Arachnophobia - Eevrid the Drider
Pairing: Drider x f!Reader
Wordcount: 4668 words
Tags: Blindfolds, bondage, body worship
Summary: As someone with terrible arachnophobia you decide to try your friends recommendation of "exposure therapy" with an aquaintance of her, who is a Drider.
Ever since you were a child you had debilitating arachnophobia. Every time you'd see the teensiest spider you'd panic, having to ask someone else to get rid of said spider. It was a little pathetic, and now that you were an adult you were ready to get over this fear already.
"I know what you need," a friend said to you one day, after you yelled at a small spider on the table you were sitting at, and multiple eyes had been on you and your friend. "Exposure therapy."
"Exposure therapy." You deadpanned back. As if you hadn't thought of that yet. You were much too scared to be able to try something like that. "You must overestimate me here. Did you already forget what happened just now?"
She took a sip of her drink, nodding sagely. "That's exactly why. The spider just now was tiny, harmless, and you yelled like you just got bit by a snake."
"Yeah, yeah... rub it in." Came your mumble. You were aware that your panic wasn't proportionate and drew attention from others.
"Don't worry so much. I have just the plan."
You rolled your eyes. "And what would that be?"
She leaned forward over the table, and started speaking in a hush hush voice. "I have an acquaintance who could really help you with this sort of thing."
"Oh?"
"He's a Drider."
Fear coursed through you. Though you had never come into contact with the supernatural yourself, you knew of their existence. If there was one being you'd never ever want to come into contact with it was the infamous Drider. "You're insane." She was either joking or crazy. There was no way you would go through with this.
"Well, yes, I'm friends with you!" she joked, and grabbed her phone, looking through it until she found what she was looking for. She turned the screen towards you and you pointedly ignored it. "Just look, it's just his face. No spidery details to be seen. Well... more or less."
Anxiously you managed to take a peek, and she was right. The image did not scare you... as a matter of fact it had quite the opposite effect. On her screen was a picture of a grey skinned man with long white hair and multiple eyes, his mouth was a little strangely shaped, but other than that he was very normal looking. Moreover... he was absolutely breath taking.
"Oh," you said, and she chuckled at your reaction.
"I know! And he's such a sweetheart too! Remember last year when I was lost during cave diving? He's the one that saved me then. We've been friends ever since, and I'm sure he'll agree to curing your fears with a little talking. In your case just being around him will cure you of your arachnophobia in no time flat I'm sure!"
Yeah, you doubted it, but she was right about the fact that something needed to be done about your fear.
"I'll ask him about it and see if he's okay with it. What do you say? Should I give him your number so he can contact you?"
----
It was just a couple of days later that you got your first message. It was a little awkward, both of you having been brought together by your crazy common friend, but he seemed to be down with helping you. His name was Eevrid, and he agreed to the two of you first just talking through text before you'd go into the whole "exposure therapy" as your friend had called it.
"I don't go out much," he said one day when you were talking about hobbies. "Most humans don't take kindly to the supernatural, let alone one with a spider body."
You felt a little bad about it, knowing that you would probably be the first to scream if you'd see a Drider in real life. Your friend was right, you needed to do something about this phobia, if only so that you wouldn't be a dick to him and his race because of something irrational as a fear.
Talking to Eevrid was nice, comforting even. And as you went from texting to calling over the phone you realised you were looking forward to your talks. His voice was soft and soothing, and sometimes you found yourself lost in daydreams thinking about his profile picture. A feeling of wanting to meet him in real life started to grow in you, despite the fear that grew in proportion to your longing. You knew what his face looked like... but his lower body was still a mystery to you. You had looked up pictures of Driders, but found it too difficult to look for long, the images bringing out the same fear as the real thing probably would. The lines between friendship and something more seemed to blur with every message, and with it grew your want to meet him. He hadn't asked you yet, knowing about your troubles, but there were definitely moments where he let it show through his words that he really wanted to meet you as well.
Then again... that's what you started talking for. For you to meet him, to get over your fear... You decided to take the step and asked him over the phone one day, if there was a way you could meet him. He seemed ecstatic as the both of you spoke about where best to meet.
-
And here you were, on your way to Eevrid, your Drider online friend that was going to help you with your phobia. Although you were worried he was just going to make it worse by... being himself. Despite your fears you had decided to meet at his place, since not many places openly accepted the supernatural so willingly yet. It hurt. Hurt extra when you realised you were probably one of the reasons Driders like Eevrid were shunned from mayor establishments, but you put it in the back of your mind for now. Next time you'd find a place both of you could enjoy together. Or maybe next time would be your place. Whatever the case, right now it was at his place, and you were shaking with anticipation.
Or fear.
Maybe both.
And as you knocked on the door to his house; a surprisingly normal door inside of a cave-like wall straight out of a fantasy your hands shook almost violently. As soon as the last echo of the knock ran out your hands were behind you back, grasped together as if to not show your nerves.
You almost yelped when "I'm coming" came from inside in Eevrid's calming voice, followed by the door opening and a head poking out.
"H-hi," you said, nerves easing slightly at the kind but slightly anxious smile that was shown on his handsome face as he saw you standing there, "I'm here."
His anxious smile vanished, a genuine, warm laugh escaping him at your stuttering, and he replied: "Yes, I'm glad you are. Welcome inside."
You made your way indoors, forcing yourself to look anywhere except Eevrid's lower body. Why was this so hard? You really, genuinely liked Eevrid, and his presence was both soothing and exciting you, and yet- the thought of him being a Drider still absolutely filled you with fear.
If he noticed you not looking at him properly, he didn't let it show, opting instead to give you a small tour of his house. It was small, sparsely decorated, and in your humble opinion could use a woman's touch... which was a train of thought you instantly cut off. Everything about it did felt like him though, and you smiled slightly at all the cosiness of the space.
When the room tour ended in his bedroom both of you just stood there, a little awkwardly. The bed that was in the middle of the room was more like a nest of blankets and pillows and if it was half as comfortable as it looked it had the potential to cure anyone's insomnia.
"Well," he said, and you looked over, feeling like a high school girl seeing the room of her crush. Well, it wasn't far off the mark. Sadly when you looked over to him you finally did what you were avoiding; looking at his lower body, and a small high pitched sound escaped your throat, barely swallowed when you realized you were being extremely rude.
He instantly made himself small, legs curling up under him in an attempt to make you more comfortable, which, ironically, had the opposite effect. Your fists balled tightly, bringing them close to your chest as you managed to remain rooted on the spot without running.
"It's- I'm sorry- I tried to-" you stuttered, adrenaline coursing through you as you tried to keep your breathing to a normal level. He remained in place, almost reaching for you when he saw your reaction, but thankfully realizing in time that would probably make the situation worse.
It hurt, he couldn't deny that, but the both of you were aware of your fear, and your reaction was honestly a lot less intense than he'd feared when he had gone over the day in his mind multiple times.
"Hey, it's okay," he said, and you felt yourself relax a bit as you focused on the sound of his voice and his face. "We knew this would happen, and there's no shame in going about this slowly."
You nodded, slowly feeling your breath even out, and letting your eyes move down his face to his chest, lower... your breath hitched again as you quickly brought your eyes back up to his face where you found him smiling softly.
"How about I get something to drink for you while you calm down, hm? Maybe we can come up with some ideas to keep this fun and light hearted as we sit and talk. And who knows, maybe we'll figure out how to cure your arachnophobia as we go!"
You nodded. You really, really wanted to get over your fear as soon as possible. Eevrid was too nice for you to have a reaction like this to him, it was rude and uncalled for, and you cursed your own cowardice as you saw him leave to make you some tea. Slowly you followed him to the living room where you sat down on a human-sized chair. He told you he had friends over sometimes, that's why some furniture was more catered to you as a human and other more to him as a Drider.
As you heard his soft footfalls you turned towards him and had to stifle your laugh as he had covered his lower body with a blanket. It looked so goofy, as if he was wearing an enormous lumpy wedding dress, and when he said: "It looks stupid doesn't it?" with a slight blush you couldn't help but let out a little chuckle.
"It does," you said honestly, "But I really appreciate the gesture."
It really worked though, and as you sat, drank tea and talked, you realized how comfortable you were with him. It was exactly the same as through text, and as you looked at him you realized he felt the same. Until he stumbled over the wedding dre- no, blanket, and you panicked to see him tumbling trying to not stumble over all 8 of his legs.
"It's not really helping isn't it..." you pondered, and saw him nod apologetically, as if he was the problem and not you. "It's also not helping me get over my fear. How about..." you were quiet a bit, knowing where you wanted to go with this sentence, but feeling a little silly. He looked at you expectantly. Honestly he really wanted to help you with your fear, both for you and for him. He just really wanted to be able to be closer to you without scaring you off... his body yearned for yours, contact with you not only mentally.
You cleared your throat and continued with a small blush on your face. "How about I use a blindfold? That way I can maybe touch you without the visual fear and that way I might easier get over my fear?"
It was said more as a question, it sounded more stupid than you thought the longer the sentence went on, but you saw him nod seriously.
"That might work," he said, willing to try, and instantly grabbing a clean hand towel to use as a makeshift blindfold. You chuckled awkwardly as he fastened it gently, asking a "Is it alright? Not too tight?", and feeling you nod in return.
"Okay," you said, carefully reaching out your hand to him and feeling him grab it in one of his. It was large, strong and slightly cool, but a blush instantly ignited on your face as you felt him squeeze it a bit at your words. "I'm going to touch you now, is that okay?"
You heard nothing for a little bit, and when you tilted your head at him inquisitively you heard him chuckle a little, sounding embarrassed as he said: "I'm sorry, you can't see me nod right now. Yes, I'm okay, do what you want."
His permission made you instantly jolt into motion, one hand still squeezing his' as you other slowly moved upwards to his chest to start your fear conquering path onwards to his 8 legs.
"Tell me if you don't like it, okay?" You mumbled as you hand slowly mapped out his upper, humanlike body. His pecs were hard, but different from a well build human. The skin itself felt tougher to the touch, as far as you could tell through his clothes, and you hummed as you slowly ran your fingers over his abs, stopping short of his crotch. You were really only doing this to get over your fear. Of course...
However now that you had started touching him you felt your blush deepen. What you were doing suddenly hit you like a pile of bricks. You were blindfolded, feeling him up under the guise of getting over your fear. A small sound escaped him.
"I, uh," you removed your hand as if stung.
"I'm sorry," Eevrid said, "Was it too much? Are you scared?"
Scared? Right now you were far from it. Your hand itched to be touching him again, and you replied with a negative. "Can I... can I touch your legs now?" The words came out in a squeak, the concept still scaring you, but you wanted to touch him all over now, and if there was ever a moment you might get over your fear it was under the influence of your arousal that was growing more insistent with every touch you laid on him.
"Of course." He said, his voice sounding a little husky to your ears, and you felt your hand tremble as he slowly took it to put it on one of his many legs. It trembled with you, but only for a second as you let out a small sound of both fear and excitement.
It was slightly coarse, but much softer than you expected, and it felt a lot less scary than it looked. You let your fingers run over the tickly hairs, running a hand up and down the appendage, slowly getting used to the idea that Eevrid had a lower body that was basically a giant spider without the visuals of such. Slowly your hand reached the part where leg met abdomen, and you curiously let your eager fingers glide across, feeling a small shiver go through his body under your ministrations. Another sound left Eevrid, almost imperceptible to your ears had it not been absolutely quiet in the room save for your beating heart and both of your breaths that had picked up significantly. The sound was unmistakable now; it seemed this little game had an effect on both of you, and you couldn't help but smirk as you let your hands wander to what you assumed were less innocent spots.
"Ah, y/n," he warned, "If you go there I don't know if I can stop myself."
It sounded less like a warning to you, and more like a promise. "Stop yourself from what?" You said cheekily as you ran your hand square of the front of his body, where spider met human in a transition of coarse hair to hard exoskeleton to soft skin.
A hand grabbed yours to stop it, a small chuckle coming from Eevrid at your actions as he pulled your hand away.
"I've taken away your sight, should I take away your ability to tease?"
"Oh? Are you going to tie me up then?" came from you, you were giddy with your earlier fear and your current arousal, and so very willing to take this a step further. The blindfold had really helped so far, and if just touching him innocently had worked you up this much you wondered how much better him touching you would make you feel. "I can still tease you verbally though." you chuckled as you felt his fingers run softly over your wrists, still waiting for your permission.
"Not if I do this-" he muttered, much closer than you expected his voice to be. Strange lips pressed against you the next second in a kiss that instantly deepened when you gasped in surprise. A thin tongue invaded your mouth and you moaned as it met yours, tangling in a sensual dance as he pushed your body back with insistent but gentle motions.
"Where are you taking me?" escaped you between passionate kisses, almost stumbling over something on the floor, and he decided to just lift you up and carry you.
"Bed," he replied, nipping your lips one last time before putting you down on a soft surface you realized was the nest of pillows and blankets you'd seen earlier. It was as comfortable as you'd thought and you sighed as you nestled further into it, reaching your arms up to Eevrid who you imagined was above you.
You felt his abdomen again, but before you could reach for what you hoped was his crotch he had grabbed your greedy hands again. He tutted, shaking his head at you though you could not see it.
"I told you what I was planning to do with these naughty hands, didn't I?"
A giggle from you was his reply, and a "Well, what are you waiting for then?"
He muttered something that sounded like "You asked for it", as you felt a silky kind of rope wrap around your wrists, pulling them up over your head, stopping you from moving them. You wondered if it was his webbing, which made the whole ordeal simply more exotic and more intimate to you somehow. You tested the restraints with a harsh pull. They felt deceivingly soft, but they held sturdy.
You felt the bed indent around you, a shadow falling over you which was the only thing you could make out through the blindfold.
"It's time I return the favour," Eevrid said, sounding high above you, but his next words were much closer as you realized he was now hovering right over your prone body. "Where do you want me to touch first?"
A slightly cool hand landed on your legs, and you jolted, feeling him squeeze your thigh through your jeans.
"How about this tiny leg of yours. You might not have many, but they make up for it in squishiness."
You let out a squeak. Realization of your subconscious action of opening your legs to him came a second after and you blushed a scarlet red. You were throbbing in your panties, wishing he'd take your clothes off already and touch your skin directly, but you didn't get to voice this thought before he spoke again.
"It's a bit unfair you got to touch my skin directly and I can't though..." he muttered, fingers running down the length of your legs, squeezing the fat occasionally as you shivered under him. "I think it's time to remove the barrier, hm?"
His teasing words made you groan, and open your legs a little wider. You couldn't see his face, or what he was doing, and your ears strained for any and all sounds that would indicate his actions or the sounds he was making. The occasional sigh that came from his as you felt his hands slowly undo the button to your jeans and sliding them down your legs made your insides throb. Your socks came with it, but he sadly left your panties in place as you wiggled your hips at him.
His fingers were now on your skin without any fabric in between, and he ran one finger from the slope of your belly, over your covered core, over your thighs all the way to your toes, where the tickling feeling made you retreat your foot quickly with a small giggle replacing your earlier moan.
"I've always thought human legs were silly looking, but now that I have your feet uncovered I am completely validated in my opinion. What even are these?" he said teasingly as he grabbed one of your toes to wiggle as you tried to no avail to remove your feet from his tickling fingers.
"Stop," you giggled, trying to get your hands free to push him away, but the webbing held you in place. This teasing only lasted for a second before he started a different kind of teasing. A gentle kiss was placed on the top of your foot as he ran his hands up your calf, moving his lips up to kiss a trail up to your knee only to start on your second leg. This time he slowly moved up your thighs, alternating between the two as he started nipping and licking his way up to your core while you tried to keep your noises and whining to a minimum.
“Eevrid,” you whined, “Stop teasing me…”
A chuckle was your reply as you felt his lips curl in a smile against your stomach now, skipping your core entirely as he moved his way up.
“I can’t help it,” he said, “You’re just too cute.” Your shirt was pulled up over your head, pushed up to your hands that were still bound as he first kissed the skin around your bra before undoing it slowly and finally lavishing your breasts with ample attention. Your back arched as you tried to move yourself closer to him, body shivering under his ministrations as you whined for him to stop teasing and get to the main event.
“Please, I need you inside me,” you gasped as he pulled on a nipple with his teeth, overstimulating the sensitive skin as you weren’t sure if you wanted to pull away or push closer. You wish you could feel him against your core, but he kept himself away from you, only touching you with his hands, lips and tongue. He removed himself from your left breast as he retreated from your upper body. Unsure of his next action you let out a pathetic whine, thrusting your hips up to him as if to invite.
A curse came from above you, as he mumbled. “I wanted to take my time tasting and worshipping you, but I don’t think I have the patience anymore.”
“Then don’t,” you groaned, “Give in and fuck me already.” You were so ready for him, throbbing and leaking, and if you didn’t feel him inside you anytime soon you were going to scream. Your wish was granted as seemingly out of nowhere you felt weight on your thighs again, the only indication that he was close before something hot and throbbing finally rutted against your wanting pussy. The sound you let out was almost pornographic, and it almost made you miss the groan he let out as he finally ended the sweet torture for himself and you.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned, and you didn’t even reply. Of course you were. You had been soaked for seemingly hours now, desperate for him.
His dick bumped against your clit and you practically growled at him to put it in, words underlined by a sharp thrust upwards that lined him up almost perfectly with your opening. His chuckle at your impatience devolved into a hiss as he finally pushed in, and if you weren’t blindfolded you would’ve seen his eyes roll back as he slid in all the way to the hilt. He was filling you so well, stretching you perfectly as your greedy walls milked him for all he was worth. He slowly pulled out before pushing in again, the rhythm slow but steady as you were almost unable to hear the small groans he let out over your own moans. Everything he did to you was so gentle and filled with love. All earlier fear was completely removed from your brain, no matter what he looked like. And when a slightly rough leg joined his hands in the caress of your body you leaned into it without thoughts, forgetting entirely why you were afraid in the first place if every touch felt so good.
Lips were suddenly against your mouth and you kissed him back with the same desperation that had permeated your actions all day. You had wanted him when you were only just texting and calling, and you realised now that you were finally making love how big that want was exactly.
Your hips snapped against his, legs trying to pull him closer, almost forgetting about his lower body’s width when you tried to wrap them around him. He kissed you again, muttering apologies but for what you weren’t sure. His pace picked up and you shivered in his arms.
You monad his name as if it was a chant, and begged him to remove your blindfold so you could see him.
“Are you sure?” He asked, hands suddenly not so sure as you felt them shiver slightly when they touched the blindfold that was still covering your eyes.
“Yes!” You keened as you felt yourself hurdling towards orgasm with his faster pace. “I want to see all of you! I can handle it.” The words almost made no sense as you tried to speak between your gasps, but he understood either way, removing the cloth quickly as if removing a bandaid.
Your eyes were unfocused, tears in the corners, threatening to fall and for a second Eevrid was afraid it had been too soon, but when he saw no fear or rejection in them, only love and desperation for him he kissed you again, a smile on his face. A hand went down to tease your clit, but the moment he made contact you already exploded, contracting around him so hard he had to stop for a second, groan escaping his gritted teeth. You were so beautiful, so small under him, and he couldn’t hold on either, rutting into you sloppily a couple more times before pulling out and releasing as well. White ropes splattered over your stomach, as your name fell from his lips in such loving desperation you almost orgasmed again from his voice and the visual of his face as he came.
Slowly both of you came down from your heights, Eevrid slowly undoing the webbing around your hands as he kissed the skin under it gently. Your eyes were on him, the way he moved around so gently, making sure not to step on you with his many legs despite his size.
And suddenly you were so glad you took this chance to overcome your phobia. You might still be afraid of an everyday spider, but not of Eevrid. Never of Eevrid. Your newly released arms reached out, pulling him closer to you as you kissed him again, muttering thanks and little nothings to him as he cleaned you with the same reverent gentleness he had displayed all day.
Your heart seemingly grew in size when you realised you had gone from fear to love, and with a content sigh you curled up against him as he pulled a large blanket over the both of you.
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Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.
Previous chapter: AO3 || Tumblr
Chapter 18 full text & content warnings below the cut.
CWs for Chapter 18: discussion of passive suicidal ideation; unintentional self-harm (scratching at arms as a stim, to the point of drawing blood); brief allusion to childhood neglect; internalized ableism (re: ADHD, but not explicitly stated as such); brief acephobia (past experience & internalized); Jon-typical negative self-talk, guilt, & rejection sensitive dysphoria; discussion of past trauma (including having bodily autonomy overridden, canon non-consensual surgery, & stabbing); internalized victim blaming/comparing victim to their abuser; discussion of self-inflicted blinding/eye gouging (past attempts & potential future attempts); brief mention of Mr. Spider/arachnophobia themes; swears. SPOILERS through Season 5.
Chapter 18: Reconciliation
Once Jon opened the door and the Fears rewrote reality, not only was sleep no longer a physiological necessity – it was no longer an option. Much like the Coffin, even a temporary escape via unconsciousness was contrary to a world defined by the ceaseless generation of terror. And just as it did any human in that place, perpetual wakefulness took its toll on Jon’s already ravaged mental health.
The fact that he was no longer plaguing the nightmares of his victims may have been a small consolation, if not for the fact that he was instead witnessing the waking nightmares of billions of new victims: the same scenes looping over and over, layered one on top of the other, an endless soundtrack screaming in the background of his mind. Venting a statement from time to time could only do so much to quell that storm. He’d really had no choice but to learn to compartmentalize on autopilot and dissociate on command.
So when, for the first time since before the world ended, Jon awakens to Martin at his side, his mind cannot immediately reconcile the sight. He might think he was dreaming, if not for the fact that he hasn’t had a pleasant dream of his own since he became the Archivist. And even before then – well, he’d always been more predisposed to nightmares.
Jon feels his heart stutter in his throat when he sets eyes on Martin. Their hands are still clasped together, and despite the sweatiness of their palms and the way Jon’s arm is cramping from the angle, he has no desire to let go. Instead, he lies still, breathing shallow and measured, fearful of any sound or movement that might shatter the almost uncanny peace of the moment.
He really shouldn’t be staring like this, though, should he? Martin has given him permission to stare many times before, but that was in a future where they had Seen each other at their most vulnerable. Being seen, truly seen – as terrifying as it was for the both of them – became a comfort, because of what they had been through together. Here in the past, Martin hasn’t shared that experience. He might not be as keen to put up with Jon’s incessant watching.
Those reservations still aren’t enough to stop him, though.
Martin is still sat in his chair, but bent sideways at the waist to lean halfway on the cot. He’s snoring lightly, his head pillowed on his free arm, glasses askew. The angle is probably hell on his back.
Maybe I should wake him up, Jon thinks idly, one corner of his mouth turning up in a small, fond smile.
He doesn’t. Instead, his eyes remain rapt on Martin, soaking in every detail, as beloved and familiar as always: the length of his eyelashes, the shape of his lips, the spray of freckles across his nose, that particularly stubborn cowlick that always, always stands on end. Jon wants to reach out, sink his fingers into those curls, massage his scalp in that way Martin used to love – but that would be a step beyond staring, wouldn’t it? So he watches: unblinking, aching, adoring, and so overwhelmed that he's at risk of tearing up.
It’s painfully, embarrassingly maudlin of him, he knows, but can he really be faulted for that? Jon surpassed the lifespan of a normal human several times over, bereft and alone in a desolated realm of his own making. He spent much of that time out of his mind with grief, drowning in hopelessness and guilt, cycling between numb dissociation and raw destruction. When he wasn’t wandering aimlessly – near-catatonic, subsumed by the never-ending deluge of fear permeating that world – he was lashing out. Although he couldn’t die, he could still hurt, and so he did, with exacting focus: both himself and all the other monsters going through the motions in that doomed world.
Ending them neither decreased nor increased the net output of fear, but it was the closest Jon could come to some nebulous, fleeting sense of justice. He didn’t enjoy it – in fact, he hated the other Avatars sometimes, bitter that they could attain a release that seemed impossible for him. His first few acts of vengeance in those early days had felt good in the moment, but the high never lasted: just like taking a statement.
Eventually, once the fear began to grow scarcer, it felt more and more like granting mercy – often to monsters who never showed any themselves – rather than meting out justice. A few moments of pain was preferable to slow, torturous starvation. Breekon was the first to request such a favor. He was far from the last.
It made Jon feel monstrous in an all new way, offering escape to predators when he could do nothing to save their victims – at least not without turning them into Avatars themselves, creating more monsters to replace the old. But it also made him feel real – a tangible, active presence interacting with the world, as opposed to a ghost, unseen and unknowable. An undeniable consequence, rather than a detached observer.
Tears start to gather in the corners of his eyes. Jon tries to swallow them back, but his throat has grown thick with emotion. He never expected to escape that place; never expected to see a friendly face or hear a kind word ever again. And now that he has…
This isn’t for you, says an insidious little voice in the back of his head: some twisted chimera comprised of all those who have known him well enough to see him for what he is, to catalogue his failings, to pass judgment. There is no place for you in this world. You don’t belong here. You were made for something greater; eliminate that, and what remains –
A gentle knock-knock at the door startles him out of his thoughts.
“Jon?” Georgie pushes the door open and peers through the gap. “You awake?”
“Yeah.” It comes out as a fractured whisper. He sniffles and rubs his eyes, but Georgie has already noticed his distress.
“Bad dream?”
“No.” Jon clears his throat and props himself up on one elbow. “No, ah – quite the opposite, really.”
“Oh?” Georgie says, probing for an explanation.
Jon's gaze drifts to his hand, still joined with Martin’s. “None of this feels real, and…”
“And?”
“I, uh…” Jon closes his eyes, blinking back tears. “I don’t deserve it.”
“The world doesn’t work that way.”
“Maybe it should.” Jon lets out a wet, clipped laugh.
No one got what they deserved in the world he created, only what hurt them the most. Tempting as it was to find some meaning in it all, to retroactively draw correlations between past actions and current circumstances, Jon Knew from the very beginning that there was no cause-and-effect at play. Not really. Any misery being experienced in that new world was utterly unrelated to the lives people lived before the change. It was indiscriminate. Everyone was afraid and in agony, regardless of any subjective judgment on whether or not they deserved it.
And nothing Jon did changed those material conditions in the slightest. He could shift an individual’s role from subject to object and vice versa, reassign their place on the spectrum of the tortured versus the torturer, but at the end of the day, he was still just facilitating fear, regardless of what shape it took. Despite being one of the most powerful and fearful things roaming that scorched earth, his options were as limited as they’d always been. Every choice led to more or less the same end.
By every measure that could be said to actually matter, he was ultimately powerless.
Would it have been any more tolerable if the suffering was more proportionate? If at least some of the people trapped in the domains could be said to be receiving just punishment for any agony they themselves had inflicted before the end of the world? Maybe. But probably not. Securing vengeance never actually yielded any meaningful catharsis for Jon. Even Jonah Magnus' ultimate fate produced nothing but revulsion. The Archive may feed on such fear, but after all this time, Jon – all the pieces of him that still belong to him – has no desire to behold suffering. He has seen enough for several lifetimes, and he was never once given the option to look away, let alone put an end to it.
Jon shakes his head and begins to fully sit up, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb Martin. He’s hardly expecting Georgie to engage with his newest avenue of brooding, but after a minute, she gives a thoughtful hum and leans against the doorframe.
“Don’t know that I want to see what that would look like,” she says pensively.
“What?”
“A world where ‘deservedness’ was quantifiable – where you could put a precise value on suffering, and every action had a moral price tag on it that stayed the same regardless of the circumstances. Where subjective experiences could be – shoved into neat little categories that everyone could agree on.”
“Like Robert Smirke,” Jon murmurs.
“Sure.” Georgie shrugs. “I don’t know if humanity as we know it could even exist in a world like that. We’d be… unrecognizable.”
“O-oh?”
“Mm. We aren’t equations. Or – well, we are, I guess, at the most basic physical level, if you scale down small enough. Atoms, physics, chemical reactions and all that. But when it comes to the experience of consciousness, personal identity, free will… isn’t the complexity what gives it all meaning? If we could account for every last variable, know the exact effect of every cause, what would that make us?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Life isn’t about the destination, I guess is what I’m saying.” Georgie runs her thumb over her lips as she muses. “We already know the destination. One way or another, everything dies.”
“‘The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one,’” Jon recites, a distant quality to his voice. “There’s no difference between that last moment that ushers us out into oblivion and the one we experience now – everything ends, even the universe, even time. And… that means it has always already ended.”
It takes a moment for Jon to come back to himself, blinking dazedly. It's another few seconds before he realizes what happened – and when he does, a sudden, heavy coldness takes root and blossoms in his chest.
“I’m so– I didn’t – I wasn’t –”
“It’s – fine,” Georgie says, although she sounds a bit rattled. “It was an accident.”
“Still, I’m sorry, I –”
“Apology accepted, Jon. I’m not angry.” When she sees Jon gearing up to belabor the point, she holds up a hand. “You’re forgiven. Let’s just move on, okay?”
Jon bites down on his lower lip, torn between dueling impulses: groveling, berating himself, shutting down, or… simply taking Georgie at her word. With a long, shaky exhale, he settles on trust: Georgie expressed a desire to drop it and move forward. He should respect that, right? Right.
He bites back his protests and nods stiffly. “Okay.”
“Look, what I was trying to get at is – knowing the destination doesn’t invalidate the journey, right? If anything, the inevitability of an ending is what gives meaning to all the rest.”
The End forced Georgie to confront the insignificance of her own birth and death against the backdrop of a vast universe – but rather than allow that realization to immobilize her with despair, she opted to make all the moments in between meaningful. Jon can't help but once again remember the confidence with which Martin countered Simon Fairchild's brand of flippant nihilism: I think our experience of the universe has value, even if it disappears forever.
I might have a type, he thinks to himself, equal parts wry and endeared.
“We all end up in the same place,” Georgie continues, “but that doesn’t have to mean we all follow the same path. What matters is what happens along the way, and – if you could map out every bit of the journey, predict the outcome of every single step you take, then – what else is left?”
“If you already know the answer to every question,” Jon says softly, “what’s the point of being?”
Jon isn’t sure what expression he’s making, but whatever it is, Georgie blanches when she catches his eye.
“Oh, I – Jon, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”
“No, it’s – it’s alright. You’re not wrong.” Jon chuckles awkwardly. “Is it odd that I find the thought…reassuring? Sort of?”
“We’re getting lost in the weeds, aren't we?” Georgie says with a flustered laugh. “My original point was – this obsession you have with deservedness, and establishing dichotomies, and trying to find simple, objective answers to complicated questions – it’s a skewed way of looking at the world, and it’s eating you alive. You have to stop treating your life like it’s a scorecard. Relentlessly punishing yourself isn’t going to change the past. It’s not healthy, it’s not productive, and it just makes you more likely to sabotage your future.”
“I know. It’s just… the things I’ve done, they’re – unforgivable. I can’t leave it behind, and I can’t take it back.”
Jon used to wonder when the Eye would make him too monstrous to feel shame. It never did, never had to: he abetted it regardless of how he felt about it. For the most part, he can’t even apologize: the people he hurt are either dead or have no memory of what Jon did to warrant it. Besides, some consequences too irrevocable, too catastrophic to cushion with remorse.
Sorry that you died because I failed; sorry that I burned a bridge that could have kept us both safe; sorry that you’re trapped here just because I stood too close to you. Sorry for the invaded privacy, sorry for the mistreatment, sorry for all the hunger and fear and nightmares. Sincerest apologies, everyone, for the eternal torment.
He could have composed a personalized apology for every last person in the world had he wanted – he’d certainly had the time to spare, as well as detailed knowledge of each victim’s plight. But any apology he could possibly make, no matter how eloquent or sincere, would have been insulting in its inadequacy. What reparations can be made to soften the blow of a life lost or a world ended?
“S-so,” he says, eyes downcast, “that just leaves… guilt.”
And fear. Fear enough to cram an Archive full to bursting.
“I know,” Georgie says.
“I’m sorry, I –” Jon breathes a bitter laugh. “I’m a broken record, aren’t I? I fall apart every time I see you.”
“Jon,” George sighs, “you don’t have to apologize. You’ve been through unimaginable trauma. You’ve had barely any chance to start to heal from it. You’re still living it. I don’t expect a few heart-to-heart conversations to close the book on… all of that.”
“Still, it’s – annoying, I imagine.” Jon picks nervously at a loose thread on his trouser leg. “To sit through the same conversation over and over again.”
“I’d be more worried if you went back to just – pretending to be okay, refusing to talk about it. It’s been barely a month since you got out of the hospital. Shit, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since you crawled out of that Coffin.” Her eyes narrow slightly, intent and searching. “Speaking of which, I should ask: Are you a danger to yourself right now?”
“What?” The question catches Jon off guard. “No? N-no, I’m – why would you –”
“Just checking in. Which I’m going to keep doing. Regularly. So you may as well make peace with that now.”
“It’s not like I’m going to kill myself,” Jon mumbles – aiming for casually unconcerned and instead landing squarely in transparently uncomfortable territory. “I’m fairly certain I can’t die a mundane human death, anyway.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still hurt yourself. And being suicidal sucks regardless of whether you actually plan on going through with it.” Jon studiously avoids eye contact as Georgie speaks. “Anyway, I know I sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it as many times as you need reminding: You have a second chance. You said you were going to make the best of it, and you can’t do that if you won’t let yourself have some peace.” Her expression softens, as does her voice. “Just… let yourself be, won’t you?”
There’s truth to what Georgie is saying. Even if he wasn’t mired in guilt, though…
“I’m afraid,” Jon whispers. “Of losing him, of losing everyone, of…”
Of dooming everyone. It was so easy. All it took was his voice, an incantation, and this ceaseless, aberrant hunger. He’s seen the consequences of the destiny for which he has unwittingly been prepared. Like it or not, he is the most dangerous thing in this world – a walking hair-trigger, already having overstayed his welcome on this earth by several lifetimes. One misstep, and…
“I should be grateful to have this, to have him – and I am, but every – every time I come close to letting myself feel – safe, hopeful, content, it… it never lasts. It’s always swallowed up by fear – not of if something goes wrong, but when. It just feels like… any choice I make is bound to end in tragedy. Like there’s no way out. Like nothing I do will change anything. I – I’ll mess it up; I always do.”
It’s a pattern that began long before he became entangled in Jonah’s machinations. Jon was a difficult child who grew into an even more difficult adult, always saying and doing all the wrong things because he’s never been able to fully grasp the invisible rules that other people seem to navigate so naturally. At home he could never shake the feeling that he was an odd guest, secretly unwelcome but with nowhere else to keep him; at school he was a menace, asking all the wrong questions at all the wrong times and prone to following his own lesson plans whenever the curriculum failed to hold his interest. Peer relationships typically failed to take root: he’s too guarded, too abrasive, too annoying and tactless and awkward. Whatever friendships managed to blossom tended to wilt before long, for all the same reasons.
Romantic relationships have historically been even more fraught. There are expectations that he will never meet, forms of intimacy that are traditionally assumed to be required rather than optional for such a relationship to qualify as normal, healthy, and sustainable. In his experience, setting those boundaries have usually been a deal-breaker. Georgie was the first to accept that aspect of him unconditionally; Martin was the second – and although Jon no longer believes that it’s a problem to be fixed, those old, long-held insecurities still rear up from time to time.
He had hoped he could at least prove himself capable as a Head Archivist, but, well… he was inexperienced with the duties of a mundane archiving job, unsuited to managing a department, and his preexisting difficulties with establishing rapport were exacerbated by his need to maintain a professional boundary between himself and his assistants. He tried to make up for those shortcomings with effort and dedication and – in retrospect – frankly obscene levels of overwork, but he never did manage to be a good boss or a good coworker.
It’s a cruel joke that of all the roles to finally excel in, it’s as the Archivist – or, specifically, Jonah’s Archivist. He met every expectation, even – perhaps especially – when he didn’t know what those expectations were. Not like Gertrude. She would doubtless be disappointed by her successor: constantly second-guessing himself, resolving indecisiveness with impulsivity, stumbling around in the dark, pointlessly sabotaging himself and those unlucky enough to find themselves in his orbit – ultimately devastating a world that she had made so many ruthless sacrifices to protect.
Jon has spent most of his life fumbling at being a peer, a friend, a partner, a colleague, an ally. If he couldn’t manage to figure it out when he was still human, how is he supposed to play at being a person now, when he’s…
“This – this isn’t for things like me,” Jon says hoarsely. He can feel more tears teeming as he looks down at Martin: kind and good and so, so deserving of happiness, of security, of a peaceful life that Jon fears he will never be able to provide, no matter how fiercely he loves. “I don’t get to” – end the world – “to become – this, and still get a happy ending.”
“Do you Know that?” Georgie asks.
“N-no, I can’t predict the future, but –”
“Then you shouldn’t assume the worst. You don’t have a fixed destiny, no matter what you’ve been led to believe.” She scowls at him. “And stop referring to yourself as a ‘thing’. It really doesn’t matter how human you are or aren’t, you're still you. You’re still a person.”
Jon doesn’t know how to respond to that without either contradicting her or offering lukewarm, disingenuous agreement. Luckily, he doesn’t have to: Martin begins to stir, and Jon hurriedly wipes away any evidence of tears, fighting to regain his composure. With a snuffle and a sleepy groan, Martin opens his eyes, blinking blearily.
“Hey there,” Jon says with a soft smile.
Martin returns a vague grin, muzzy with sleep. With unfocused eyes, he appears to slowly take in his surroundings, gaze lingering briefly on and then skating over his hand, fingers still interlocked with Jon’s. When his attention drifts towards Georgie, he stares at her for a long few seconds, squinting at the influx of light from the hallway. Another slow blink, another extended stare at his and Jon’s linked hands, and then his eyes widen. Color blooms on his cheeks as he abruptly surfaces into full consciousness, glasses tumbling off his face as he jerks upward.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” he says, groggy voice at odds with the panicked embarrassment in his eyes. He pulls his hand back, mumbling apologies about clammy palms. As he straightens in his seat, he lets out a pained hiss.
Jon cringes sympathetically. “You should’ve taken the cot.”
Martin ignores the comment, scrubbing at his face now, hiding it in his sleeve. It does nothing to conceal his reddened ears, Jon notes with amused affection.
“Did you sleep alright, otherwise?” Jon asks.
“Mm?” Martin retrieves his glasses and slips them back on before turning his attention to Jon. “Oh, uh – yes. You?”
“Yes, actually.”
His first routine breakdown of the day notwithstanding, Jon did manage to sleep through most of the night, only waking once after a brief foray back into Karolina’s nightmare.
The rest of the dreams were relatively benign. He spent some time with Georgie. Naomi was pleased to see him and eager as ever to regale him with cat anecdotes. Dr. Elliott was less pleased, but he was at least no more afraid of Jon than he had been during the coma. Seeing Jordan Kennedy was as uncomfortable as ever; Jon doubts he’ll ever know what to say to him. Tessa was more difficult to read. She wasn’t exactly happy to see him again, but she didn't seem angry, either.
Should’ve known it wouldn’t last, she’d sighed to herself – and then promptly changed the subject before Jon could stammer out an apology.
“Learned a lot about the right to repair movement,” Jon says absently.
“What?” Martin asks, bewildered.
“Oh, uh – Tessa Winters. Gave a statement in 2016 about a haunted chatbot. It forced her to watch a seventeen-hour-long video of a man eating his computer.”
Georgie perks up at that.
“Oh, is that the, uh – that creepypasta about that guy who mutilated himself trying to upload his mind to his computer?”
“Sergey Ushanka.”
“Yeah! Something about how he tried to crack open his skull and wire his brain to the motherboard?”
“That is one variation of the story, yes.”
“What,” Martin says flatly.
“I was thinking about doing a What the Ghost episode on that one,” Georgie explains, her sheepish smile doing little to conceal her lingering enthusiasm. “Haunted technology is always a popular topic. Didn’t expect that one to be real, though. I wonder –”
Jon answers her question before she can ask it: “I doubt Tessa would be interested in being a guest on the show.”
“Yeah,” Georgie sighs, “I guess not.”
Martin lets out a nervous chuckle. “What, uh – sorry, what does any of this have to do with right to repair?”
“Oh. Right. Tessa’s one of the people whose nightmares I… invade. Perpetuate, I suppose. She’s, ah, not my biggest fan, considering what I’ve put her through, but she says I’m a decent audience.” Martin gives Jon a blank look. “She basically gives me free lectures sometimes? Technology-related subjects, mostly. Fascinating stuff.”
“God, you sound like a grandpa,” Georgie says.
“Yes, yes, Tessa tells me the same.” Jon rolls his eyes. “Anyway, she has some, ah… strong feelings about Apple. Among other things.”
“Right,” Martin says slowly. “Wait, back up – you know what creepypasta is?”
“Yes, Martin,” Jon says with a sigh and an indulgent smile, “I know what creepypasta is.”
“That particular internet rabbit hole was one of his many, many avenues of procrastination in uni, believe it or not,” Georgie says.
“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a Luddite. I tried to introduce the Archives to the twenty-first century, remember? It’s not my fault the Beholding has a retro aesthetic.”
“Huh,” Martin says with a bemused smile. Then he yawns. “Sorry. What time is it?”
As soon as the question is posed, the Beholding drops the knowledge into Jon’s head.
“About 10:30,” Georgie answers, just as Jon says, “10:28 and forty-six seconds” – and then, wincing at his own pedantry, “Sorry.”
Georgie looks ready to let loose with a snarky reply, but before she can say anything, Martin is on his feet, the blanket on his lap sliding to the floor.
“10:30? Jon, why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I – I wasn’t really paying attention to the time, I haven’t actually been awake for…”
Jon trails off as the Beholding casually notifies him that he woke up thirty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds ago. He can feel heat pooling in his cheeks as a vague sense of shame sets in. Good lord, was he really just watching Martin sleep for that long?
“I should have been upstairs over an hour ago,” Martin says, frantically scanning the room for –
For his shoes, the Eye informs Jon.
Do you ever mind your goddamn business? Jon shoots back. On impulse, he swats at the air to his side, momentarily forgetting that the ever-present eldritch tagalongs he’d grown accustomed to during the apocalypse are no longer with him. In his dreams, he’d come eye-to-eye with them again for the first time since waking up in the hospital; apparently, that’s all it took to reintroduce this old, reflexive shooing tic to his waking life.
Georgie raises her eyebrows at the gesture, but Martin appears not to notice, preoccupied with his escalating panic.
Jon scrambles for some way to soothe him, but he’s at a loss. In his future, through trial and error and intense observation, he had painstakingly learned how to comfort Martin. Now, though, after so much time spent alone, Jon is out of practice. Moreover, he’s always been more adept at offering comfort through action and touch rather than words – and right now, he’s still uncertain where Martin’s boundaries lie.
So Jon continues to sit there, hands fluttering slightly as his mind rifles through a mountain of inane clichés in search of something, anything that might be able to help. Meanwhile, the Archivist in him is distracted by Martin’s growing anxiety. It isn’t the same as abject fear, per se, but it’s similar enough to pique the Eye’s interest.
Once again, Jon takes a swipe at the empty space beside him – and again ignores Georgie’s amused expression.
“If Peter notices I’m not in the office…” Martin nearly trips over the blanket on the floor as he turns in place to search behind him. “He – he’ll be suspicious –”
That’s when Georgie decides to speak up. Thank god, Jon thinks to himself. She exudes far more confidence than he does in this sort of situation.
“Won’t he already be suspicious?” she says, calm as can be. It’s enough to bring Martin’s fretting to a pause. “It’s not like you can keep this a secret forever, right? Your change in attitude is… pretty noticeable, Martin.”
“I – I – I didn’t really think much further ahead than –” Martin laughs nervously. “I was just – playing along, and it felt right, like if I just kept following the path I’d reach a – a – a conclusion? I don’t know what, but…” His shoulders slump, leaving his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides; he tugs at the hem of his shirt, as if he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “I don’t think I cared much? I figured I could just – gather information and pass it along, and if nothing else I could keep Peter’s attention away from the Archives, and… that was the whole plan, to just keep doing that until… until whatever was going to happen happened, I guess, and now I don’t – I don’t know where to go from here, and…”
“Martin?” Jon says softly.
“Huh?” Martin finally glances up to meet Jon’s eyes.
“Can I take your hand?”
Cautiously, wordlessly, Martin offers his hand. Jon takes it in his, lacing their fingers together loosely.
“It’ll be alright,” he says. “You don’t have to figure it out on your own. Not anymore.”
Martin’s lips move minutely for a few seconds before meekly saying, “That doesn’t feel right.”
“I know.”
“I’m – I’m not saying you’re lying,” Martin says, rushed and anxious to appease, “it’s just…”
“Hearing something isn’t the same as accepting it. Or trusting it.”
“I do trust you, I do, it’s just… I don’t know. It’s like I can’t wrap my mind around it.”
“It’s alright,” Jon says gently. “I understand.”
“I’m sorry,” Martin whispers, his voice steeped in guilt.
“You don’t need to apologize.” When Martin opens his mouth to protest, Jon reiterates: “You have nothing to be sorry for. I promise.”
“Okay,” Martin says after a pause, still sounding somewhat doubtful. Then he grimaces. “I, uh, still don’t know what to do about Peter, though.”
“That depends on what you want,” Jon says, squeezing Martin’s hand. “I trust you. I’ll follow your lead.”
“O-okay,” Martin repeats. He blinks several times, surprised, before giving a nervous chuckle. “Only… I, uh, don’t really know what I want, to be honest?”
“Break it down into smaller pieces,” Georgie says. Martin flinches slightly – he must have momentarily forgotten she was in the room. “Do you want to go back to the Lonely?”
There’s only a short delay before Martin says, “No. I don’t… it feels different than before. Doesn’t fit right.”
“Do you want to continue working with Peter?”
“I don’t know,” Martin says slowly. “Not really? I mean, I never wanted to in the first place, it just… seemed like the thing to do.”
“Okay, rephrase,” Georgie says. “Do you want to stop working with him now?”
“I think so.” Another pause. Martin’s brow wrinkles as he stares at the floor in thought before glancing back up at Georgie. “Yeah, I – I think I do.”
“But…?” Georgie prompts, sensing Martin’s uncertainty.
“I worry about how he might react. He’ll probably start paying more attention to the Archives, and…” Martin looks at Jon. “What if he takes it out on you? Or – I mean, I don’t want him to hurt anyone, but I…” He looks down at their joined hands, tightening his grip just slightly. “I think you would be his most likely target.”
“Maybe,” Jon admits. He’s witnessed firsthand how vindictive Peter can be. “But I would rather take that risk than have you torture yourself on the off chance he’ll let me be. And… I think we’ll all be safer if we cooperate as a group rather than stay divided.”
“I guess. I’m not sure how to go about it, though.”
“Well,” Georgie says thoughtfully, “it depends on whether you want to quit all at once or ease into it.”
“I don’t know.” Martin looks to Jon again. “If I continue to work for him in some capacity, would it give us an advantage?”
At this point, they know more about the Extinction than Peter does, and Jon has a decent grasp on Peter’s goals and how he operates. So…
“I… don’t think there’s anything to be gained if you keep working closely with him, no,” Jon replies. “And anyway, I – I would rather that not be the deciding factor? It’s your decision, of course, it’s just – your wellbeing is more important.”
“Hypocrite,” Martin mutters, but there’s a tinge of endearment there.
“I know,” Jon sighs. “I’m working on it. But to the point, I worry that working closely with him might drag you back into the Lonely.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m also worried about you confronting him directly to resign. Especially on your own.”
Peter is patient. Moreover, he enjoys a long game. If he sees Martin’s change of heart as a surmountable obstacle, Peter is likely to take a step back and wait for another opening to regain the upper hand. If, on the other hand, he decides that Martin is a lost cause… well, Peter is a sore loser. There’s every chance that he could drop Martin into the Lonely out of spite again.
“Either way,” Jon says, “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone with him. Sooner or later, he’ll realize that the Lonely’s starting to lose its hold on you.”
Unthinkingly, Jon tightens his grip on Martin’s hand.
“It’s been slipping for a while now,” Martin says quietly. “I think he’s already noticed.”
“In that case… there’s no telling how he’ll react if he decides your allegiance to the Lonely is too tenuous to salvage.”
“Do you – or…” Georgie appears to grapple with wording for a few seconds. “Can you Know what Peter knows?”
“No,” Jon says. The last time he tried to Know something about Peter, not only did it yield nothing of value, it nearly incapacitated Jon – and he didn’t recover until he gave in and fed on a new victim. He can’t afford to repeat the experience. Daisy’s supply of statements is finite; Jon needs to ration them as much as possible. “I do know that Peter can’t spy from a distance, but that doesn’t mean he can’t just turn invisible to eavesdrop. Or that Elias won’t feed him information.”
“Let’s focus on the immediate question, then,” Georgie says. “Do you want to go upstairs and walk into your office two hours late with bedhead” – Martin runs a self-conscious hand through his hair, eliciting an affectionate smile from Jon – “or do you want to no-call/no-show?”
“Well… Peter isn’t actually around much,” Martin says. “Sometimes days go by before he checks in. He might not realize I’m not in my office yet. Maybe I can just – go about my normal routine for now?” He glances at Jon, almost beseeching. “At least until I have an idea of how much he knows?”
Like everyone who has worked in the Archives, Martin has developed a harder edge over the years. Early in his tenure, he seemed unassuming on first impression. He was by no means a pushover, but he was eager to please and preferred to avoid unnecessary confrontation. It made him an all-too-easy target for Jon’s insecurity-fueled ire.
But rather than roll over in the face of criticism, Martin has always been determined to prove his detractors wrong. Whether it’s risking his life for the sake of doing his due diligence – Jon cringes at the memory – or stubbornly caring for people who deemed him incompetent and didn’t appreciate his attentions, Martin is tenacious. It would be admirable – and it is, to an extent – but all too often it leads to self-neglect, bordering on self-harm.
And right now, despite the thicker skin that Martin has been forced to grow through necessity and loss, his demeanor when he looks at Jon is vaguely reminiscent of those early days in the Archives: cowed, cautious, desperate for approval and dreading reproach. With a pang of old guilt and a desire to soothe, Jon forces a smile and kneads the back of Martin’s hand with his thumb.
“I trust you,” Jon says, “and I know you’re more than capable. Just – when the fog starts to creep up on you, try to remember that there are people who care about you. You’re not a burden; you’re not – unseen, unwanted, undeserving, or – or whatever other lies the Lonely wants to tell you. You’re not alone. Not anymore.”
“Right,” Martin says in a breathless whisper. He gives Jon’s hand another squeeze before letting go. “I guess I, uh – I guess should head upstairs.”
“Text or call if you need a reminder,” Jon blurts out as Martin turns to leave. “S-sorry, I don’t mean to – to hover, it’s just… sometimes it helps.”
In Scotland, once Jon was too hungry to safely visit the village, Martin had to go on supply runs alone. Although he had largely left the Lonely behind, it still lurked in the background, waiting for quiet moments in which it could seep back in through the cracks it left behind. It was opportunistic and insidious, passive until it wasn’t, and it could strike unpredictably. And so, he and Jon would check in with one another frequently whenever Martin had to go into town.
In many ways it was an exercise in codependence, but they were doing their best, considering their particular circumstances.
“Thanks,” Martin says, splotches of pink staining his face again. “I – I will.”
“There’s no service in the tunnels,” Georgie reminds them. “Just in case you were planning on going down there today, Jon. Martin, do you have the rest of our numbers?”
“I have Basira’s. And Melanie’s.”
“Give me your phone. I’ll add my number. And Daisy’s.” Martin makes a face at that, but hands his phone over. “If Jon doesn’t answer, text one of the rest of us. We can make sure to always keep someone up here and reachable, just in case.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Martin says stiffly. “I don’t need my hand held every second of the day.”
“No, but you might need your hand held at any second during the day,” Georgie says, entirely unfazed by the shift in attitude, “and there's no shame in that. Sometimes a bad time sneaks up on you. Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“I’ve always taken care of myself. I can handle a few hours alone.”
“I’m sure you can, but that doesn’t mean you have to.” Martin looks ready to object, but Georgie cuts him off. “You’re not going to win this argument; I’ve already heard it all before. I’ve known this one” – she jerks her thumb in Jon’s direction – “for years, and you have near-identical hangups about being an inconvenience or whatever.”
“I’m right here, you know,” Jon mutters.
“Yeah, this is directed at both of you. People want to help you. The world won’t end if you let yourself accept it without berating yourself in the process.” Georgie looks between the two of them as she hands Martin’s phone back, and then chuckles. “Huh. You two have damn-near-identical scowls, too, by the way.”
Simultaneously, Jon and Martin both roll their eyes.
Compared to the last time Jon saw her, Melanie looks… well, better. The wild, furious look in her eyes has subsided and the bags underneath are no longer quite so heavy. Her posture doesn’t look relaxed, exactly, but she doesn’t seem nearly as overwrought. She's still clearly weighed down by ambient tension, but she always has been – and the Archives have a way of making even the most well-adjusted person feel on edge.
She pauses at the bottom of the ladder, watching Jon with an air of distrust and uncertainty. Then Georgie takes her hand and a little more of that stiffness bleeds out of her. She allows Georgie to lead her over to the circle of chairs where Jon waits, and mirrors Georgie when she sits.
The ensuing silence is thoroughly unsettling. When it becomes clear that Georgie isn’t going to break the ice for them, and Melanie likewise keeps her silence, Jon reluctantly takes the initiative.
“Hi,” he says eloquently. He starts to give a little wave, but doesn’t fully commit to the motion, instead allowing his hand to hang awkwardly in the air for a few seconds before lowering his arm again, self-conscious.
“Hey,” Melanie replies – guarded, somewhat flat, but without any outright hostility.
Melanie scuffs one foot against the ground. Jon bounces his leg, chewing the inside of his cheek as he stares at the floor. Neither of them speak.
“So…” Georgie says after a minute, drawing out the vowel. “Do you two want me to, uh… I can leave, if you’d prefer to have this discussion in private?”
“Stay,” Melanie says abruptly, seeking out Georgie’s hand again. Georgie looks at Jon, a question in her eyes.
“I don’t mind. You can stay, Georgie.”
“If you’re sure,” Georgie says. “Just – let me know if that changes, I suppose.”
More silence. When Jon can’t take it anymore, he blurts out: “H-how have you been?”
“Well,” Melanie says sardonically, “I’m essentially trapped in an eldritch fear prison, doing the bidding of an evil voyeur-god, and apparently the only way out of its unfathomable contract is to gouge my eyes out.”
“Right,” Jon says with a hollow laugh. “Stupid question.”
“How are you?” Melanie asks with mock cheeriness.
“Same as you, really. Well. Except for the eye-gouging clause.”
“What, don’t have the stomach for it?”
“No, uh – it… it just won’t work for me, is all.” Staring down at his lap, Jon occupies himself with tracing circles onto one knee with his fingernail. “The Beholding isn’t keen on losing its Archivist.”
“It didn’t mind losing Gertrude.”
“Gertrude… wasn’t as far gone as I am,” Jon says quietly. “She never fully embraced the power the Eye offered. Not to the extent that I did. Blinding herself would have released her from the Eye’s service. She planned on it, actually, but Elias got to her first. And she was still human enough for a gunshot to kill her.”
And wasn’t that a release, in a way? Is it morbid for Jon to envy the fact that Gertrude even had that option available to her?
“Right,” is all Melanie says. She sounds dubious.
“I’m not just speculating a worst-case scenario to give myself an excuse not to go through with it.” Jon can feel himself bristling now. “I know it won’t work. I’ve tried. Multiple times. It hurts like hell, and then I heal. All I got out of it was an onset of chronic cluster headaches – though, who knows,” he adds acidly, “that may have just been the side effect of becoming a linchpin of the apocalypse and having all the world’s terror crammed into my head. I didn’t bother Knowing. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“Jon,” Georgie says gently – and all the fight goes out of him, shoulders slumping.
“Sorry,” he sighs. “Didn’t mean to snap.”
“I wasn’t scolding you. It’s just – you’re scratching.”
Oh. Jon looks down to see long, angry red scratches on his forearms, already fading now.
“Sorry,” he says again. “Didn’t notice.”
“It’s alright.”
Another awkward pause, until Melanie breaks the silence.
“Are you sure blinding will work for the rest of us?” she asks. She no longer sounds suspicious. Simply… curious: reminiscent of how things used to be, back when she was an avid investigator, beholden only to herself.
“Yes.”
“Did I…? Last time?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Jon waits until Melanie gives a firm nod before he answers the question. “You did.”
“And it worked.”
“It worked.”
Melanie nods again. She’s clenching her teeth, if the subtle movements in her jaw are any indication. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly – and her shoulders relax. By the time she’s opened her eyes, there’s the hint of a smile on her face.
“Good,” she says, equal parts relief and determination.
“S-so, do you think you’ll –” Jon stops himself, shaking his head. “No, sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”
Melanie simply shrugs. “I haven’t made a decision yet. Let’s just say I’m strongly considering it.”
Georgie’s hand tightens on Melanie’s, worry lining her face.
“Tell me what happened last time?” Melanie says. “I’d like to hear the whole story.”
Jon takes a deep breath, rubbing his arms as he orders his thoughts.
“Last time, I didn’t know about the bullet until after I woke up,” he begins. “I, ah, only saw you briefly – you were, um… you were convinced that I wasn’t me anymore. Didn’t want me anywhere near you.”
Thought I should have been the one to die, he doesn’t add. Most days, Jon couldn’t find fault in that assessment. He didn’t want to die – most of the time, anyway – but if he could have traded his life for Tim’s… well, it wouldn’t have been a difficult decision.
“So how did you find out about it, then?”
“I just… Knew it, all of a sudden.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Melanie narrows her eyes suspiciously.
“It’s an Archivist thing. I mean, you're probably already aware – I just… Know things, sometimes, even without compelling anyone. It started before the Unknowing, but it wasn’t as noticeable. Or as often. And it was typically more vague impressions, rather than specific truths. It got worse after I woke up from the coma. More frequent, more detailed, more – intrusive.”
“Fantastic,” Melanie says sourly.
“Yes, I’m not thrilled about it either. Sometimes I can Know things by choice, but the Beholding has a tendency to withhold answers to the questions I actually ask. Mostly it just airdrops information on me unsolicited. Often without me even wondering about a thing. Just… apropos of nothing. I did have much more control over it after the world ended, but, well…” He shrugs, awkward. “Not anymore. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Melanie repeats.
“Last time, I had – still have, I suppose – a tendency to Know things about specific people. Things they wouldn’t normally share with me. I still remember things I Knew back then. Including some things about you.”
The color rises in Melanie’s cheeks. “That’s –”
“An invasion of privacy, I know,” he says, contrite. “I really will try to avoid it, just… sometimes things slip through the cracks when I’m not paying attention.”
“So, what, you can read minds?” Melanie says, an accusation threaded through the question. “Like Elias?”
Jon visibly recoils.
“Melanie,” Georgie begins, but Jon cuts her off.
“No, it’s – it’s a fair question. Elias’ powers come from the same source mine do.” He pauses, nervously flexing his fingers as he composes an explanation. “I can’t see your thoughts verbatim. It’s just… Knowing things. It’s the same with Elias. Sometimes it seems like he can read minds, b-but that’s – that’s just because he’s very – very good at reading people –”
“– finding you when you’re at your lowest point, when you’re your most emotionally vulnerable. And when you’re at that point it’s astounding what can crawl into your heart and start to fester there –“
Jon bites his tongue, applying pressure until the Archive stops its clamoring. Melanie raises her eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“Sorry. Sometimes it just slips out, and…” He laughs and massages his temples. “Well. Still an Archive, in the end.”
His voice cracks and Georgie’s already-concerned expression grows more serious.
“Jon –”
“I’m fine, Georgie,” Jon says, more curtly than intended. “Sorry. I just – I can’t go there right now.”
“We can take a break if you need,” she says.
“No, I… let’s just continue.” He nods at Melanie. “You have more questions.”
Melanie gnaws on the inside of her cheek for a moment, mulling over her words.
“Can you do that…” She wiggles her fingers vaguely. “That thing where you put thoughts in people’s heads?”
“No. Not – not really.”
Not anymore, he corrects privately. During the apocalypse, he was able to make others See and feel things, but… only because he could call upon the Ceaseless Watcher to turn its gaze upon them. Here in the past, the Beholding and all the other Fears remain cloistered behind their door, leeching through the cracks but unable to fully manifest in the world.
“But I, um…” Jon pauses, wetting his lips nervously. “In addition to compelling people to tell me things, sometimes I can compel people to… to do things. Nothing – nothing complex. Simple commands, mostly. ‘Stop,’ ‘leave,’ ‘look,’ ‘don’t look,’ that sort of thing. I haven’t done it often, but the times I have… with a few exceptions, it’s usually been accidental. A sort of – knee-jerk defense mechanism of sorts.”
“Hmm.” Melanie crosses her arms, tapping her foot on the ground.
“I realize that reflects poorly on me.” He swallows, mouth going dry. “It’s… a terrifying prospect, being near someone who can do something like that, and doesn’t have full control over it.”
Jon knows – and Knows via billions of proxies – what it’s like to have something other supplant his will and commandeer his body. Melanie deserves to know the risks of standing too close to him.
“I promise I’ll try to keep it under control, I just – wanted you to be aware of it. I won’t blame you if you’d rather not be around me.”
“Stop being so melodramatic,” Melanie says, rolling her eyes.
“I’m not,” Jon says flatly. “Compelling answers and – and subsisting on a diet of fear has always been more than enough to justify people keeping their distance. Adding more sinister bullshit on top of the pile doesn’t exactly do me credit. I know – Know how people see me.” He laughs, a harsh and humorless thing. “I can’t not Know.”
People tend to naturally give him a wide berth, as if they can sense that there’s something wrong about him, even if they can’t quite discern why. If he’s too careless, if he locks eyes with the wrong person, sometimes they can’t look away – and sometimes he can’t, either, and he’s forced to watch as the terror dawns in their eyes. Just like the nightmares, bleeding into his waking life.
Jon can feel when people are afraid; the Archivist in him relishes it, gravitates towards it like a flower turning to face the sun, soaks it in regardless of whether or not he wants it. And there is always a part of him that does want it, that always wants more – and isn’t that fitting, taking a page from the book of his very first monster? He is, quite literally, a thing of nightmares. Helen is right: he is what he is, and there’s no use denying it.
He’s always been hypersensitive to how other people perceive him. Being able to Know how people really feel about him has historically tended to confirm his customary hostile attribution bias. Vicariously feeling the reality of others’ hatred and fear of him, passively basking in it, being forced to derive sustenance from it – god, it’s like cannibalizing his own vicious self-loathing, a sustainable resource that can be recycled ad infinitum. It takes self-flagellation to a new and perverse extreme.
“I Know when people don’t want to be near me,” he says, unable to suppress the bitterness in his tone. “When someone nearby is afraid, I feel it – as natural as sensing the temperature in a room. I feed on it. It’s an automatic process. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not bask in the knowledge of how much the other people in the room can’t stand breathing the same air as me, if I can avoid it.”
“Jon,” Georgie tries again, “I know how things used to be, but –”
“It’s different now, I know. But the Eye tends to prioritize – well, unpleasant impressions. I know it’s only giving me one side of the story. That there’s more, even if I can’t See it. But fear is loud. Doesn’t leave room for mindfulness.”
Georgie has a reply ready, but Melanie speaks first.
“Okay. I get it.” At Jon’s blank expression, Melanie heaves a sigh – aggravated, but not hostile. “It’s like how anger was for me, okay? Rage has a way of drowning out everything else. Reliable, when nothing else can be trusted. Makes things clearer, simpler. Made me feel more… alive, real.” She hesitates, crossing her arms and shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “Nourishing. Sort of. I guess.”
“Yeah,” Jon says, picking aimlessly at his sleeve.
“I’ll just avoid being in the same room as you when I’m… having a day,” she continues. Jon nods. “Or you can just tell me to go away if I’m – I don’t know, giving off rancid vibes, or whatever.”
Jon breathes a surprised, amused huff. “Well. Same goes for you, I suppose.”
He’s even more shocked to see a grin twitch to life on Melanie’s face – very small, but present all the same. Then, appearing to take pity on him, she changes the subject.
“So, you Knew about the bullet.”
“Yes,” Jon says, grateful for the opportunity to move on. “But not until a couple weeks after I got out of the hospital. Didn’t even realize I Knew it until I said it aloud.”
“Meaning it had more time to poison me, where you’re from. Was I… worse?”
“Well, the first time I saw you after I came back, you attacked me on sight, so… maybe? But I don’t really have a point of comparison. That was the only time I saw you up until we removed it, so I don’t know how much you deteriorated in the interim. And this time, I only saw you after the bullet had already been removed.”
“I attacked you?” She doesn’t sound surprised, really. More… intrigued.
“In your defense, you didn’t think I was me anymore. Tim died, Daisy was presumed dead, and I was still alive.” He knows that, of the three of them, Melanie wouldn’t have picked Jon to be the survivor. I hope it hurts, she’d said in her testament. Instead, he slept for six months and then woke up wrong. “You were angry, and afraid, and you had a bullet in your leg making it worse. You needed someone to blame, and Elias was beyond your reach.”
So I was the next best thing, he doesn’t say. Bitterness aside, Jon can’t say he blames her.
Melanie narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Then how the hell did you convince me to have it removed?”
“We, uh… we didn’t. I told Basira first. She – didn’t think you would have agreed. So, we…” Jon forces himself to meet Melanie’s eyes as he gives the confession. “We performed some amateur surgery. Without your consent. Basira procured some local anesthetic, and the Eye let me See where the bullet was, how to remove it with… minimal damage. You were using some rather strong sleep aids, at the time, so you slept through most of it. You only woke up once the bullet was out. And you, uh, promptly stabbed me with the scalpel, though I – I probably deserved that.”
“What the fuck, Jon.”
“I – I know, I know. I’m – well, it might be – odd, to apologize for something that never happened from your perspective? But I am sorry. It wasn’t right, for us to do it that way. We should have asked you.”
“I might not have agreed.” Her voice is tightly controlled, but there’s still a quiet sort of fury simmering just under the words.
“No, uh – probably not. You said later that the anger was always there. Motivating you to keep going. Helping you survive. The Slaughter validated that rage. Made it feel like home.” Melanie stares, unblinking. “You told me the bullet stayed because you wanted it, and… we took that choice from you, decided what was in your best interests without asking you how you felt about it.”
Melanie is quiet for a few more moments, glaring at the floor, before her eyes flick back up to meet Jon's. “What would have happened if you didn’t get it out of me?”
“I can’t say for certain, but it’s likely that you would have become a Slaughter Avatar. Reached a point of no return.”
She scoffs. “So it was worth it, in the end?”
“I don’t know. I want to say yes. You saw me as a monster, and I doubt you would have wanted to become like me. Something inhuman, feeding on suffering. But…”
“But?”
“It’s easy to look at how things ultimately worked out for you and use that outcome to justify what we did,” he says, “but I – I’m not fond of the idea that the ends justify the means. I didn’t know at the time that you and Georgie were this close. If I did, maybe I could have asked her to talk to you, except…”
“We weren’t speaking,” Georgie says.
“Yeah. I – honestly don’t know what else we could have done, but… still, the way we went about it was wrong. You were trapped here like the rest of us, and we… we stole the only thing that gave you some semblance of control. What we did was a violation of your autonomy. I know that feeling, I know how it feels to…” Jon shakes his head. “We saved your life, or – your humanity, at least, but in doing so we took away your choice. Subjected you to more trauma, made it so you couldn’t feel safe anywhere. Eventually you quit, and you and Georgie seemed happy together after that, but the fact that you were able to start healing – that doesn’t change the fact that we hurt you in the first place. I’m sorry.”
“This place,” Melanie says with a breathless laugh.
“Yeah. It’s… not known for presenting benign choices. I’m, ah… I’m glad that this time, it was your own choice.”
“And what if I had still said no?”
“I probably would’ve given you the line about becoming a monster like me. I would have told you what happened last time – or, told Georgie and let her tell you, more likely, if only to avoid any, ah… stabbiness.” Melanie huffs, but it sounds amused rather than offended. “And if you still decided to choose the Slaughter after being fully informed… well, it wasn’t my place to take the choice away from you.”
“Even if I wasn’t in my right mind?” she asks.
“Even if you weren’t in your right mind.”
Melanie’s stare is piercing, scanning him for any signs of dishonesty. Eventually, she folds her arms and leads back in her chair with a hmm.
“What?” Jon asks, heart in his throat.
“Just – unexpected. Would’ve expected you to make a unilateral decision.”
Truthfully, Jon doesn’t trust himself to make those kinds of decisions. Last time, he’d let Basira call the shot. Not only did he trust her judgment more than his own – secretly, selfishly, he was relieved to abdicate at least some of the responsibility. He doubts that his conscience would have been able to carry the full burden of that choice.
Later, during the apocalypse, he had made an executive decision on someone else’s behalf: Jordan Kennedy. In that instance, there was no one with whom he could share the blame. Although it was intended as an act of mercy, Jon cannot deny that he created an unwilling Avatar – stripped a man of his humanity and reshaped him into something other, same as had been done to Jon.
The people in that domain would have continued to suffer just the same whether it was controlled by an Avatar or a hivemind of ants. At least this way, one person could be spared the torture. But it didn’t save anyone. It did not even end Jordan’s suffering, only transformed it into a different, hypothetically more endurable but still horrific shape – one that Jon knew all too intimately.
It was done with merciful intentions, and he may have given Jordan the choice to reverse it – a choice that Jon has never been given himself – but making that decision for Jordan in the first place… well, at the end of the day, Jon could never shake the feeling that he’d taken a page out of Jonah’s playbook. It wasn’t the same, but it felt… adjacent, too much so for comfort.
The choice has haunted Jon ever since. It eats away at him every time he sees Jordan in his nightmares, whenever Jordan watches him with the same dread that he does Jane Prentiss. Yet, Jon still cannot say for certain whether he would do anything differently, if faced with Jordan’s agonized pleading a second time.
But as for Melanie’s particular situation…
“I know what it’s like to have someone else decide on your destiny for you,” he says quietly.
Melanie looks thoroughly unimpressed.
“Look, I – I understand why you resent me. Elias used you to further the Archivist’s progress. Same as he used Tim, Sasha, and Martin, and Basira and Daisy, and Helen… even Jane Prentiss, Mike Crew, Jude Perry – and Jared, Manuela, Peter… everyone, everyone who crosses his path is either irrelevant or a stepping stone. Which means that everyone who crosses my path suffers.”
Stop, Jon tells himself, shutting his eyes tight against the first stirrings of panic lapping at the edges of his mind. It’s pathetic, he thinks, how easily he sinks into this headspace. Jon’s mutinous brain does all of Jonah’s work for him – like prodding at a recent wound, just to see if it still hurts, even knowing full well that it only sabotages the healing process. Stupid, pointless. Just stop dwelling on it.
He can’t.
“All of it – all of it was to create the Archive to his specifications –”
“– bound together – I would look at him, and see a grim sort of destiny for myself: trapped here, until I became him; any future I might have had, sacrificed to his –”
“– and I just – I don’t want people to look at me and – and see him. Or the Beholding –”
“– keeping its prisoners ignorant in pursuit of… knowledge –”
“– I've spent enough time being synonymous with the Eye. I don’t want it. I never wanted it, even if I did choose to – to keep looking for answers –”
“– idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing –”
“– I can’t reverse that, but I can still make it difficult for Elias to get any use out of me. But I’m sorry – I’m sorry that I let him do it for so long –”
“– any idiot could have seen it would play out that way –”
“– I’m sorry you got dragged into all this. I wish I could have gone back to the very beginning, back to the day I took the job, and – god, I thanked Elias for the opportunity, and he – he smiled, because he knew, he knew I would be easily manipulated, knew everything about me – knew all about –”
Thankfully, Georgie interrupts his heated muttering and brings that thought train to a jarring halt. Or – no, she's been saying his name, but he's only just now heard it.
“Jon,” she says, loudly but calmly. She's leaning forward in her seat, hand prepared to reach over to him. “You’re scratching again.”
So he is. Badly. As soon as he stops, the scratches along his forearms heal, leaving only drying blood behind: thin, messy streaks painted across his skin and caked under his fingernails. He should probably clip them shorter, at this rate.
“Sorry,” he says, pulling his sleeves down to hide his arms. “I’m just – sorry.”
“Change the subject?” Georgie offers, lowering her arm.
“I think that would be best,” Jon agrees, discomfited and more than a little annoyed with himself. Will he ever be able to spare a thought for Jonah Magnus without completely unraveling in the process? Hell, will he ever be able to go a day without sparing a single thought for Jonah Magnus at all? Okay, no, stop harping, he reprimands himself. “Just – give me a minute.”
Jon forces himself to take several breaths until he can no longer hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears. Once he regathers his composure, he meets Melanie’s eyes again.
“What I mean to say is – I owe you a lot of apologies, Melanie. I was dismissive of you when we first met, and it just sort of – snowballed from there.”
“It was mutual, I think,” Melanie says guardedly.
“Still, I was – unprofessional, at the very least. And unnecessarily cruel. It was my job to be impartial, but I didn’t have to be callous. Most of the statements that come in aren’t real, but they aren’t impossible, either. And even if a story was due to – substance use, or mental illness, or – or even just an overactive imagination… most people who came in still believed that their story was true. Their distress was genuine. They deserved comfort, not ridicule, regardless of whether or not their story actually happened the way they remembered. And beyond that, it was… poor research methodology, really, to refuse to entertain the possibility of a story’s veracity simply because of my first impression of a statement giver.” His voice grows quieter. “Or because of my own baggage.”
“Your own baggage?”
“I, ah…” Jon deliberates for a brief moment on whether to share this part of himself. It seems only fair, given the personal details he knows about the rest of them. And… telling Daisy had felt cathartic in its own way, hadn't it? “I had a supernatural experience of my own once. Before working at the Institute, I mean. I was a child, so of course it was chalked up to an overactive imagination. And then at some point I was too old to still be afraid of monsters.”
Jonathan, this has gotten out of hand, his grandmother had told him with hands on her hips, exasperated after once again finding every door and cupboard in the house thrown open. Ten is too old to be sleeping with the lights on and checking closets for monsters.
And with that, she had closed the closet doors, flicked the light off, and pulled his bedroom door shut on her way out. He had clung desperately to the hope that she would at least leave the hall light on – but moments later the thin strip of light filtering through the crack under the door was snuffed out. When he heard the click of his grandmother's bedroom door down the hall, he'd dissolved into tears. Turning his face into his pillow to muffle his sobs so as not to alert her to yet another of his childish meltdowns, he spent the rest of the night – and countless nights thereafter – sleeping in fitful stops and starts, plagued by phantom knocking and chitinous clicking and creaking doors. He knows now that such sounds were nothing more than hypnopompic hallucinations, the remnants of nightmares chasing him into wakefulness; knows that the web binding him in place and the hulking presence in the room were only symptoms of sleep paralysis; but at the time…
Jon shakes his head.
“The fear doesn’t go away just because people don’t believe it’s based in truth. So, I learned to hide it instead. To stop talking about it, even though I never stopped searching for an answer –”
“– was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute –”
“– damn,” he hisses, flustered.
“You okay?” Georgie asks.
“Yeah,” he says gruffly. “Just – one moment.”
Pause, breathe, recollect. Listen to the quiet – which really shouldn’t be so difficult, should it? Aren’t archives supposed to be quiet? Why does this library have to be so horrifically noisy? – and breathe, breathe, breathe. Okay.
“What I’m saying is, I coped with it – poorly – with denial. I could never shake the conviction that what I saw was real, no matter how I tried to rationalize it. But I was still afraid that admitting belief in monsters would – draw their attention to me, somehow. Again. And because of that, I was… unsympathetic, to people who were genuinely afraid. The last thing they needed was derisive skepticism. Or projection. I know what it’s like to not be believed. I shouldn’t have put others through the same thing.”
“Huh.” Melanie looks him up and down. “That’s… unusually insightful for you.”
“I had a lot of time alone to obsess during the apocalypse,” Jon says drily. “Some of it even ended up being productive.” Melanie snorts; Jon gives a cautious smile. “I, ah, also should have tried harder to warn you away from India. Or the Institute in general.”
“And I would have told you to fuck off, because I already didn’t like you, and you would have been just one more in a long line of pompous men acting like they knew better than me.”
Jon laughs. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Look, we just – we both treated each other poorly. You were the easiest target to take my anger out on. Martin’s too nice, Basira was basically a hostage, Daisy is Daisy, and Tim… Tim wasn’t around much, and anyway, he would have thrown whatever I gave him right back in my face. You were a prick, but I think I blamed you more than was fair. And I guess… you were – are – trapped as much as the rest of us. So. I’m sorry too.”
“Well, it’s not like I tried to make a good first impression.”
“Neither did I.” She glowers at him, daring him to challenge her. “Accept the apology or don’t, but don’t throw it back in my face.”
“Fine,” Jon sighs. “I accept the apology.”
“There. Was that so hard?”
“Excruciating,” he deadpans.
Georgie snorts. Melanie and Jon both look at her with a combined, “What?”
“Just… watching the two of you. I think I may have a type.”
Another simultaneous, “What?”
“Curious, stubborn, temperamental, cute, short…”
“H-hey,” Melanie protests, “I’m at least a few centimeters taller than he is –”
“One-point-eight, actually,” Jon mutters under his breath – and then cracks a smile, encouraged by Georgie’s bright, surprised laugh. Melanie just glares at him.
“You know,” Melanie says, “you make it very hard to like you sometimes.”
“Sorry.” He’s not sorry at all. Shooting Georgie an indignant glance, he adds: “Also, I’m not cute.”
“I’m sure Martin would beg to differ,” Georgie teases. Jon sighs, arms crossed and face uncomfortably warm. “Well, anyway…” Georgie grins, looking between the two of them. “Does this mean… truce?”
Melanie gives Jon another long, searching look, and Jon forces himself to meet her eyes.
“Yeah, alright,” she says after a moment, then looks down, bouncing her heel against the floor. “Seems the only one who isn’t trapped and miserable is Elias. And you’re not him. Or working with him. So.” She shrugs one shoulder. “That just makes you one of us. I guess.” When Jon doesn’t reply, she glances back up at him. “What’s that face for?”
“That, uh…” Speechless, Jon roots around for something substantial to say. Instead, one corner of his mouth quirks up as he says, with tentative daring: “That might just be one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me, is all.”
“Yeah, well…” Melanie scoffs, but there’s a hint of amusement in it now. “I’m still going to call you out when you’re being a dick, mind.”
“A public service, really,” Jon says, wry and more than a little elated.
An invitation to playful bickering as opposed to scathing antagonism is, as far as he and Melanie are concerned, an undeniable olive branch.
End Notes:
Jon: my type is Aggressively Idealistic Existentialists Who Give Amazing Hugs, apparently
Georgie: and my type is Short Nerds With Strong Feelings About Basically Everything
~*mlm/wlw solidarity*~
But seriously though,,, I love the idea of Georgie and Martin meeting the End and the Vast, respectively, and basically going "hey why don't you read some Camus and maybe you'll calm down???"
I may or may not be projecting. I need them and Oliver to have a philosophy book club.
Actually everyone else can come too. Basira strikes me as the type to have some Strong Opinions about Certain Philosophers and yes sure that dude may have died ages ago and maybe she shouldn't take it so personally but if she found a Leitner that let her temporarily resurrect him for an hour she might just do so if only for the opportunity to debate his pompous ass in a Tesco parking lot. (I, once again, may or may not be projecting. I was a philosophy minor and I WILL pepper in the fact that I hate Kant. You cannot hold this against me.)
____
Citations for Jon's Archive-speak are as follows, in order of appearance: MAG 094; 153; 144/101/111/014; 101.
Martin's "I think our experience of the universe has value, even if it disappears forever" quote is from MAG 151 and yes it IS one of my all time favorite Martin quotes, how could you tell
Disclaimer re: how Jon talks about his ace identity: I'm ace & projecting a bit, like I do with Jon's ADHD/neurodivergence. The way I describe ace stuff is not meant to be reflective of all ace-spec people's experiences.
would you believe me if I said the whole 'deservedness' spiel was written before the latest episode??? bc it was and then I read the newest ep transcript and I was like "oh"
Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out, btw. funny story: I accidentally let the prescription for my ADHD meds expire and I had to go like four days without them before I could go get another paper script bc it's one they can't submit electronically or call in, soooo I got fuck-all done for half of that week and it broke my writing flow :0 hoping to get back into my usual flow from here on out and manage to have the next chapter ready in 2ish weeks, but we shall see. Thanks for sticking with me <3 (I might start shortening chapters again, the last few have been 10k+ compared to the earlier 6-8k and I could probably stand to split them up a bit.)
Speaking of the next chapter - yes, I AM planning on moving the plot forward I swear. I realize the last few chapters have basically taken place within a single week and have been mostly People Talking About Things, RIP.
And as always, thank you for reading, and for all your comments! <3 They're basically 50% of my regular serotonin intake. The other 50% is my cat's motorboat purring.
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