#((I wrote this at midnight on mobile directly into the tumblr app so I’m sure there’s some stupid typos in here but oh well))

[theskywaslookingback]

“Splicers!”

A burst of fire comes around the corner, Tim coming into view a moment later. His mouth is set in grim determination, wielding fire like a demon with Melanie and her crossbow at his side.

“Come on,” Sasha says from the computer terminal, hands flying across the screen, “come on, come on, come on-“

Jon feels Martin’s fingers digging into his bicep, moments before he realizes he’s leaning forward, hand already outstretched. “We need you here,” Martin says, his voice cracking, “Jon.”

“I know,” He curls his hand over Martin’s, “I know, I-“

Melanie screams.

Daisy’s head shoots up. She looks bad, hair falling into blood shot eyes, dirt covered palms pressed to her bleeding side. Basira tries to hold her there, but Daisy pushes at her gently; or as gently as she can, it still sends Basira stumbling back. “I have to help.”

“No,” Basira says, darting back forward but Daisy catches her by the shoulders.

“Goddamn splicers!” Comes Tim’s voice, and then there’s the rattle of gunfire from somewhere ahead of them. Jon can’t see Tim or Melanie anymore and he longs to help. Martin squeezes his arm, heavy length of pipe at his side tapping at his leg nervously. They haven’t been overtaken yet but Tim and Melanie can’t hold the splicers back forever, and it seems like Jonah Magnus has sent them a whole army.

The gunfire drowns out whatever Daisy is saying to Basira but Basira shakes her head viciously. Then Daisy shuffles forward and puts a mouth to her ear.

The massive door behind them pops and hisses as the steam powered locks churn and spin. Martin hisses in a breath through his teeth. Jon thinks about kissing him and wishes beyond reason that he’d thought to do it earlier. His heart in his throat he thinks, ‘I love you and I am so, so scared.’

“Got it!” Sasha exclaims, “Jon!”

“Promise me.” Daisy says.

“I promise.” Basira answers.

“Good,” Daisy says and grins, it is terrible and full of teeth, “now go.”

“Daisy-“

“Go.”

Basira turns and grabs Martin and Jon by the front of their shirts, hauling them through the massive metal door. Seconds after they slip through it makes a grating, high shriek of metal on metal before all at once it snaps back closed. Jon barely has time to see Sasha’s shocked face, splicers spilling into the room, Daisy tearing into them, before they’re lost to him.

The radio at his waist crackles. “Jon?”

Jon picks up the radio, “Elias? Where have you been, we-“

“You’re in his office now, aren’t you? You’re close.” Elias says smoothly, “Jonah Magnus should just be through the next set of doors, you know what to do.”

“And what would that be?” Jon asks, “You know you’ve never actually said-“

“Jon.”

Jon looks up. Behind him is a great wall, filled with television monitors. Some of them show parts of Rapture - the gardens of Arcadia, the halls of the medical pavilion, the docks of the fisheries - flickering in and out as the cameras shift from one view to another. There are parts he doesn’t recognize - what appears to be a chapel, a saloon, a hotel - and something that chills him down to his bones.

The view at the very bottom left shows a feed of his flat, the one he’d been living in for years since he’d moved away from his grandmother. The one next to that shows the university where he works, cycling through the library and mess hall and student building. The one next to that is black, though he has the chilling thought it may have once showed the home where he grew up.

“He’s been watching us.” Martin says, the horror and disgust plain on his face, “Christ, he’s been-“

“This is just sick.” Basira says, “We need to find Magnus. Now.”

“He’s been watching me.” Jon says softly.

Basira scoffs, “He’s been watching all of us.”

“No, I mean,” Jon holds a trembling hand out toward the screen, “that’s my flat. Top side.”

“What!” Martin hurries over, pressing up against Jon’s side.

It’s a welcome weight and Jon takes his hand gratefully. “That’s my office, at work,” he gestures to the next screen, “and that’s the university library, the hall-“

“So, what? He- he- brought you here?” Basira clicks her tongue. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t-“ Jon picks up his radio, “Elias? Elias, are you there?” The radio remains predictably, infuriatingly, silent. “Elias? Damn you.”

“Magnus has to be around here somewhere,” Basira says, “let’s split up and-“

“Split up?! Oh right, yes, let’s just serve ourselves up on- on- on a silver platter or- or-“

“No, no, Basira’s right. We have a better chance of finding him before he escapes if we split up. And it’s not like we’re defenseless.” Jon looks rather pointedly at the pipe Martin still has clutched in his fist and Martin gives a little grumble.

“Yes, yes, all right.”

Jon goes through a door on the right that seems to lead to a study, the walls liked with row upon row of books. There’s a stuffed bear in the corner, a hare in a jacket perched on the corner of the desk, a coat rack with a stylish if a bit worn black jacket hanging from it. The desk itself looks old and Jon wonders if Magnus brought it down with him from top side or if he’d had it fashioned from the trees in Arcadia. The desk is heaped with papers and, upon closer inspection, Jon notices a smear of blood. He traces it with the edge of his thumb and looks down. More blood drips at the edge of the desk, down onto the carpet. At the corner, near the row of neat, varnished wood drawers, is a small red button.

Jon presses the button and hears a click and hiss before the stuffed bear in the corner shifts over and reveals a door. He should get Basira and Martin, he knows, but he just wants to take a look. If it’s nothing he doesn’t want to pull them away from their own search.

The door gives easily to the press of his hand, and Jon steps inside.

The first thing Jon sees is the chair. Plush green velvet, high backed and studded with bits of brass. There is a man in the chair, his hand mere inches from the ground as he slumps there, blood on his palm and finger tips. At least, Jon assumes it must be a man. The back of the chair faces the door, too broad for Jon to see more that the arm and a leg kicked out haphazardly.

Jon clears his throat, suddenly clenched in panic. “Are- are you Jonah Magnus?”

The man gives no response. No indication he’d heard him at all.

“Hello?” Jon steps forward, lightly, “Are you-“ Jon sucks in a sharp breath as he comes up beside the man. He’d clearly been badly beaten, his head caved in with shocking bits of bone and blood exposed. Jon has seen a lot of corpses in Rapture, has even made plenty of his own, but the site of this man brings a sickness to his stomach he hasn’t felt in months.

The radio at his waist crackles. Elias hums, smooth and slow. “Oh, I see you’ve found what’s left of Jonah, then.”

Jon looks up sharply and sees a little security camera, winking a red light in the corner as if waving hello.

“A shame really, that it had to come to that, but the old man was growing soft. I think he’d started actually becoming fond of you, his little pet project. Do you know, Jon, what the difference is between a man and a slave?”

“I-“

“That was a rhetorical question, actually. Would you kindly stop talking and be still?”

Jon felt his jaw snap shut without his permission, his limbs heavy at his side like cement.

Elias let out a pleased sigh. “There we are. You see Jon, a man chooses and a slave - well, a slave obeys. Jonah decided, many years ago, that people would be so much happier if they stopped having to think so much. If they could just do as they were told without fussing, he said, if they could just exist and function in society without strife and debate then maybe mankind could actually make some steps forward. He was a daft fool of an old man but he at least had a few basic tenants right. So he started experimenting. First, with the little sisters, then with the big daddies, and then with you.” The radio crackled merrily, almost alive with the joy coming from Elias. “You were perfect, Jon. The perfect baby, the perfect child. We asked and you, well, you obeyed. It was more than we ever could have dreamed.

But the timing wasn’t right, so Jonah sent you up top to wait, knowing some day we would bring you home. He started getting soft though, as he watched you, started thinking of himself as more like your father. He said Rapture was too far gone and there was no point in bringing you down now. So, I bashed his head in with a pipe. Not my finest moment, I will be the first to admit, but- well.

But now you’re here, at long last. The moment I had long been waiting for. You are so strong, Jon, and still so perfect. And you’re mine.”

Jon feels panic claw his way up his throat with no way to escape. He feels his eyes burn with tears unshed, and knows if he were allowed to move his hands would be trembling.

“Now, Jon, would you kindly go kill your friends? I can’t wait to see you.” The radio crackles once, twice more, before going silent.

“Jon?” God, Martin, not Martin. “Jon, where are you? We can’t find Magnus anywhere! He must have escaped that slippery-“

Jon wants to scream, to warn them, but his jaw is locked down tight. He steps out into the office and Martin is there at the door. He wants to cry out, tell him to run.

“Oh there you are! Basira is- Jon? Are you all right?”

Jon brings up his hand, flames licking at his finger tips, and prays for Martin to run. And hopes that his friends can kill him before he kills them.