Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Martin came to, holding Jon with tears in his eyes.

“Oh, Jon, I’m so sorry!”

Annabelle looked over blearily. “Martin?”

Martin sniffled. “Annabelle?”

“Yes… what’s… what’s going on? Did the plan work?”

Martin sat up, blinking through his tears. He had no idea where he was. He was seemingly sitting in a swamp, giant ferns surrounding him. This didn’t look like England.

Jon stirred. “M-Martin?” He weakly murmured, shifting faintly in Martin’s arms.

“JON!?!” Martin looked into the confusedly blinking face of his lover and kissed him in great relief. “You’re Alive!”

Annabelle raised an eyebrow as she turned to him. “And how Exactly is that anyway? Shouldn’t we all be dead?”

Martin reflected. Huh. They really Should be. Well, he wasn’t going to question it. He returned to smooching his Jon who returned his passion in kind.

“OW!” Martin pulled back suddenly with a yelp. “Since when did you get so aggressive… wait… are those… FANGS?”

“Speak for yourself!” Jon held a hand to his mouth and pulled it away, bloody. “Ow!”

Annabelle cackled. “Look at you both, you’re with the Web!”

…

“So… because we were pulled with the Web and died we’re…”

“Spider-people.”

“Great. Just great.”

“You’ll get used to the fangs eventually. They retract and you can learn how to control it.”

“Great, just Great.”

Jon groaned. “I Hate spiders.”

“And they hate you too - don’t worry, it’s not like the Web is Thrilled to have you. It just didn’t have a choice.”

“Awesome.”

Martin once again pondered their surroundings. “So… um, where are we exactly? This doesn’t Look like England.”

Jon asked the Ceaseless Watcher and looked Extremely confused. “Um… it appears…”

A giant dragonfly zoomed past and Martin just stared at it in shock.

Jon continued, shakily. “I think we’re in the Carboniferous period.”

Chapter Text

Martin looked around him and suddenly started noticing the signs of giant arthropods - footprints in the soil, areas where the decaying matter had been clearly eaten by some hungry critter or other. And of course the actual giant arthropods.

“AHHHHH!” Martin jumped backwards in shock as the giant millipede made its way towards him. “DON’T EAT ME! DON’T EAT ME!”

Jon nervously asked the Ceaseless Watcher and, with great relief, informed him, “It’s herbivorous, Martin.” The millipede simply crawled past him and began feeding on some decaying leaves.

Martin let out a massive sigh of relief. “Oh… thank goodness.”

The three sat there for a few seconds, listening to the sounds of nomming, before Annabelle stood up with an air of finality. “Okay so we should probably find a place to stay.”

“Um, what?” Martin was deeply confused and rather agitated. “What could you possibly mean by that? We’re in a prehistoric world full of GIANT BUGS!”

Jon smugly interjected, “Not exactly Bugs, Martin -”

“You KNOW what I MEAN!”

“That I do. Because I Know everything.”

Martin raised an eyebrow. “You seem Awfully cheery for someone who just woke up in Bug World.”

Jon chuckled faintly. “Well, we wanted to end up ‘somewhere else.’ We got Exactly what we wished for.”

Martin let out a snort of laughter at this. “I s’pose we did.”

…

Fortunately for them, they found there were lots of trees around and logs that could potentially be used to build a shelter. Unfortunately they were in a swamp and everything was damp and humid.

Martin felt hopeless. “Well, how are we supposed to work with this?”

Jon asked the Ceaseless Watcher. The Ceaseless Watcher returned nothing useful. In fact it simply told him to ‘fly to and sleep on a leaf.’ Huh.

“Well I’ve got nothing. I’m also pretty sure that the Ceaseless Watcher is rather geared towards the giant flying insects of this era.”

Martin was frustrated. “Well that’s just GREAT!”

Annabelle suggested that they look for a flat area that wasn’t so swampy. Jon thought that sounded like a decent idea and Martin followed along because his shoes and socks were wet and he was feeling grumpy and the idea of a flat area sounded quite nice. Also Jon wanted to. And he wanted to keep Jon’s positive mood going as long as he could.

“Well this is a nice rocky outcrop.” Annabelle looked impressed.

Jon had to agree. “Nice, lots of open area.”

“And no mud!” Martin happily climbed up onto the rock and removed his shoes and socks. Much better.

Jon turned at the sudden sound of rapidly buzzing wings. “Hmm. I wonder what that - AHHHHHHHHH!”

The three of them screamed as a giant dragonfly lifted a flailing Jon a couple feet up into the air and started trying to drag him off.

“JON!” Martin dove for the insect but stepped on a rock in his bare feet and fell to the ground, cursing.

Annabelle tried to catch it with webbing but the dragonfly simply darted out of the way and gave her a baleful look as it lifted the struggling, terrified Jon farther up into the air and flew off towards the trees. Screams drifted through the air getting steadily quieter until they faded out.

...

By the time Martin and Annabelle finally got to the edge of the trees again, night was falling.

Martin was sniffling. “W-we have to find Jon.”

Annabelle put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “We will, Martin. We w-” Annabelle suddenly tripped and fell flat on her face in the mud. “Well, ow.” She got to her knees to the sound of Martin’s horrified gasp and sudden hysterical sobbing. “Martin, what’s -”

“OH G, JON!” Martin collapsed to the ground, sobbing, clutching a skeletal human hand to his heart.

“OH… OH G.” Annabelle looked at what she’d tripped on… a small, freshly de-fleshed human skeleton. With a tape recorder next to it.

…

Hello, reader.

Apologies for the deception but I thought it would be funny. This is NOT the actual ending to this story but in fact a joke ending. Don’t worry - Jon doesn’t actually get eaten by a giant dragonfly. LOL!

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?