Mmmmmmm I'm thinking....LONELY JON! Steeeep right up and listen to me ramble about my idea of Lonely Jon. Because you know you want to. (Rewritten from rambles on Discord, with extra rambling on the spot)
So it starts in research era, just after Jon's grandmother has died - basically leaving him with no real connections (from his perspective, Tim thinks they're besties) and making him PRIME Lonely bait. It's prodding at him experimentally, sniffing like an intrigued animal but ready to dart away at any second. Of course, in comes Peter Lukas, who's returned early from an excursion out on The Tundra and is fagging it up with Elias while the man's like "hey…check out my little Archivist. He's a little freak. I'm going to traumatise him so bad you don't even know." And Peter's like "that's nice, dear. He's looking mighty Lonely." Obviously, Elias is like "back OFF, Peter. He's my silly freakish Archivist and The Eye is like obsessed with him so you're not allowed to have him." And Peter does back off, because god he can't be arsed to deal with Elias so soon after coming back from a trip out on the Tundra, so he leaves it alone - however, it definitely is in the back of his mind, lingering there while The Lonely's metaphorically pawing at Jon like a sad cat that wants entry into a room.
Lonelyeyes does its thing and of course they get into an argument, with Elias shooing Peter away with some sort of bitchy comment, so Peter's like "fine. Fine! I can be petty. I'm going to be petty." and decides that HE'S going to fuck with Elias's little Archivist because he has free will and the divorce papers have been served. Cut to Jon being absolutely tormented by The Lonely, fog crawling into the corners of his vision and people ignoring his general presence, leaving him feeling even more isolated than he did mentally already - sometimes he feels invisible, eyes passing over him and left out of everything (or well, more so than usual, like Tim doesn't invite him places ever). While this happens, Lonelyeyes are being more toxic because "that's my fucking ARCHIVIST DON'T YOU DARE" "FUCKING FINDERS KEEPERS, BITCH!" all the while Jon is curling further and further into himself.
There's a massive blowout argument between lonelyeyes where the divorce papers are signed and Peter is like "I'm taking the child." so Elias is obviously like "what child?? OH MY GOD NO YOU FRIGID BITCH!" but it's too late! Jon finds himself snatched into The Lonely, forced into a world where he is entirely alone and nobody is coming to save him. Obviously, he's not pleased by this, but then he finds another individual in this empty version of the world, huddling away in The Magnus Institute because maybe if he stays in the same place, he's more likely to be helped? Anyway, Peter Lukas is there, toying with Jon like "I mean, I could let you out…but do you really want to be out? Would anyone really care? Surely it's better here, where it doesn't matter if you've been forgotten or not. Nobody can forget you if nobody's there to remember you." While Jon ends up wrapped up in The Lonely, unable and unwilling to really leave because there's no point in trying if nobody cares, if nobody even remembers his name, Lonelyeyes start doing their toxic flirting shit again because it's like "no…if you think about it I could totally prime your Archivist for his role. He's all alone in the archives, no distractions…he can just focus on the statements."
Basically they decide that they should just. Leave Jon in there and manipulate him into dealing with the Archives because "it doesn't matter what you do, it's not like anyone's going to care, right?" until they deal with the pest that is Gertrude, and then they can make Jon the culmination of The Lonely and The Eye all in one. Neither of them really notice when Jon eventually dies of frostbite in The Lonely until it's too late, but Jon is honestly Lonely and locked in on reading these statements in peace and quiet. Eventually, Gertrude is Dealt With and the Head Archivist position opens up for a well-trained Archivist to take her place. Sasha, Tim and Martin are still assigned to be Archival Assistants, but they have no fucking clue who their boss is, they just know that they have one. Meanwhile, Jon is very disgruntled to be back in the world of people, basically like Peter Lukas in how he avoids all people and conversations as much as possible, fading into the fog whenever he so much as hears someone breathe nearby. He doesn't really remember who he was before The Lonely, and he doesn't think that it matters. He doesn't really think anything matters.
I want to tell you guys about how he looks because yes - I'm thinking constant fog rolling off him like when you step out of a shower and the steam comes off your skin due to environmental temperature changes, washed out look, his hands definitely look frostbitten and he's got like cold burns (freezer burns?) on him, as well as a faint sheen of ice in his hair like frozen condensation. Always fucking freezing. Anyway, I can't decide who sees him first, but I kind of love the idea of Jon setting out files on everyone's desks before they arrive as usual, and Tim (who forgot to adjust his alarm clock for daylight savings time or something) comes stumbling in like he's late and is like "WHO THE FUCK??? JON?!" but Jon is like "nope!" and just fucking disappears. Cue Tim trying to convince Sasha and Martin that their boss is the ghost of his old coworker/bestie who disappeared randomly like two years ago, and the other two being like "okay mate. Calm down." Especially Sasha, who also knew Jon and was just as caught up in the "where the fuck is Jon" when he first went missing. So he's got a fucking corkboard conspiracy going on while they're wondering if he's been doing alright recently.
However, Tim (who has been a stupid fool and has been referring to Jon as 'MY SNOOKUMS!!' whenever he talks about it) eventually mentions Jon's actual name and Martin goes "...Tim that's on the nameplate of the Head Archivist's door. Have you just. Never looked at it." There are many emotions in Tim's heart, namely pride because he was right, but then he has so many more questions. He asks Martin why he'd know that, and Martin just shrugs and says he read the nameplate, like any normal person does, instead of trying to spot the individual working inside (okay, maybe he was doing both). However, he's also been leaving tea in the room whenever he makes tea for the others, with a little note of the tea blend in case whoever he's leaving it for is allergic to something in it. The next day, the mug he used is always washed and placed back in the cupboard, so he knows he isn't just wasting tea whenever he does it. Sasha is finally on board with the conspiracy, researching further into Jonathan Sims (a man who apparently went entirely missing, not just from the institute, which is fucking weird) while Tim tries to bump into him again. Martin, however, just keeps making him tea.
It is, of course, Martin that Jon first communicates with. Not even verbally - he just leaves a little note on Martin's desk informing him that he liked the last blend that he made. Martin immediately makes him another cup of tea using that blend, this time with a note telling him that he also likes this one, even offering a little tidbit about how awful it tastes when brewed incorrectly. Jon writes back, asking if there's a story behind that, and they quickly build up a strange little connection through these notes. Martin finds himself hopelessly charmed by the man he learns about through their communication, all the way from how he gushes so passionately about cats when he mentions feeding a stray on the way home from work one time, to how he loops his 'f's and goes from signing his full name to just a simple "-J" as they continue. Jon finds himself in a similar situation, these muffled feelings trying to break past the neutral emptiness he has lived with for so long, slightly discomforted by them but also not wanting to break this tiny link. He finds himself, for the first time in years, yearning. Not only for this sweet man who made him tea even when he wasn't sure he was real, but for the idea of connection as a whole. This, of course, goes against The Lonely, and it makes its displeasure very known.
You see, this whole time, the plot has been trying to plot. Jane Prentiss keeps trying to get into the institute, but she literally just gets sent into The Lonely the second Jon sees even a single worm crawling around the Archives. This, of course, was not something Elias and Peter expected to happen, so they're both like "wait. Wait pause. Okay. We didn't plan for this." Peter lets Jane Prentiss back out of The Lonely, but Jon just throws her right back in when he notices she's out, which leads to basically a cycle of trying to get Prentiss in before Jon can notice and just failing drastically. While Prentiss would be fine just ditching this whole thing because "ffuck this", she's also still got that itch that led her there in the first place, and it's less her thinking than it is the worms puppeting her body at this point. Worms are not very smart, and even Corruption worms can have a lessened idea of 'danger'. Can worms even feel Lonely?? Anyway. The Lonely's pissed off with Jon, so when he tries to kick Prentiss back into The Lonely after she's let out again...it doesn't let him. Which is. Bad. Jon gets attacked by Prentiss until The Lonely relents and drags her back in, and he's like. "Um. Uh oh." He can feel the worms digging into his flesh, through muscle and bone and-
Well, when Martin opens the office door and is met with a man on the floor, covered in blood and trying to use a letter opener to get out the worms still digging into him, he panics. Obviously. Like, the archival crew have been dealing with the worms same as usual after Prentiss staked out his home. Okay so I was thinking about whether Martin ends up in the Archives and I say yes he does, with the offer given through a note resting on his desk when he stumbles back into the office (after all...Jon's been working for The Eye for a while now too). but he doesn't see Jon until he walks into this room and finds him trying not to be taken over by evil parasites. After helping Jon avoid such a fate (and only not calling an ambulance because the man assures him that he'll be fine, which is freaky to think about), he is met with the realisation that. This was Jon. He looked like that, but he was also Jon and dear god Martin shouldn't be thinking about how pretty a man is when he's currently trying to wash his blood off his hands.
(And that's all I've got so far!)
