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@inhuman-archivist
❖ 𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗦 ❖
𝗠𝘆 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗝𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝘀. 𝗜 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗻𝘂𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲, 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲.
❖ 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗 𝗕𝗘𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 ❖
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Jon watched warily as the Avatar of Death touched him. He felt strangely helpless, unsure the motivation for this kindness, for the calm of Oliver's presence, for someone laying hands on him and not... leaving another mark. He wasn't sure he liked it, any of it––good, bad, whatever this was.
He felt the pain in his middle, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and Jon winced. He honestly didn't know where his healing abilities ended, if broken bones were worse than stab wounds, or if he'd just exist in mangled pieces, just so long as he could serve the Eye...
"Hospitals are for people," Jon said, almost to himself. "I'll live," he sighed, and tried again to push himself up.
The glint of metal on Oliver's finger prompted something in his mind, a familiarity, and a simple fact pressed itself into Jon's mind. "I didn't know you had time for romance," he said, reaching for Oliver's hand. He didn't feel strong enough to get up on his own.
Oliver frowned at the wording, but nodded slowly. "If you're certain. Maybe we could get you downstairs... the couch is better for recovery than here. Mike shouldn't be back for a while." He said softly, taking Jon's hand and gently guiding him to sit up with his other arm. He glanced to the ring, chuckling quietly. "Oh, it just kind of happened to me... I'm grateful, really. It's a nice break from all the awfulness." He sighed, glancing to Jon's ribs worriedly. "Let's get you standing, yeah?"
Jon was grateful for Oliver's... gentleness. It was disturbing to think about, to imagine anything like what they were being capable of genuine kindness and still be... still serve the powers they did, still kill people. Maybe finding someone to care about, to distract you from it all... maybe that's how avatars like Oliver managed it. Maybe that's what love was for most people, something to distract you from the terror of truly knowing yourself.... Jon wouldn't know.
He pressed an arm to his side, feeling the pain burn as his body adjusted to this new position. He swallowed tightly. "Ah... unless you have a way down that doesn't involve throwing myself off the side... I don't have your partner's, um, talents for heights."
"I live here." Oliver hummed, glancing down. "He didn't take you to some random place to- yeah. We live in the penthouse." He gestured to a hatch a little ways away. "There's a few stairs down, so you'd need to walk a little, but then we'd be inside. Unless you'd like I try to carry you." He chuckled. He was hardly fragile looking, with wide shoulders and solid build.
Jon tensed slightly. It was one thing to accept the kindness of an avatar, another to enter the place he called home. The last time he visited Mike Crew's home, terrible things had happened. And he was in no condition to defend himself.... Why did Mike decide to bring him here? To terrorize him again? Have him backed in a corner so he could play with him anytime he felt like it?
He was spiraling and he could feel his breathing race. He wanted to trust Oliver Banks. He certainly... seemed friendly. But trust wasn't something he could really do nowadays.
"Just, uh... just help me up, I'll walk." His voice caught and his fear weaved the words into a compulsion. "How do I know Mike won't... just kill me? What are... what are you planning to do to me?"
[[ Jon catastrophizing about Oliver's recent reveal... ]]
@lightning-bastard @oliver-the-coroner
[Another RP post! This one's got some Jon goin' on 🩷 semi angstful but also happysweet possibilities so I'd say it's bittersweet! Anyone is welcome to write Jon here! Also, multiple people can respond to my prompts]
Michael was doing that regrettable thing he did where he used his doors to invade the lives of those he'd once known in some capacity, or had interacted with and for whatever reason thought about oftenly.
Jon Sims and Michael Shelley had not been friends. They had not known one another, outside of a grisly statement about betrayal and becoming and Sannikov Land, and all the things the Distortion had gotten up to in its pre-Helen days.
But they'd spoken, once or twice, in that little time frame. Even if Jon had not thought fondly of it, the Distortion had once occupied a portion of his life, and maybe that'd been a befouled portion, but it was still something, and, these days, half-untwisted as he was, Michael couldn't help but grasp at the crumbs of that something and sniffle over them.
He'd taken care to only enter once he was pretty sure Jon was elsewhere, seating himself on the very edge of the man's desk, unwilling to take up more space than he'd allow himself. His fingers, not quite overlong, not quite regular sized, these days, in between, traced the edges of pages he shouldn't have grabbed, had no right to, but did, looking over one of Sims's statements.
These were wretched things, collections of suffering, but they were Jon's, and Jon teetered in that gray area Michael had where he did not know him but wished to, wished for some semblance of a regular dynamic, some sort of friendship. The archival staff had a kinship going on, had casual talks, enjoyed one another's company, in ways Michael remembered having with his own coworkers that had become lost to him now.
He'd give anything to have it back. To be unwounded Michael, curious and naive. He still was, in little ways, today, but things had become so different, so wrong, so complicated.
He wondered how many times a person could change before it was considered a death, a rotting of the selves that came before, even if the carcass was slowly weaving itself back together crudely, making an effort to be someone again now that it was allowed. Trying to start its heart back up, get it beating again to the same rhythm it once had.
Maybe Jon knew what it was like to become, to be something complicated and lose himself to it so much that, when he looked in the mirror and saw the scars and the differences everywhere, he felt a pit in his throat that mirrored Shelley's.
Or maybe he didn't. Maybe Jon would catch him and be revolted that the Spiral dared to sit so casually in his office, touching his things.
Maybe Jon wouldn't even recognize Michael. He'd been quite twisty last Jon had seen him, and, though there were little tells still here and there, Michael looked more Michaelly than spirally as of present, even if they were still halves of one another.
But Jon Saw. Like Gertrude could See, before she'd passed. Like Gerry Saw. So maybe his glamour would be spied right through soon enough.
Jon wouldn't have to worry. Michael would be leaving soon. He'd just like a minute to be in Jon's space first, though, to pretend at some normalcy, to pretend he was wanted and had a friend, even if Jon probably hardly knew he existed. Even if Jon had never met Michael beneath the twisting distortions.
Shelley only wanted to stare at his own misshapen shadow on Jonathan Sims's wall and picture it as someone else's, make friends with it. He'd try not to ask anything of the man himself.
It was the fourth time, the fourth time Jon became a monster. He staggered into the Archives from the coffee shop, the weakness in his body borne wholly from the horror in his mind at what he’d done. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to feel disgusted. But… he wasn’t, was he? He felt stronger now, sharper, alert, alive. And his body seemed to want to laugh at him for this parody of fragility that existed only in his conscience.
It was after hours. No one should be here. He could… god, he didn’t know what he could do, what penance he could assault upon himself to make up for what he’d done. Is that why he just kept going, kept persisting? Pretending it wasn’t happening because if he admitted it out loud, it would make his worst fears real. The tape recorder didn’t even appear when he took that woman’s fear in his hands. The Eye didn’t even consider her trauma important, didn’t even consider his anguish anything but something routine, mundane, as everyday as falling asleep or washing your hair.
He was changing and the worst part of it all was he was so, so alone.
He walked down the corridors of the Archives, past the desks that lay empty, cleared of the humanizing trinkets that used to mark out Tim’s space or Sasha’s… or Martin’s, when he used to work here with the rest of them. The still, quiet furniture taunted him, and Jon found himself running to his office, fleeing there, where at least he could lock himself away for tonight, for forever, if such a thing were permitted for someone like him.
That’s when he felt it, a presence, a strange signal of something both human and eldritch. Visions of Helen played in the Seeing part of his mind… but it wasn’t Helen, not exactly. He didn’t recognize the feeling that glowed like an aura around his door. Dogged curiosity mingled with a tangle of fear that maybe this was yet another entity out to end his life. He wished it could, but he’d looked into the very heart of darkness and buried himself in the very center of the creation and still, he survived. What hope did this shadow of the Spiral have?
He opened the door, weariness and resignation and a small breath of expectation coloring his movements. He paused at the sight that met him––familiar, and yet… the image in Jon’s mind did not come from memory, but from the Eye. A Knowledge that lapped at the edge of his understanding, of a young man who died alone in a cold and foreign land. But the pieces weren’t all there, and he felt that push to understand, to know, to consume…
But he forced himself to close that door in his mind. He didn’t need to feed, he was still strong, still satiated. And this being in his office was so, so vulnerable despite the thing it seemed to be. So… human, more than he’d ever seen Michael, and that honestly scared him. How could he be Michael, if Michael was Helen, and if the Michael of flesh and bone was long ago consumed? How could he be tempted by that hope?
He could almost taste his sorrow, his grief, his loneliness. And Jon felt the now-familiar craving surge up through his throat, clawing for him to speak, to Ask. Hope and paranoia fought a war inside him. Maybe it was some game Helen was playing on him... to tempt him with something that demanded a story and catch him while he feasted upon it.
“Did Helen send you?” he asked, and there was a sad and forsaken bitterness there. He let the compulsion softly weave its way into his voice. “Did she take your shape to taunt me?”
Michael startled so immensely that he nearly fell, then pushed himself promptly to his feet from the desk upon which he'd sat, tainted, even when he'd known better, the muddy-water hazel his eyes had once been abruptly shifting and settling like the center of a mood ring being toyed with by conflicting temperatures, a little gaspy sound choked, wrung from his throat by the archivist who should not have been there but was, his sudden appearance gouging Shelley and making him feel this absolutely brutal mix of longing, yearning, loneliness, and crushing fear.
Self-hatred and the deepest shame lanced him, and his emotional upset seemed to destabilize him, a candle set to flame far too big for the wick, his features struggling to retain regular shapes and twist-squirming back and forth and in-between.
"No, ah, I, I'm,"
Michael tried to speak, and it sounded terribly strange, and he didn't like it, and it only made everything worse when he began to think, think, think about it. He'd always fallen victim to the ruminations, the cycle of eating his own tail, being caught in thoughts that were much better left un-thunk, lest he lose himself entirely to them and spend hours stuck in his very own head.
The chained-up outside dog of a person Michael had been made into found himself choked up, and he wished he wasn't.
He couldn't look into Jon's knowing, seeking eyes, and yet he did, and whether that was because of some subconscious compulsion on Jon's part tossed Shelley's way, the submitting, people-pleasing nervousness of a belly-up animal that's far more prone to letting itself be bitten than biting anyone, or a desire to appear unthreatening, to placate, he did not know.
"Helen? No," Michael tried again, struggling greatly to organize his thoughts, which was already a sisyphean task on its own, with how scrambled his brain was by the twisting, and then the half untwist half twist, which had honestly just mixed him up even more.
He ran his hands over his matted curls, grateful for the smallest mercy that his glasses hadn't fallen clean off his long nose. The sigh which forced itself raspily past his throat was barely there, trembling.
"I'm sorry, I didn't, I, I thought, I can go. I was going to go, I just got distracted,"
Shelley rambled, stammering, verbally tripping over himself awkwardly the way the naive boy who organized Gertrude's papers at her side had once, long ago, preserved only in tangled tape-ribbon and memories half-abandoned by time. He half ran, half stumbled to the door he'd made, fidgeting with the knob in a rush so clumsy he utterly failed to make proper use of his time.
He laughed a little, though it sounded so pathetically like a little wounded-creature cry that it could hardly qualify as a laugh. It was all sorts of nervous and insecure.
Let me out, get me out of here. I can only make it worse. I can only make it worse. I shouldn't be here right now. I should've stayed away. I don't know where else to go. I can't be here.
His thoughts were a muddled mess, conflicting and knotted in a way he couldn't sort out. He knew that, once he finally left, he'd be fighting to slow his racing heartbeat and trying not to panic.
The most unfortunate part, at least, what Michael himself found unfortunate, was that he was more afraid of himself, of his wrongness, his mistakes, how much of an inconvenience he was probably being, of what Jon must think of him for invading his life after he'd already suffered so much at the hands of the Fears, at the hands of the Distortion itself.
Jon felt a wave of images, ideas, spiraling fear, and that aching, familiar sting of guilt weave itself into the corners of his mind. The man in front of him looked into his eyes, looking for something, aching for something. Jon felt the monster part of him crave to reach out and catch him, capture the tsunami of tangled, confused, terrified, human, spiraling feelings and lay them out in neat, linear typeface, clean and visible and... catalogued.
Jon wanted to ask, but more than that, he wanted to look. The pain in this strange Michael's eyes was intoxicating, paralyzed with self-hatred and helplessness, of an experience so terrifying it left one broken and traumatized and half alive. What had happened to Michael, how had he become like this? Was he free of the Spiral, was he... human? Oh god he wanted to know.
He told himself it was because he cared, because he saw some part of himself in the way this being crumpled in on itself, the way he apologized, the way he tried to escape instead of interacting with another person. He tried to tell himself he was only trying to know to help, to break through his terror, to help. Couldn't this hunger inside him, this ache for understanding, be used for something good?
Jon found himself at the door, his hand over Michael's, insistent, steadying, demanding. "Don't leave." He looked into the youthful eyes of the being in front of him. "You're Michael. How did you escape the Spiral?" He compelled the question, and it felt so easy, so natural, invigorating, like nicotine in his veins. It would help focus Michael, that's all it was. Calm him down. At least, he hoped it would. "Why did you come to me?"
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Jon watched warily as the Avatar of Death touched him. He felt strangely helpless, unsure the motivation for this kindness, for the calm of Oliver's presence, for someone laying hands on him and not... leaving another mark. He wasn't sure he liked it, any of it––good, bad, whatever this was.
He felt the pain in his middle, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and Jon winced. He honestly didn't know where his healing abilities ended, if broken bones were worse than stab wounds, or if he'd just exist in mangled pieces, just so long as he could serve the Eye...
"Hospitals are for people," Jon said, almost to himself. "I'll live," he sighed, and tried again to push himself up.
The glint of metal on Oliver's finger prompted something in his mind, a familiarity, and a simple fact pressed itself into Jon's mind. "I didn't know you had time for romance," he said, reaching for Oliver's hand. He didn't feel strong enough to get up on his own.
Oliver frowned at the wording, but nodded slowly. "If you're certain. Maybe we could get you downstairs... the couch is better for recovery than here. Mike shouldn't be back for a while." He said softly, taking Jon's hand and gently guiding him to sit up with his other arm. He glanced to the ring, chuckling quietly. "Oh, it just kind of happened to me... I'm grateful, really. It's a nice break from all the awfulness." He sighed, glancing to Jon's ribs worriedly. "Let's get you standing, yeah?"
Jon was grateful for Oliver's... gentleness. It was disturbing to think about, to imagine anything like what they were being capable of genuine kindness and still be... still serve the powers they did, still kill people. Maybe finding someone to care about, to distract you from it all... maybe that's how avatars like Oliver managed it. Maybe that's what love was for most people, something to distract you from the terror of truly knowing yourself.... Jon wouldn't know.
He pressed an arm to his side, feeling the pain burn as his body adjusted to this new position. He swallowed tightly. "Ah... unless you have a way down that doesn't involve throwing myself off the side... I don't have your partner's, um, talents for heights."
[It's a quiet day in the Archives when Jon suddenly hears a loud crash from somewhere in the stacks.]
Jon wasn't always the best with quiet days, when his mind could wander to dark places best left buried under a shroud of distracting statements.
He was glad of the distraction, the familiar jolt of fear that accompanied the sound of something unfamiliar. He opened the door to his office, steeling himself. "Who's there?" he called out.
[Ellie steps out from between the shelves, wincing and rubbing her shoulder. Behind her, one of the file boxes from the higher shelves is tipped over on the ground. There are loose papers absolutely everywhere.]
Oh, hey, Jon. Sorry for the racket, I just dropped a box of statements. I probably should have gotten the ladder for that one, eh?
[She frowns as she seems to notice how startled Jon looks.]
Everything alright?
The revelation that the disturbance wasn't a fear-eating monster doesn't relax Jon as much as he thinks it should. But he waves her off regardless, trying to allay the question he... well, he doesn't really like to answer nowadays.
❝ Yeah... let's get this cleaned up, alright? ❞
He weaves around her quickly, kneeling besides the fallen papers to avoid any further conversation, which he's rather positive isn't much of a defense, based on his lifetime of experience in evasive social techniques.
[Ellie gives a dissatisfied hum as she crouches next to Jon and picks up a couple of loose files.]
Look, half these statements fell out of their folders. That'll be a pain to deal with. Thanks for helping me clean up.
[She glances up]
Unless you've got something you need to get back to...?
[Ellie isn't doing a particularly good job of hiding the probing in her tone, but getting answers has never really been a talent of hers. That's a job more suited for the Archivist.]
And there it is, the familiar curiosity that he knows so well. But, he thought, she means well. She's nice. Another poor creature trapped in this place. Tied to the Eye, to the Archives, to him, he supposes. He bites back the apology that lingers constantly on his tongue. He can pretend to be a human being, at least for a while.
❝ Just paperwork. Statements. Filing away the horrible things that happened to people. The usual. ❞
He stacks a bundle of paper and frowns as he realizes what she had pointed out about the disarray. He doesn't want to use his powers for something as mundane as this, but he hardly tries and soon he begins to feel intuitively which pieces belong with each statement.
[Ellie notices how quickly Jon is working, but she doesn't say anything. She's been around the Archives long enough to know the Eye is at work when she sees it, but hopefully Jon won't feel as guilty about it if she pretends not to notice.]
Mm, yeah. That's enough to put anyone on edge. Do you want me to record a couple of statements later? Take the load off you a little bit?
❝ No— no, it's fine. ❞
He says it too fast, too urgently. When Ellie showed up here, after having given a statement, hesitant to share what had happened afterwards... like her life had completely severed once she came to the Institute.... If he could satiate the Eye enough to make it let everyone go, he would. But things didn't work out like that for him, did they?
❝ Don't tie yourself to the Eye any more than you have to. ❞
[Ellie frowns, a bit startled by the intensity of Jon's reaction. She's pretty sure that being unable to leave the Archives for more than a few hours on occasion is a pretty good sign that she's already crossed some point of no return-- although she's not foolish enough to assume there is no deeper she can go. Jon himself is enough evidence of that. Still, though, she thinks, as much as she wishes none of this had ever happened, better the Eye than the Stranger. Maybe it has her imprisoned just as much as the Stranger did, but at least here she's probably still Ellie. Even so, it's probably best to trust Jon's judgement on this.]
"... Alright. You do need a break though, Jon. When was the last time you came out of your office?"
Jon tucked the last stray paper into its manila folder, nestled it into the box, realizing the soft buzz in his brain now that its task was done, how good it felt to let the power flow through him, even in something as small as this. He gripped the edge of the box.
❝ I'm out of the office now. ❞
He said it softly, grateful for the kindness in the question. She sounded like Georgie... Martin even. And that was a rare thing.
❝ Let's get a ladder this time, to put this away, eh? ❞
Awww, you're no fun.
[Ellie stands up. She remembers seeing the ladder....in the 60's section, maybe? She'll have to go track it down, but it isn't like she had much else to do today.]
Thank you so much for coming out to help me clean that up, though. Maybe I should drop boxes more often.
❝ Yeah maybe... ❞
Jon mused almost despite himself. He remembered what Georgie had told him, about hiding from Martin instead of letting the man talk to him.. and how Martin was now gone from his life, burrowed away somewhere serving the Lonely...
Anchors, she said.
❝ Look, these ladders aren't the sturdiest. Budget cuts and equipment, you know Elias. I can help keep it steady while you climb up and put this back. You know where one is around here? ❞
He made a subtle motion to follow her lead.
[A grin spread across Ellie's face. She'd been expecting to be brushed off, maybe even lectured on the importance of not making messes on purpose or something along those lines. Certainly not this. Maybe her voice came out sounding a bit unreasonably enthusiastic when she spoke, but she really didn't care.]
Thank you, Jon! I...hm, I think I saw one a couple rows over. Let me go check.
[She turned and disappeared between the shelves.]
Jon followed her as they meandered the corridors of the Archive, his Archives... it seemed that each box and document breathed like a living thing as he walked past them, beating with their stories and the fears that festered within them, waiting for him to consume them. He tried his best to shut them out, to imagine them simple pieces of cardboard and paper and ink, but even still, knowledge lapped gently on the shores of his mind.
The tall ladder, discolored and scratched, stood forlornly in a section of statements that have yet to be recorded. He picked it up, as it mostly dragged along the floor (he wasn't the strongest). Slightly self-conscious of his efforts, he turned to Ellie.
❝ Um... this place can't be much fun of a place for someone like you––young, I mean. What do you do for... I mean–– ❞
He cut himself off abruptly, pushed down the force curling in his voice.
❝ I hope there's some fun things you can do here, despite... everything. ❞
[Ellie stepped in opposite Jon to help him with the ladder, smiling cryptically.]
Mm, I probably could do with finding something fun to do more often. I get real creative with office supplies, mostly. And I have found a couple ways to leave the Archives for a bit. On occasion.
[She let out a soft laugh.]
Honestly, though, it really isn't that different from the office job I had before– you know, if you can ignore all the horrors and everything.
How about you?
Knowledge pressed gently into his mind as Ellie talked, filling him in with hints and images on just how she got around outside the Archives. It twisted his stomach slightly... he still didn't like acting as if the Spiral was trustworthy...
But Ellie had ignored his advice before so he kept his mouth shut. They were socializing, it was supposed to be light-hearted and full of things that didn't matter. Like fun.
❝ I don't think I do fun anymore, to be honest. I-- I'm sorry, that sounds really depressing. ❞
They reached the place where the box had fallen and Jon maneuvered the ladder, careful not to trip Ellie on the other side.
❝ Talking with you has been... nice, though. Thank you. ❞
[Ellie hefted the file box and stepped up onto the ladder, noting Jon's small pause before he responded. Something about the Archives- Jon especially- always left Ellie feeling just a little more honest than she was normally inclined to be. Although... she trusted Jon. She didn't mind if he Knew a bit more than she knew how to give. Of course she didn't. It wasn't like she had anything to hide. So why did it feel so scary to be Known? Ellie took a deep breath.]
No, it's hard to remember to take time for yourself with... everything. I can't say I do a very good job of it myself half the time.
[Ellie put the box back on the shelf and steadied herself as the ladder wobbled slightly.]
Thanks again for helping me clean this up. It's... it's really good to talk to you too. And to see you out of the office.
Jon gripped the ladder as it teetered, watching her haul the white banker's box up onto the shelf. His mind became somewhat passive, receptive, a bit comfortable, listening to Ellie, feeling somehow safe in the words that came out of her mouth... Slowly, something his grandmother told him floated into his consciousness. An accidental fall. He'd never known exactly how his father had died, but the knowledge pressed itself into his mind suddenly and his knuckles went white. The Christmas lights weren't even supposed to be up that early in the year...
❝ Ellie, get down. ❞
He managed to say before trying to shake the vision from his head, as he held the old, splintered wood like a lifeline.
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Jon watched warily as the Avatar of Death touched him. He felt strangely helpless, unsure the motivation for this kindness, for the calm of Oliver's presence, for someone laying hands on him and not... leaving another mark. He wasn't sure he liked it, any of it––good, bad, whatever this was.
He felt the pain in his middle, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and Jon winced. He honestly didn't know where his healing abilities ended, if broken bones were worse than stab wounds, or if he'd just exist in mangled pieces, just so long as he could serve the Eye...
"Hospitals are for people," Jon said, almost to himself. "I'll live," he sighed, and tried again to push himself up.
The glint of metal on Oliver's finger prompted something in his mind, a familiarity, and a simple fact pressed itself into Jon's mind. "I didn't know you had time for romance," he said, reaching for Oliver's hand. He didn't feel strong enough to get up on his own.
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
Hello, Jon.
@elias-bouchard-tmi
❝ What do you want this time, Elias? ❞
Oh, nothing much. Just checking on your growth.
❝ Need me to grab a measuring tape and stand against a wall? ❞
Getting bold now, are we.
❝ Maybe just pissed off. ❞
Perhaps you should spend that energy in something useful, then.
❝ Oh and what would you suggest? Your advice is so incredibly useful. ❞
[It's a quiet day in the Archives when Jon suddenly hears a loud crash from somewhere in the stacks.]
Jon wasn't always the best with quiet days, when his mind could wander to dark places best left buried under a shroud of distracting statements.
He was glad of the distraction, the familiar jolt of fear that accompanied the sound of something unfamiliar. He opened the door to his office, steeling himself. "Who's there?" he called out.
[Ellie steps out from between the shelves, wincing and rubbing her shoulder. Behind her, one of the file boxes from the higher shelves is tipped over on the ground. There are loose papers absolutely everywhere.]
Oh, hey, Jon. Sorry for the racket, I just dropped a box of statements. I probably should have gotten the ladder for that one, eh?
[She frowns as she seems to notice how startled Jon looks.]
Everything alright?
The revelation that the disturbance wasn't a fear-eating monster doesn't relax Jon as much as he thinks it should. But he waves her off regardless, trying to allay the question he... well, he doesn't really like to answer nowadays.
❝ Yeah... let's get this cleaned up, alright? ❞
He weaves around her quickly, kneeling besides the fallen papers to avoid any further conversation, which he's rather positive isn't much of a defense, based on his lifetime of experience in evasive social techniques.
[Ellie gives a dissatisfied hum as she crouches next to Jon and picks up a couple of loose files.]
Look, half these statements fell out of their folders. That'll be a pain to deal with. Thanks for helping me clean up.
[She glances up]
Unless you've got something you need to get back to...?
[Ellie isn't doing a particularly good job of hiding the probing in her tone, but getting answers has never really been a talent of hers. That's a job more suited for the Archivist.]
And there it is, the familiar curiosity that he knows so well. But, he thought, she means well. She's nice. Another poor creature trapped in this place. Tied to the Eye, to the Archives, to him, he supposes. He bites back the apology that lingers constantly on his tongue. He can pretend to be a human being, at least for a while.
❝ Just paperwork. Statements. Filing away the horrible things that happened to people. The usual. ❞
He stacks a bundle of paper and frowns as he realizes what she had pointed out about the disarray. He doesn't want to use his powers for something as mundane as this, but he hardly tries and soon he begins to feel intuitively which pieces belong with each statement.
[Ellie notices how quickly Jon is working, but she doesn't say anything. She's been around the Archives long enough to know the Eye is at work when she sees it, but hopefully Jon won't feel as guilty about it if she pretends not to notice.]
Mm, yeah. That's enough to put anyone on edge. Do you want me to record a couple of statements later? Take the load off you a little bit?
❝ No— no, it's fine. ❞
He says it too fast, too urgently. When Ellie showed up here, after having given a statement, hesitant to share what had happened afterwards... like her life had completely severed once she came to the Institute.... If he could satiate the Eye enough to make it let everyone go, he would. But things didn't work out like that for him, did they?
❝ Don't tie yourself to the Eye any more than you have to. ❞
[Ellie frowns, a bit startled by the intensity of Jon's reaction. She's pretty sure that being unable to leave the Archives for more than a few hours on occasion is a pretty good sign that she's already crossed some point of no return-- although she's not foolish enough to assume there is no deeper she can go. Jon himself is enough evidence of that. Still, though, she thinks, as much as she wishes none of this had ever happened, better the Eye than the Stranger. Maybe it has her imprisoned just as much as the Stranger did, but at least here she's probably still Ellie. Even so, it's probably best to trust Jon's judgement on this.]
"... Alright. You do need a break though, Jon. When was the last time you came out of your office?"
Jon tucked the last stray paper into its manila folder, nestled it into the box, realizing the soft buzz in his brain now that its task was done, how good it felt to let the power flow through him, even in something as small as this. He gripped the edge of the box.
❝ I'm out of the office now. ❞
He said it softly, grateful for the kindness in the question. She sounded like Georgie... Martin even. And that was a rare thing.
❝ Let's get a ladder this time, to put this away, eh? ❞
Awww, you're no fun.
[Ellie stands up. She remembers seeing the ladder....in the 60's section, maybe? She'll have to go track it down, but it isn't like she had much else to do today.]
Thank you so much for coming out to help me clean that up, though. Maybe I should drop boxes more often.
❝ Yeah maybe... ❞
Jon mused almost despite himself. He remembered what Georgie had told him, about hiding from Martin instead of letting the man talk to him.. and how Martin was now gone from his life, burrowed away somewhere serving the Lonely...
Anchors, she said.
❝ Look, these ladders aren't the sturdiest. Budget cuts and equipment, you know Elias. I can help keep it steady while you climb up and put this back. You know where one is around here? ❞
He made a subtle motion to follow her lead.
[A grin spread across Ellie's face. She'd been expecting to be brushed off, maybe even lectured on the importance of not making messes on purpose or something along those lines. Certainly not this. Maybe her voice came out sounding a bit unreasonably enthusiastic when she spoke, but she really didn't care.]
Thank you, Jon! I...hm, I think I saw one a couple rows over. Let me go check.
[She turned and disappeared between the shelves.]
Jon followed her as they meandered the corridors of the Archive, his Archives... it seemed that each box and document breathed like a living thing as he walked past them, beating with their stories and the fears that festered within them, waiting for him to consume them. He tried his best to shut them out, to imagine them simple pieces of cardboard and paper and ink, but even still, knowledge lapped gently on the shores of his mind.
The tall ladder, discolored and scratched, stood forlornly in a section of statements that have yet to be recorded. He picked it up, as it mostly dragged along the floor (he wasn't the strongest). Slightly self-conscious of his efforts, he turned to Ellie.
❝ Um... this place can't be much fun of a place for someone like you––young, I mean. What do you do for... I mean–– ❞
He cut himself off abruptly, pushed down the force curling in his voice.
❝ I hope there's some fun things you can do here, despite... everything. ❞
[Ellie stepped in opposite Jon to help him with the ladder, smiling cryptically.]
Mm, I probably could do with finding something fun to do more often. I get real creative with office supplies, mostly. And I have found a couple ways to leave the Archives for a bit. On occasion.
[She let out a soft laugh.]
Honestly, though, it really isn't that different from the office job I had before– you know, if you can ignore all the horrors and everything.
How about you?
Knowledge pressed gently into his mind as Ellie talked, filling him in with hints and images on just how she got around outside the Archives. It twisted his stomach slightly... he still didn't like acting as if the Spiral was trustworthy...
But Ellie had ignored his advice before so he kept his mouth shut. They were socializing, it was supposed to be light-hearted and full of things that didn't matter. Like fun.
❝ I don't think I do fun anymore, to be honest. I-- I'm sorry, that sounds really depressing. ❞
They reached the place where the box had fallen and Jon maneuvered the ladder, careful not to trip Ellie on the other side.
❝ Talking with you has been... nice, though. Thank you. ❞
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
[It's a quiet day in the Archives when Jon suddenly hears a loud crash from somewhere in the stacks.]
Jon wasn't always the best with quiet days, when his mind could wander to dark places best left buried under a shroud of distracting statements.
He was glad of the distraction, the familiar jolt of fear that accompanied the sound of something unfamiliar. He opened the door to his office, steeling himself. "Who's there?" he called out.
[Ellie steps out from between the shelves, wincing and rubbing her shoulder. Behind her, one of the file boxes from the higher shelves is tipped over on the ground. There are loose papers absolutely everywhere.]
Oh, hey, Jon. Sorry for the racket, I just dropped a box of statements. I probably should have gotten the ladder for that one, eh?
[She frowns as she seems to notice how startled Jon looks.]
Everything alright?
The revelation that the disturbance wasn't a fear-eating monster doesn't relax Jon as much as he thinks it should. But he waves her off regardless, trying to allay the question he... well, he doesn't really like to answer nowadays.
❝ Yeah... let's get this cleaned up, alright? ❞
He weaves around her quickly, kneeling besides the fallen papers to avoid any further conversation, which he's rather positive isn't much of a defense, based on his lifetime of experience in evasive social techniques.
[Ellie gives a dissatisfied hum as she crouches next to Jon and picks up a couple of loose files.]
Look, half these statements fell out of their folders. That'll be a pain to deal with. Thanks for helping me clean up.
[She glances up]
Unless you've got something you need to get back to...?
[Ellie isn't doing a particularly good job of hiding the probing in her tone, but getting answers has never really been a talent of hers. That's a job more suited for the Archivist.]
And there it is, the familiar curiosity that he knows so well. But, he thought, she means well. She's nice. Another poor creature trapped in this place. Tied to the Eye, to the Archives, to him, he supposes. He bites back the apology that lingers constantly on his tongue. He can pretend to be a human being, at least for a while.
❝ Just paperwork. Statements. Filing away the horrible things that happened to people. The usual. ❞
He stacks a bundle of paper and frowns as he realizes what she had pointed out about the disarray. He doesn't want to use his powers for something as mundane as this, but he hardly tries and soon he begins to feel intuitively which pieces belong with each statement.
[Ellie notices how quickly Jon is working, but she doesn't say anything. She's been around the Archives long enough to know the Eye is at work when she sees it, but hopefully Jon won't feel as guilty about it if she pretends not to notice.]
Mm, yeah. That's enough to put anyone on edge. Do you want me to record a couple of statements later? Take the load off you a little bit?
❝ No— no, it's fine. ❞
He says it too fast, too urgently. When Ellie showed up here, after having given a statement, hesitant to share what had happened afterwards... like her life had completely severed once she came to the Institute.... If he could satiate the Eye enough to make it let everyone go, he would. But things didn't work out like that for him, did they?
❝ Don't tie yourself to the Eye any more than you have to. ❞
[Ellie frowns, a bit startled by the intensity of Jon's reaction. She's pretty sure that being unable to leave the Archives for more than a few hours on occasion is a pretty good sign that she's already crossed some point of no return-- although she's not foolish enough to assume there is no deeper she can go. Jon himself is enough evidence of that. Still, though, she thinks, as much as she wishes none of this had ever happened, better the Eye than the Stranger. Maybe it has her imprisoned just as much as the Stranger did, but at least here she's probably still Ellie. Even so, it's probably best to trust Jon's judgement on this.]
"... Alright. You do need a break though, Jon. When was the last time you came out of your office?"
Jon tucked the last stray paper into its manila folder, nestled it into the box, realizing the soft buzz in his brain now that its task was done, how good it felt to let the power flow through him, even in something as small as this. He gripped the edge of the box.
❝ I'm out of the office now. ❞
He said it softly, grateful for the kindness in the question. She sounded like Georgie... Martin even. And that was a rare thing.
❝ Let's get a ladder this time, to put this away, eh? ❞
Awww, you're no fun.
[Ellie stands up. She remembers seeing the ladder....in the 60's section, maybe? She'll have to go track it down, but it isn't like she had much else to do today.]
Thank you so much for coming out to help me clean that up, though. Maybe I should drop boxes more often.
❝ Yeah maybe... ❞
Jon mused almost despite himself. He remembered what Georgie had told him, about hiding from Martin instead of letting the man talk to him.. and how Martin was now gone from his life, burrowed away somewhere serving the Lonely...
Anchors, she said.
❝ Look, these ladders aren't the sturdiest. Budget cuts and equipment, you know Elias. I can help keep it steady while you climb up and put this back. You know where one is around here? ❞
He made a subtle motion to follow her lead.
[A grin spread across Ellie's face. She'd been expecting to be brushed off, maybe even lectured on the importance of not making messes on purpose or something along those lines. Certainly not this. Maybe her voice came out sounding a bit unreasonably enthusiastic when she spoke, but she really didn't care.]
Thank you, Jon! I...hm, I think I saw one a couple rows over. Let me go check.
[She turned and disappeared between the shelves.]
Jon followed her as they meandered the corridors of the Archive, his Archives... it seemed that each box and document breathed like a living thing as he walked past them, beating with their stories and the fears that festered within them, waiting for him to consume them. He tried his best to shut them out, to imagine them simple pieces of cardboard and paper and ink, but even still, knowledge lapped gently on the shores of his mind.
The tall ladder, discolored and scratched, stood forlornly in a section of statements that have yet to be recorded. He picked it up, as it mostly dragged along the floor (he wasn't the strongest). Slightly self-conscious of his efforts, he turned to Ellie.
❝ Um... this place can't be much fun of a place for someone like you––young, I mean. What do you do for... I mean–– ❞
He cut himself off abruptly, pushed down the force curling in his voice.
❝ I hope there's some fun things you can do here, despite... everything. ❞
The first and only time I ever drew a background and enjoyed it.
I hope he falls off that chair <3
Edit: I originally uploaded the unfinished version of this with only half the animation aaaaahhhhhhhhhh it’s fine
Forgot to post this. Anyways
✨Jmart✨
[[ 𝗔 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗧 – Jon wishes to apologize on behalf of your host, who has been waylaid by a cold since returning from their trip and subsequently derailed by a certain show's finale (not TMA). But Jon is back in the Archives from his journeying, and I have a minute to write some replies! ]]
[[ 𝗔 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗧 – Jon will be away for a few days as I am traveling until Saturday. I'll try to be online to post a couple replies before then, but if not, you'll hear from Jon next week! ]]
[Another RP post! This one's got some Jon goin' on 🩷 semi angstful but also happysweet possibilities so I'd say it's bittersweet! Anyone is welcome to write Jon here! Also, multiple people can respond to my prompts]
Michael was doing that regrettable thing he did where he used his doors to invade the lives of those he'd once known in some capacity, or had interacted with and for whatever reason thought about oftenly.
Jon Sims and Michael Shelley had not been friends. They had not known one another, outside of a grisly statement about betrayal and becoming and Sannikov Land, and all the things the Distortion had gotten up to in its pre-Helen days.
But they'd spoken, once or twice, in that little time frame. Even if Jon had not thought fondly of it, the Distortion had once occupied a portion of his life, and maybe that'd been a befouled portion, but it was still something, and, these days, half-untwisted as he was, Michael couldn't help but grasp at the crumbs of that something and sniffle over them.
He'd taken care to only enter once he was pretty sure Jon was elsewhere, seating himself on the very edge of the man's desk, unwilling to take up more space than he'd allow himself. His fingers, not quite overlong, not quite regular sized, these days, in between, traced the edges of pages he shouldn't have grabbed, had no right to, but did, looking over one of Sims's statements.
These were wretched things, collections of suffering, but they were Jon's, and Jon teetered in that gray area Michael had where he did not know him but wished to, wished for some semblance of a regular dynamic, some sort of friendship. The archival staff had a kinship going on, had casual talks, enjoyed one another's company, in ways Michael remembered having with his own coworkers that had become lost to him now.
He'd give anything to have it back. To be unwounded Michael, curious and naive. He still was, in little ways, today, but things had become so different, so wrong, so complicated.
He wondered how many times a person could change before it was considered a death, a rotting of the selves that came before, even if the carcass was slowly weaving itself back together crudely, making an effort to be someone again now that it was allowed. Trying to start its heart back up, get it beating again to the same rhythm it once had.
Maybe Jon knew what it was like to become, to be something complicated and lose himself to it so much that, when he looked in the mirror and saw the scars and the differences everywhere, he felt a pit in his throat that mirrored Shelley's.
Or maybe he didn't. Maybe Jon would catch him and be revolted that the Spiral dared to sit so casually in his office, touching his things.
Maybe Jon wouldn't even recognize Michael. He'd been quite twisty last Jon had seen him, and, though there were little tells still here and there, Michael looked more Michaelly than spirally as of present, even if they were still halves of one another.
But Jon Saw. Like Gertrude could See, before she'd passed. Like Gerry Saw. So maybe his glamour would be spied right through soon enough.
Jon wouldn't have to worry. Michael would be leaving soon. He'd just like a minute to be in Jon's space first, though, to pretend at some normalcy, to pretend he was wanted and had a friend, even if Jon probably hardly knew he existed. Even if Jon had never met Michael beneath the twisting distortions.
Shelley only wanted to stare at his own misshapen shadow on Jonathan Sims's wall and picture it as someone else's, make friends with it. He'd try not to ask anything of the man himself.
It was the fourth time, the fourth time Jon became a monster. He staggered into the Archives from the coffee shop, the weakness in his body borne wholly from the horror in his mind at what he’d done. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to feel disgusted. But… he wasn’t, was he? He felt stronger now, sharper, alert, alive. And his body seemed to want to laugh at him for this parody of fragility that existed only in his conscience.
It was after hours. No one should be here. He could… god, he didn’t know what he could do, what penance he could assault upon himself to make up for what he’d done. Is that why he just kept going, kept persisting? Pretending it wasn’t happening because if he admitted it out loud, it would make his worst fears real. The tape recorder didn’t even appear when he took that woman’s fear in his hands. The Eye didn’t even consider her trauma important, didn’t even consider his anguish anything but something routine, mundane, as everyday as falling asleep or washing your hair.
He was changing and the worst part of it all was he was so, so alone.
He walked down the corridors of the Archives, past the desks that lay empty, cleared of the humanizing trinkets that used to mark out Tim’s space or Sasha’s… or Martin’s, when he used to work here with the rest of them. The still, quiet furniture taunted him, and Jon found himself running to his office, fleeing there, where at least he could lock himself away for tonight, for forever, if such a thing were permitted for someone like him.
That’s when he felt it, a presence, a strange signal of something both human and eldritch. Visions of Helen played in the Seeing part of his mind… but it wasn’t Helen, not exactly. He didn’t recognize the feeling that glowed like an aura around his door. Dogged curiosity mingled with a tangle of fear that maybe this was yet another entity out to end his life. He wished it could, but he’d looked into the very heart of darkness and buried himself in the very center of the creation and still, he survived. What hope did this shadow of the Spiral have?
He opened the door, weariness and resignation and a small breath of expectation coloring his movements. He paused at the sight that met him––familiar, and yet… the image in Jon’s mind did not come from memory, but from the Eye. A Knowledge that lapped at the edge of his understanding, of a young man who died alone in a cold and foreign land. But the pieces weren’t all there, and he felt that push to understand, to know, to consume…
But he forced himself to close that door in his mind. He didn’t need to feed, he was still strong, still satiated. And this being in his office was so, so vulnerable despite the thing it seemed to be. So… human, more than he’d ever seen Michael, and that honestly scared him. How could he be Michael, if Michael was Helen, and if the Michael of flesh and bone was long ago consumed? How could he be tempted by that hope?
He could almost taste his sorrow, his grief, his loneliness. And Jon felt the now-familiar craving surge up through his throat, clawing for him to speak, to Ask. Hope and paranoia fought a war inside him. Maybe it was some game Helen was playing on him... to tempt him with something that demanded a story and catch him while he feasted upon it.
“Did Helen send you?” he asked, and there was a sad and forsaken bitterness there. He let the compulsion softly weave its way into his voice. “Did she take your shape to taunt me?”
