jsmn_kinkmeme | ☆ Round Two!

Entry tags:

kinkmeme

☆ Round Two!

Welcome to the second round of the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Kink Meme at

jsmn_kinkmeme!

Below are some basic guidelines, but please make sure you also check out our complete Rules & Guidelines.

Guidelines:
■ Anonymously comment with your request – a character/pairing/nthsome, and a kink or prompt.
■ Only one prompt per post.
■ Fillers please link your fills in the Fills Post!
■ Have fun! :)

Keep in mind:
■ Any kinks welcomed!
■ The fill/request does not need to be sexual or porny.
■ Multiple fills are allowed.
■ Fills can be any sort of creative work: fic, art, song, photomanip, etc.
■ Beware of spoilers! Prompters and requesters are encouraged to warn for spoilers, but this rule is not enforced.
■ Warning for non-con, dub-con, abuse, slurs/language, and other potentially disturbing subjects is encouraged but be aware we do not enforce this.
■ Would fillers please make sure when posting a fill in multiple parts that they thread their comments by replying to previous parts.

Links:
☆ Mod Post
☆ Fills Post
☆ Discussion Post
☆ Misfire deletion requests
☆ Previous Rounds: Round One

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I had a very nice dream last night where childermass and segundus ganged up on Emma pole and made her cum over and over again, but I can't for the life of me get image into fic. I seem to have got the image of childermass reclined on the bed with Emma pinned in front of him whilst he growled filth in her ear, whilst segundus leisurely ate her out stuck in my head...I'm sure some kind fellow here would be able to assist me in some small way ;)

(Different anon)

Wow, eugh, Norrell you sleazeball. Poor Jonathan.

Fantastic image, I am with you here. I'm sure they'd totally waste her. Seconded!

"If you fail and Norrell wins, I shall leave his service. I’ll take up your cause and then there will still be two magicians in England, and two opinions upon magic. But if he should fail and you win, I’ll do the same against you."

Okay, so this would be tricky to manage, because the only way I can see it happening is if Jonathan never discovers Arabella is alive (which, ouch) and is therefore never motivated to smash back through Norrell's defenses to ask him for help. But. I do sort of want to see an AU where Childermass is forced to follow through on that promise? Where the contest between Norrell and Strange remains wholly about England and magic, and one of them wins and the other permanently loses (is banished, forced to forswear magic, something of that nature). And then Childermass, per his promise, takes up the cause of the fallen magician and publicly opposes the victor by himself. A servant and a magician, opposing either the first or the greatest magicians of the new age.

I'm not sure which one I'd want to be the victor, either. His promise was to Strange, and if Jonathan doesn't find out that Arabella's alive he might crumble easier without that to spur him. Childermass parting from the man he's stood beside for years and fighting against Norrell's political power and censorship, championing an older and more natural magic from a default lower class position, would be fascinating and painful. But on the flipside Strange is far more volatile, and if he managed to crush and terrify Norrell into backing down, then you have Childermass turning aside from many of his own instincts on magic (and his loyalty to his King) and championing modernity and restraint in Norrell's name against Strange's wilder, older and much more powerful magic. Either way it's horrible and painful and full of complicated angst. Also, quite possibly rebellion, depending on how Childermass and his opponent go about it and how the government reacts. I think I'm horrible for wanting to see that, but I really, really do.

So. Anyone willing to give me an AU where the magical/political contest between Strange and Norrell goes all the way, and Childermass honours his word in the aftermath and takes up the cause against the victor?

OH MY GOD YES. I've often wondered about this too and I can't see it being anything but full of angst and betrayal. I SO hope someone fills this!

(still not the OP: I love it)

Am definitely considering a fill for this!

Segundus thought a great deal about summoning Miss Absalom. He thought about it for the next four or five days— although he did not think about it so much as this might suggest, since he was in bed with Childermass for much of those days. Not purely engaged in carnal acts, though it was thoroughly delightful to learn from Childermass's body what pleased him. He thought that Childermass did not know a great deal about what pleased him. Childermass was different from Miss Absalom, as a lover, in most respects: quieter, less forward, somehow reticent in his motions. He was slow and careful and very intent, and looked at Segundus all the time with steady dark eyes, his gaze so heated that Segundus began to fear he might melt.

But just as often they were tangled in the bed linens, half-drowsing, talking about some crux in a line of a lost book of magic until one or both of them fell asleep; or lazing on the rug in the library, scouring magical journals for silence spells. (They had tried three so far on the recalcitrant birds, but none had appeared to have an effect.) Or— to much noise of complaining— Segundus dragged Childermass out to the garden, where he rudely declined to speak to the plants and instead stretched out in the sun, smoking his pipe, failing to look even a little unhappy with his situation.

Butterflies were much taken with him, for some reason, and determinedly followed him about in pale yellow clouds, attempting to land in his hair or on his sleeves. A number of snails investigated him with slow suspicion, and the water spirit burbled happily, and the roses posed a number of complicated questions about him to Segundus, which he was not sure he fully understood. Plants had quite a different way of seeing the world, flowers especially, and they seemed to have a great many vague thoughts about roots and blossoms.

"He is not going to put down roots," Segundus told them. "He is not a tree."

He had a clear sense the roses were miffed at him for this answer. He sighed. What extraordinary maintenance roses required! How woundable they were! (The eyebright and marjoram, from either side of the bushes, agreed.)

Meanwhile: "Have we any more of that Madeira cake?" Childermass enquired, wafting away a flurried snowstorm of butterfly wings.

"We?" Segundus repeated. "I do not see what you have done to be hungry!"

Indeed, Childermass was the picture of idleness, with the cuffs of his sleeves rolled to his elbows, shading the sun from his eyes with one hand. At Segundus's words he acquired a lazy, vulpine look and said, "I can change that."

He made to pull Segundus down to him, but Segundus said, exasperated, "Not in the garden!"

So they relocated to the parlour instead, where it was cooler and shady, and where Childermass pushed Segundus gently against one floral wall before simply standing and staring hungrily at him.

Segundus said, his breath coming short, "Is this your idea of labour? I confess it seems sedentary to me, sir."

"Does it," Childermass said.

He drew closer. Still they were not touching. Segundus could feel the heat of him inches away, smell the hint of the sun, the garden's greenness. But Childermass only looked at him with those dark, dark eyes. It was a look that felt like being slowly drunk in.

When at last he touched Segundus, the touch was equally slow: a single hand laid against one side of his face, thumb stroking softly against his chin. Segundus pushed into it, wanting more. But:

"No," Childermass said. "Like this."

He slipped a hand into Segundus's breeches. At the first touch of fingers against his prick, Segundus gasped; he had been hard already. He leaned forwards, but Childermass held him back with the hand gripping his face and watched him intently— watched as Segundus breathed faster, as he flushed, as he twitched. Childermass stroked him unhurriedly. He paused at one point and withdrew his hand— Segundus made a complaining noise— and pressed it to Segundus's mouth. Segundus, after a brief hesitation, met his eyes and then licked the broad palm of it. They did not look away from one another. Segundus let his tongue slide between the fingers, mark out the little lines and dips where proximal phalanges became middle, became distal— he had an anatomical education— Childermass had beautiful hands— and then took the tip of a finger in his mouth, sucking hard.

Childermass took his hand away again, and returned it to its work. His own face was very flushed now. But he moved as carefully as he had before, coaxing Segundus towards louder sounds of pleasure, causing him to drop his head against the wall and clench his fists.

"Oh!" Segundus said, feeling the tension overtake him. His legs were trembling. "I, I, I cannot—" He expelled a huge gasp of breath. He could not focus, through the pleasure, on staying upright. He thought his legs would collapse like pliable reeds.

Still Childermass watched him with that same intensity of focus. It was that— the weight of the desire in his gaze— that made Segundus feel so hot and lightheaded. He pushed forwards into Childermass's hand, making choked noises with every slide against his palm. Childermass closed his hand more tightly, moistening his lips with his tongue. It was that, for some reason, that little motion, the flicker of tongue and the suggestion of hunger in it, that caused Segundus to spasm his hips and arch his back and climax. He spent himself into Childermass's hand.

He did collapse then, or rather slid down the wall, aware that his face must be blotchy with heat and his clothes were a mess. Childermass supported him, joining him on the carpet.

"You have done more for my appetite than your own!" Segundus accused, when at last he had got his breath back.

"Well," Childermass said, looking rather self-satisfied, "I should imagine you know how to remedy that."

And, indeed, Segundus did.

Afterwards— when he had finished using his much-praised mouth to drive Childermass out of nonchalance, and when they had stripped off their much-dirtied clothes, on which Segundus had insisted, and were eating cake and cheese and apples in bed, Segundus said, "I had thought of summoning Miss Absalom, using Mr Strange's spell."

Childermass looked at him very calmly, taking a bite of cheese.

"You do not," Segundus said, "that is— it would not upset you?"

Childermass gazed at an apple thoughtfully. "I should like to resolve the bird problem," he said. "Before I resort to baking them into a pie."

"You cannot cook. Or if you can, you have never revealed it."

"Why should I discourage you from feeding me?" Childermass said archly. Then he continued: "No, it does not upset me. I should be most interested to speak with her. Though I imagine that speaking is not what you had in mind."

Segundus blushed. "That is not it at all!" he protested. "I enjoy Miss Absalom's company! She is a very delightful woman!"

"I'm sure she is," Childermass said, his eyebrows raised. He looked rather amused. "Truly, I do not mind it. She and I have complementary interests, I believe."

"Do you," Segundus said, a little warily.

"Mm." Childermass seemed pleased to be mysterious.

"Well," Segundus said, "I suppose we might just summon her to ask about the birds, and see where other things go from there."

So when they had dressed and put the bed in order, they employed Mr Strange's summoning spell— falling asleep curled comfortably around each other in the afternoon sunlight.

Segundus opened his eyes to find himself back in the garden. He was not, as he usually found himself when he dreamt of the garden, digging a hole. He was pruning an extraordinarily beautiful rosebush, clipping the little dead leaves off of it. It bore a number of remarkable flowers: some some crimson and some an ivory cream colour, others just barely blushed red. He felt extremely proud at the idea that he had grown such a rosebush, though he supposed that the rosebush itself really ought to be awarded the merit.

"You did a bit of work," Miss Absalom said.

Segundus turned to see her smiling at him. She was in a leaf-green dress, one that gave her eyes a very vivid emerald sparkle.

"Hello!" he said to her. "You did come when I called you."

She looked amused. "That is how the spell works, after all."

"You have not been put out of temper, I mean to say. I was not sure if you would be."

"Not at all! Being dead," she said, "is not like you suppose. I can guarantee it. One never runs short of time to do things, and one may quite often be in two places at the same time. The rules are very different. If I did not like you, I should find you a tiresome nuisance, I suppose. But in fact I like you."

"I am glad," Segundus said, a little shyly. Then he looked around. "But where is Childermass? We had intended to ask you a magical question— I do not know where he could have got to—"

The shutters of the kitchen window creaked open, and Childermass leant himself out of them. He was contemplatively eating a small iced cake with a bright pink spun sugar rose on it.

"You have just eaten!" Segundus said in exasperation.

"Your cakes do not have decorations," Childermass noted by way of explanation.

"Then you will not require me to bake you any more."

"I did not say that."

Miss Absalom had pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle her laughter. "Perhaps I ought to change the subject," she said. "What was your question?"

"Oh! We desire to silence a number of birds. They appear to harbour a vendetta. I cannot think why."

She frowned. "Have you asked them?"

"They are very angry," Segundus said doubtfully. "I do not think they would respond."

"One ought always to try that first. If they do not, I can think of a number of solutions. But come here, I have not even kissed you yet!"

He did, and she did: a sweet sharp peck accompanied by a very pleasant embrace. Segundus stroked a hand down the low silk back of her dress. She was so beautiful, he thought, like the summer to Childermass's winter, bright and dazzling where he was darkly joyous. He had not known how he would feel upon seeing her again, and he was surprised at how happy he found himself.

Miss Absalom said over he his shoulder, "And you, John Childermass? How is your reading going?"

Childermass said a little sulkily, "A man may have a holiday, may he not?"

She laughed. "Do not be concerned; I will keep your secret. So long as you do not vex me too much. You ought not to, anyway; after all, you are living in my house now."

Childermass looked subtly alarmed. "You are misinformed," he said. "I am merely staying for the summer."

"Are you," Miss Absalom said. But she did not comment any further on the matter.

"You do not mind?" Segundus asked. His life seemed to be full of these sorts of negotiations lately, trying to settle every person and object in their right place. It was all very complicated. But he felt somehow there was a pattern, if he could only work it out day by day. There was some way to get the little threads to weave together, so that the picture they formed was clear and complete, though he had the faintest sense that he would not quite ever see that picture— that he would go one forever grasping at it, seeing only the smallest, nearest pieces.

"Of course not!" Miss Absalom assured him. "It is your house as well. And we shall get along together."

"And you will still visit me? Because," he said, a little abashed by his honesty, "I would be very sorry to not see you anymore. You have brought me so much delight, and you have taught me so much, and—I should miss you if you were gone."

She looked at him with a great deal of fondness, and a tenderness he had not quite seen before— a very serious form of tenderness. "Dearest John," she said, "shall I ever make you believe in the joy that you bring to other people?"

"You may try," Childermass interjected. "He is very resistant to it."

"Well," Miss Absalom said, "it is real, and I prefer to keep it. Whether or not you choose to bring him—" she gestured towards Childermass with a queenly dismissiveness, but also a hint of laughter— "is your prerogative. I suppose I can tolerate him."

"He is very bad-tempered," Segundus confided. "And he drinks the good wine. But he has his redeeming qualities."

Childermass rolled his eyes, but he was smiling crookedly.

Miss Absalom gazed affectionately at Segundus and kissed him on the cheek. "Go and settle with your birds," she told him. "All is well. I shall visit you when you have more time to sleep, and then—" her eyes flickered along the length of his body, sending a faint erotic jolt through him— "you may settle with me. At length."

Segundus felt his face burning. "I look forward to it," he said.

"Leave a bit of him for me," Childermass commented dryly.

Miss Absalom shot a naughty, flirtatious look at him. "Jealous, darling? Would you like your own arrangement?"

"No, he is mine!" Segundus objected. Then he flinched, realizing the unjustness of this. "That is—"

"You heard the man," Childermass said. He seemed unruffled. In fact, there was perhaps a flash of pleasure when he looked at Segundus, a hint of satisfaction. His eyes lingered. He said, "On that note, if you'll excuse us—"

Miss Absalom flapped her hands. "Oh, go along, if you're not going to let me watch. Go on! Off with you!"

So Childermass made a gesture with his hand, and all at once the dream began sinking around them, in the curious way that magical dreams did. Segundus was aware of a strong sense of Childermass's magic— dark, autumnal, and firelit, like sparks in the blue dusk— and then he was stirring, blinking, waking up in the bed.

He rolled over to find Childermass watching him with sleepy eyes. Childermass laid a heavy hand at the side of his head, and leaned in and kissed him very seriously and slowly. Segundus brought his arms up to pull Childermass towards him, and they lay there warmly tangled in each other's limbs, kissing to no particular purpose as twilight crept slowly across Yorkshire outside the window, and the chorus of outraged birds started up again.

EPILOGUE

Childermass frowned. "They say you are a dictator and a tyrant."

Segundus stared at him, then at the sullen-looking crowd of dunnocks that filled the branches of the hawthorn tree. The birds had refused to speak to him, and would communicate only with Childermass. But— "How have I oppressed them?" he wanted to know. "I have never acted against them! Indeed, I would not!"

"Well?" Childermass asked the dunnocks.

A great deal of indignant chirping followed, and some hopping and flapping-about of wings.

Childermass rolled his eyes. "They say the grouse over at some dismal farm or another informed them that you have been persecuting a group of cattle."

Segundus rubbed his temples, feeling the first stirring of a headache. "Those cattle had taken themselves off to Faerie without so much as a by-your-leave to the man who owned them! We have been over all this! I was clear that they should settle matters with the farmer!"

"Well," Childermass said, "it would appear they did not. It would appear that instead they have been blackening your name to half the country."

Segundus appealed to the dunnocks: "How may I correct your misapprehension? I am not a tyrant! I am the least tyrannical of men! I believe in liberty and the equality of all creatures!"

Childermass coughed. Segundus suspected he was laughing at him.

The dunnocks whistled, fixing their beady eyes on Segundus and hopping up and down energetically. They were really, Segundus thought mean-spiritedly, very unpleasant creatures. He ought to have let his raven chase them.

"They say they are willing to negotiate with the cattle," Childermass reported. "They will explain matters to the cattle— for a small fee."

"A fee?"

"Seedcake. They wish to be paid in seedcake."

Segundus eyed Childermass suspiciously. "I feel uncertain as to the accuracy of your interpretation, sir."

Childermass shrugged. "I do not say I would reject seedcake, were it offered."

Segundus sighed heavily. "Oh, very well. To achieve some peace and quiet at last, I suppose that it is little enough to pay."

"Peace and quiet?" Childermass said. The corner of his mouth had curled in amusement. "Admit it! You would grow quite bored of such a thing, were you in fact to achieve it. You thrive on having problems to solve."

"I will certainly never lack for problems with you around," Segundus said, eyeing him severely.

"No," Childermass said with satisfaction. "You won't."

And he followed Segundus into the Starecross kitchen with the air of a man who was pleased to be as exactly as much of a problem as Segundus could ever want.

OP here. I love you. Very much. Thank you so much for this lovely, perfect, happy thing. I just ... Thank you so much. Thank you.

(the entire story is also now available on ao3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4898782?view_full_work=true )

oh good lord. um. yes, yes, this would be quite the thing.

I may have to lie down now.

Oh god what a wonderfully happy, adorable ending <3 GAH this fic has been an absolute joy to read and such a clever prompt in the first place - thank you both OP and A!A for this.

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but ever since reading this fic, I will never see the - admittedly brief - scene in the TV series featuring Ms Absalom in the same light again :D

Sonnet of Warm Praise for a Chilly Lover

Trembling, undressing, without relish, quick.
("That's it, you're doing very well, you see!")
A blush on face and chest and rosy prick
("Oh, look at you, so sweet and fresh for me!")

Praised warmly into bed, he's wanting more,
("There, feel my hand, that's better, let me touch.")
"Please--say you like me--anything at all!"
("I love to hear you beg for me--so much!")

Greased finger--has his lover some agenda?
("Not pushing you--but you've a lovely bum--")
The other hand in front to tease him tender,
("I love to feel you, wanton when you come!")

And brings him off. He's lost in lust and love,
And other things not found in Sutton-Grove.

PS. Sorry about the one instance of vowel-rhyme. Also sorry about the one instance of sight-rhyme, but it's just been Dumpling Day on Tumblr, and one of the ideas was "work the phrase 'not in Sutton-Grove' into somewhere unlikely"!

This is set post-canon, so I didn't get Norrell and Lascelles. Hope that's okay?

Fathers and Sons

It was early afternoon in the relatively comfortable tap-room of a Yorkshire inn when a man came over and sat himself down at John Childermass' table. He did not do so impolitely. He tapped the battered wood of the tabletop with a questioning finger first, and waited for the occupant's nod before seating himself. Nonetheless, it was clear that he was not here for lack of room elsewhere. He had come with a purpose in mind, though he seemed content to wait for his ale to be delivered before coming to it. Or, for that matter, introducing himself.

Childermass studied him idly across his pipe bowl as they waited. He did not know the man, nor did he think he had seen him before. He was an older gentleman, with a pleasant but somewhat careworn face, and an indefinable air of authority about him. It was in the way he moved through the world, not with arrogance, but with a calm expectation that whatever should come upon him would be dealt with. A man with a purpose indeed, and perhaps not one that pleased him much. He looked weary, and mayhap a little apprehensive. Well then. That boded well, didn't it? Childermass resisted the urge to pull his cards from his pocket. Later. If things should come to it, later for that.

"Well met, John Childermass," the man said at last, after a pewter tankard had been set in front of him and he had taken a healthy and fortifying draught of it. He had something of an odd accent, one that Childermass had the impression he had heard before, though he could not quite remember where or when. He held out his hand across the table, and Childermass took it after only a moment of thought. "I apologise for coming upon you at your leisure. I have heard that it is rare enough these days. I am afraid I could not wait, however."

Childermass blinked at him mildly, and smiled a little around his pipe stem. "'Tis rare enough, aye," he said quietly. "It is not quite so rare that I cannot take a few moments to listen to man with a problem, should he need it." He raised a querying eyebrow, and was answered by a wry sort of an expression. Problems, aye. "What can I do for you, Mr ...?"

"Lanchester," the man told him, not without a certain self-deprecation. Childermass raised an eyebrow again, but forbore to comment. "You'll forgive me, Mr Childermass. I'm not entirely sure how to approach this. It is a rather delicate matter, and not one that I think will have been raised with you before. It is of a ... personal nature, you see."

Childermass' second eyebrow went up to join his first. A personal matter? That was ... unusual, to say the least. There were few enough people left in this realm who might have 'personal matters' with him, and he could not see why anyone should approach him with personal matters belonging to anyone else either. He had developed a reputation as many things since magic had returned and certain magicians had vanished, but he had not thought that a repairer of personal problems was one of them.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean, sir," he said softly, lowering his pipe and feeling the fingers of his other hand twitch faintly towards his pocket. "What manner of personal matter?"

Lanchester grimaced faintly. He cast his eyes upwards a little, though whether he was praying or remonstrating or simply trying to get his thoughts in order was a little hard to tell. He took the tankard up again, and had himself another draught of ale to ease things along. Childermass blinked at him. What the blind bloody hell was the matter with the man? Lanchester had the definite look of a man made to be the bearer of bad news, but there simply wasn't any bad news of a 'personal nature' that might still apply to Childermass. Not unless someone had up and decided to arrest him all of a sudden, anyway. Which was not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility, but they'd hardly send only one man if that were the case.

"All right," the other man said at last, having apparently come to a decision. He brought his eyes down out of the inn's rafters and directed them back across the table once again, a cautious but determined expression on his face. "It is said that you are a man of good sense and much experience, Mr Childermass. I wonder if I might ... lay a situation before you, and ask your advice upon it? I am acting on another's behalf, and I find myself uncertain how to proceed. I hoped you might perhaps help me."

Childermass stared at him, not exactly enlightened by this, but he spread his hands in wordless agreement. With luck, at least, it might win him something to work with. This little encounter was becoming rather more mysterious than he should like so far.

"I represent a man," Lanchester told him, with a faint crease of his face that spoke of fondness and exasperation in equal measure. Childermass bit his lip, finding it something of a familiar expression. "A powerful man, one who has been absent from England for some time. He has sent me here in search of his son. His, ah, his illegitimate son. Who, I believe, has no idea that his father still exists, nor that his father has any idea who he is. He has had no reason to. I am tasked to find that son, and to approach him on the matter of reuniting with his father." He paused, while Childermass went very still across from him, and grimaced faintly once again. "You understand now why I said it was a delicate matter, I think. This is not a task I have ever been set to before, Mr Childermass. I find myself somewhat at a loss, I'm afraid."

Childermass tamped out his pipe and laid it carefully aside. He wasn't sure where this was going any longer, but he was beginning to think that he didn't like it. He linked his hands together on the tabletop in front of him, and looked Lanchester in the eye.

"You want help finding this son, is that it?" he asked mildly. "Some spell of finding, perhaps?"

Lanchester looked at him sadly, and shook his head. "No," he answered quietly. "I believe I have found the son already. My master found him first, in fact. He has known for some time who and where his son is. It was more the question of ... how to approach him that I hoped you might help me answer."

Childermass allowed his expression to grow a shade more forbidding. "That is an odd question to ask a man you do not know," he said, but something cold had begun to take hold in his gut. There was a sort of tired knowingness in Lanchester's eyes, and Childermass had the feeling very abruptly that the man in fact knew a great deal more of him than he should have done. Enough, at least, to have an idea of Childermass' own origins. Enough to have an idea why this might be a question Childermass was qualified to give opinion on.

Childermass did not like that thought. It was not because of the knowledge itself. He had never been ashamed of his origins, though he had of course been cautious of whose company he revealed them in. Certain people, particularly of higher class, tended to have notions about such things. No, it was not that. It was that Lanchester had somehow divined those origins without his knowledge, and then sought to use them, to come here and have him answer on the basis of them. Childermass did not appreciate that. He did not appreciate having a stranger come forward and attempt to use his past ... not against him, he thought. Not so far. But to use it for his own purposes and in answer for his own problems. A man's past was his own. It was not for every passing stranger to make use of.

"Forgive me," Lanchester said softly, reading his thoughts very clearly in his face. Well enough. Childermass was not attempting to hide them. "I am used to knowing things that others do not, and to making use of them when necessary. Normally I would do so with more tact. It is only that I do not have much time, Mr Childermass. My master is impatient. He meant to be about this task himself, in fact. I had to persuade him that it may require ... more delicate handling than is his usual wont. I did not mean to offend you, sir. It is only that I need your help. You have more knowledge of my business, I think, than any other man I might approach hereabouts. I would value your advice in this matter very greatly."

His expression was earnest. Childermass did not think he lied, though he had the sense that the man was skirting very carefully around some truths. Though, to be fair, the situation he was in perhaps warranted that. A delicate matter. Hah. Childermass did feel some sympathy for him, however. He knew all about masters who thought themselves better at their business than they should, and who wished results to materialise at speed whether it was reasonable or not. From the moment Lanchester had sat down, it had been plain that this was not a task he was easy with. Perhaps it did no harm to make allowances.

"... What does your master want from his son?" he asked, leaning back in his seat and drawing his cards from his pocket to shuffle them idly in his hands. He did not draw them, not just yet. It only comforted him to have them there. "It will be important, I think. A man does not like to be imposed upon by a father he has not known existed, after all."

Lanchester, who had eased a little at Childermass' apparent lack of continuing offence, stilled once more. He spread his hands, an uneasy expression on his face. "I'm not entirely sure, to be honest," he admitted. "To ... reward him, I think? To offer him an inheritance, a position. It is ... It has become a complicated matter. His son performed a task for him, without knowing of their relation. A very valuable service indeed, one that involved even the shedding of his blood. His father would thank him, first of all, and I believe he would acknowledge him also."

Childermass slowed his hands around his cards. He fingered a cut in the deck, rubbing the tattered edges of the card that wanted to reveal itself, though he did not look at it. He looked at Lanchester instead, watching the expressions on the man's face.

"The son did not know of their relation," he said thoughtfully. "But the father did, yes?" At Lanchester's expression, he nodded slowly. "For how long? When did he know he had a son? When did he realise who it was?"

Lanchester looked down at the tabletop. His hand reached for his ale, but he did not drink it. There was a wealth of weary acknowledgement in his face.

"From the moment the boy was born," he said, quietly and very tiredly. "My master has always known his son. He had ... informants. Watchers. He has known his son's course from the moment it began. It is only the son who has never known the father."

Childermass closed his eyes for a second. He laid his head back across his shoulders, and opened them again to gaze into the shadowed recesses of the ceiling beams. His thumb brushed back and forth across the card in his hand.

"What of the mother?" he asked, very calmly and quietly indeed. "Did the boy know his mother? Was he raised by her?"

"Yes," Lanchester said, equally softly. "Yes he was. She would not suffer him to be taken from her. He spent his first years under her tutelage, and I believe learned a great many useful if not entirely salubrious skills in that time. My master's son knew his mother, Mr Childermass. I believe that he loved her, as well. At the very least he has remembered her, and her teachings, even to the present day."

Childermass nodded, his eyes still fixed upon the ceiling. "And your master did not help her?" he asked, soft and cutting as the flick of a knife. "He knew of his son, and left the mother to raise him alone, without aid or respectability to protect her?"

"He would not have let her come to any true harm," Lanchester said. "There were those who watched over her. They were to ensure that she came to no mischief."

"But did he help her?" Childermass asked harshly. "This man you say is powerful, and wealthy enough to offer an inheritance. Did he help the woman he had got with child without a marriage to protect her, or did he not?"

He rocked forward once again, met the man's eyes fiercely and intently across the table. He knew, vaguely, that he was being intemperate. That there were those who would argue it was not his place to judge a stranger this way. He did not care. He remembered his own mother, a thief and a woman of ill-repute, and the dozens of little hands she had taught to take what would never otherwise be given to them. He remembered a woman who had taught him the necessities of survival, because those and the joys of hard-won victories were all she knew, when she had borne him out of wedlock herself and refused to give him up despite it. No. He did not care one jot for his intemperance.

Nor, it seemed, did Lanchester begrudge it. He only looked at Childermass calmly, with a wealth of knowing in his expression that suggested he had known all along that here would be a sticking point. Looking at his face, Childermass understood that Lanchester, at least, had always understood that this would not be a comfortable reunion between father and son, whether or not his master knew the same.

"You must understand," the man said quietly. "My master was not raised in England, nor has he lived here for many, many years. Customs are different where he comes from. The word 'bastard' does not mean to him as it would to ... well. As it would to you or I. He was raised in another man's house, and gained his inheritance from a man who was not his father. He earned it by right, and none saw any problems with it. And y-- This woman. She was an Englishwoman, but she was also ... She was a free thing. She would not have caught his attention otherwise. She was strong and capable, and there was no doubt that any child of hers would be the same. I do not think it occurred to him that she would need help. She claimed you. She earned you by trial and by right. He would not have contested that, nor interfered with what she had won."

Childermass stared at him. He felt his breath freeze in his chest, and his mind grow blank and empty after it. Lanchester blinked at him. He did not seem to realise what he had said. It took a long, long minute before Childermass could force his tongue to move and point it out to him.

"... She claimed me," he said hollowly, hearing the words fall from his lips as if from a great distance. Realisation dawned in Lanchester's face, with alarm chasing close behind it. Childermass did not care for that. He did not care for a great deal, just this moment. "Who is your master, sir? Who sent you here, Mr Lanchester?"

"Mr Childermass ..." the man started, his careworn face becoming more so even as Childermass looked at him. Childermass cut him off. He did not care to hear prevarications this moment. He sliced a hand through the air, stilling whatever Lanchester might have said, and instead drew the card that had been itching between his fingers for some minutes now. He laid it carefully on the table, face down for the barest of moments while he gathered himself. Lanchester blinked warily at it, but he was not confused. He did not question its purpose. He knew already. Of course he did. He knew all there was to know about John Childermass. Why shouldn't he? His master had apparently been following his life for some time.

After another moment, another deep breath, Childermass turned the card as it lay before him on the battered wood. L'Empereur looked back at him, calm and authoritative as he sat on his throne, and the raven inked above him once more seemed to also stare beadily up at Childermass from the tattered confines of the paper.

"... Lanchester," he said quietly, feeling a seizing in his chest and a sensation all about him, like a great and callous web had caught him in its strands. A spell, cast centuries ago, or perhaps only decades. "William Lanchester, perhaps? By Bird and Book?"

The Raven King's seneschal looked at him mutely, centuries worth of weary sorrow in his gaze. Childermass did not want it. He could not breathe, and he did not want it. He would not have pity. Not for this. Not for anything. His mother had not raised him for pity. Black Joan had known there was no use for it. Mercy, that was worthwhile, and compassion, fellow-feeling, but pity was a thing that 'betters' felt for those beneath them, and Childermass would not have it. In that, he was his mother's son.

"... Things are done differently in Faerie," Lanchester said at last. "I do not think my king entirely understands how much so. Your mother was ... She did not ask for help. She did not need it. That you grew to the man you are only proves it. You have earned your life, John Childermass, on your own merits and on the strength of what you were taught. That is what matters in Faerie. It was not ... He would not think of it as a test, or a cruelty. He would have stepped in, had either of you ever asked it of him. Neither of you ever did."

No. No, they had not. But then, why would they have? Things were not given in life. They were exchanged, or they were earned, or they were stolen. They were not given just because someone might ask, or only very rarely. They would not have asked for what they had not earned. They had never had a use for pity, his mother and he. Not even from kings.

Kings. His king. The Raven King. His father ... His father was the Raven King. God above. But he could not think of that. Childermass could not wrap his mind around the ramifications of that just yet. Not if he hoped to remain sane.

There was another question, though. An old one, very old. One that Childermass had longed to ask someone, anyone, for a great many years.

"Do you know what happened to her?" he asked softly, in a voice that did not crack. It did not break, though perhaps more because it was still so distant from him than because it did not want to. "My mother. Do you know what became of her? She vanished one day, after I had gone about into the world. No one I met with could tell me where or why she had gone."

His eyes, which had drifted downwards, looked up at the other man again, and he saw a smile now on William of Lanchester's face. Not a large one, nor a mocking one. A small, secretive one, that spoke of a great and happy amusement.

"She did not ask for help," he repeated softly, with that little curve of his lips. "Our king is not accustomed to being ignored with such ... aplomb. Nor is he particularly patient. That winter, when you tried to look for her. It was unusually warm, was it not? The weather was contrary."

Childermass blinked at him. He did not immediately take his meaning, but then he remembered. One of the first sayings he had ever learned. When the weather is contrary, we say that John Uskglass has fallen in love again, and neglects his business.

"He came for her?" he asked carefully. "My ... My father came for her?"

He did not mean to sound so young, so childish. It was only that he had searched for her, on and off for years, whenever he had an opportunity. Not necessarily because he wished to find her, if she did not wish to be found, but only to be sure that nothing had befallen her. And he had never had a father. His voice did not know how to ask such a question otherwise.

There was pity again, in Lanchester's face. Or perhaps it was only compassion. He smiled as he nodded, with the shadow of amusement still in his eyes.

"If it is any consolation, I believe she yelled at him somewhat as well," he said, with a certain wryness. "On your behalf, rather than her own. A fine time for him to be showing up, when you were a man already and had no need of him. I'm not sure if she had learned yet who he was at that point. If she knew that he was the King. I'm not sure it would have mattered even if she did. He asked her to come to Faerie with him. You were a man then, by Faerie lights, and her duty was done. It was not stealing from her to ask it then, nor from you either. She wavered, but she went. I think she trusted you by then to survive most anything."

Childermass snorted softly. His mother had trusted him for that well before then. He had been a survivor of the first water from the day he was born, even if he was also possessed of a stubborn insolent streak as well. He did not keep his head down very well, but to compensate he had become quick and clever enough to manage most of what it brought him. When he had left her company, headed to Whitby and otherwise out into the world, she had told him that she loved him and to carry his head high. Even then, perhaps they had not really expected to see each again, or at least not soon. They were thieves. They knew how fragile their company might be. They always had.

"She is well, then?" he asked, meeting Lanchester's eyes with a lighter sort of calmness. "She is happy enough?"

Lanchester smiled. "Shall I show you?" he asked, gesturing with one hand towards his ale. It was not quite a silver basin, but magicians could make do at a push. Childermass nodded, trying not to do so as eagerly as he wished. He was not sure if he succeeded, but perhaps it did not matter. Lanchester quartered the liquid in the pewter mug, and Childermass leaned unabashedly forward to see what image might come of it.

The woman sat at a window, inside a great stone embrasure. Her hair was dark still, though streaked with grey. She wore a beautiful gown, deep red and cut of a mediaeval style, and there was a necklace of garnets and jet at her throat and pendants at her ears. Her feet were bare beneath the hem of the gown, though. He could see dirt and mud upon them even against the murk of the ale. She had a battered black briar bowl in her hand, and seemed to be smoking quite cheerfully on it as she looked out over whatever landscape lay beyond the window. She looked sated and content, and not the slightest bit tame. She looked beautiful. All sons think their mothers so, but Childermass dared anyone to say different here. Her name was Black Joan, she was his mother and the lover of the Raven King, and she was beautiful.

"You may see her, if it is your wish," Lanchester told him quietly. "My king would prefer it if you would consent to see him first, but you may see her also. She doesn't ... Ah. She has not yet been informed of this meeting. Or even of his intent to tell you who you are." He grimaced again. "I did warn him that that ... might not be wise, but he would not have it otherwise. He has never been particularly clever when it comes to love. Or family, I suppose, but then he has had little enough of that. Until ... until now."

Until you. It was not said aloud, yet Childermass heard it nonetheless. He looked up, looked away from the image of his mother, happy and content and wearing a lady's gown over a thief's bare feet. William of Lanchester looked back at him. There was that expression about him again, that mixed fondness and exasperation, that weary and uneasy care. He loved his king. Childermass could see that, could understand it very well. He had done so too, when that had been all the man was. A king, a distant figure it had been his life and his pleasure to serve. Yet it was not ... To imagine him as a father was not ...

"What does he wish of me?" Childermass asked his father's seneschal softly. "What does he want, my lord. As my king he may ask for anything, but ..."

He trailed off, shook his head helplessly. He did not know how to finish that. He didn't even know what he meant himself. But. His king might ask for anything, but. Why? What right had he to hold anything back? Why did he want to, when he had never wanted anything save to serve his king? And yet. There was a 'but'. He did not know why, but there was. A father was a different thing. A father he had never had, and some part of him did not know if it was a mastery he wished to allow anyone to have over him. Not even his king. He had never needed a father before. He did not know if he wanted one now.

"... He wishes to know you," William said at last, and very gently. "I do not think he entirely understands what he wants himself, but I think that is the base of it. He wants to know his son, as his son. Not as his servant, however brave and valuable a servant he might be. And you have been, John Childermass. That much at least, you must not doubt. The regard in which you are held is not an empty one, based on blood you did not know you carried. You have earned it, in blood you have spilt and battles you have fought. Fairies fight for what they inherit. There is nothing you have not earned, not in either world. Your duty is done. It is not stealing to ask this of you now. I think that is why I am here."

Childermass bent his head, a wry little twist about his lips. He laid his hand across the Emperor card, still laid out on the table between them. "That's just it," he said. "I am a servant, sir. Not a very good one, perhaps, but I am. I do not think I would know how to be a king's son."

A hand touched lightly against his, turned it gently and gripped it with casual strength. Childermass looked up, into the ancient, wry and weary eyes of a man who had loved and served a difficult master for many years. William of Lanchester, seneschal of the Raven King, patted his hand gently and smiled at him.

"Then be John Childermass," he said softly. "Be the man Black Joan raised, the man who has dealt with everything in his life without ever asking for help, the man who has earned his victories regardless. Be John Childermass, meet with your father, and let the rest fall where it will. We have survived some centuries, you know. Your father's court. It may not be easy, but it is reasonably likely that we will survive you as well."

Childermass laughed. He could not help it. He liked this man, he thought. His father's servant. He thought that he and William of Lanchester might have a thing or two in common. A certain aplomb in the pursuit of their duties not least of all.

"You should tell him he was wise to send you first," he said at last. "You are a better diplomat, I think, and I am occasionally an intemperate man. He was wise to trust you first."

"I shall tell him and gladly," William said, with a look in his eyes that said it would not be the first time. And then he added, while Childermass was thus disarmed by amusement and would not see it coming: "Thank you for the compliment, my prince."

... Prince. It was a good thing, Childermass thought distantly, that he was already sitting. Prince. His father was a king. His father was the king. He was the Raven King's son. John Childermass was John bloody Uskglass' bloody bastard, and he'd earned the right to an acknowledgement of it. He was a prince.

And maybe it was wickedness, maybe it was a streak of his father in him, but for a moment the only thing he could think of was Henry Lascelles, and what the bastard's face would have looked like had he been told.

It was not a reason to accept the honour. Indeed, it might be a reason not to, and be damned to any and all who thought otherwise. The Raven King had earned his throne, risen from slavery to kingship, and Childermass would not have done less. He had little enough use for inherited titles, for he had enough experience of the kind of men who relied upon them, who used them to bring their enemies down. No, he thought suddenly. Whatever about a king's son, he did not think he should like to be a prince.

"Bugger to that," he said, with a mix of warning and amusement. "I am a servant and a magician, sir, but I am not a prince. Nor shall I be. Whatever else may come of this meeting, I do not think I shall agree to that. You may take this as fair warning. I shall have nothing that I have not earned, and by my lights, not my father's. I fear you may both get used to that."

Lanchester blinked at him, his head cradled in one hand as he leaned heavily on the table. "... Likely, I said," he murmured after a moment. "Reasonably likely. You are your father's son, aren't you? And your mother's as well. I always knew one day his romances would get us in trouble."

Childermass snorted. "Aye, well," he said. "If a man does not want that sort of trouble, then he should keep it in his trousers. Otherwise he deserves everything he gets. You may tell him that from me as well."

Lanchester smiled faintly. "Don't be cruel," he said. "Keep some messages for yourself, John Childermass. You have better right to say them, and to answer for them as well."

Childermass blinked at that, and accepted it. He inclined his head in wry acknowledgement. "My apologies, my lord," he said. "You have been the bearer of enough uncomfortable news, and you are right. It would not be fair to ask you to go between us when I may speak perfectly well for myself." He paused briefly, to let the decision crystallise inside him, and then he nodded to himself. "Shall we go, then? You and I? I have a father to meet, and I understand that he is not the most patient of men. There's no time like the present, I think."

William of Lanchester took his hand from his face, and set it about his tankard instead. "Aye," he said, and drained off the last of his ale in one long, fortifying gulp. "Aye, John Childermass. Let's be about it, then. And Heaven help us all."

Childermass doubted that, somehow. He understood that Heaven was not always on the best of terms with his father, or himself either for that matter. But if all else failed, then he thought that he should help himself, or he should die trying, and perhaps his father no less than him. It was, after all, the way they had lived their lives. That much at least, he and his king had in common.

'Twas not the worst of things a man might share with his father, all things considered.

A/N: I figured that, Raven King or no Raven King, Childermass would have opinions on deadbeat dads who'd abandon a woman to raise a child out of wedlock alone and in poverty in 18th century rural bloody England. Even before he realised that this was his deadbeat dad. He's his mother's son, after all. I thought this might be a more complicated reunion than John Uskglass might perhaps have anticipated. Fortunately, his seneschal as a slightly better grasp of such things.

Hi OP. I made a fanmix based on your prompt :) I hope you like cheesy pop and sadness, because that's basically what it is. Hope fanmix fills are okay on here? I hope somebody writes this too!

You can listen here:
http://8tracks.com/foroureyesonly/follow-you-down-down-down

Steady on there! I think this counts as prompt hijacking!

Only just found this, and it's so good :) I just hope that one day there'll be more of it, a!a you've got a lovely writing style.

Me likey.

A tumblr user (not me) recently posted a wonderful set of headcanons about how other characters view Arabella (post is: http://nothinghamshire.tumblr.com/post/128694352643/arabella-as-seen-through-the-eyes-of-others) and I was absolutely smitten with the idea of De Lancey having a raging crush on her. So my thought was - what if something was going on between Strange and Grant and Arabella decided to take up with the handsome, young, besotted Colonel in order to make Jonathan jealous? I would love to read about a passionate encounter between the two, with De Lancey being extremely eager but slightly nervous, almost overcome with passion, and Arabella being gentle but forceful in showing him what she likes.

Yes fucking please!

I still really love this, the h/c of it, and everyone helping. I do hope it will be continued.

Since I have not heard back from the OP about whether my fic "Jonathan Strange ♥ Mr Norrell" might be acceptable as a Fill for this prompt, I've started posting the chapters on AO3. The fourth chapter, which is where the Pineapple and the Dumpling finally have sex, should go up today or tomorrow, and the others will follow at short intervals:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4910221/chapters/11264383

So I rewatched the prison scene at the end of episode five just now and was struck by how incredibly softly Grant speaks to Strange through his cell door (particularly when he says "Merlin, I'm here to help you", he's talking so gently his voice breaks!) Grant is so worried about him you can see it all over his face, and so desperate to help.

What I'm after is a fic wherein Strange doesn't portal out of his cell before Grant can take him away. Instead Grant continues being tender and careful with Strange when he's so fragile, takes him back home (either Grant's home or Strange's home whichever is better for Strange's mental state) and is very gentle with him, while extremely concerned, and tries to stop him from going through with his plan of becoming mad ("I will not have you slandered," Grant says through the cell door). If this ends in smut I will be a very happy bunny, but it's not necessary. If it does turn smutty, will Strange still be there in the morning, or will he have left for Venice????

This is a perfect prompt.

Some lovely A!A did fill an earlier prompt along these lines but there's always room for more. Your prompt is very gentle and tender, and I think a lot of us would be really happy to Grant stage an intervention for Jonathan, who seems to be all alone at this point, especially in the TV version. I'd love to see it filled, because I have a soft spot for these two.

The other fill is at
http://jsmn-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1273.html?thread=778745#cmt778745

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 38 of 91

☆ Round Two!

Childermass/Emma/segundus multiple orgasm

Re: Controlling Jonathan Strange

Re: Childermass/Emma/segundus multiple orgasm

Childermass vs Strange or Norrell, Keeping His Promise AU

Re: Childermass vs Strange or Norrell, Keeping His Promise AU

Re: Norrell/Strange - Firsts in the Pillar: First Touch, First Kiss, Etc

FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (12a/12)

FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (12b/12)

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (12b/12)

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (12b/12)

Re: Strange/Grant, “Want to hear you”

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (12b/12)

MINI-FILL--Childermass/Norrell, praise kink

Fill - Fathers and Sons 1/2 (Childermass & William of Lanchester)

Fill - Fathers and Sons 2/2 (Childermass & William of Lanchester)

FILL (kinda?): Follow you down, down, down - fanmix

Re: not OP

Re: FILL: Feverish Confessions (3/?)

Re: Childermass/Emma/segundus multiple orgasm

De Lancey/Arabella (and possibly Strange/Grant)

Re: De Lancey/Arabella (and possibly Strange/Grant)

Re: FILL: Feverish Confessions (3/?)

FILL: Norrell/Strange - Firsts in the Pillar: First Touch, First Kiss, Etc

Grant/Strange - what if Strange had left his prison cell with Grant?

Re: Grant/Strange - what if Strange had left his prison cell with Grant?