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Jon dies on a Thursday. It really fucks up his weekend. Those concert tickets had been expensive. Plus, it turned out that dying was a really good way to screw up the muscles in your lower back.
Not that he’d admit it to anybody, much as he wanted to bitch about the whole thing.
He'd checked the box on his initial employment paperwork for the bureau, giving his consent to be reanimated if accidentally killed during the course of carrying out his job duties- not thinking much of it at the time. Really, he’d been more excited to get started on the whole 'hunting lost treasure and dealing with powerful ancient magic' thing.
Turned out, though, paranormal research management and artifact procurement involved long periods of inactivity, with the occasional bio-hazardous and life threatening eruptions of activity, alongside a decent amount of inter-departmental squabbling and drama.
Honestly, he’d really thought there would be more swashbuckling involved. Half his office had the Indiana Jones theme as a ringtone, though, so, if he had to guess, he hadn't been the only one with that idea.
Jon dealt primarily in procurement. Anytime there was an obscure, cursed, or magical object, he was the one responsible for leading a team to track down and retrieve said object. Unfortunately, this also involved handling the possible unintended consequences of said retrieval and the subsequent forms involved in the aftermath.
When he started in this line of work, he’d imagined a lot of ancient temples and exotic locations, with women swooning as they witnessed his heroic undertakings. Turns out, there’s more paperwork than anything else, a good deal of which Jon (as unit chief) was ultimately responsible for.
The variety of incident report templates the bureau kept on file was genuinely horrendous and the second-most common cause of Jon's new gray hairs, after dealing with the gung-ho junior agents who still thought this job was an Indiana Jones movie. There was one specifically dedicated to ‘Attack from Crocodile Talisman- Second Incident’, that he’d had to fill out a few months ago after Grenn had misread a situation and gone in hot on an exchange of Meereneese artifacts. This week, he had to fill out incident reports regarding his premature death and subsequent reanimation.
Thank god for Sam Tarly, his partner and head researcher, or Jon would have quit ages ago.
“I found the cup we've been tracking.” He told Jon, thankfully interrupting him mid-paperwork.
“And?”
“This one’s another collector.” Sam informed him, wincing as he watched Jon shrug his holster back on over a heavily bandaged chest.
“Tell me it’s at least not another older woman.” Jon groaned. “Do you remember that month in the swamp last year looking for the cursed flute where we spent like three weeks getting eaten alive by mosquitos and covered in horrible smelling bog mud?” he asked. “Because this string of private collectors we’ve had to deal with lately is making me miss that.”
“Speak for yourself.” Sam wrinkled his nose. “Gilly burned my boots when we got home, and made me shower outside before she’d let me in the house. Then made me shower again inside. Plus, it seems like it’s at least a break from something riskier.”
Like the disaster of a job last week that had left Jon dead and half his unit on leave.
It had been a particular cursed blade they were working on tracking down, after they'd received three separate incident reports of it provoking the owners into committing murder. Really, they should have expected the whole thing to go poorly, especially given the shoddy intel they'd had going in.
While Jon might have been able to withstand a light stabbing, though, subduing Thorne and his other colleagues after they’d succumbed to the knife’s influence, no one had expected the last victim’s kid to land a killing blow.
Olly was only nine- none of the team had thought he was a threat. They sure as hell hadn't predicted his attack on their unit chief, although Jon had his suspicions as to why it had happened.
“That knife fed off emotions- if Thorne didn’t hate me so goddamn much, he wouldn’t have infected half the squad- not to mention the damn kid- and I wouldn't have a bunch of holes in my chest.” Jon mumbled. “Plus, I’d have somebody else to stick on house calls while you and I follow up the the older cold leads.”
Instead, Thorne and the others were on medical leave, pending a conduct review that Jon was desperately hoping would transfer the man to a different unit at the very least.
“Medical said that most of them should be back by next week.” Sam commented, flipping through a stack of papers with a nifty spell that he refused to teach anyone else. He’d come up with a way to absorb book contents via some sort of magical osmosis too, and was the only one in the department with a knack for it. He claimed it was to maintain his own job security. Jon suspected that he just didn't want anyone else in the unit getting fingerprints on his books. “The cup could probably wait until Thorne gets back if you want to foist the grunt work off on him. You know,” he shrugged, as though any of this was normal, “What with the attempted murder and all.”
“Mormont’ll have my ass on a platter if we end up with a backlog because of this.” Jon grumbled, thinking about the gruff head of their department. “And I’d prefer not to be demoted back to the archives. You and I can head out later this afternoon and look into the collector- old ladies tend to like you better than me.”
“I brood and grunt less.” Sam grinned. “I do have some good news for you, though. Medical wanted you to stop by this afternoon for a check-up.”
Jon couldn’t help but perk up at this, and Sam, wonderful friend that he was, pretended like he wasn’t trying to keep from laughing.
“Who’s the email from?”
“You won’t want to keep her waiting.” Sam grinned, placing a glowing hand over the research tome he was absorbing. “Also, director Tyrell sent you an email congratulating you on being back in the land of the living- don’t forget to respond to that or she’ll get horrifically sarcastic during our next budget meeting. I left the expense reports on your desk- you'll have another mutiny on your hands if you don't keep our current bagel budget.”
“Why am I the head of the unit and not you?” Jon sighed, asking for the umpteenth time.
“Because you generally don’t mind leading in situations where you could potentially get stabbed, present circumstances excepted, and I tend to be a bit averse to them.” Sam shrugged. “You did just die, though. How much worse can inter-agency bureaucracy be?”
“Next time we have to cooperate with Euron's department, I’m going to remind you of exactly what you just said.” Jon snorted, waving as he conjured a transport spell, disappearing into thin air.
“Why do you smell like old people?” Arya pretended to gag, sticking out her tongue as Jon walked in from reappearing in the hallway outside of the medical/pathology labs.
“Shut up.” Jon grinned at her, though. Arya Stark had been one of his favorite people in the bureau since he'd caught her sneaking into the retrieval unit's workout rooms last summer to spell their uniforms hot pink. He’d been trying to poach her from Jaqen’s team ever since, but the faceless man was possessive of his recruits.
“Seriously though, you do.” Arya told him, sagely, in between taking unnecessarily violent bites from an eyeball shaped ice cream bar that was probably left-over from the office Halloween party six months ago. Considering the case file on his desk right now involving a cannibalism-inducing necklace Qhorin had found last month, it was a bit much for him. “Is that a side effect of accidentally dying? Because I’m gonna have to start being more careful if that’s what happens.”
“You’re an obnoxious gremlin and I don’t know why I even bothered to get you that new runestone from the Frostfangs if all you're going to do is mock me.” Jon glared at her, but succumbed when she held out both hands, grasping her fists like an over-eager toddler. “Why are you here, anyways?" He asked, tossing the stone towards her. "Doesn’t H’ghar have anything to assign you to?”
“Oooooh 14th century.” She grinned, not answering his question. Arya was rapidly rising in the ranks in intelligence, under the many different watchful eyes of Jaqen H’ghar, and, by all rights, should have been on the other side of the building at the moment. “Very nice. Think I can manage a test run in the field without Sansa breathing down my neck about decontaminating it first?”
“You keep talking about necks and I’m going to wring yours like a scrawny little chicken, especially if you keep field testing dangerous objects without following protocol." Sansa threatened, absently, flipping through a file as she came in. "Oh!” She blinked, smiling brilliantly as she saw him. “Hey Jon!”
Sansa’s entrance and greeting was sudden enough that Jon tripped over his own feet, held up in mid-air only by a last minute magical intervention from Sansa’s partner, Jeyne, who seemed to take pity on Jon whenever the object of his affections obliterated his ability to function as a human being.
Well, something like it, anyways.
He wasn’t sure how it happened- he was too busy hovering about six inches off the floor- but Sansa and Arya had slipped into another seamless argument, flinging barbs at one another like the future depended on it.
Apart, the Stark sisters were the picture of consummate professionalism- both rising stars in the bureau. Mixed together, and they were incapable of exchanging six words without arguing.
Arya’s needling was possibly the only thing in the world that could distract Sansa from her job which, at this point in time, was supposed to be giving Jon a follow-up exam after his untimely death, rather than quarreling with her sister. He really shouldn’t find it as endearing as he did.
“-sneaking government property out of headquarters without saying anything for the THIRD time this month not to mention forgetting the expense reports-“
“Well maybe if someone didn’t suck at math so much, those reports would have been done sooner-“
“ONE time I misplace a stupid decimal-“
Jon finally managed to right himself, stumbling slightly over his own feet. Sansa had told him last week that the lack of coordination was normal for his ‘condition’, but it really sucked to have your neurons not listen to you.
“So how was your weekend?” Jeyne asked, perching next to him on the table he and Arya were supposed to be planning a job on as they listened to the Stark sisters’ daily bicker-fest. “Do anything fun?”
“Slept like the dead.” Jon grunted, scrubbing his face with his hand as Jeyne snorted. “Thought about watching TV, but I turned it on and TCM was playing ‘Frankenstein’. Felt like a sign I should try and catch up on some reading.”
“Yeah, that’s a bit much.” Jeyne patted his shoulder, sympathetically. They had a truce of sorts- neither told the other that their respective crushes were ridiculous, and they would commiserate during the twenty minutes a day that the Stark sisters seemed to religiously set aside for purposes of arguing with one another. Jon secretly thought that Jeyne could do a lot better than pining over Theon Greyjoy, who Jon had watched last month trip and fall into a rotting kraken carcass not once, but twice, while trying to harvest it's teeth.
Jeyne was a way better inside source on Sansa than her sister was, though, and she proved it with her next sentence.
“Sansa broke up with Harry last week.”
Jon straightened up so fast that he audibly heard his spine crack.
All things considered, he probably needed to be concerned about that. But Sansa breaking up with the Hardying asshole felt like a bigger deal than his skeletal alignment at the moment.
“She did?”
“Caught him cheating.” Jeyne shrugged. “So I spent my weekend eating the most disgusting junk food combinations possible, while wearing a unicorn onesie, just to commiserate with my miserable best friend over her latest shitty boyfriend. Seriously, when are you going to suck it up and ask her out?”
“I was a little busy last week.” Jon glared at her. “You know, what with being legally, biologically, and metaphysically dead?”
“You’ve had all week since then to shake the zombie legs.” Jeyne shrugged, unrepentant. “Plus, San was really worried about you. Got us kicked out of Mel’s lab while she was working on bringing you back because she kept trying to micromanage the whole thing.”
Jon snorted. Only Sansa would think it a good idea to neg the bureau’s resident necromancer. He shouldn’t find that as attractive as he did.
“Really.” Jeyne insisted, taking a swig of what Jon knew was some of the strongest coffee in the building. Jeyne was one of the very few people who Davos would bring in his borderline illegal coffee beans for, and Jon had no idea how she consumed the stuff without physically vibrating. “I mean, Sansa doesn’t generally do the whole ‘blatant disregard of superiors’ thing for people. She was pretty beside herself.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” He muttered, as Sansa and Arya had reached the ‘snarling’ portion of their daily argument. His heart was leaping though, which was more than a little concerning. Mel had told him to take it easy for the next week while everything kick-started in his body again.
She’d give him that smug, knowing smirk if he came back with a heart arrythmia just because a pretty girl had been worried about him. Even worse, she’d tell Stannis and Varys- and then he’d never hear the end of it. Mel was about seven hundred years old and one of the biggest busybodies Jon had ever had the displeasure of meeting.
“It does too mean something!” Jeyne elbowed him and he hissed, recoiling back. “Whoops- sorry-“ she winced. “Did I get you in the stab wounds?”
Apparently, the only thing you had to do to stop the daily knock-down, drag-out Stark-sister brawl was mention an injury around Sansa, because she was immediately over next to him, lifting up his shirt to examine where Jeyne’s elbow had hit him.
“I can’t believe I forgot to ask about your wounds-“ Sansa muttered, prodding his side with unusually cool fingers. “I am so sorry, Jon- I shouldn’t have let Arya distract me.”
Jon wasn’t sure he was breathing as she let her fingers slowly trace down his stomach. He definitely wasn't flexing his abs to impress her or anything. Her touch was feather-light as she practically caressed his skin, and it was about to cause some very embarrassing problems for both of them if Jon couldn't get his recently reanimated body under control.
“Oh god I’m so sorry-“ Sansa jumped back, suddenly, turning what Jon thought was a rather fetching bright red color as she realized that she'd been practically drooling over him. “I wasn’t thinking again- I just- your muscle tone is-“ She blinked several times, looking like she wanted the floor to swallow her up.
Jon, who had seen Arya use a new portal spell to do just that yesterday, quickly reached out to take her hand before she could disappear on him.
“Um.” she managed. “I just mean- your muscle tone looks fine. Uh- all good. No atrophy here.”
“Thanks.” he managed, curling his fingers around hers. He could still feel traces of her fingers on his stomach, and was trying very hard not to imagine her touching him like that in a different situation.
“God- I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to practically feel you up-“
Sansa immediately clamped her mouth closed, eyes squeezed shut and looking like she would rather be anywhere but here.
Arya's expression looked as though Christmas had come early, and it was only Jeyne zapping her in the side with a hex that kept her from commenting.
“It’s really okay.” Jon managed, tightening his hold on her hand. He liked the tingle of Sansa’s magic. There was something almost minty- cool and smooth- about it whenever he allowed himself a moment to touch her skin. “Uh- I’ve been meaning to come see you today anyways-“ he sheepishly rubbed at the back of his neck. “Should probably check that everything’s working after my untimely death, you know?”
His smile seemed to ease her anxiety a little, and she smiled at him.
“Well, you look pretty good for a dead man.” She managed to get out, before promptly blanching and snapping her mouth shut. “Oh my god.” She whimpered, sounding utterly mortified.
Jon had never loved Jeyne Poole more than in that moment, as she clapped a hand over Arya’s mouth and bodily dragged her from the room to give them both a moment to recover. He made a mental note to send the woman flowers and then bodily shove Theon in her direction.
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess today.” Sansa finally managed. She still hadn’t let go of his hand, and Jon wasn’t about to say anything to remedy that particular situation. “Jeyne and I have been slammed patching up the new recruits this morning- they opened up a portal matrix in the men’s locker room and we spent the better part of several hours matching and reattaching extremities. Think the world’s worst game of concentration.”
Jon winced. She did look more tired than usual, he noticed, as she continued.
“We seriously have to remind the new agents that you’re supposed to have identifying tattoos on all of your extremities for this exact reason.” She grumbled. “Plus we were here late cataloguing potion ingredients because Qyburn is an insufferable asshole who thinks he doesn’t have to follow proper filing protocols for biohazardous materials just because Cersei Lannister likes his little experiments-“ she broke off, shaking her head. “Sorry, I’m rambling again.” She gave him a tired smile. “Didn’t mean to talk your ear off. Do you have time to come over to the lab to talk to me about how you’re feeling? Mel told me you’d probably feel the effects in waves- plus I haven’t had time to look at your stab wounds since the other night.”
“Actually-“ An idea was formulating in Jon’s head and he tried not to look too excited about it, “I’ve been having some trouble with my appetite- maybe you could come have lunch with me and help me figure out what would be easiest to eat.”
Sansa blinked down at him.
“Oh!” she squeaked, flushing bright red again. “I mean- of course! Let me just go get my bag- and- um-“ she was fiddling with her hands now, her gaze dropping briefly to his lips. Jon’s heart definitely skipped a beat that time- he resisted the urge to smack at his chest just to even things out. “I’ll be right there!”
She vanished into a cloud of lemon-scented space, presumably to go and grab her things and not because she was running at the prospect of a meal with him.
He surreptitiously sniffed himself, hoping desperately that Arya had been winding him up earlier about the old-person smell. He hadn’t asked Mel about that aspect of resurrection. He probably should have. His palms were sweating in anticipation. Why hadn't he asked about the dead smell?
He heard a loud thump from the other end of the building, and a few stanzas of Arya and Sansa’s characteristic squabbling, before she reappeared in front of him, grimacing slightly as she tapped her lips.
“Ugh- that creepy kraken relic thing Euron brought back yesterday has been interfering with my magic all over the place.” she complained, smacking her lips and thoroughly distracting Jon from his own anxiety spiraling. “Every time I use a spell, my mouth tastes like raw fish.”
“Oh thank god.” He blurted, before he could think better of it. Sansa shot him one of the reflexive, withering looks she usually reserved for her brothers, or Theon, and he hurried to explain. “I thought it was my taste buds fucking up after last weekend.” he rushed, and Sansa’s confusion instantly vanished. “I’m just relieved it’s some shit Euron pulled and not my tongue still being mostly necrotic.”
He winced, realizing that mentioning the words ‘my tongue’ and ‘necrotic’ in the same sentence weren’t super conducive to his plans to kiss the living daylights out of Sansa at some point.
Preferably soon.
Fortunately, she just laughed, looking unconcerned, and he stopped to thank every god he could think of that the girl he was crushing on worked in a profession where she regularly dealt with far stranger and way grosser things than whatever the hell was going on with him right now.
“We can check on it, for sure.” she grinned up at him as he held open the door for her. “But for now- there’s a deli across from 5th and Sycamore that makes pastrami sandwiches that are definitely worth coming back from the dead for, if you’re up for it.”
“Not sushi?” Jon couldn’t help himself.
“Ha ha.” Sansa rolled her eyes at him. “No wonder you and Arya get along so well. Come on- let’s go eat. If I’m late getting back from lunch, Qyburn will probably try and filch the jar of basilisk eyeballs I just got in this morning. They’ve been on back order for two months and he’s a thieving bastard.”
“God forbid.” Jon shook his head, relaxing marginally. He definitely hadn’t needed to worry about grossing Sansa out. Thank the gods. “He could at least have the decency to order his own eyeballs.”
“Try telling him that.” she snorted. “Next time he steals from my lab, I’m just going to skip confronting him about it and bribe Bran into magic-ing him straight into the a desert. Preferably into a pile of camel shit.”
Jon frowned. Something about that seemed familiar.
“Like… in Spy Kids 2?”
“I got stuck babysitting Mya’s kids last Wednesday for her and Randa's anniversary.” Sansa admitted. “They’re obsessed with those movies, and I’ve never quoted Steve Buscemi more in my life. On the bright side, though, I’ve got a few new ideas for keeping Qyburn and Bran out of my lab.”
“Bran?”
“He likes to break in and just perch there on my desk like some sort of fucking gargoyle, trying to scare the shit out of me recently.” Sansa groaned. “Mum thinks all the esoteric magical research he’s been doing while immersed in the time stream has completely obliterated any and all of the parts of his brain responsible for social skills and tact. He’s driving her absolutely mad.” She paused. “Actually, speaking of which, mum wanted me to mention to you that if you need any tips right now, she’s glad to help.”
“That’s kind of her.” Jon managed, not wanting to discuss his death and reanimation with the mother of the woman he was half in love with, even if she had dealt the same thing at one point several years ago. Tissue necrosis and the associated bureaucracy issues were among the highest ranked items on Jon’s mental list of things he’d hoped never to have to discuss with his, hopefully, future mother-in-law.
“Yeah, she said that it makes doing your taxes a huge pain in the ass the year that you die.” Sansa shrugged. “And that it wreaked havoc with her health insurance premiums. Not to mention the whole life insurance payout mess.” She wrinkled her nose. “She loves using it to win arguments, though. I can tell you from experience that hearing variations of ‘my children are going to kill me, again’ or ‘who knows when the next time I’ll die will be’ are her go-to’s to guilt us all about the fact that Robb’s still the only one who’s gotten married and given her any grandchildren.”
“Huh.” Jon hummed, holding the door for Sansa and trying not to tell her that he would be happy to help with both of those things, if she was so inclined. “I mean, Dondarrion offered to help me with the DMV mess, so I think I’m good on that front.”
“God- that man is one resurrection on his punch card away from getting a free coffee at the bureau Starbucks.” Sansa groaned. “And he won’t let me study him, either.” She wrinkled her nose. “Number of times I’ve realigned his neurons, you’d think he’d be willing to at least answer some of my questions.”
“Do they actually have punch cards for that?” Jon couldn’t help but ask.
“No.” Sansa rolled her eyes. “Please don’t suggest it. Especially in front of Mel. I can’t handle any more ‘morale-boosting’ initiatives from on high.”
Jon paused thinking of the disaster that had been 'Bring your familiar to work' day two months ago. And the less said about last year's New Year's party, the better. He was never drinking anything he hadn't personally brought to a workplace event, ever again.
“Good call.”
Conversation over lunch was typical shop-talk, although they definitely would have garnered some interesting looks if anyone from outside the bureau had overheard them. He'd always found it charming how much Sansa genuinely loved the research she did, even if that research could be objectively off-putting.
“I’m just really excited to get the hagfish deliveries in-“ Sansa’s eyes sparkled as she gushed on about slime, “-I’ve got some theories about using the slime as a stabilizer for tissue regrowth that I’m excited to try out.” She gestured with her free hand as she took another bite of her pastrami sandwich. “Plus it might help with the issues we tend to have anytime we resize living tissues. Jeyne and I are really excited about it.”
Jon had never realized that hearing a woman talk about mucosal membranes and various sub-types of slime could be such a turn-on.
Honestly, it was a hell of a thing to learn about yourself at 12:27 in the afternoon.
"You didn't have to, but thank you for getting lunch." Sansa told him, as they left the deli, her smile bright. "I'm glad your appetite is improving- I was really worried about you. Nothing else is bothering you today, right?" The little wrinkle between her eyebrows marked her concern for him, and Jon wanted to reach up and smooth it out with his thumb. "I can always carve out some more time this afternoon if you need me to run more tests-"
“Actually, there was one more thing.“ Jon managed, his mouth dry as he took in the woman in front of him. Her head was tilted slightly in confusion as she listened to him.
Having Sansa’s full attention was something intoxicating, he thought.
“I'm a bit worried about my facial nerves." He lied, unconvincingly. "Um, can I-“ he cleared his throat, “Can I kiss you? Uh- to test them?”
“Oh!” Sansa’s response, turning bright red, was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. “I- um- yes!” she shook her head slightly. “I mean, I think that would be best.” She cleared her throat, placing her delicate hands on his chest and smoothing down the front of his shirt. “It’s important to check your neuronal response for cranial nerve VII-“
He cut her off at that, cupping her face with one hand as he leaned in to press his lips to hers.
If Jon hadn’t already been resurrected, the taste of Sansa’s lips, he suspected, could have brought him back from the brink of death.
She was life in every form- her pulse fluttering underneath his palm as her breath mingled with his own, leaning forward to deepen the kiss. She tasted like citrus and herbs- like sunshine in a garden, and he wanted to drink his fill.
Gasping, they finally pulled apart, Sansa’s teeth worrying at her bottom lip.
“All good?” Jon asked, panting slightly. “No necrotic taste or anything?”
“I don’t think so-“ Sansa murmured, her eyes still firmly attached to his lips. “But we should check again. To be sure.”
Jon chuckled, leaning in.
“You can run as many experiments as you want on me.” he whispered, ghosting his thumb over the top of her cheek. He could feel her hands pressed up against his chest, and the way they clutched at his shirt made him feel like he was ten feet tall. “We might be late getting back to work, though.”
“Don’t care.” Sansa shook her head, pulling him in again for another kiss.
“Qyburn might steal more of your inventory.”
“Let him. I can steal it back.”
“Arya will mock us mercilessly.”
Sansa pulled back, grinning at him, her lips swollen.
“She’ll do that anyways.”
“Jeyne-“
“Will be fine.” Sansa shut him down. “Now stop talking about work and kiss me again.”
Jon, who had always found it wise to listen to medical professionals, gladly acquiesced.