failed!" you wail, looking at the sad lump of cake. atsumu's infamous contagious smile graces his lips as he pulls you in a bone crushing hug. "yer gonna make my heart explode, y'know that? stop being so fuckin' cute, angel."

"BO, HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT? WAIT, DO YOU EVEN WANT KIDS?" you ask, playing with his fingers while he laid your head in your lap. "of course i want kids! your kids, of course!" his pretty smile in the golden hour glow made your heart throb out of your chest. "mm... i've always dreamed about having four. maybe even fi-" "okay, i'm gonna be stretched out and butt-fuck ugly by the time we get two." bokuto shoots up from your lap, a frown on his usually enthusiatic face. "not true! take it back!" your smile only widens. "it is true." "is not." "is too!" "is not!" you laugh at his determination, his frown melting away at the sound. "you're too cute, kou. love you so much," suddenly feeling soft, you crawl into his lap instead, not letting go of him for the world. the worlds strongest people couldn't pull you away from him, not when the warm fuzzy feeling you get around koutarou, your koutarou, was much stronger. bokuto, confusingly looks down at your blissful face. "thought we were arguing..."

SLUMPING FURTHER INTO HIS FRAME, sakusa thinks his day can't get any worse. "spoke too soon," he gruffly mutters, coming home to an empty house. he knows it empty because none of the T.V's are on, nor is your sweet perfume gracing his nose while you call out 'omi!'. that was all he wanted. all he wanted, universe! why couldn't it grant him one simple thing for his shit day- "omi? sorry, i was pickin' up something to surprise you!" you happily say from behind him, his thoughts deafening him from the apparent door opening and you slipping inside. in one smooth motion, he drops his things and wraps his arms around you, breathing out against your shoulder. kiyoomi didn't even care if you hugged back or not, just finding your presence comforting. "hi, love." "hi, baby. but look, look at what i got!" pulling out of his grasp, you slide out a black MSBY jersey. it was an exact copy of his, though in your size. "we're gonna match at your next game! oh and," your smile dropped into a pleading look, looking in his eyes like he hung the moon, stars and sun himself. "i'm sorry i couldn't go to your last ones, felt guilty about it all day." stroking his cheek with your thumb, sakusa sighs and nods wordlessly. who knew his shit day could be fixed in the span of five minutes.

taking requests ! ! :P

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thekisforkeats · 3 years

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Love Languages

Info: The Magnus Archives, JonMartin, rated T probably for swears. Canon-Compliant. Set post-MAG 22, with a coda post-MAG 159. Everyone is ND and everyone is trans because that’s just how my personal S1 Archives gang rolls.

CWs: Mentions of ableism and Martin’s mother. I’d say canon-typical worms but the worms don’t really come up except in passing.

I do not know anything about BSL, so I did not try to describe the signs.

Summary: A love language is not just about how you best show love and affection; it is also about the ways you best receive love and affection. And so, for someone like Martin, who shows love by going out of his way to help others, someone going out of their way to help him, well. What better way for him to realize just how loved he is?

--------------------------------------------

The first time Martin went completely non-verbal after starting work in the Archives, it was the morning after giving Jon the statement about Jane Prentiss.

It wasn’t a surprising development, really. Martin didn’t go fully non-verbal that often, but when he did it was almost always a thing that started in the morning and lasted most of the day. Sometimes it wore off by the time he went to bed, sometimes it lasted until the next morning.

After his mother’s diagnosis, he’d been unable to speak for an entire week. That hadn’t gone over well--as much as his mother wanted him to be quiet, she didn’t like the “silent treatment,” as she called it.

Martin hated that she’d called it that, as though his non-verbal episodes were anything he did on purpose. Some days talking just felt like a chore; those days he could get by only forcing words out when he had to. But some days, the worst days, he just couldn’t talk. He could understand other people just fine, he could make noises, sometimes he could even hum. And he could definitely read and write. But speaking words, aloud? No. He could not speak, on these days, however much he may have wanted to.

As Martin grew older and learned more about himself, he learned words and reasons and coping mechanisms. He realized that some of the problem came from dysphoria and the longer he was on hormones the less often it happened. He realized that he was autistic (even if he never got diagnosed), and learned how to handle the episodes that still occurred. He took sign languages classes because it was a good and useful thing to know regardless, to be able to communicate with more people.

As many Deaf people had learned before Martin, he’d found himself in plenty of situations when nobody around him knew BSL, so he’d found a phone app that let him type out things he wanted to say and repeated them in a tinny, mechanical voice. Feminine, but he found it didn’t cause dysphoria; it wasn’t his voice. It was the app speaking for him, a robot lady translating his words.

Martin was fairly certain he was going to need the robot lady to speak for him today, and he was dreading the whole idea. The app got him a range of reactions from scorn to derision to faux sympathy. The last time he’d done so at work, the Institute library staff had regarded him with such pity that he’d called in sick the two other times it had happened since.

He’d woken early, because he was always awake fairly early, to ensure he looked presentable and got to work on time. He did not want Jonathan “Crisply Professional At All Times” Sims giving him that look again. The particular look that was “I highly disapprove of your sartorial choices but I’m not going to get into it right now because I have so very much else to do. Nonetheless, if I could fire you for what you’re wearing I would.”

Jon had a lot of looks. Martin fervently wished he could stop categorizing them; he very much disliked his boss, and very much wanted to stop thinking about Jon quite as much as he did.

Jon was attractive, that much Martin had noticed the first day he’d come in, with a jawline Martin would’ve loved to trace with his fingers, eyes sharp and deep and intelligent, salt-and-pepper hair that Martin would have tangled his fingers in gladly.

Except, of course, that Jon was also a prick who didn’t like Martin one bit and made that very clear. He’d put down on record that he thought Martin would “contribute nothing but delays.” Martin was not such a sucker for punishment that he would put up with someone who hated him just for a pretty face. The tiny potential blossom of a crush had been, well, crushed five seconds after it had poked its head above ground, by Jon’s declaration that he could dismiss Martin if he didn’t resolve the “dog situation” immediately.

Martin counted his lucky stars every day that Jon had not, in fact, dismissed him, despite having had to deal with a doggy mess. The luck was really in having Tim around, Martin figured; Jon actually seemed fond of Tim, and the other man had managed to smooth the entire situation over.

Martin had fallen asleep last night thinking about the new look Jon had given him yesterday: concerned. Truly, genuinely concerned, which had rather taken Martin aback. He’d been certain Jon wouldn’t believe him, would scoff and roll his eyes at the entire statement, and instead he’d just looked… concerned.

And then Jon had offered Martin the cot that he’d woken up in this morning.

It wasn’t the look of concern that had Martin non-verbal, though; of that he was certain. It was the stress of the last two weeks, and dumping out the statement yesterday, and all the whirl of figuring out how to live in the Archives. Jon’s insistence on going with him to pick up basics with a toothbrush at the convenience store, and then coming back to be sure he was okay. Jon finding clean sheets and discussing how he’d do his laundry. Jon had expensed clothing bought online to the Institute, including next-day shipping, because he’d “lost access to his flat and thus his wardrobe in the line of duty.” It had all been bewildering and overwhelming and it was no real surprise that Martin was in the state he found himself when he woke.

Martin had known as soon as he’d opened his eyes. It was just there, the feeling of nope can’t talk today. He’d pulled on his binder and the same clothing he’d worn the day before and then fumbled around for his phone. Which… he didn’t have. The damn worm-hive-lady had stolen it from him. Well, shit.

He managed to avoid having to figure out how to talk while he went out to get breakfast, just pointing at a scone in the display and smiling at the guy behind the counter as if he wasn’t secretly irritated by the price of everything in Chelsea. By the time Martin got back, Jon was already in his office, so thank God he’d avoided that awkward interaction. He went to make himself tea, and had his breakfast in the breakroom, and brushed his teeth, and then went to get started on…

Wait. He didn’t even know what they were working on right now.

Well, he wasn’t going to bother Jon about it; however nice he’d been last night it surely must have worn off by now, and Martin had no interest in summoning one of his boss’ looks this early in the morning. Normally he’d still be on his commute at this hour.

After a moment’s thought, he went to go see what they’d recorded in his absence, and soon had a stack of statements on his desk. They’d gotten through five statements in the two weeks he’d been gone. Maybe Jon was right. Maybe Martin did contribute “nothing but delays.”

Pushing the thought aside, Martin focused on listening to the tapes, and was just finishing up listening to the second half of Father Edwin Burroughs’ statement when Tim came into the shared office the assistants used.

“Hey, you’re in early. You get the email?”

Martin raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

Tim snorted. “Jon claims he’s got something to warn us about, something that ‘won’t parse properly through digital means.’” He rolled his eyes. “Which is Jon-speak for ‘it’s a weird thing and I don’t want to admit it’s a weird thing because I have to keep my skeptic hat on to preserve my self-image.”

Martin chuckled in solidarity, then gestured toward the door to Jon’s office, to indicate that’s where their boss was.

“Not coming?” Tim asked, his own eyebrow raised. When Martin shrugged, he said, “Well, I guess if you didn’t get the email…” Tim also shrugged, then said, “Guess I’d better get it over with. Wish me luck!”

Martin gave him a thumbs up.

When Sasha came in, Martin silently directed her to Jon’s office as well, then heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn’t had to explain being non-verbal at all yet, and it was already nine o’clock. Maybe if he was lucky, Jon would warn them off talking to him and he’d manage to make it the entire day without having to explain the whole “non-verbal” business to anyone he saw on a regular basis.

Alas, it was barely thirty minutes later that Tim and Sasha returned to talk to him, both wearing expressions of mingled concern and guilt. When they spoke it was a flood of the usual, expected platitudes:

“We’re so sorry!”

“We didn’t know!”

“Are you okay??”

And such like.

Martin shrugged and nodded and shook his head in all the right places, and evidently Jon had played them the tape of his statement so he didn’t have to explain it all again (thank God), and he thought maybe, maybe he could even figure out what statement they were working on right now if he just listened to their chatter after they were done with the niceties, but then…

Well. Then Timothy Stoker happened.

Which is to say, Tim actually looked at Martin, and said, “You’re being awfully quiet. You sure you’re okay?”

And then he and Sasha just… sat there, looking at him expectantly.

Martin sighed and reached for a piece of scrap paper and wrote, I’m autistic and sometimes I go non-verbal. Today’s one of those days, but I don’t have my phone anymore, so no communication app.

As he held up the paper so the others could read the words, Martin braced himself for the ensuing reactions. Pity, probably, like those in the Institute library, and he couldn’t even call in sick to avoid it; he’d rather have scorn and derision. At least those reactions were honest.

What he got from them was not pity, however, nor even scorn.

Sasha hummed. “Autism explains a lot, actually. Don’t worry, it’s not a problem.”

Tim grinned and clapped Martin on the shoulder. “Yeah, why didn’t you just say so? It’s fine, you’ve been through an ordeal. And so you know--you’re hardly the only neurodivergent in the Archives.”

Martin blinked at Tim, then wrote: Wait, what? Who…?

“Would you believe me if I said all of us?” Tim said with a grin. “I have ADD, Jon’s… well… he’s Jon, and as for Sasha…”

Sasha sighed in fond exasperation and cut in, “Tim…”

“I contend that you cannot be neurotypical, Ms. James. You fit in too well around here.”

“I am not admitting to anything on Institute property,” Sasha said with aplomb. “And you shouldn't have either, but here we are.” She looked at Martin. “If HR finds out and they give you any trouble, let us know and we’ll figure out what to do.”

Tim, in the meanwhile, pulled out his phone. “Here, go ahead and use mine for now, until your replacement gets here or whatever. What’s the app so I can install it for you?”

Martin’s jaw had dropped open. Tim having ADD made sense; what did he mean about Jon, though? And Sasha? And what did Sasha mean about HR? And… and why were they being so… nice? So… understanding? It wasn’t an act, or at least he didn’t think it was. They seemed… genuinely fine with it. Accepting, even.

It was the strangest thing Martin had experienced in a while, and that was including the worm-riddled woman who’d stood outside his door for two straight weeks.

From there the day just… went on as normal. Tim installed the app on the phone, Martin’s robot phone lady spoke for him, the three of them did their work, and everything was fine.

Until, of course, the nature of their work reared its ugly head. They were discussing the statement of Leanne Denikin, case #0051701, which they had yet to attach a pithy name to; hence the discussion. It had long since become standard practice to attach a name to the “weirder” statements, to make them easier to discuss. (Jon insisted on using the case numbers on tape still, which was annoying, given that was the only place he did that.)

Martin was reading through the statement, and he typed into Tim’s phone: What do you think of this bit? “Be still, for there is strange music.”

What came out of the phone’s speakers, however, was garbled static followed by high-pitched screeching that startled Martin so much he actually dropped the phone.

Jon was walking in just as this happened; he stopped in the doorway, blinking. “What on Earth was that?”

“Martin’s robot lady gave Tim’s phone an aneurysm, I think,” Sasha said, eyeing Martin as well.

Martin scrabbled on the floor for the phone, pulled up the app (which had crashed), and typed, I don’t know what happened!! I was just typing in something from one of the statements!

Jon frowned at him sharply. “What are you doing with Tim’s phone? Are you quite well?”

“No, Martin is not ‘quite well,’” Tim said. “Non-verbal for the day.”

Then Jon did something that stunned Martin: Jon signed at him, specifically, “Do you know sign language?” He spoke aloud as he said this, too, but also raised his eyebrows and gave a quizzical tilt to his head to convey that he was asking a question.

Martin blinked rapidly, then signed back: “Yes, actually. But Tim and Sasha don’t.”

Jon nodded, then said aloud, along with signing, “Why are you non-verbal, exactly?”

“I have autism,” Martin signed. “Sometimes talking is overwhelming and sometimes, especially in stressful situations, I can’t talk at all. Woke up that way today. It should be gone by tomorrow morning.” Why was he explaining so much more to Jon than he had to the others? Maybe just because Jon knew sign, and thus could communicate in a language Martin found much easier than even the typing.

Jon frowned thoughtfully, then nodded again. Then, still speaking and signing both, “What were you typing into your phone?”

“Be still, for there is strange music. From the statement.” Martin gestured to the statement on his desk.

Jon’s frown deepened and he repeated the words. “‘Be still, for there is strange music….’” His expression went slack for a moment, and then he shook himself. “Right. Well. Just… just… I’ll be right back.” Then he abruptly turned and left the room.

Tim and Sasha exchanged bewildered looks. Then Sasha asked, “Do you know what that was all about?”

“I forgot Jon knows BSL,” Tim replied thoughtfully. “Hard of hearing on one side. Not that he’d have agreed to interpret all day or anything.”

Martin shrugged. It’s alright, he typed. This works just fine.

“Well, no, obviously not for some things.” Jon had reappeared as suddenly as he’d disappeared, holding a small brown notebook the size of Martin’s hand. “Here,” he said, thrusting the notebook at Martin. “This will work better, for communicating about the statements. You needn’t use it with me, of course, unless signing is also taxing.”

Martin stared up at Jon. There was an entirely new look on his boss’ face. Not any level of scorn or sneer, nor even concern. He was… nervous. Fidgety. Like he was offering a gift that he was afraid might be rejected.

Something went flip in Martin’s stomach and it was like the entire world turned upside down. Suddenly, in light of Jon’s actions in the last 24 hours, he saw the way his boss had acted toward him the last six months for what it was: a defense mechanism. Armor pulled up around someone fragile and soft and sweet, someone so terrified of rejection that he went about making sure it happened preemptively so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Martin had a sudden, fierce desire to hug Jon and tell him everything would be okay. It was so bewildering a sensation--he didn’t even like the man! At all!--that he just took the notebook with a nod and a signed “Thank you,” eyes still very wide.

Jon nodded in return. “You’re welcome.” He let out a breath, and seemed to relax a little. “Well. Then. I think we’ve found the name for this one, given the way Tim’s phone reacted to those words. ‘Strange Music’ it is.” He straightened himself. “Tim, you said something about the organ reminding you of articles you’ve read…?”

Tim nodded, expression suddenly serious. “Yeah. I’ll see if I can find them for you.”

“Right. Well, then, Sasha, if I could ask you to look through the Archive like we talked about? I’m certain we’ve had a statement from Jane Prentiss.” Jon then turned to Martin. “And if you wouldn’t mind helping me with ‘Schwarzwald?’ You used to work in the library, right?”

Martin was still staring at Jon in confusion, but nodded.

Jon actually smiled at him. Faintly. “Well, then, I’m certain you must know where to find the German history reference books, if you could go grab whatever they’ll let you bring down?”

The strangest thing about it was, Jon seemed sincere. Like he actually believed Martin did, indeed, know the library well enough to just… go up there and find the German history reference books. The faint, confident-in-his-assistant smile was a new look, at least directed at Martin; he’d seen Jon look at Tim and Sasha that way many times before.

Martin’s stomach was doing cartwheels. There were butterflies taking up residence in his intestines. His heart was pounding. How had he never noticed how nice Jon’s smile was? Soft and small, like he was afraid to let it actually take up residence on his face for too long.

Oh, God, oh, no. Martin could not fancy his boss. Jon hated him. Or, well, no, evidence suggested that perhaps Jon did not hate him, but Jon most certainly did not fancy him. This crush had to disappear, just as fast as it had come. This would not do.

He was going to be writing poetry again tonight, wasn’t he? Crap.

“Martin?” Jon’s tone was concerned rather than sharp, and the way Jon said his name made Martin want to sink into the floor.

Instead, he scribbled furiously in the notebook and held it up so all three of the others could see: Yeah, sorry, was just thinking about where that’d be. I’ll bring them down as soon as I find them.

Jon practically beamed at Martin’s use of the notebook and he nodded briskly. “Right! I’ll be in my office when you have the books, then.” He started to turn away.

Martin’s heart went pound pound pound because oh wow Jon was really cute when he let that smile take up more of his face. Throwing caution to the wind, he made a noise to get the other man’s attention.

Jon turned around, quirking a brow. “Yes, Martin?”

Martin signed, “Tea?” He, too, raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to indicate the question.

Jon nodded. “Tea would be lovely, yes.” He smiled at Martin for a brief moment, and then suddenly looked flustered. He glared at them all. “Anyway,” he snapped in his ‘boss’ voice, the impact of which was ruined by the flush rising in his cheeks, “there’s still work to be done. So let’s… do it.” And with that, he turned on his heel and left the office.

Had Jon blushed because Martin had offered him tea? Did Jon like his tea that much? Was Martin imagining things? He had to be imagining things. He put his head down on the desk and wrapped his arms over it so he could grab at handfuls of hair. What was happening to him?

Sasha tried to make her voice serious, but couldn't quite manage it past quite clearly holding back giggles. “Mourn for poor Martin, working alone with Jon.” She looked at Tim. “We should call HR preemptively, it’ll be a bloodbath.”

“Nah, I think Jon’s softening on our boy,” Tim said with a laugh. He reached over to ruffle Martin’s hair with one hand while he took his phone back with the other. “Don’t worry, Marto. I told you he’d come around one day.”

Martin looked up at Tim with a stricken, betrayed expression. In the notebook: Is this how you comfort me in my hour of need??

Sasha shook her head. “For once, Tim’s being serious. You weren’t in the room when Jon explained things to us. He’s worried about you, he doesn’t want you to have to leave the Institute alone, he doesn’t want you to have to look for the Prentiss statement in case it’s ‘too traumatic’ for you to run across on your own. He actually asked us if we thought we should avoid any mention of Prentiss altogether in your presence.”

“I told him no,” Tim said. “I hope that was okay. You seem like you’d rather deal with trauma by facing it and figuring it out, rather than avoiding it entirely.”

Matin gaped at them. Really? he wrote. Jon’s… worried about me? Really? As if he hadn’t seen the evidence just now that Jon was, indeed… softening.

Tim gave Martin a very serious look. “I’ve told you before… I’ve known Jon, well, not as long as I’ve known Sasha, but for a long while now. He’s prickly and thorny, even to people he cares about, but that’s a front and I’ve said so. You just didn’t believe me.”

“In Martin’s defense,” Sasha put in, “Jon’s been awfully ‘prickly and thorny’ to him specifically.”

Tim put up a hand. “Oh, I agree. I have had words with our dear boss about the way he treats Martin, largely because I’m one of the few people he might actually listen to.” He looked at Martin. “I don’t want to take the credit, because it’s really been a remarkably fast turnaround, but I’d like to think I helped, a little.”

Martin frowned thoughtfully. Thank you, he wrote. If Jon’s at ‘I can stand Martin’ instead of ‘Martin is the source of all bad that happens in the Archives’ work might be… better than tolerable, for once.

“That’s the spirit!” Tim said with a grin. “Now, then, Jon did say to get back to work…”

Jon gave Martin another of those soft smiles when Martin brought in the tea, a smile which widened on seeing the stack of books he carried in right after. That afternoon, spent sitting and going through books and discussing the Schwarzwald statement, was the first of many they’d spend together, reading and talking and comparing notes.

Martin was feeling verbal again the next morning, but he kept the notebook. If nothing else, it was a good place to jot down poetry. And it came in handy when he found himself unable to speak the morning after Jane Prentiss’ attack on the Archives.

And the morning after Jon confronted him about his CV.

And the morning after Jon disappeared, leaving Jurgen Leitner’s body at his desk. (Martin blamed that on the corridors more than the body, really.)

Funnily enough, he didn’t need it the morning after the Unknowing. But he kept it with him that day all the same, the first gift Jon had ever given him, and one of the few things he had left of him with Jon in a coma.

--------------------------------------------

When they reached Daisy’s safehouse in Scotland, Martin had hoped he’d somehow manage to dodge the threat of going non-verbal. He’d been the one to drive the car, over Jon’s protests; it was something to focus on, to keep him remembering he was alive and real. He’d clutched the wheel and driven north north north with Jon giving directions in the passenger seat.

Martin had finally figured out that it was the chance to stop and think about trauma that led to his being non-verbal, which was why it was almost always a thing that hit in the morning. Adrenaline would keep him running after a stressful event, and then he’d carry himself through the rest of the day trying to clean up whatever mess had been caused. But sleep was enough for his body and brain to both tell him to stop, to process, to deal with whatever he’d run into.

It was possible, in hindsight, that he’d gone non-verbal more than once since the Unknowing and just hadn’t noticed because he’d been barely interacting with anyone. He’d certainly had a bad bout the morning after his mother’s funeral, dealing with so much misgendering and fake smiles. And there had been more than enough trauma to try to process in the past year, so it must have happened before.

He’d just really, really hoped it wouldn’t now, because he didn’t want to put Jon through that. (Why he thought he was putting Jon through anything he didn’t really want to examine. It made him feel Lonely, and that was bad.)

At any rate, the realization of why he went non-verbal had led to him keeping busy in order to hold it off, in order to hold himself together. So he drove, and he puttered about the cabin poking into cupboards, and he talked to Jon, and he talked to the shop lady in the village, and he brought back food and made dinner with Jon, and everything was good and fine.

And then he woke up the next morning, in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and he could not speak.

There was the smell of bacon and eggs and pancakes cooking, and Martin made his bleary way out into the main room of the cabin and peered at Jon, already up and dressed and cooking.

His boyfriend turned to look at him and smiled, one of those soft smiles Martin had come to love so much. “Sleep well?”

"Not really,” Martin signed. “I mean…” He gestured at his throat.

Jon nodded. “I figured you might feel that way this morning. I, uhh… hold on a moment, I need to….” He grabbed the pan of bacon and moved it off the heat, pulled a pancake off the griddle and deposited it on a plate, then turned off the stove and went to poke around in one of the bags.

Martin chuckled fondly. “What’re you looking for?”

Jon was still digging through his bag. “When I was grabbing essentials at the store, back in London, I was thinking, you’ve been through a lot, and the notebook I gave you before must be full if you even have it anymore. I know you were writing poetry in it, and… oh, here we go.”

Jon came up with another small notebook. This one was not plain and brown, the way the first one he’d gifted Martin all those years ago had been. This one was black, and had silvery stars on its cover that, as Jon held out the book and thus tilted it through the light, shimmered into rainbows.

“Just in case, you know, the shop lady doesn’t know BSL.”

Martin blinked at the notebook.

“It, uhh… I know it’s not your usual style,” Jon said, his voice suddenly nervous. He was looking down at the notebook as he spoke, instead of at Martin. “Not… retro. But… I saw it and I thought of you.” He paused. “That tape, where you were talking to Simon Fairchild. He talked about the ‘cosmic scale,’ and how we’ve never even been alive on that time frame, and you said… what was it? You said, ‘I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.’ And I just… that was… maybe the most… it was very… you. And there were other options, flowers or cursive writing, o-or… I don’t know, they all seemed so obvious, but this…”

Jon swallowed, and finally looked up at Martin. “I thought, after the Lonely, you might like a reminder that, you have value. That… that to me, you shine as bright as any star.” And then he flushed, and Martin knew it was for him, just as he now knew the flushes about tea all those years ago had also been for him.

Martin was gaping. Oh. Oh. Jon… loved him. Which he’d known, intellectually, but the emotional knowledge of it hit him suddenly, took his breath away. He knew it, all at once, in that “oh we could spend the rest of our lives together” way he’d never really thought he’d ever feel.

Jon had clearly misinterpreted the expression; he started stammering, “I-if… it it’s bad, I can… well, no, I can’t take it back, stupid, I should’ve just grabbed the one that had--”

Martin cut him off by reaching out to take the notebook from Jon and reached out with his other hand to cup the shorter man’s cheek. He smiled, and because he’d realized long ago how well Jon responded to physical touch, he leaned in to plant a soft kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead.

Then he pulled back to put the notebook aside on the counter and signed, “It’s perfect. Thank you.” A pause, and then, “I love you.”

Jon smiled, both speaking and signing, “I love you, too.”

And for once in his life, Martin knew that to be true, and trusted that knowledge. He was loved. He had been loved, and he would be loved for the rest of his life, whatever state his voice was in.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #jon sims #jonathan sims #jon the archivist #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #archives gang #otp: one way or another together #fanfic #my fanfic #ableism tw #jmart #canon tma fic

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nat-20s · 3 years

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for @jonmartinweek THE FINAL DAY prompt- Pining/Longing. This one takes place, well, you’ll see

~*~

A Study of Longing, Told in Six Parts

Part 1

Martin wonders if he’ll ever get to a point in his life where kindness doesn’t feel like a shock to the system. It’s already surprising enough when Tim and Sasha invite him for drinks in a genuine offer of friendship, but for that kindness to come from Jon? Martin has no idea what to do with being believed, let alone being protected.

And now here he is, blearily opening his eyes only to find himself staring at a mass of hair. As he sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, the shape resolves into the form of one Jonathan Sims. He had apparently fallen asleep with his head cushioned on his arms, against the cot Martin was currently occupying. It’s not an image that Martin can fully process at the moment, so instead he debates whether or not to wake Jon up or quietly get off the cot to let him get some much needed sleep. He decides on the former, both thinking that it would be hell on his back to keep sleeping in that position, and that he would like an explanation.

Hand hovering above Jon’s shoulder, but not fully touching, Martin oh so quietly calls out, “Jon?”

That’s all it takes for Jon’s head to rush up with a gasp, glasses askew, and with the texture of his sleeves pressed in red marks on his face. It is a horribly endearing look. “Hrn?”

Martin opens his mouths, closes it, and waits for Jon to get his bearings. Jon smooths down his (frankly ridiculous) sweater-vest, adjusts his glasses, and slips back on his professional demeanor. “My apologies, Martin, I, ah, must have fallen asleep.”

Glancing to the crappy little digital clock resting on a file box next to him, Martin rolls his eyes. Only Jon could be quite so stuffy at 4:32 in the morning. “No apologies needed. Though, um, was there? Something you needed or..?”

Jon shakes his head and stands up, dusting off imaginary grime. “No, no, nothing like that. I had just, er. I had heard you cry out and I- I wanted to make sure nothing was going on. It appears that it simply a nightmare,so I will be.. taking my leave. Now.”

He doesn’t know what part of himself replies, “Oh! You don’t have to go!,” but he replies it anyway. Jon does that little thoughtful frown at him, which forces him to continue, “I mean, if you wanted the cot. For sleeping. I’ll probably be awake for the rest of the night, so, you know, no skin off my back .”

“Ah. No, that’s quite alright, Martin. Try to get some more sleep, there’s still a long work day ahead.”

Jon doesn’t even wait for a response before turning on his heel and leaving. Martin sort of hates how much he wanted him to stay.

Part 2

Jon is laughing. Jon is terrified, all the damn time, and yet, somehow, he’s laughing. Honestly, he was starting to wonder if he was still capable of it. Martin is gesticulating wildly with his fork, animated in a way that Jon’s only ever seen when in they’re in the middle of a rather silly debate. He thinks this lunch’s topic was something like whether or not snakes were cute? He lost the thread of conversation about half an hour ago, honestly. Covering his mouth, he lets the giggles run through his whole body, shaking his shoulders and heating his core. He feels light, heady, like he’s reminiscing with an old friend and they’re both on the edge of having had too much to drink.

He only wishes he could trust this feeling. He wishes that he could trust Martin, that they were normal coworkers having a normal lunch, that the previous person in Jon’s position had gone into an easy retirement instead of being violently murdered. He wishes he hadn’t read that letter telling him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Martin, Martin, who took him to lunch and brought him tea and seemed so very warm in so very cold circumstances, was lying to him.

Jon stops laughing.

Part 3

Of course, the second his body hits the simultaneously stiff and weirdly lumpy motel mattress, his phone goes off. It may only be about 8 pm, but he’s tired, and he’s sore, and he’s had a persistent headcold for the past week for some unholy reason, the last thing he wants to do is talk. However, only about four people have the number to the burner cell, and they’re almost certainly have a purpose behind their call.

Closing his eyes and letting out a sigh that turns into more of a groan, he picks up on the 4th ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Jon! It’s Martin, I’m not sure if you have my number programmed in that phone, or if it even has caller ID if you do. Anyway, it’s been about a week since I’ve heard anything, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t, y’know, dead or arrested or anything.”

His previously tense and aching muscles all relax, without him consciously deciding to relax them, and a sleepy smile spreads across his face, because some time in the past year he’s become a parody of himself. Yes, maybe he should be more affronted by how much Martin’s tinny voice brings him comfort, but he’s had a rather terrible time of things since...since he began work in the archives, really, and he’s worn down enough that he can admit he misses his friend.

Huh. Friends. They are, aren’t they? Wonder when that happened. (He can guess, something involving a fake CV admission, but he doesn’t feel like it right now.) “Martin, I recognize your voice, no need to introduce yourself.”

“Right! Yes, uh, ‘course..of course you can. Right. Sooo...I take it you’re not dead, then.”

“Correct. I haven’t been arrested, either.” It’s only sort of a comforting lie, so Jon thinks it can be forgiven.

“Good. Great! Yeah, that’s...that’s good.”

The conversation could probably end there. Jon could probably tell Martin good night, and they’d hang up, and Jon could get the sleep he had been so desperately craving not moments ago. Somehow, he thinks that neither of them want that. Scrambling for something to talk about, Jon replies, “Hang on, isn’t it something like 2am over there?”

“It...might be.”

“Martin!”

“What! It’s not like you have a monopoly on bad sleeping habits. Besides, I was up anyway, and I just..”

“Just what?”

“I just missed your voice.”

Oh. Heat rushes to his cheeks, and tears start to prick at the corners of his eyes, and god. He had missed Martin’s voice too. “Really? I know you’ve had to listen to a fair number of tapes lately, thought you might be sick of it by now.”

“No. I mean, I am a bit tired of tapes, honestly, but even the ones that you recorded, that not really your voice, is it? I mean it is, but it doesn’t sound like you when you’re actually, um, you. I wanted..I wanted to hear you.”

Jon’s far too worn out to deal with that sentiment, and the way that it makes his heart clench. So instead of addressing it, he says, “I am very close to being asleep.”

“Oh. Right, sorry, I’ll let you go-”

“No! No. Um. Would you mind staying on the line? Until I’m gone? I-I like hearing your voice. As well.”

“Oh! Sure, yeah, definitely. Anything in particular you want me to talk about?”

“Whatever you like. Something nice?”

“All right. I can do that. Um. Did I tell you about this little yarn shop I found the other day. It’s called ‘Puttin’ on the knitz’, and it’s…”

Jon peacefully drifts off, listening to the voice of the man who he can only admit in moments such as these, he wishes was in this bed, laying beside him.

Part 4

please come back please come back for the love of god come back I can’t believe you’re doing this do you have any idea how stupid this is come back to me come back come back come back

Part 5

There is plenty of things to long for in the apocalypse. A decent cuppa. The relief of actual sleep. Murdering Jonah Magnus. For there not to be a apocalypse. They are grateful, however, to not have to long for each other.

Part 6

Martin comes to without a knife in his hand, or bloodstains on his clothing. Those, under other circumstances, would be good things.

Martin comes to, laying in the grass, without anyone beside him. He barely has the moment to feel agony spike through him before he’s out once more.

There are no Jonathan Sims admitted to the hospital. As far as he can tell, no one was admitted into the hospital at the same time as him, and certainly no one with a stab wound.

There are thousands of ‘Jonathan Sims UK’, typed desperately into a library computer search bar, wielding mostly results about a sport manager and a romance novelist. None of the images are of the right person.

Sometimes Martin puts one foot in front of the other, carefully blank in heart and head. Surviving, even during times that he’s not sure he wants to, is one of his greatest abilities.

Sometimes Martin despairs.

On the worst nights, he tries to call the Lonely back to him, tries to be swallowed whole. It never works. He’s not sure if it’s because the fears aren’t in the reality or if they’re not established enough to have any leverage or if his connection has simply been broken. (He doubts the last reason. He hasn’t been this alone since Tim’s funeral. Even then, Melanie had thrown a few stilted condolences towards him. No one is aware enough of him to give condolences now. He misses Melanie. He misses all of them. He misses Jon like a gaping, bleeding wound misses skin.)

Seven months later, and he has enough money saved and identity built that he moves on to Scotland. The little village they had been adjacent to exists in this reality. Daisy’s cottage does not.

On a whim, he enters the yarn shop. He’s not going to pick anything up, hobbies are the last thing he can focus on, but it’s nice to look. To feel the various textures, to take in the rich variance of colors, to, hopefully be present in his own body, if only for a moment.

Martin steps in. The bell chimes. He’s there. Standing in front of him. Whole. In a cry that’s closer to a gasp, he calls out, “JON!”

Jon turns, looks up at him, recognizes him even before he’s even fully seen him. It’s his Jon, he’s here he’s here he’s here. The callback of “MARTIN!” sounds like it was punched out of him, the start of a sob and a laugh all at once.

In a blink, they’re together, their embrace a tangle of limbs, a collision of lips, a mixture of tears. Martin can’t tell which of them is saying the litany of “thank god thank god thank god” and who’s repeating “it’s you it’s you it’s you.”

It’s Jon that’s telling him, “I knew you had to be here. I knew it, because I kept thinking. Surely. Surely this new universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to allow me to live, but to make me live without you.”

It’s Martin that replies, “I didn’t know. I thought it would be that cruel. Please don’t make me go through that again.”

Jon pulls him in tighter, eliminating the centimeter of space between them. Speaking into Martin’s neck, whispered in fierce devotion, Jon promises, “Never again. Never again. You and me. Together. For the rest of our lives.”

Barely discernible through his sobbing, Martin tells him, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

~*~

There are people that think that wanting is more worthwhile than having. Martin thinks, frankly, that those people have never been in love.

#jonmartinweek2021 #jonmartin #jon sims #martin blackwood #AHHH this is just over TWO THOUSAND words #i really was like for the last prompt i will not Shut Up lmao #also fun fact! part 4 was specifically designed to not be clear whether it was from jon or martins perspective

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junko-and-riri-domain · 3 years

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push and pulls | ot7

↬ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ot7 x reader ↬ ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: fluff | requested | headcannon (paragraph form) ↬ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: none ↬ ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛᴇᴅ ʙʏ: anon ↬ ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛ ᴡᴀs: “cat and dog relationship with classmate!enhypen ? hehe headcannon or any format that you're comfy with :3 they could be highschool sweethearts in the end too 😭” ↬ ᴀ/ɴ:

i tried i'm sorry if this sucks 🤧

jake and jay’s are are like semi-suggestive (i think?) imma just say that they are semi-suggestive to be safe

i aint gonna lie i’m a sucker for Jay cooking 😪

jake & hoon’s are kinda short bc it’s like 1 am rn

Heeseung

Heeseung has always been good at everything no matter what it is. It isn’t to discredit any of his effort whatsoever, but as the school year continues everyone knows that things are just natural for Heeseung. Ever since your freshman year of high school, you’ve seen him as your main competition for 1st place in school. The problem? This man isn’t even aware of it. To you, he just breathes and wins the competitions, gets all the attention, and is at the top of everything. To him, it’s the only way you’ll even notice him. The competitions? It gives him a chance to stay after school to be with you. The attention? He’s only focused on yours. Him at the top of everything? Well, that one’s just because he’s Lee Heeseung. It’s after school one day and the both of you have stayed to help clean up the classes for extra credit. Like a thief with a bagful of stolen glances, his eyes drift to you whenever you don’t notice. Except for this one time.

“Stop looking at me!” you say, your eyes glaring at him. He’s taken aback as he never meant to offend you.

“Sorry,” he said, thinking that you’d just leave it at that. But instead,

“I know you’re fricking judging me Lee Heeseung.”

“What?”

“I can feel it in your eyes. I’ll always be second to you and I get it, you don’t need to rub it in, so just stop!” You throw the rag at the window, walking out of the classroom and he’s left alone wondering what the hell just happened. And suddenly the gap between first place and second begins to grow. To him, staying after school to study for competitions are no longer fun when you won’t even tell him to be quiet when he starts to sing. Your attention is gone just like his sanity. Being at the top never felt so lonely when you weren’t next to him. To you, staying after school becomes something you dread because of the silence in the room that you caused. Your attention seems as if it’s on everything but him but every day you have a hundred thoughts and all of them are infected with him. The two of you enter yet another school competition, making it to the top 3. Yet, unlike previous times, neither of you is in first place.

“In first place, we have Sim Jaeyun!” the announcer says. You and Heeseung look at each other in shock that the other wasn’t on the podium. Yet, you couldn’t care less. Because not getting first place causes you to go off on a rant that Heeseung joins in on. Staying after school turns into study partners at the nearby cafe which becomes study dates. Both of your attention is openly on the other. And while you’re both at the top academically, you become the couple goals everyone wishes they could achieve.

“ace of my heart 💞” you caption an Instagram post of a picture of Heeseung.

rest of the boys under the cut!

Jay

Culinary class is peaceful for Jay. He has control of everything, knows where the ingredients and cooking tools are, can do something he loves, and did we mention control of everything? As a chef, he learned what you were like the first few weeks of class. You were messy with apple peels next to the lime squeezer, engaging in a way of cooking that you defined as “organized chaos.” You didn’t use measurements, cooked things by eye, and used whatever seasonings felt right. It wasn’t that you were bad at cooking, he actually enjoyed your dishes. But your process was just something he couldn’t stand. And maybe he doesn’t really like you since you accidentally used the last of his honey when making cupcakes but that’s a story for another day. The culinary teacher decided to try something new to promote teamwork and for a week, the class would be in partners and cooking a dish new to both people. And who did Jay just have to end up with? You. As the two of you read the recipe for your first dish which was a dessert of sorts,

“What do you wanna use first, jackfruit or durian?” he asked. You looked up at him, a teasing smile on your lips,

“Durian, because it looks like you,” you said before making your way to the table where all the ingredients were.

“Inner peace,” he muttered to himself as he watched you walk off. The next day, you were making peach tarts.

“Yah, Jay, look here,” you said as you held up your phone and the peach. In the photo you took, the peach was next to Jay’s face, sort of comparing the two.

“Why’d you take a picture of me?” he asked. He didn’t really mind photos, knowing full well how good he looked but you taking one of him came completely out of the blue. As you glanced up from your phone after hitting post, you were unable to stop your laugh,

“Your hair looks like a peach,” you said with a wink as you went back to cutting the ingredients.

“Do I just, do I just look like food now?” he muttered to himself with a huff.

“I mean… I wouldn’t mind eating you,” you teased. You were smooth, he’d give you that. But, damn, he wanted to make you feel the way you were making him feel right now.

It didn’t take long for you to learn that Jay’s way of teasing made you flustered as hell. If you’d ask him to hand you something, he’d hold it above your head forcing you to have to jump up. It just so happened that he did this once right in front of someone else’s station and as you jumped, you almost knocked into them which led to his arm around you,

“Watch where you’re going,” he warned with a teasing edge as he handed you the carrots.

When you handed him something, he’d take it in a way that his hand held yours for a second but that second was enough. As the two of you cooked together, you entered your own world with no one else but the other in it. He was patient with your organized chaos, his own habits finding a place alongside your cooking routine. For the last day of working as partners, you two were to bake cookies. You put in a pinch of salt then some sugar when suddenly,

“YAH!” you hear from next to you. Met with Jay’s wide eyes as he looked in the bowl where you put the salt and sugar,

“What’s wrong?” you asked.

“I told you to taste the salt and sugar before you used it.”

“The first one tasted like salt so I put more of the second one.” He took a pinch of the sugar already in the mixing bowl then tasted it, a disgusted look appearing on his face”

“You put salt then more salt, good job y/n.”

“Huh?” He took another pinch then brought it up to your lips and as you tasted it,

“Why the hell is there two kinds of salt here!”

“One’s fine, the other’s coarse. I wanted to eat these y’know.”

“Fine, head over to my place after school and we can make cookies together.”

“That’s not funny. You can’t mess with cookies,” he muttered.

“Who said I was joking? We can even drizzle honey over it.”

Jake

Perfection doesn’t even begin to describe Sim Jaeyun. A gentleman, kind, smart, has an accent that you can’t help but sometimes tease him about, and obsessed with Layla were all things you couldn’t fault him for. But sometimes, just sometimes, he could be a little too nice. You couldn’t help but feel jealous at the sight of the girl chatting with Jake by the benches and her feeling his arm up.

“Geez, tell her to go away!” you wanted to say to him as you started walking towards them.

“Hey,” Jake said with a smile as his eyes landed on you. The same smile he smiled at her with.

“Are you ready to go?” you asked, trying not to sound pissed but couldn’t help yourself.

“Yeah hold up.” Jake looked at the girl, “Just text if you need help with anything else on the homework,” he said before walking off with you.

“Who was that?” you asked as the two of you made your way to the cafeteria.

“New girl, needs help with physics so she asked me for help.” Jake was supposed to help you with physics.

“You gonna help her on Tuesdays?” you asked, referring to the day Jake always helped you. If he did notice your jealousy, he didn’t say anything about it. Oh, but he did notice. And he kind of wanted to edge it on to see how far things would go.

“Should I? She can hangout with me and Layla.”

“See if she likes me better than Layla.”

“Might take you up on the offer, watch your words, y/n,” he said with a chuckle.

“Yeah? You introduce her to Layla and I’ll divorce you then take full custody.”

“I didn’t know we were married, don’t we gotta go out on a date first?”

“I don’t know, do we?”

“Let’s do it right now then.”

“Fine! Wait what-?”

Sunghoon

On the ice, you and Sunghoon went together like sugar and tea. Off the ice, you two were like the coarse salt that ruined the cookies in Jay’s fic. You and Sunghoon skated well together, putting on a performance that typically got you first place, but that’s exactly what it was. A performance. An act. Nothing more, nothing less. Neither of you talked when you saw each other after practice the next day at school. Neither of you actively told anyone that you knew each other more than most couples did. But there was just something about talking to Sunghoon outside of ice skating, acknowledging that there you had an ice skating persona as well as the persona you showed to everyone else, that frightened you. So both of you made an unspoken agreement that you’d keep your ice skater lives in the rink and outside of it. Except for right now where the transfer student who coincidentally just so happened to be an ice skater and was wondering if you’d be his partner for the upcoming showcase.

“Y/n already has a partner,” Sunghoon said, cutting in as he stood next to you. The transfer student’s eyes settled on Sunghoon,

“You’re Park Sunghoon, the guy who-”

“Almost made it into the Olympics? Yeah. And y/n and I are gonna do it together this year.” You weren’t quite sure how to feel about Sunghoon suddenly “claiming” you (not in a toxic way whatsoever, we don’t condone that here). But you did know that this meant Sunghoon knew of your existence outside of the rink.

“Says who?” you said, trying to see how this would go. He looked at you, fear flashing in his eyes at the thought of the two of you not doing this together.

“I thought, I thought we were? Are we not? We have our outfits planned and everything.”

“I mean… plans change, Hoon.” That nickname, the one only you were allowed to use for him.

“Do you not wanna do it together?”

“I’m just gonna… go,” the transfer student said.

“I do wanna do it together.”

“So then what’s the problem?”

“We kinda don’t have a relationship outside of the rink, Hoon.”

“We can make one, then. Right now.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

Sunoo

You’ve always held a level of jealousy towards Sunoo. Sunoo has always been the guy who’s everyone’s friend even if he’s popular, the type of guy who waves at everyone, greets them with a smile on their face, and gets people to attend class/school events. Whereas you’re more on the introverted side, not really liking people. When it’s lunchtime, you tend to eat alone not really giving a damn about everyone else. You’re not exactly an outcast, just more comfortable by yourself. You’ve always been jealous of how Sunoo’s open to people, talkative, and just overall likable. Because unlike him, people think you’re being mean when you’re quiet and it looks like you’re not listening to whatever it is they’re saying. Around school, Sunoo has earned the nickname Sunny while you’ve been given the nickname Winter. Everyone sees how you walk away whenever Sunoo waves at you in the halls. Everyone is aware of how you scoff whenever Sunoo does aegyo in front of you. Everyone notices how you get mad whenever he links his arm with yours. But it’s Sunoo who sees the glint in your eyes the second they meet his by your locker. It’s Sunoo who notices the slight smile that plays at the corner of your lips whenever he calls himself “ddeonu.” And it’s Sunoo who’s aware that no matter how much you protest when your arms link, you’re never the one to let go first. So he sits at the desk in front of yours during lunch, chatting his butt off about his day while stealing bites of your lunch. He gives you face masks with the excuse of “it was a buy one get one free deal and I don’t know who else to give it to.” He asks if he can style your hair playing it off as “practice.” Little by little, you begin to open up. When you see him in the halls, you start to give him a smile reserved only for him. When he does aegyo you tease him by saying that Jake does it better. And when he links his arms with yours, your pinkies intertwine. You bring an extra bag of chips for lunch and start making your portions larger to share with him. You invite him to the mall since you saw an online promo while walking by. You start to enjoy the way he plays with your hair, sometimes even craving his touch. Because we all know, the sun has its way of melting ice.

Jungwon

Yang Jungwon, the class president, has a 100% success rate in getting field trip forms submitted on time. Well, it would be 100% if it weren’t for you. It seems as if you’ve made it your life’s mission to do everything and anything that’ll piss off Jungwon. Every time there’s a permission slip that needs to get signed, he constantly finds himself having to remind you of it so that it’d get turned in on time. Yet despite this, you always turn it in a day later. When things are kind of slow in class, you’re always talking to someone and have earned the title of the chatty kid no matter where the teacher makes you sit. Jungwon has no clue how someone as big of a procrastinator as you, always chatting with people when you don’t need to, and has your music playing so loud that everyone else hears, gets the good grades that you do. But regardless of what you do, you don’t bring down the class average so he’ll give you that. It’s time for a new seating arrangement and where does the teacher have you sit? Right next to him. So he’s dreading it, knowing that for the next 2 weeks he won’t get any work done, have to deal with you chatting to everyone, and has to be the one to catch you up when you enter class late.

“Hey,” you say with a smile as you settle in the seat next to his. He likes your smile, he won’t lie. But you’re annoying as hell. One week goes by as a back and forth of you constantly making efforts to get on Jungwon’s nerves but he returns the favor while teasing you back. With the two of you as partners, he starts to notice some things about you. Things like how you play with your thumb before raising your hand to answer the question. He sees that your notes are full of rushed scribbles and you dot your i’s close to the center but not just there. Your binder is covered with artwork of things you like and photos of you and your friends. Amidst your chattiness and tardiness, he finds himself looking forwards to certain things. He looks forward to your messy hair as you rush in 15 minutes late and start scribbling your notes in an effort to catch up. He looks forwards to how your conversations become a distraction from lectures. And he wonders to himself, what it’d be like if he were a photo in your binder.

As the second week continues, you start to see things differently with Jungwon. His reminders become less annoying and more useful as you take it in mind. When you’re late, he already has a second copy of the notes waiting for you on your desk. He buys you stickers for your binder using the excuse of “I stole it from my sister.” Before either of you realize it, it’s time for a new seating chart.

“Guess you’re happy to get rid of me, Wonie,” you joke as the two of you stood up to head to your new seats.

“I want you to sit across from me,” you hear him say.

“Huh?”

“At the Eggy Cafe on our first date,” he says before heading to his new seat.

Ni-ki

Dance class, it’s exhausting. Countless hours spent practicing a choreography that only lasts for a few minutes. Constantly getting yelled at by your teacher when you take a wrong step. Continuously in an unspoken competition with the best dancer of the school, Nishimura Riki. Ni-ki fools around during practices, usually to get on your nerves. Whenever you buy bungeoppang at the stall in front of the school, half of it instantly belongs to Ni-ki as he takes a bite when you’re not looking. Whenever the two of you are the only ones who’ve got the choreography down, sometimes you’ll slow things down to piss him off. There’s a flow to Ni-kis dances that no one else can replicate, a flow he was born with and can never be taught. Everyone, including him, is aware of this. But you’ve always been different from everyone else. All his life, he’s been told how good at dancing he is but you criticize him. While the others applaud his performance, your eyes are watching his every move. He almost hates how well you can spot the mistakes he can’t even see on himself. But as time goes on, these little competitions start to develop between you two, even outside of dance. When dance class ends, the two of you race to see who’ll get to the bungeoppang stall first. Last one there pays for bungeoppang. This is the competition you let Ni-ki win, using “I’m already tired from dancing” as an excuse. In the mornings, you compete to get to first period. Loser pays for lunch. This is the competition where there’s a middle ground between you two. Sometimes you win, sometimes he wins, other times you enter class together. When walking home, you compete to get to the bottom of the stairs at the subway station first. Whoever loses has to carry the other’s bag until you get home. Ni-ki lets you win this one, using “If I ran any faster I’d trip,” as an excuse. These small competitions become the things you look forward to throughout the week, enjoying the thrill of small moments with Ni-ki. At one point, the two of you (on separate occasions) talked to Jungwon about the competitions, telling your side. To the both of you, he says the same thing. “Why don’t you see who asks the other out first and plans the better date?”

❦ written by riri (@enhykkul) | blog masterlist

requests are currently open! rules can be found here | anon emojis

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lightsovermonaco · 3 years

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His Good Sweater: Chapter 13

Masterlist

Thanks to @acollectionofficsandshit for being my bestie and beta reading! This would have never happened without her ❤ Make sure you read Roman Profile, set in the same universe!

Word Count: 6.7k

Recommended song: "Cupid’s Chokehold/Breakfast in America” by Gym Class Heroes

"I have to go."

"Can't you stay five more minutes?"

"I wish."

"Come on, just a few more minutes to cuddle." Pierre flings back the fluffy duvet and holds out a hand. "Please?"

"I have an exam," you say with a sigh but bend to press a kiss to his upturned palm. "I can't skip."

Pierre groans and slings an arm over his eyes. "What am I supposed to do all day?"

"I don't have a sim but I have an old PlayStation you're more than welcome to use. I think I still have one or two games."

"That won't keep me busy."

"I'm sure you'll find something. Just stay out of trouble okay? I'd like to get my security deposit back when I finally move out of this hellhole."

"Okay," Pierre grumbles, sitting up to give you a quick kiss. "What time are you getting back?"

"Four. We can go out to dinner or something." You smooth a hand over his hair, smiling lightly. "Or we can go for a picnic and take a walk through Saint James Park."

"Sounds like a plan." He turns his head to kiss your palm. "I'll be counting down the minutes."

You roll your eyes but your smile contradicts the sass. "I'll be home before you know it. Love you, champion."

"I love you too, mon coeur."

He was endlessly grateful for how easily the two of you had fallen back into each other. When he had shown up at your doorstep he had expected there to be awkward pauses and minutes of tense silence, but there had been blissfully little of either. As the days bleed into each other, your relationship only gets steadier, closer and closer to what it used to be. Maybe it was because you had been the one to break the silence or maybe it was because he had thrown himself into his career into someone's bed- whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. He was simply grateful to be welcomed back into your life. He didn't plan on leaving any time soon.

Pierre allows himself a half hour of lounging in bed before forcing himself to get up and shower. Off weeks were hard; all he wanted to do was rest and recharge but he still had to follow his workout regimen and sleep schedule or he risked falling out of the habit, making it that much harder to get back in the groove come race week.

First order of business: clean the clutter you had shoved in closets and the spare room prior to his arrival the day before. Folding the three baskets of clean laundry took an hour, washing dishes another thirty minutes, and vacuuming the entire flat took twenty. Once the counters are spotless and there isn’t a stray sock to be found, he takes stock of your pantry and notes what staples you were running low on.

Two hours later he trudges back up the three flights of stairs to your apartment, arms laden with reusable bags packed to the gills with food. His legs burn and he's slightly winded from the excursion; at least that could count as his work out for the day.

He's just about to start slicing vegetables for dinner when his phone chimes with a text from his PR agent, Sylvie.

You're supposed to be in an interview now. Where are you?

"Oh shit." He scrambles for his laptop which of course was dead. He manages to plug it in at the dining room table and angle it so the background is mostly neutral, just a band poster framed behind him. He checks his hair before logging into the interview.

"There's the star," the interviewer says, far too chipper to be entirely genuine.

"Sorry, I was having connection issues." He queues up his signature sweetheart smile that gets him out of any squabbles. It works, the woman's irritation melting into a more easy expression.

"Let's just get right into it. Since we're low on time I'll jump right in, if you don't mind."

Pierre leans back. He had an inkling where this was headed. "By all means, please."

"We just saw news of your deal with Christian Horner- if you take seventh in this year's drivers championship, it looks like you're at Red Bull Racing next year. How does that feel after being publicly demoted mid-season in 2019?"

A smirk tugs at Pierre's lips. He had known this exact question was coming. He had debated how to answer it without starting waves and still remaining truthful. If there was one thing he prided himself on, it was his ability to be diplomatic when others may have let their egos get in the way.

"Obviously I'm grateful that Red Bull has recognized the hard work I've been putting in at Alpha Tauri," he starts. "I think I've been able to push the car as far as I can but I still have pace in me, personally. So moving into the Red Bull would let me loose, so to speak, and give me a chance to prove that Red Bull is where I belong."

"Right, you have had quite a spectacular season so far with a race win under your belt and a few podiums for good measure. What do you attribute that success to? Why is it so different now in an Alpha Tauri versus that coveted second Red Bull seat?"

Pierre purses his lips. The answer he was expected to give wasn't one he was willing to voice. Instead he opts for neutral. "I've been able to focus and hone my driving this season. I've found a groove that works for me and with it has come an insane amount of confidence, which is something I struggled with for awhile after going back to Torro Rosso. I think it's really just that I'm finally comfortable in the car and with my team and that makes a huge difference."

"Thank you for that," the journalist says and Pierre nods. "Shifting gears, I have a few questions about your personal life if you don't mind."

This was the part he always dreads. Questions were often prying and he had to subtly skirt around them in a way that offered a satisfying answer without giving away too much. It was an art he liked to think he had perfected over the years but still didn't enjoy.

"As long as you don't mind me staying silent if I don't want to answer."

The woman laughs, the sound sharp and grating. "Of course. Unless I can bribe you into giving me an exclusive."

"Likely not. But you ask the right questions and we'll see."

"You've been seen hanging around a certain London neighborhood lately- that wouldn't have anything to do with you and your lovely lady, would it?"

He had been waiting for that one, too. When the two of you had returned from Red Bull headquarters he had noticed the man taking pictures across the street. He hadn't said anything to you at the time because really, there was no point in getting you worked up when he had a plan to handle it.

The question played right into his hand, in fact.

Pierre sits forward, folding his hands in front of him. "Actually yes. We recently got back together and if you'll let me, I would like to make a request."

The woman leans back and checks her notes. "Well it's not quite what I had planned but please," she gives a flourish with a hand, "you have the floor."

"I know driver's personal lives are something that a lot of people are interested in and that's great. I don't mind sharing things with my fans or letting them get the inside scoop, but there's some things I would rather be left alone. My relationship is one of them. I know you all took note that she hasn't been around the past couple months and if I'm being honest, it's because of comments and press coverage that invaded her privacy. I think some people forgot she was more than just a name on a screen."

Pen poised to take notes, the interviewer prompts, "You said you had a request?"

He doesn’t stop to assess the damage he had already undoubtedly done. Sylvie was probably already on the phone doing damage control with every news outlet she could get her hands on, if her muted and black square at the bottom of the screen was an indication.

"All I'm asking is that you leave her alone. If you have questions or comments you have to make, just direct them at me. Don't follow her around asking about me. Don't comment on her posts unless you're capable of being a decent human. Just… let her live her life in peace."

Maybe he was a love sick fool, but honestly he didn't care if he lost some support from fans. If they had such strong opinions on his personal life, he would be better off without them anyway. And his team could cut him and even if he was unable to secure a seat in Formula 1 after next season, he would survive.

But if he lost you again, he would be broken. It had taken being apart from you for him to realize it and he'd be damned if he was ever disconnected from you like that again.

"That's quite the speech."

Pierre shrugs. "It was. She's the most important thing in my life, right up there with racing.” Now that he had started down the road of truth, he found it impossible to hold his tongue. “I lost her once because people couldn't be bothered to remember that their words have consequences. I won't let it happen again."

"So you see yourself with her for a long time then?" The woman's eyes glitter with the potential of getting an even juicer tidbit from him.

Pierre’s jaw sets, muscles feathering. "That's not something I'm prepared to discuss."

The woman purses her lips and tips her head to the side. There was clearly more she wanted to say. "Well, I have to thank you for what you've given me here. My boss is gonna love the exclusive. I won't push any further. Thanks for your comments, Pierre."

"Thanks for actually being respectful."

“We aren’t all monsters.” The woman shrugs. “I can’t say I haven’t had my moments but I try to be straightforward.”

“Right, yeah. I get that you have a job to do.”

“Anyway. I look forward to seeing what you can do the rest of this season. Good luck.”

He signs off and instantly anxiety washes over him. If she twisted his words he was screwed. Sylvie would be on the phone as soon as the article was printed, no doubt trying to soothe sponsors and investors. She'd give him an earful about being respectful and not poking the bear but he'd tune it out like he always did.

The sooner he got away from Red Bull, the better.

Instead of dwelling on it he busies himself with cooking. It was one of his guilty pleasures. He always requested a full kitchen when he was staying anywhere more than a few days so that if he had the chance to make a home-cooked meal, he had the option. For tonight he had selected his favorite recipe. Parmesan-Cesar chicken wasn't normally something you would ever touch with a ten foot pole but as long as he was making it, Pierre knew you'd at least give it a try.

Music blasting in the background, Pierre sings along quietly as he unpacks the rest of the ingredients and gets to work. He does a little spin between the island and the sink, rinsing the dishes and putting them right in the dishwasher as he uses them. A clean kitchen is the mark of a great chef, his mom had told him, drilling the phrase into him when he was young.

In the middle of cutting potatoes Pierre gets a call. He only has an hour until you're home so he doesn't bother stopping, just puts it on speaker and continues measuring spices.

"Hey Daniel."

"Heard you're in London," Daniel says, Australian accent thick. "And a little birdie told me you and your lady got back together."

"We did," Pierre says, a smile splitting his face. "Finally."

"Thank god, now I don't have to listen to your drunk woe-is-me rambling anymore."

Pierre laughs and sets aside the measuring spoons. "It's not that bad."

"Oh please." Pierre could practically hear the eyes rolling. "The number of times I had to send an uber to a bar after a grand prix is insane. Charles and I should be entitled to financial compensation with the amount of babysitting we've been doing."

"I can handle myself!"

"Not after a martini you can't."

He was right there. "Is there a point to this conversation?"

"Oh right- I'm actually in town today too, got some stuff to shoot for McLaren before we head to Austria for the race next week. You guys wanna come out with us tonight? We're heading to a bar or two."

"I actually had something planned-"

"She already said she's coming!" Dan's girlfriend shouts in the background.

“Well then why even ask me?”

“To be polite,” Daniel offers with a laugh. “We’re meeting at the rooftop bar at the Trafalgar hotel at seven. That give you enough time to do whatever you had planned that’s apparently more important than seeing your best mates?”

“We’ll be there,” Pierre says and hangs up. He finishes seasoning the potatoes and pops them in the oven, finally getting a chance to sit while they cook alongside the main course.

He's on his feet a few minutes later, decluttering the last bits of mess around your flat. It was clear it hadn't had a decent cleaning in quite awhile- hopefully you'd keep it tidy now that the effort had been made. The guys would tease him endlessly if they found out he was acting like a housewife.

You arrive home just as he’s setting the table. “God, it smells amazing in here.”

“Salut, mon amour.” Hands full with hot dishes, he settles for a kiss to your cheek. “I made dinner.”

“And you cleaned,” you observe. “You were a busy boy.”

“Pyry would kill me if he found out I was laying around all day. I had to do something.”

You hang your backpack on the hook behind the door and take a seat at the table. “Well remind me to thank him again when I see him. This looks delicious.”

Pierre grins over his shoulder at you. “Me or the food?”

You throw your head back and laugh, loud and unrestrained. “The food, you goof.”

Pierre quirks a brow. "Is that the honest answer?"

"Okay, maybe both."

The meal is filled with your ramblings about your exam and your new hobby- this month it was hiking. You went into detail about all the few trails in the city you’d been on as well as the more challenging ones that dotted the countryside. Pierre just nods along as you talk, already planning on staying up late to learn what he could about the topic so he could be a better conversation partner.

The pair of you work together to tidy the kitchen and put away any leftovers. “Did you bring something semi nice to wear tonight or do we have to make a quick trip to the store?”

“I’ve got some Tauri stuff I can wear. And not just team gear,” he adds when you groan. “You know that cream sweater you love? The one with the logo debossed on the front? I’ve got that.”

“Oh,” you say before biting your lip. Your eyes trail down his frame and back up like you’re imagining it on him. A tingle travels up his spine under your assessing gaze. If you kept that up, neither of you would make it out of the apartment tonight. “My favorite. Yeah, wear that. It’ll be on my floor by the end of the night.”

Pierre places his hands on your waist and grins. “Will it? And what will be on the floor from your closet, hm?”

“Your favorite dress.”

“The orange one?” He realizes half a second too late that you would never know how much he adored that dress from the gala. It had hugged your curves in all the right places and left your back exposed, which would leave him free to trace patterns on your soft skin whenever he pleased. He had missed out on worshipping you in it that night and he wouldn’t mind the opportunity to do so now.

You roll your eyes. “I can’t wear that to a bar.”

“Says who?” Pierre nuzzles his face against your neck, breathing you in. A light undercurrent of sweat from your walk home from classes mingles with the usual bright scent of you, only serving to rile him up further. Never in a million years would he have guessed that a simple scent could do him in, and yet here he was, completely wrapped up in yours.

“Says me.” You sigh, tipping your head to the side when Pierre’s nose grazes your skin.

His lips follow until he reaches your jaw before he pulls back. “What one are you wearing then?”

“Does it matter?” You cross your arms, the smirk playing on your kissable lips tempting him.

“I have to mentally prepare myself.” And if whatever you chose was too sexy, he would need to get his handsiness out of his system before the pair of you met up with Daniel and his girlfriend. The last thing he needed was to be on the front of some seedy gossip column when his plan was to ease back into it.

You smile up at him, broad and unrestrained as if knowing your answer would affect him greatly. “The cobalt blue one that makes you stutter.”

The dress in question was just as form fitting as the orange one, but shorter and decidedly more distracting. It fell mid thigh and the spaghetti straps left your shoulders exposed, which coupled with the low back displayed a downright sinful amount of skin. You had worn it at a Torro Rosso event a couple years back and he had scarcely been able to get a full sentence out around you all night.

“That one’s a close second.” He follows you to your room, leaving you to hunt through the closet while he digs through his suitcase, thankful that he had the foresight to check out of his hotel on the way back from Red Bull and bring his things here.

Because there was no way in hell he was missing a second of being by your side while he was in town. Every moment had to count when he had no idea when he would be able to sleep next to you again, not when the season was nearly over and there were two double headers between now and winter break. When so many variables stood between him and you, he had no problem prioritizing you over a routine workout or a full night’s rest.

Pierre changes into the sweater and a pair of dark skinny jeans well before you emerge from the bathroom. He doesn’t bother responding to Dan’s text that includes an address and reminds him to be on time, instead opting to scroll through his instagram feed. He likes a handful of posts from his fellow drivers, including one of Max actually smiling at something off camera.

“Well?”

Pierre’s head snaps up at the sound of your voice. The phone falls from his hand when he drags his eyes over your body, head to toe and back again.

Oh, he was so fucked.

Maybe it was selfish, but with your hair done like that, the barest brush of makeup lining your eyes and in that stunningly blue dress, he didn’t want any other man to have the privilege of laying their eyes on you.

No, you were all his.

The moment you’re within reach, Pierre places his hands on the back of your thighs, just beneath the curve of your barely covered ass. You chuckle and tap your fingers under his chin. “Close your mouth; you’ll catch flies.”

“Just so you know, if you wear that dress I can’t be held liable for my actions.” Up to and including scaring off anyone that wasn’t Daniel or his girlfriend. No one else deserved to be blessed with your radiance. Hell, he didn’t deserve it, and yet here you stood.

“We’ll see about that.”

**********

Daniel and his girlfriend had already made their way through a round of drinks by the time you arrive. It wasn’t Pierre’s fault he couldn’t keep his hands off you and wound up getting distracted on the drive over.

"Late as always," she greets, kissing your cheek. "Dan got us here fifteen minutes early because he wanted the table with the best view."

"Like our names wouldn't have gotten us the table if we asked," Pierre says, wrapping Daniel in a one-armed hug before kissing his girl’s cheek in a traditional French greeting. "The view is pretty great though."

You were already leaning on the glass partition, hands curled over the edge and undoubtedly leaving behind fingerprints on the pristine surface, completely unfazed by the fact that the other patrons were staring. You had eyes only for the London skyline and Trafalgar square lit up below. The bar with its white marble tabletops and strict dress code was absolutely not a place that you should be standing on your tiptoes for a better view, but there was no way he could condemn you when your face lit up like that.

Pierre just places a hand on the small of your back and shoots a look at the bartender currently glaring in your direction, daring the smartly dressed man to say anything. He only raises a brow and resumes filling drink orders.

"You guys know how to pick a place," you say, "I could stand here all night."

"Right," Daniel's girlfriend says, rolling her eyes at Pierre who shrugs as if to say what do you want me to do? He was powerless to deny you anything that brought you a semblance of joy; your smile was everything to him. “Love, why don’t you come tell us about uni? You’re the only one of us currently enrolled, and I’m sure the boys would love to hear about all the drama.”

You and Pierre share a secret grin. You shake your head but allow him to guide you back to the cocktail table. “Drama? I’m an engineering major. The closest thing we have to drama is someone grossly miscalculating a structural load.”

Dan shoots Pierre a mischievous grin. “I heard Stroll might be moving next year-”

Both you and Daniel’s girlfriend groan at the same time. “No racing talk when we’re around tonight,” she says. “I’ve heard enough lately.”

“What’s new in the publishing world?” You ask, leaning into Pierre when he wraps an arm around you. He only half listens to her explain the so-called “top secret” project she’s currently working on, instead opting to get drunk on you.

The light breeze filtering through the surrounding buildings ruffles your hair. You lift a hand absentmindedly to tuck it behind your ear in an attempt to keep it out of your face. Everything you do is amazing to him, snagging his attention even when he should be listening to whatever it was his friends were saying. Your gravity was simply too strong to bother resisting.

“Enough talk,” Daniel’s girlfriend says, waving a hand. “You need a drink, and I want to dance. Let’s go.” Before Pierre can protest, she’s dragging you away to the glass top bar. You throw an apologetic glance over your shoulder and Pierre just winks. He was fine watching you from afar for now.

Pierre’s gaze drops to your perky ass when you lean in to let the bartender know what you want, likely shouting to be heard over the music, your dress riding up a bit with the movement. For having such a strict dress code, this place sure did feel like an upper class club.

You hook your thumb over a shoulder, the bartender’s gaze darting to Pierre before the man nods. The only explanation you offer is a wink, followed by a note on a cocktail napkin and a beer delivered a few minutes later by a server.

This is supposed to be the best beer they have. Just try it.

Leave it to you to constantly push him outside his comfort zone. Pierre tentatively sniffs the foamy glass and shrugs before taking a sip. Not bad, but he still preferred his usual whiskey.

Setting the glass down, Pierre turns back to Daniel. “Congrats on extending your contract with McLaren by the way. Should give you a decent shot at keeping up with the big boys and landing some serious points.”

“Seems like most of us are moving around, doesn’t it? Sainz to Ferrari, Seb to Aston Martin... The only one with any sort of long term commitment is Max and now me I guess.”

“And Charles,” Pierre adds. “He’s stuck in that red monstrosity for the foreseeable future.”

Daniel laughs, taking a swig from his glass. “And you’re moving too, huh? Austria should be interesting,” Daniel remarks, watching the girls at the bar nursing their own drinks. “What with the news of your new contract breaking and all.”

“Potential contract,” Pierre corrects. “Not for sure yet.”

Daniel scoffs. “Come on mate. You won’t have any problem getting up to seventh by the end of the season. Perez is slipping and the news that his seat is in jeopardy will only help your cause.”

Pierre takes a sip of his amber beer and nods. “I’m sure Perez doesn’t appreciate it, but he’s always been a good sport.” You catch Pierre’s eye and lift your fresh flute of champagne in a mock salute. Dan’s girlfriend drags you out on the dancefloor and immediately spins you. Your laugh is nearly audible, the memory of it fresh in Pierre’s mind as he watches you.

“Mate, have you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Daniel shakes his head and drains his drink. “I really don’t know how it took you two this long to come together. You’ve been dancing around each other for years but neither of you would admit it.”

“I could say the same about you two.”

Daniel shrugs. “Fair point. At least we got it all worked out in a weekend though.”

Pierre rolls his eyes and shoves his friend’s shoulder. “Whatever. Not all of us can have a perfect love story.”

The grin Daniel shoots Pierre is pure sunshine. “How long are you planning on waiting before you ask her to marry you?”

“What?” Pierre sputters, nearly choking on air. “Who said anything about marriage?”

“Oh come on,” Dan says, rolling his eyes. “We all know it’s coming eventually.”

Pierre would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it. But he wasn’t sure if it was the time for a proposal, not when you had just gotten back together. The last thing he wanted to do was go through the pain of losing you again because he was too forward.

“One day at a time,” Pierre says finally, dragging himself back to earth. “I just got her back a few days ago. I don't want to scare her off by proposing just yet.”

“Right. Well you might want to get a ring on that hand sooner rather than later,” Daniel notes, gesturing to the two men who had approached the girls. “How long are we gonna let that go on before we step in?” Neither of you paid the men any attention, instead enjoying each other’s company, but the men’s eyes roaming over your body sets Pierre on edge.

“They can handle themselves,” Pierre remarks, shifting on his feet. The weak attempt at self assurance didn’t do much to negate the red tinting his vision. “They’re fine.”

“Her sharp tongue will hold them at bay,” Daniel says, winking at his girlfriend. “For a while at least.” Props to Daniel for possessing inhuman amounts of restraint, but Pierre’s muscles were coiled and ready to interject at the first sign of trouble.

He has to pause to remind himself he doesn't own you. You could make your own decisions about who you spoke with and who you entertained as long as he was the one to take you home. He didn't care if you wanted to flirt; he knew it meant nothing and if you got a free drink out if it then so be it. But those were the rules: flirting, no touching. He'd step in if need be if someone took it too far.

But that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

Pierre watches tight lipped as you politely chat with the man, your body language closed off and dismissive. Pierre hates that you even speak a word to him. He knows it shouldn’t bother him because he trusts you, but the stranger is a wild card. Pierre watches like a hawk as the man inches ever closer, slowly interesting himself into your personal space. He waits for you to take a step back, to grant him that silent permission to come over and insert himself in the conversation and get his hands on you, this proving you weren't on the market.

One of the men shouts something at you over the music and you leer back at him, clearly disgusted at whatever he had said. Whirling on him, you open your mouth, likely to snap out a profanity lined retort, when his hand latches onto your arm.

"Oh, fuck no."

Half a second later, Pierre is stalking across the dance floor, no thoughts other than teaching the asshole a lesson. His hands are already curled into fists, ready to swing if the man hadn't moved by the time he arrived. Tolerating someone hitting on you was one thing, but blatantly ignoring the clear dismissals and laying a hand on you? No way in hell was he standing by and letting that happen.

The resounding crack of your open hand hitting the man’s face has pride swelling in Pierre’s chest. That’s my girl. You’d solved the problem before he’d even arrived. You jab a finger in the man’s face, Daniel’s girlfriend right there with you to back you up.

“Fuck off,” you were saying as Pierre approached, “or do you need to go back to kindergarten and learn to keep your hands to yourself? Maybe next time you’ll think twice before laying a hand on a taken woman- or any woman, for that matter.”

Driving your point home, Pierre slips an arm around your waist and pulls you in until your back is flush to his chest. You crane your neck up, the tense muscles beneath his fingertips and the fury contorting your features confirming just how rattled you are.

The lines creasing your brow are soothed away when you realize who holds you. You open your mouth to say something but Pierre places a hand on your throat, thumb and forefinger framing your jaw as he cuts you off with a kiss, his eyes locked on the guy still standing off to the side holding his cheek.

You taste like the champagne you’d been sipping all night. It’s the only thought in his head outside of the jealousy licking through his veins like wildfire as he claims you then and there in front of the crowd. Mine, his heart sings. He flexes his fingers, taking advantage of your surprised gasp to slide his tongue against yours. Mine, mine, mine.

Pierre lets you be the one to break away, lips curling in a smug, kiss-swollen smile as you address the men. “In case you still don’t get the picture, I’m not interested. And neither is she.” You jerk your chin, indicating your friend and Daniel, who had indeed followed Pierre and since mirrored his possessive stance, one arm wrapped tightly around his own girlfriend.

The two men reluctantly slink away after mumbling something unintelligible but undoubtedly indecent. It had been a week and a half since he had been on track and he had plenty of pent up aggression to get out. He didn’t normally opt for using someone’s face as a punching back as a stress reliever, but rulers were made to be broken. Your hand splayed on Pierre’s chest is all that stops him from following and asking them to repeat themselves.

“Just let me hit him,” Pierre says, voice far more level and put together than he had expected it to be. “Just one punch. That’s all I would need.” His knuckles smart like he had already connected them to the man’s face.

“And let you throw away your contract? I don’t think so. The last thing you need is a blurry photo of you knocking someone’s teeth in hitting the front page of every gossip mag in the country. I’m fine, so you can cut the bravado.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

“I was wondering how long you were gonna leave us out here,” you say, trying to regain Pierre’s attention. When it doesn’t work, you grasp his stubbled chin and force him to look at you. “I didn’t expect to be stranded for so long.”

The eye contact is what finally calms his racing thoughts. Seeing the trust reflected in your face is enough to have his grip on your waist loosening to allow you to face him. “Someone convinced me you could fend for yourself. And while it seems that’s true, I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

Your satisfied hum is swallowed by the pounding bass but Pierre feels it rumble in his chest. “Sometimes even a queen needs saving.”

Though his point had long since been proven, Pierre’s hand slides down your back to rest on your ass nonetheless. “I knew you going out looking like this would cause trouble.”

You tip your head to the side, feigning innocence as you press your hips to his. You grin, noticing the hard on that had been bothering him all night. “Looking like what?”

“Drop dead fucking gorgeous,” he says, accentuating his point by sliding his hand up your thigh and under the hem of your dress. “You know I’m tearing this off you the second we get home, right?”

“Why do you think I wore it?”

The sound that escapes him is primal and possessive. The presence of bystanders does nothing to prevent him from palming your ass and kneading the flesh. He presses his lips to your neck and mumbles between kisses, “To torture me.”

You push lightly at his chest, laughing although your eyes dart around the space in search of cameras. Old habits were hard to break. “That may have been part of my motivation. But you’ll have to wait. I haven’t seen Dan in forever and I would actually like to have a conversation with him before we sneak off somewhere.”

At least you knew he wouldn’t be able to wait until you got home to get between your legs. “Fine,” he grumbles, hands settling on your hips. “Only because I love you.”

You beam up at him. “Love you too.”

Arm still slung around your waist, Pierre nods at Daniel and follows the other couple back to the table.

After two more drinks, you and Daniel's girlfriend are singing along to the music in lilting, off key voices, simply enjoying the night air. A stray breeze catches your hair just as you turn to look at Pierre and his heart damn near leaps out of his chest.

To his credit, Pierre’s cheeks are rosy from more than just the charged glances you throw at him as the night wears on. He was on his fourth beer, far more than he usually drank these days, and the buzzing in his head was becoming increasingly hard to ignore. When he has to squint to tell the time on his watch, he figured that was enough.

"I should probably get going mate," Pierre says, turning to Daniel. "Early flight."

Daniel laughs and beacons for the girls. He kisses his girlfriend's cheek when she returns with you in tow. "Are we leaving already?" You pout, and Pierre had half a mind to stay simply have your smile make an encore appearance.

"Car coming," he murmurs, dipping his head to give you a proper kiss. God, you were stunning in that dress- he might not be able to string together words coherently, but he knew that much.

"Fine." You cross your arms for a split second to convey your feelings on the matter before wrapping your friends in a hug and saying your goodbyes.

Pierre's hand is already on your ass before you're in the uber. Get a few drinks in the boy and he let his guard down. You laugh and pull out of his embrace to usher him into the sleek black suv. If he had been coherent, he probably would have chatted with the driver about the specs of the engine or maybe even racing if he was a fan. Instead the ride is filled with stolen touches and sloppy, wet kisses to your neck.

"I can't wait till we're home," he mumbles. "You're gorgeous. How did I snag you? You're so far out of my league. No way should you be with me."

"I have a thing for guys that go fast in circles on the weekends."

"Really?" Pierre frowns. "Should I be worried?"

"No. You're the only one I have eyes for." His head is fuzzier than when you left the bar but your laugh breaks through, his stomach flipping at the melody of it. "And we are home."

Pierre blinks, realizing he does indeed stand in your kitchen, with no recollection of climbing the three flights of stairs between the street and your flat. "Oh. When did that happen?"

"After I half dragged you up the stairs." You bend over to undo the straps of your heels, giving him the perfect view. He lets out a whistle that ends in a hiccup.

"Take me to bed, lover," he says in what he thinks is a husky voice. It should be impossible for you to resist.

You roll your eyes and wrap an arm around his middle. "That's the plan. I'll take you to bed, strip you out of that sweater, and you'll be asleep before your head hits the pillow."

"Nnnnnno," he protests, hand sliding down your exposed back to settle at the base of your spine. "I wanna make the most of tonight. I leave tomorrow."

"You don't leave until noon," you point out. "Plenty of time to nurse your hangover and have fun before then, after you drink some water and get some sleep."

"But baby-"

"No buts. Do as I say or I'll send you off tomorrow without a goodbye kiss."

Even in his half drunken state he knew it was a swiss cheese lie, spotted with holes and completely stale. You'd never let him leave without a kiss goodbye because neither of you knew if it would be the last time. He was a race car driver after all, and that came with risks.

But he sighs anyways and slips off the cream sweater, letting it fall to the floor. At least one of you kept their promises.

After confirming he was settled into bed, you retreat to the bathroom. His heart aches at the absence, even though you're mere feet away with nothing but a thin door separating the two of you. He registers the sound of the tap turning on and your soft, off key humming of the last song he remembered hearing before getting out of the uber.

"Mon amour," he croons when you re-emerge in a set of silk pajamas. He reaches out his hands for you and you slide under the covers, immediately slotting your body against his. A leg hitches over his hip, tugging him closer until your middles touch.

"Mmm," he mumbles, nuzzling into your neck. "Je t'aime. Tu es l'amour de ma vie et nous vivons d'amour et d'eau fraîche."

"I have no idea what you're saying," you whisper, running your fingers through his hair. "But I like it. Feel free to keep going."

"Tes baisers sont du feu et je fond à ton toucher." He presses his lips to your neck before resuming his mumbled French. "Je pense toujours à toi. Je veux être avec toi pour toujours. Tu as mon cœur et je ne voudrais pas qu'il en soit autrement."

"I like the sound of that." You press a soft, sweet kiss to his forehead. God, that tenderness was why he loved you. That, and your personality, and your eyes, and your… everything. "Dormir, my love. I'll be here to listen to your pretty words in the morning."

The single word of his mother tongue on your lips has him smiling. "Oui, tu le feras. Parce que tu es à moi et je suis à toi."

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theskywaslookingback · 3 years

Text

[AO3]

“Why do you even have that?”

Sasha looks up from her laptop to give Jon a quizzical look. They’ve been deep in a research hole for hours now, Jon with his files spread out before him like a buffet and Sasha picking her way through line after line of code to access things that she really shouldn’t be able to access - although, the government should have better security if it didn’t want to get hacked so she tried not to feel too badly about it. Jon’s not looking at his files now though, his gaze appears to be drawn to her shoe-box sized kitchen.

“Why do I have what?” She asks, “A kitchen?”

“No, the--” He flicks his fingers in a vague gesture to the counter, and his eyebrows pull together in a fetching little wrinkle that Sasha desperately wants to smooth away with her thumb, “the absolutely massive thing you have taking up half your kitchen.”

“Oh!” Sasha says, and then starts to laugh.

The stand mixer is large, honestly, too big to store in the meagre storage space of her cabinets and taking up half the countertop next to the stove. It’s also a garish bright red, loud against the backdrop of beige walls and a white lino countertop. She wonders why on earth Jon’s bringing this up now, they’ve been working for hours now and this certainly isn’t the first time he’s visited her flat, and decides the answer to simply be that ‘it’s Jon, he’s probably just never noticed.’

He’s fully scowling at her now, in a way she knows is defensive. He probably thinks she’s making fun of him. He can be so sensitive. “Sorry,” She says when she stops laughing long enough to speak, “I think you just caught me off guard. It was cute.”

“Cute?” Jon starts to sputter, the tips of his ears darkening and his nose wrinkling.

He is cute, Sasha thinks.

She waves it off. “It was a wedding present. That’s one of the big ones, I think, for most people. First thing I added to the registry.”

Jon couldn’t look more blind-sided if he’d been hit by a lorry. He even drops his pen, staring at her with wide eyes. “You’re married?”

Sasha snorts. “Don’t be daft. Does it look like I’m living with someone?”

Jon looks around anyway like he’s looking for evidence. “Divorced?”

“Nope.” She says, popping the ‘p’ with extra emphasis and grinning at the helpless confusion radiating from her friend.

“Then--” Jon trails off. He looks at the stand mixer again, like maybe it holds the answers he’s seeking. He looks back at her, and then down at his files. Suddenly his head jerks up and he says, “Wait, have you ever even been engaged?” He says this so seriously it tugs at Sasha’s heart. His eyes narrow like he’s caught her in some kind of trap, as though that wasn’t what she was expecting.

Sasha grins. “No.”

Jon looks at her incredulously, like he’s fitting together a bunch of puzzle pieces in his mind. It’s fun. Jon is so fun. “Sasha, did you fake an engagement just to get a stand mixer?”

“Yes!” Sasha slams her laptop shut and points at Jon, “But do not tell my great aunt that, do you understand? It took me years of work to get that stand mixer, Jon!”

Jon stares at her silently for just a moment, absolutely bewildered, before he dissolves into laughter, curling in on himself and digging his fingers into his sides. It shakes his shoulders and Sasha swears there’s tears in his eyes and before she knows it she’s laughing too, hard enough it hurts her chest and blurs her vision. To an outside viewer they must look positively loony. It takes ages for them to stop and gather themselves back together. Jon takes off his glasses to wipe tears away from his eyes while Sasha rubs at her face and tries to stop the giggles that keep bubbling up when she looks at Jon.

“God,” Jon says at last, “I haven’t laughed like that in--” he clears his throat, “anyway.”

“Yes,” Sasha agrees, “anyway.”

She looks at the clock and is both shocked and completely unsurprised that it’s after midnight.

Jon must follow her gaze because she hears him utter a quiet, “good lord.”

She’s dangerously close to laughing again.

Jon starts to shuffle his files away back into their folders. “Later than I thought.” He says.

Sasha hums in agreement, putting her laptop away and sorting her notes into neat piles. “No use trying to get home this late, you might as well just stay the night.”

“Ah,” Jon’s nose does that cute wrinkle thing again, and Sasha’s lips twitch, “that’s quite alright. I’m sure I can just find a cab.”

“Could do,” Sasha agrees, “but it’d be easier if you stayed. I’ve got an extra toothbrush and everything. Plus, tomorrow is Saturday so it’s not like we have to rush back to work or anything.”

Jon’s got all his things put back in his messenger bag, a solid olive green canvas affair that Sasha privately thinks is dreadful looking. “Wouldn’t want to spoil your weekend. I’m sure you have plans.” He’s stalling, looking for a reason not to go. Sasha wishes he’d just tell her what he wants.

She smiles, because Jon isn’t easy but she knows him and she likes him anyway, “Well, I was going to put that stand mixer to work and make myself some bread. But other than that--” She shrugs.

Jon’s eyes go once more to that bright red piece of kitchen equipment. “You make your own bread?”

“Sure. It’s cheaper and it tastes better.”

Jon makes a thoughtful noise. “Well, I suppose… that is, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Lovely,” Sasha beams, and then adds slyly, “I’ve even got some of Tim’s things you can sleep in.”

Jon goes properly red at that and buries his face in his hands with a groan.

Sasha busies herself with getting her ingredients together while Jon wakes up. Before they’d become friends she’d always just kind of assumed he’d be a morning person. He had that air about him at work, sharp and alert even when she was still trying to get her head on. The truth is that while Jon has difficulties getting to sleep, he would happily sleep until mid-afternoon if she let him, so she makes sure to wake him at a decent hour and then goes back to check and make sure he hasn’t fallen back asleep. Since her flat is basically a glorified closet, and Jon sleeps on the sofa, this is not a hard task to keep an eye on.

It takes a good twenty minutes before Jon comes and sits himself down at what she generously calls a kitchen table. His hair hangs in curls around his shoulders and he impatiently pushes a hand through it where it covers his face. He’s still sleepy-eyed, the sleeves of Tim’s jumper she’d let him borrow pooling around his hands.

“Good morning.” She says with amusement.

He grunts, flopping into a rickety chair. “Coffee?” He asks.

“All out. Tea alright?”

He nods.

“Great. Kettle is over there.” She gestures vaguely to the area next to the fridge, “Tea is top cabinet.”

Jon sighs, like it’s a great effort for him to make his own tea, but offers no further complaint as he retrieves the kettle and fills it with water.

With Jon out of the way Sasha appropriates the table for more space to set out her scale and bowls. She won’t need anything too fancy today so it doesn’t take long to get set up. She hears the kettle and turns around just in time to see Jon half-way climbing onto the counter. “Jon!” She scolds, similar to the way she would her cat when she was a child.

He freezes and gives her a sheepish grin. “You said top cabinet.”

She did, and she hadn’t thought about the almost foot of height she had on Jon. She snorts and waves him down. “Grab the mugs, I’ll get the tea then.”

He grumbles something about doing it himself but obliges, plucking two mugs from the drying rack.

“Green tea alright?”

Jon makes a dismissive noise. “Black?”

“Out.”

“I’m taking you shopping after this, Sasha James, this is downright unacceptable.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She hands him the box of tea bags and he rolls his eyes at her, muttering as he fills their mugs with water.

“Do you at least have milk?”

“Yes.”

“Thank god.”

Sasha rolls her eyes and gets back to her scale, weighing out her dry ingredients.

“Why are you doing it like that?”

“By weight?”

Jon hums.

“It’s more accurate by weight than by volume, typically.”

“You can’t just, I don’t know, eye-ball it?”

“Jonathan Sims have you ever baked anything in your entire life?”

She takes the jerky shrug he gives in response as a no. She shakes her head and dumps her flour and yeast into the mixing bowl of her stand mixer. Jon hovers there at her shoulder, watching, so close she can almost feel his breath.

It gives her a wicked idea.

She reaches a hand up, like she’s checking something, and then flicks the mixer on high.

Flour explodes from the mixing bowl in a cloud of white, covering her and Jon and the countertop.

The little shriek Jon gives will stay with her for a very long time.

“Why?” He asks, mouth agape and positively covered in flour.

“Because I knew it would be funny.” Sasha says, laughing. There’s flour in her hair, and she’ll definitely need to wash her clothes, but the look in Jon’s wide eyes and the slowly blooming smile on his face is worth it.

It takes less time than she thinks to get everything clean again, and the second time she even allows Jon to help her measure ingredients and start the mixer. He’s very serious about the whole thing, watching the scale with a grim kind of determination like it would mean death if he added just a bit too much yeast to the dough, but it’s the most fun Sasha’s had in forever. By the end of the day she has enough bread to wrap a loaf up for Jon to take home, and he looks at her like she’s just given him the greatest gift he’s ever received.

“Same time next week?” She asks as she wraps his scarf around his neck.

“I suppose.” He says, ducking his head to avoid the kiss she tries to plant on his cheek. “If you’re amenable.”

“I’m amenable.” She says, and kisses the top of his head anyway.

Sasha watches him leave and Jon turns back at the end of the hallway to wave, before disappearing into the stairwell. She laughs, bright and happy, and closes the door.

#fic #my fic #jonathan sims #sasha james #days before; unwinding

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journalofimprobablethings · 3 years

Link

She's complete! My very first finished multi-chapter and I am so happy and relieved that is done--and pretty proud at how it turned out.

Chapters: 4/4

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Annabelle Cane, Mikaele Salesa

Tags: Memory Loss, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams vs. Reality, Angst with a Happy Ending

Chapter Summary: Martin finds Jon, and they finally make their way out of Upton House.

Preview:

Martin sits at the foot of the staircase in the foyer of Upton House, his head in his hands.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He can feel the pull of the Lonely again, the siren song of waves and fog, the promise of an escape from this situation, all these messy emotions.

He pushes it away as hard as he can, focusing on all the details of this room - the plush carpet runner on the stairs, the smooth shine of the bannisters, the faint smell of floor polish. The sound of Salesa playing the piano in another room. Anything and everything to keep him here, present, in this moment.

You're not alone, he tells himself. Jon is still here. You'll get him out of here and then he will be fine. You'll get him back.

You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not alone.

"Trouble in paradise?"

Not alone , Martin thinks with a silent, bitter laugh. He doesn't move, his head still resting in his hands, his eyes closed.

"Go away, Annabelle."

Annabelle does not go away. Instead Martin hears a rustle and then feels her sit down on the step next to him.

“Poor Martin. Things never get easier for you, do they? Even here.”

He remains still, only clutching his fingers a little tighter in his hair. He hates that a part of him softens at her sympathy.

"What do you want?”

"Nothing. I'm just enjoying the show."

Martin lifts his head then so he can glare at her, and as he does, a thought suddenly strikes him.

“Did you have something to do with this?”

He can’t believe it never occurred to him before. He doesn’t know if memory loss is something the Web can even do, but if she did—Jon might not remember how to smite Annabelle anymore, but Martin will figure out a way to end her all the same.

Annabelle only smiles at the murder in his eyes. “The Web doesn’t control everything, Martin. Whatever you might think. And as much as I might like to take credit for this particular thread." Her grin widens. "We haven’t had such excitement in the house in weeks.”

Martin lets out a sigh. It’s about as straight an answer as he can expect from Annabelle.

"Well I'm glad our distress is a source of entertainment for you,” he says.

“I would have thought you would be used to that sort of thing by now. Isn’t your boyfriend sustained by the distress of others?”

“It’s not the same. He doesn’t enjoy it.”

“Doesn’t he?”

Martin doesn't answer. He doesn't want to think about the look on Jon's face after he killed the Not-Sasha, or Jared, or Jude. He doesn't want to think about how comfortable Jon is in this twisted new world, how even amongst his guilt there is a strange satisfaction in him at his ability to finally Know, to understand the world and how it works, to no longer be helpless.

"How does it feel, knowing that he is so at home out there, but he can't handle even a few days without the Eye?"

She asks it like a real question, like she truly wants to know. And Martin almost answers her.

Terrible. Terrifying. I'm so afraid of losing him to it, that one day I'll look at him and there won't be any of Jon left in him, just the Archivist. The Eye.

But he doesn't say that. Instead he looks at her steadily, ignoring her placid, curious expression.

"I know what you're doing."

"And what is that?"

"You're trying to make me doubt him. To—to put something between us, drive us apart. It's not going to work." It's only as Martin says the words that he realizes just how true they are. "I know what Jon is. I know what he can do. But I believe in him. I trust him. And I'm with him, until the end. No matter what."

Annabelle studies him for a moment. Her gaze is almost as piercing as Jon's, but Martin forces himself not to look away.

"Yes, I think you are," she says. "Pity."

Annabelle smiles, and it seems a little rueful, that smile. Then she stands.

"He's in the drawing room, with Mikaele. You'd better go get him."

Martin eyes her for a moment, trying to work out what she could gain from telling him this, what new game she might be playing. But there doesn't seem to be anything behind her words. She states them flatly, plainly. Just a fact.

He doesn't thank her. He just nods, and she turns to go.

But before she can leave, he reaches out a hand to her. "Annabelle, wait."

She looks at him, expectant.

He has to ask it, the question he's been dreading since Jon first woke up and he realized what was happening. But it takes him a few tries to get the words out.

"Will it fix him? Going back out there. Will it—will he get it all back?"

She cocks her head. "Perhaps. Even the Mother of Puppets can’t see the future. But the Eye won't want to lose its Archivist."

And then she disappears down the hall, before he can ask more.

Martin sighs and scrubs his hands over his face. He is already so tired. He wants to go back to bed, to sink into those soft pillows and sleep and wake up to find that this was all a nightmare, that Jon is still next to him, whole. He wishes, just once, that things could be easy.

He sighs again. If wishes were fishes , he thinks. And then he stands, and goes to find Jon.

Thanks for reading! You can catch the rest of this chapter and the other chapters on AO3!

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #tma fanfic #upton house #i can't believe it's done!#i've been working on this thing since may #wild #scribblings #cw memory loss

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argisthebulwark · 3 years

Note

That ask about how bryn would be a good dad and that other ficlet you wrote where he proposes to tld after finding out she's alive makes me want some wedding stuff. Could you maybe write some spicy wedding night stuff??

totally unrelated but i now want a brynjolf marriage mod. a good one. a wholeass ceremony where i just romance and marry him. thieves guild dating sim. i also want to listen to brynjolf moaning ‘lass’ for the rest of my life.

Pairing: Brynjolf/female tld.

Content Warnings: explicit sex. explicit sexual scene and language. Minors DNI.

“I hope you aren’t expecting any favoritism.” She whispered into Brynjolf’s hair, fingers stroking down the side of his face. He chuckled, basking in the feeling of her touch. He’d never stop remembering the days he’d spent grieving her; the hopelessness that had weighed down each of his actions, the bleak and crushing depression shadowing every moment. He’d continued to wear the Amulet of Mara until the Guild Master removed it herself and placed the Band of Matrimony on his finger.

“Why, because you married me? Wouldn’t dream of it, lass.” He mumbled into the bare skin of her stomach. He felt the chuckle rumble through her chest and thought that he could die happy in that moment. Her naked form was wrapped around him, legs resting easily over his stomach and arms twisting to keep him close. She’d never mocked him for his reaction to her death. She’d allowed him to do whatever necessary to be sure that she was real, that it hadn’t all been a bad dream. She’d talked him through what had transpired with Mercer and Karliah more times than he could count and never seemed to tire of telling him the same details.

Brynjolf wanted it burned into his brain. He wanted to know every detail of what Mercer had done, the depths of his betrayal. It made him nauseous to remember how casually Mercer had dumped the Amulet of Mara into his hands, lying through his teeth about the Guild Master dying a noble death. His fingers traced slow circles around the puckered wound Mercer had left on her, on Brynjolf’s wife.

“I love you.” He muttered, kissing the scar. He wished it was enough to protect her, to heal the scars the Thieves Guild had left on her body. She was humming happily as she dragged her fingers through his hair, lips smoothing over the red marks the circlet had left on his skin.

He’d never imagined himself being married, never imagined any type of life could exist for him separate from the Guild. When he’d seen her smiling at him, promising to tie the rest of her natural life to his, it hadn’t felt real. When she flung her arms around his shoulders in a kiss full of promise for the night to come, the cheers of their friends ringing in his ears, it felt like the beginning of something new.

“I love you,” she muttered, fingers digging deeper into his hair and pulling. “My husband.”

The sensation went straight to his cock. The grin on her face told him that it was the exact reaction she’d wanted. She quickly straddled him, chest pressing to him as she trailed kisses along his jawline.

“Lass,” he was moaning as her thighs squeezed around him, her mouth moving down his throat. “I thought you were exhausted?”

“I only get one wedding night.” She responded and he held her waist, allowing her to do whatever she wanted. His back was already fairly scratched and the neighbors were surely sick of hearing his name but she was intoxicating. “Where’s the fun in spending it napping?”

“Fair point,” he clung to her hips, blissfully aware of the ring on his finger. He was hers and had pledged the rest of his life to her, both as his Guild Master and his wife.

She’d looked spectacular in the fine clothes, the thin circlet of woven silver and adorned with gems drawing attention to her bright eyes. It wasn’t until they’d retired to the house overlooking Lake Honrich that she’d admitted the clothes were stolen just like the daggers hiding beneath them. He’d mocked surprise at bringing weapons into a Temple for their marriage and she’d tackled him into the bed, where they’d spent the rest of their night.

“I think the neighbors are going to complain soon.” Brynjolf mumbled as he kissed her shoulder, her lips and teeth working down his shoulder and onto his chest.

“Better than the Cistern.” She laughed against his skin and it felt like heaven. He could feel his cock throbbing as she inched down his body, fingers careful as they traced down his sides and into the angle of his hips. He wanted to flatten her on her back and fuck her but made himself stay in place, eyes fluttering closed as he allowed her to do whatever she wanted. Her touches were featherlight, kisses languid and soothing until it felt like his eyes were going to roll back in his head. He’d never been touched by anyone else like that before; like they wanted him to feel every bite, every scratch of her ring.

“Please, lass.” He choked out as one finger ghosted down his inner thigh. It felt like his skin was growing too tight and he fisted his hands into the rumpled sheets. He’d allowed her to be in charge, she could do to him whatever pleased her.

“Please what?” Her voice was soft, almost innocent, in total contrast to the following slide of her tongue over his abdomen. He was groaning, straining against her touch.

“Please just let me fuck you.”

“Of course, my dearest husband.”

Brynjolf bolted upward, his wife giggling as she fell back into the sheets. Moments ago he’d been exhausted but her taunting kisses, the teasing lightness of her touches had been his undoing yet again. Her hair spread out as her legs wrapped easily around his waist, lips claiming his in a kiss just as he entered her.

It felt like heaven. Her body arched against his, fingers twisting into his hair as she dragged him impossibly closer. He savored every whimper from his Guild Master as he thrust mercilessly into her, kissing the swell of her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, anything within his reach. Brynjolf listened to every moan that escaped his wife as he fucked her, memorizing the way her toes curled when he slammed his hips into hers. Her fingers began clawing at his back as the short, gasping moans began escaping her.

“I love you,” she panted out, eyes wide and a small smile on her face. Brynjolf wished that he could paint; he wanted to save that moment forever, the sight of her so close to orgasm, splayed over their sheets. “Only you.”

Something about those words almost sent him over the edge. Maybe it was the claim she’d laid on him, that he was hers, or the surety in her voice when she said it. He lowered his forehead against hers, her gasps and groans sounding even more sinful against his cheek.

“Only you, lass.” He returned before she caught him in a filthy, selfish kiss. Her tongue slid over his, teeth scraping over his lower lip in that way only she could do. She was everywhere, all of his senses were so full of her that he was seeing stars.

“Bryn,” she moaned before slapping a hand over her mouth in a futile effort to stifle the sound. Her ring sparkled in the low light of early morning, the ring that he had placed there on the woman that had survived certain death and come back to him. “Bryn I’m going to -”

She didn’t finish her sentence. The sheer force of their orgasms stole all breath, his hips slamming into hers a few more times before stilling, her body still clenching beautifully around his cock. His wife whimpered into her hands, eyes closed and cheeks flushed as she dragged him closer. His cock twitched as he pulled out of her, the sheets damp and sticking to his skin but he couldn’t be bothered to care.

Brynjolf felt at peace when his wife curled into his chest, breaths slow and heavy with exhaustion. The stolen clothes they’d worn to the ceremony were strewn about the room, forgotten glasses of alcohol and half eaten food going cold on the table, the fire barely more than cinders. Her hand found his, her thumb tracing over the band on his ring finger. He’d married the girl who had burned down half of Honeyside in her first attempt, the girl who had survived both Mercer and Karliah’s shots, the one who had sold her soul and survived. The Amulet of Mara that had once been stored in her pocket, just waiting for him, now held a place of honor hanging above their bed.

“Only you, Bryn.” She whispered into his side, cold toes pressing into his leg. His heart felt strangely full once again at the words. “I guess being my husband entitles you to a small amount of favoritism.”

“Obviously, lass.”

#brynjolf #skyrim #suggestive/sexual themes #minors dni #anon #asks #writing #i just want brynjolf to fall in love with me is that too much to ask bethesda #ive waited 10 years please just make it canon

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koumine · 3 years

Text

Simeon x Lucifer feels are coming back around 🤍💖🖤 [LUMDS snippets] [OM!]

summary: snippet A - Simeon-and-Lucifer, a complementary pair, back in the Celestial Realm. // snippet B - Rekindling their friendship, not long after Simeon arrives in the Devildom.

tags: queerplatonic Simeon x Lucifer, fluff and a tiny bit of angst.

Notes: full fic (light up my darkest skies) coming ~someday~ and will be rated E. Other preview snippets from this fic can be found in my [masterlist]!

[rated G below] [WIP ZONE]

It goes like this: Already close friends, they grow even closer, start "living in each other's pockets", a human world phrase that Lilith picks up and teasingly bestows upon them. Lucifer's never sure who, but someone starts calling them Simeon-and-Lucifer, as though it's all one name, as though the two of them are one entity, and it spreads until all of the seraphs and quite a few of the lesser angels and even Michael himself are calling them that in lighthearted jest. "I think it's cute," Simeon says when Lucifer complains to him about it.

Lucifer sighs and shakes his head. "Of course you do." "Why don't you?" Simeon asks curiously, putting his hand over Lucifer's where it's tucked into Simeon's elbow. Lucifer thinks about it. "It's…" A pair of angels comes by on the garden path, so Simeon smiles and greets them, like he always does. "Simeon-and-Lucifer, greetings!" they say. "Hello, Edith-and-Anais!" Simeon says back, gently teasing, making the other two laugh. "Out for an evening constitutional? Oh, by the way --" he stops on the path, forcing Lucifer to stop with him. "Anais, how fares your sister?" "Much better, thank you, Simeon," Anais says warmly. "After you came to speak with her last week, she took your advice to heart and is feeling better and better with every day that passes." "That's wonderful!" Simeon says, radiant in his sincerity. "And Edith, you may need to remind me to finish that book -- I confess I keep getting distracted by other texts lately." "You mean you've been distracted by that new human world play that's been making the rounds," Edith teases, and Simeon laughs a little, rubbing the back of his neck bashfully. "I'll certainly remind you to finish that book, though," she says easily, "as I'd quite like to hear your opinion on it. However, hold onto it as long as you like." "Much appreciated, Edith," Simeon says warmly. "Have a good evening, you two." And he turns away to keep going down the path, towing Lucifer willingly along, like it's just that easy to engage and then disengage from a conversation, like the boundaries of it are just that obvious. Lucifer just nods at the other angels as they pass; they nod back, perfectly cordial but not warm. He really doesn't know how Simeon does it. "You were saying, Lucifer?" Simeon asks, a moment later. This is why Lucifer can never quite manage to be upset at Simeon interrupting their conversation to briefly socialize with others. He always, always picks back up where they left off, never losing the thread of their conversation. Sometimes the pause is even helpful, giving Lucifer time to think something over. "You and I are very different angels," Lucifer says, finally. "You're radiant and charming and charismatic. You know everyone --" "Not everyone," Simeon protests. "-- and everyone is always so pleased to speak with you." Lucifer shakes his head again. "We're very different, and yet they call us Simeon-and-Lucifer as though we're one and the same." "Hmm." Simeon looks at him thoughtfully. "You're right, we are quite different, though not in the ways that you imply," he says. "For you are also radiant, and charming, and you are thoughtful and industrious." "I see you don't think I'm charismatic," Lucifer notes dryly. "I wouldn't lie to you like that, Lucifer," Simeon says, holding a straight face for all of a second and a half before he laughs at his own joke, and Lucifer chuckles too in spite of himself. "In all seriousness, though," Simeon says, still smiling merrily, "everyone I know would love to converse with you as well. They just find you intimidating." Lucifer frowns. "I'm not intimidating." Simeon points his finger right in Lucifer's face. Lucifer blinks and tries to lean back out of range, but Simeon follows him with that accusatory finger until he can poke Lucifer right in the forehead. "Hey!" "That," Simeon says. "That frown right there, that's exactly why angels think you're intimidating." Lucifer starts to frown again, feels it happening, tries to stop it and smooth out his brow again, but it doesn't really work. Simeon laughs at him. "Oh, heavens, I wish you could see how ridiculous you look right now," he says, chortling. Lucifer gives up and scowls at him, which instantly feels more natural. Simeon smiles back, and Lucifer suddenly realizes that it's always been this way: him frowning, in frustration or consternation or just thoughtfulness, and Simeon smiling back.

"Okay, listen to me now, Lucy," Simeon says. "Simeon," Lucifer hisses, looking around the walled garden. Fortunately, there's no one around to overhear that ridiculous nickname. "Listen," Simeon insists, putting his hand on Lucifer's shoulder. "You and I are very different, Lucy, and that's why I love you. You're quiet and focused and proud, and I'm --" "A social butterfly, and easily distracted, and also proud," Lucifer puts in, to make Simeon roll his eyes. "-- so we complement each other," Simeon finishes. "Simeon-and-Lucifer. It's not that they think we're one and the same. No. We're two halves of a pair. Complementary." "Complementary," Lucifer repeats, thoughtfully. He keeps thinking about it, even after they walk on. Complementary, half of a whole, with Simeon being the matching other part. It sounds right. "Hey," he says, when they arrive at the bridge with the best evening view over the lake. Simeon turns and leans back against the railing while Lucifer rests his forearms on it beside him. "What is it?" Simeon asks, concern creasing his brow a little. It's Lucifer's turn to smile back at him. "I love you too, Sim." And the radiance of Simeon's beaming smile nearly blinds him.

---

It goes like this: “Can we be friends again?” Simeon asks bluntly, one day after a lecture on Rowa-period Devildom law. Lucifer has always appreciated directness; becoming a demon clearly hasn’t changed that. Lucifer pauses in the middle of holding the door for him. They’re the last two people in the classroom. “I -- yes,” Lucifer replies, blinking in surprise, then frowning. And that -- finally, that’s a look that Simeon knows how to read. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to?” Simeon asks, eyebrows going up. Lucifer pushes the door closed. He gives Simeon a long look. “Yes,” he says frankly. “We didn’t exactly part on good terms, if you recall.” Simeon laughs nervously, putting a hand to the side of his neck. In truth, he had almost forgotten, in a way. In the intervening eons, he had made a habit of boxing up the memory of that final altercation and hiding it away, to dwell on the fond memories instead. To wield them like shining shields against the intrusive thoughts that always tried to insist it’s your fault and you should have chosen differently and you’ve lost him forever. “I -- I recall,” he says weakly. Lucifer just keeps looking at him. So Simeon takes a deep breath, calls up his courage, and starts talking. He tells Lucifer everything, every thought of regret or sorrow or longing that he’s had since that last conversation in the Celestial Realm. He tells Lucifer everything he’s wanted to say to him in all those empty eons of being apart, everything he’s wanted to say to him in all these aching days of being near. He says I’m sorry (I don’t regret the part I played, but I’m sorry anyway). He says I missed you (I love you, I missed you). And then he says nothing when Lucifer raises a hand to stop him, his other hand over his mouth and his cheeks tingeing pink and his eyes bright and wet with something that could be joy or sorrow or both. And then Lucifer embraces him, and he says nothing at all because his breath is caught in his throat and his temple is pressed against Lucifer’s jaw and his nose is touching the high collar of Lucifer’s uniform shirt, and Lucifer is saying, “I missed you, too.”

enjoying my writing? read more -> [AO3] [masterlist]

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rosy-cheekx · 3 years

Note

Aesthetic prompt- song: "in hell i'll be in good company" by the dead south; vibe: steam off a warm drink, heavy rain on windows; color: cool gray, bronze, red :)

Took me long enough! This fic is months in the making, but I am so excited to finally be able to answer this prompt. This is chapter 1 of probably 3!

A Phoenix Razed

Chapter 1- Rebirth

---

3 days since Great Yarmouth

Tim’s hands encircled the paper cup in his lap. The cup was small, he noted; he could clasp his fingers together easily. Or maybe his hands were just big. The tea was dark, way over-steeped, and the herbal scent bloomed out in waves alongside the rising steam. There was no sugar, no milk, none of the usual accoutrement Tim used to take tea. Just harsh, bitter, black.

It’s what you deserve.

Tim rolled his eyes at his internal monologue, drama queen, and sipped the beverage. Agh, still hot? He sucked in air through his teeth, startling Martin, who he’d forgotten was beside him.

“Tim?” He snapped his eyes up from where they had been resting on the book, lips moving to form words Tim hadn’t been listening to. “You alright?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, burnt my tongue.” Tim’s words sounded like a shrug, slumped and uninterested, now out of his reverie.

Silence stretched between him and Martin. Or, Tim wished it was silence. The only sound was the low static of the EEG, a rainbow of wires between the machine and Jonathan Sims’ scalp, shaved to accommodate the electrodes. What Tim wouldn’t give for any level of sound other than what they experienced right now. Any less, and there would be an answer to the question, “Will Jon ever wake up?”, and more would mean his heart was working, or lungs, or any other number of body parts to which machines were attached, waiting for any sign of response.

It’s your fault he’s like this.

It should have been you.

Tim exhaled and sipped the tea again, more careful this time. It was still hot—he was pretty sure the burn on his tongue made it feel even hotter—but he tempered his expectations and swallowed a sip of the bitter liquid, letting the raw flavor coat his throat.

“-there’s not much point to this, huh?” Martin asked, slipping a tattered bookmark between the pages of the book he had been reading—he was hoping to annoy Jon with poetry into waking up with Tennyson’s Ulysses—and letting it slip from his lap to the bed, green cover stark against the yellowish-white of the thin blanket.

“I don’t know, Marto, doctors said he might be able to hear us. Maybe dear Alfie will bore Jon back to life,” but Tim’s words lacked the bite and humor that was meant to be there.

“Don’t-” Martin warned softly, shaking his head and pushing his reading glasses through his fringe of curls. “He’s not…he’s still alive. He’s just lost.”

“You’re right,” Tim nodded, placing a hand on Martin’s shoulder lightly before pulling it away as he felt the round of Martin’s shoulder twinge under his touch. “You know what I mean.” He rubbed at the bandages that wound around his abdomen, letting himself indulge in the ache of raw skin and muscle and fat, the hiss of pain atonement for his sins.

Martin sighed, a slow, burdensome sound. “Yeah, I do.” At his words, Martin’s phone rang, and he looked at the caller ID before shoving the phone deep in his pocket, ignoring the call as he did so. “Listen, Tim, you know I’d stay longer if I could-”

“No, I get it, Martin.” Tim stood as Martin did, grabbing the IV bag by his chair for support. “Duty calls. I must away, my love.”

Martin scoffed, the pale sound muffled and diminished by the emptiness of the room. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Try to go on without me.” His voice dropped the light in it as he placed a hand on Tim’s. His hands were freezing, Jesus. “Seriously, Tim, if you need me…”

“I’ll call.” Tim waggled the phone in the pockets of the linen pants the hospital had provided. “Promise.”

“I hear the Great Grimaldi’s in town.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know.”

He wished the moments after were fuzzy. He wished he could chalk his memories up to delirium or carbon monoxide poisoning. There was the detonator, small and squat in his hands. There was Grimaldi, or Nikola, or whatever that thing was. And there was Jon, kneeling, eyes piercing him in a way he had never experienced before. A moment of true lucidity amongst the madness of the Unknowing.

Tim had pressed the button, resigning this to be his final image, his final memory. The things in the world he hated most, all splayed out in front of him, with the promise of all the things he loved waiting for him. A win-win, really. Go out with a bang, leave a mark on the Stranger, cause some errant destruction, and finally see Danny again. The Stranger would never forget the Stoker brothers, that would have been for sure.

But the combustion and the flames had swept over him like a hot wind. He felt the flames lick the sides of his face, felt smoke choke his lungs, felt impossibly hot ash and air swirl around him in a tango. The building had crumbled around him and Tim had been unable to move, forced to witness every last nanosecond of the chaos he had caused.

And he reveled in it. He had won; he had beaten the Stranger. To know he had avenged the deaths of Danny and Sasha was prize enough.

None of it made any sense. He shouldn’t have survived.

How had he survived?

5 Days After Great Yarmouth

“Tim.”

Basira was in Tim’s room, wheelchair parked in the corner and sitting in a visitor’s chair. Her body was tense and still, reminiscent of a panther in some documentary he had watched with Jon. Ready to strike? Or run?

“Basira.” Tim’s voice was careful. “Martin said you weren’t up for visitors today. Glad to see you’re okay.”

“Save it.” Basira’s hands were fisted in her robe, the white and yellow one matching Tim’s, declaring them both as patients under observation. Tim frowned, pulling his IV behind him to sit on his bed, wincing as he bent and adjusted himself. “Daisy’s gone, Jon is…whatever he is. I survived because I was smart.”

Her voice was low and sharp, accusing him of…something. Tim felt blood boiling under his skin, as he waffled somewhere between furious and confused. “Excuse me?” He said pointedly, voice measured, squeezing tight the paper cup of tea in his hand.

“Tim, how are you not dead?” Basira gestured with her hand. “Your burns were all superficial. You broke your arm in the collapse, but you managed to survive the fire.” She shook her head and smoothed the fabric that lay there with her hand. “You and I both know you shouldn’t be alive right now.”

Tim took a steadying breath, though it did little to conceal his frustration. “So what, you think I’m fucking magical or something?” He could feel the heat and pitch rise in his voice. “You think I’m like...like those freaks we read about in the statements? Like-like Jon or Elias or like fucking Nikola?”

Basira opened her mouth to speak but Tim cut her off. “You know why I was there, Basira. For Danny. For Sasha. You bloody well know none of this was supposed to happen.” He gestured in the general direction of where Jon lay, dead to the world. “The audacity to assume I-”

“Tim!” Basira cut in, interrupting his increasingly desperate tone. “Look!” She pointed down. Following her gaze, Tim saw the paper cup he was holding. The cup of tea was steaming. No, it was boiling. He could hear the roil of the water, see the bubbles blossoming on the surface. On instinct, he yelped, tossing the cup of bitter black tea across the room, hitting the sink on the far side of the wall squarely. He winced as the liquid splashed across the mirror, the cup rolling to a stop in the basin.

“What the fuck?” He wiped his hands on his robe. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Did it burn you?” Basira asked, eyes passing over him studiously.

“Ah…” Tim turned his right hand over, checking for any splash marks or blisters on his palm. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Basira asked, raising her eyebrow. At Tim’s irritated roll of his eyes, she folded her fingers together.

“You know that’s not normal, right?” It wasn’t a question.

Tim nodded, voice stolen from him as he processed her words. “Are you trying to say I’m fireproof or something?”

Basira shrugged. “I dunno. Sounds weird enough to be right. I’d say ask Jon about it, but obviously…that’s not happening quite yet.”

“This is so fucked,” Tim mumbled, scrubbing a hand down his face in exhaustion. “I hate this job.”

Tim was walking in a black room. Kind of. It wasn’t black, really, nor a room—just the concept of space, devoid of color or light.

Tim was somewhere and it was dark.

He picked a direction and walked. The space he was in was hot, a dry stale heat pressing in on him from all sides. It was like that prickling heat from being too close to a campfire, where the heat should singe your leg hairs. It should have been painful. He should have been sweating. But he felt…good. Great, even. He felt alive and awake and ready.

He walked for what felt like hours in this dreamscape, not knowing where he was going. He had realized he was dreaming around the point where he noticed he was more floating than walking, being guided like a character in a low-res video game. There was something in the back of his mind nudging him forward, coaxing him along some predetermined route.

Suddenly, he stopped. There was something in front of him, maybe four meters away. He couldn’t see it, but he could sense it. This spot in space was the source of all the heat in this room, the warmth surrounding him that was more accosting than comforting. The feeling surrounding him was all-consuming and it made him feel…all sorts of things. Righteousness, anger, betrayal, pain. They were all the emotions he had been feeling at Great Yarmouth, built up upon each other, each idolized in their own way. They were the feelings he had chosen to worship when Jon had stopped being his friend and started being his enemy, when Sasha had been discovered to have never been, when he had looked Nikola in its eyeless face and pressed the detonator. It all felt good to feel.

All of a sudden Tim was struck with a sudden knowledge. If he accepted this heat, this painful destruction, he would never need to worry about being hurt again. He could protect himself, the loved ones he had left (if he still had any), and burn the hearts out of anyone who dared hurt him or his ilk. No one would ever leave him again except on his terms. He understood what the Lightless Flame meant, what it promised, what it could give him in return. He would be able to live on the destruction of those he deemed unworthy of the love of the pyre, those who had so much to lose. Like he had had, once. Like Danny had had. Like Sasha. They had had the world before them, and it was stripped away. The Stranger had the potential to take over the world and he had destroyed every last bit of success it had. And it felt good. He could chase that feeling again and again and again with a family that knew what it was like to love and lose and destroy.

All he had to do was take it in.

7 Days After Great Yarmouth

Tim woke up gasping for air. He could feel an icy hand on the back of his neck, colder than anything he knew, dragging him back into reality. He opened his eyes, wincing at the harsh light of his hospital room and yes, he was in his hospital room, not a great expanse of nothing nothing nothing, searching for answers. He reached a hand to the back of his head and felt a frozen rag, dripping icy water down the back of his neck, down his spine.

A nurse was at his bedside, a thin woman with dark blonde hair, checking his vitals with a delicate hand. “Welcome back, Mr. Stoker. You gave us a scare, there.”

“Wha-”

“Your monitor was beeping like mad last night. Said you had a fever of 42, but the machine was probably broken. Thermometer put you more at 40, but still, concerningly high. Gave you some fever reducers and a cool rag, kept an eye on you. Are you feeling any better?”

Tim rolled his neck, hearing his joints crack as he did so. “Uh-” He took stock of his faculties. He felt great, actually. No pain, no stiffness, just a tingling warmth spread throughout his body. Something about that felt...right. But he wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, fine.” He pulled the rag out from under his neck and noticed, for the first time, he was naked.

“Sorry,” she smiled apologetically at the flush that spread across his face and neck. “First rule of fevers: tight clothing comes off. It seemed to have done its job though. You were out for a whole day. According to our thermometers, your temperature’s gone back to normal, but we’d like to keep an eye on you a bit longer, especially with your injuries. They don't seem to be infected, so the fever might have been a latent trauma response to the explosion.” The woman shrugged, her smile light. “Our bodies do crazy things to keep us safe. Even when it hurts.”

“A-apparently so,” Tim nodded softly, squeezing his hands into fists, feeling the nails dig into his palms. At least this wasn’t a dream. He rested his head against the pillows propped behind him and sighed heavily.

The nurse left eventually, when there were no more monitors to check and Tim had promised eight ways to Sunday to press his call button if he needed anything. He settled back into his pillow, listening to the steady beep of his heart amplified on the monitor. The TV droned low in the background, newscasters revisiting today’s tragedies. Had they been on the news when it happened? Tim huffed and shook his head. Not if Elias had a say in it. Probably chalked it up to a gas main.

He grabbed the remote strapped to his bed, and flipped through the channels aimlessly, looking for something interesting…or at least to lull him back to sleep. Kids programming, soap operas, more news, interior design—wait. Tim flipped back to the news channel. Demolition of an old primary school. The reporter spoke to a heated young woman, round cheeks framed by wild curls, who spoke to the camera about the memories and traditions the school represented, how unfair it was to lose such an important monument to the history of her town.

“A shame, isn’t it?”

Tim started at the voice, whipping his head to the door, gripping the remote tight in his hand. The woman standing in the doorway of his room was short and wide, hair cropped close. She wore a grey tank top and black shorts, revealing tattoos of flames licking up the backs and sides of her calves. Something about her face was odd. A little too smooth? The grin on her face seemed wider than normal smiles were meant to be, drooping a little too low.

“Pardon?” Tim managed, grip on the call button tight, even if there was…something keeping him from pressing it.

“About the school.” She pointed to the television as she crossed the threshold, crossing her legs as she sat in the cushy visitor’s chair next to his bed. “So many childhood memories, so many job opportunities, so many opportunities for self-improvement-” She spat the word with malice. “Truly some of my favorite forms of destruction.”

Tim stared at her dumbly. “Do…am I supposed to know who you are?” Her returned chuckle burned him from the inside.

“Oh,” she crooned, more to herself than to Tim. “For keepers of the Eye, you are all so stupid. I am Jude Perry and I serve the Lightless Flame. And, if I’m right, you do too.”

#fanfic to a tea #tim stoker #martin blackwood #desolation tim #lonely martin #jude perry #the desolation #the unknowing #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic #tma fic #tma season 3

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