(The Entity-Swap kid fic WIP that now has a fourth part. Warnings for continued endangerment of children and high levels of pining)
The park is quite a bit further from where they lost the teenager in the hijab than Jon initially thought.
It’s almost funny, how two or three miles doesn’t sound like a very long way to run-walk. Just two or three, the small number making it sound doable, like they should be able to get there in a matter of minutes.
It’s less funny when they’ve been walking for over half an hour and Melanie won’t stop whining about how her legs are tired.
”Carry me.” She demands imperiously.
“No.” Replies Jon, flatly. “Last time I did that, you scratched me really badly. My shoulder and face still hurt.”
”They do not.” Melanie says, as if her denial is enough to undo all the damage. “And I won’t scratch this time. Carry me?”
”No. It’s not even much further to walk.”
”Uuuuugh, you said that last time!” She complains. “It’s been for-eeeee-veeer! Can we at least get some juice or a Freddo Frog or something?”
”With what money?” Jon asks archly.
That buys him maybe half a minute of blessed, blessed silence.
“Wait. You don’t have money?” Melanie asks with a frankly insulting level of incredulity. “But aren’t you like, an adult? Adults have money!”
”I’m twelve!” He sputters, gesturing to himself. “Do I look like I have any money?”
There’s a moment of silence as Melanie eyes him up and down.
“I thought you were just ugly.” She says dismissively. “Wait. If you aren’t an adult, can I be in charge?”
”No!” He snaps indignantly. “I’m still the oldest.”
”That’s dumb.” Melanie complains. “You’re dumb. And ugly.”
”And older than you.” Jon reminds her smugly.
He’s been with her for long enough by now that he knows when to dodge out of the way when she tries to pinch him.
It’s a relief when the park finally comes into view.
It’s an even bigger one when he catches sight of Martin sitting on the balance beam, looking around patiently.
It lifts a weight off Jon’s shoulders that he didn’t even know was there when Martin catches sight of him and his face breaks out in a grin, like the sun rising.
Then Martin’s face rapidly falls, and he’s sprinting over to them, looking like he’s seen a ghost.
Jon has a fleeting fear that the teenager in the hijab or the searcher are right behind them, poised and waiting for him to turn around to strike.
Martin slows, huffing and puffing as his hands reach out towards him, shaking slightly. “Jon! Jon, oh my gosh, what—what happened to, to your arm, to your face?!”
Ah, Jon thinks, as Martin cups his less-savaged cheek gently and tilts his head. Was that all he was frightened of?
”It’s nothing.” He says gruffly, trying not to think about how weird-hot-odd it feels to have Martin worry about some little scratches like this, fighting the urge to fidget. “Just doing, um. Doing what I had to.”
Martin’s eyes are big and liquid and sad, and he frowns, opening his mouth—
“Liar. You didn’t say it was ‘nothing’ when you wouldn’t carry me.” A sour voice interrupts.
Jon startles and Martin whips his hand away so fast it feel like a burn, both of them turning to stare down at where the interruption came from.
Melanie is starfished on her back on the grass, glaring up at them moodily, one sweaty hand still clutching Jon’s.
The Watcher informs Jon that her clothes will have grass stains on them when she gets up. Jon tries to inform the Watcher that he doesn’t care, but is ignored, as usual.
Melanie eyes Martin critically. “Are you his friend then?”
Martin straightens up, his usual smile on his face. “Erm, um—yes! Yes, yes I am Jon’s friend! Mar-Martin Blackwood! Um, hello! And, and you are?”
Melanie pulls her sweaty hand out of Jon’s grip and holds it out to Martin, sitting up. “M Melanie King. Jon kidnapped me and we’re friends now too.”
Martin’s smile freezes as he processes that sentence. His eyes dart between Jon and Melanie. “Ah. Um.”
”I did not.” Jon protests. “You were being kidnapped by a searcher, and I saved you.”
”Didn’t do a very good job of it.” Melanie mutters, pulling up grass by the roots and dropping it on his shoes.
Jon retreats with a disgusted noise, trying to shake it out where it’s fallen through the holes of his too-big trainers. ”Stop that! And-and we’ve just met, we’re not friends!”
There’s a moment of silence.
Melanie’s eyes start to water.
She begins making an awful noise that makes some part of Jon’s brain he hadn’t even known existed freeze up and go “Oh no”.
He exchanges a brief terrified glance with Martin, who reaches out. “Oh, no, no, no, oh please—”
Melanie wails, the sheer force of the noise making Jon stumble backwards.
“Melanie, shh!” He hisses, darting glances around at few parkgoers who are stopping to stare, “You’re making people—”
”NO!” She bellows, swiping out at him with a poorly aimed claw, tears and snot running down her face in rivulets. “I HAE-HATE YOU! I HATE THI-I-IS! I HATE THAT EVERYTHIN' SO ANNOYING, ALL, ALL THE TIME, AND IT DOESN'T STO-O-OP!! I HATE MY FRIENDS NOT, NOT LIKING ME ANYMORE! I HATE MY DADDY GETTIN' SAD 'CAUSE OF ME! I JUS' WAN' IT TO STOP! I WAN’ MY FRIENDS BACK!! I WANNA GO HOME!!”
The little girl curls in on herself, the bright green grass stains on the back of her sparkly top shaking with her as she continues to sob like her little heart is breaking.
Jon has no idea what to do to fix this, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly at his sides.
He has no idea how she was touched by the Slaughter (though the Watcher croons for him to question her, to learn, to Ask—), and even if he did, it’s not as though he could make it just go away, as if a mark like this could be removed with a bit of scrubbing. This isn’t something that can just be pulled out of her, like a loose tooth.
It’s part of her now, wedged deep inside like the Forsaken is in Martin, and the Watcher is in Jon.
He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t Know—
“I-I’ll be your friend!” Martin babbles frantically.
Jon stares at him, feeling suddenly, irrationally betrayed.
Melanie gulps and sniffles, peering up at him through red-rimmed eyes. “…you promise?”
”Cross my heart and hope to die.” Martin smiles, holding out a small, ragged tissue. “C’mon now, can you give me a big dragon blow into this?”
She gives him a Look, like she knows he’s trying to make her laugh and is cross with him for it, but does as he says, making a noise that’s a bit like a honk.
“Good job!” Martin praises, while Jon crosses his arms and tries to make his face not frown like he wants to. This is stupid. You can't be friends with somebody you’ve just met, you don’t Know them, it’s silly. Childish.
Plus Martin’s his friend. Melanie has no right to come along and-and steal him like this.
Martin looks up and catches sight of Jon’s face. His smile dims a bit and his colors go paler, more faded, which makes Jon’s tummy squirm uncomfortably.
Still, he keeps babbling, “I-I’m really happy to be your friend, and Jon’s friend too! I don’t have many friends at home, so this is. This is nice. To be friends with you two. It makes me happy. Do you have superpowers too? Like how I can go invisible, and Jon can make people tell him stuff and Know things?”
Melanie shrugs, tearing up the tissue in her hands. “Dunno. Making people get into fights, or something. Invisibility’s cool, I guess. But getting people to tell you stuff isn’t a superpower. That’s just asking questions. It’s dumb.”
“No it’s not!” Jon bristles indignantly, all his focus on the little friend-thief. “Asking questions can be dangerous. Especially when you can’t stop yourself from answering them. How’d you think the searcher was going to eat up your life?”
“W-well, a brain sucker monster like her wouldn’t need to ask questions, would they? They’d just bite your ugly head off and know everything anyway.” She argues back, little chest puffed out and tears all but forgotten. “If all that creepy lady was going to do is ask questions, I could take her. I just wouldn’t open my mouth. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
Jon barely notices Martin going wide-eyed and near translucent out of the corner of his eye as he opens his mouth to prove exactly why Melanie is wrong.
But he freezes up when he hears a soft, deep voice behind him. “Oh, really? Care to put that to the test?”
The searcher smiles down at the three of them.
Her eyes are empty and something hungry looks out from them.
”Come, little ones.” She coos, one hand outstretched. “Come home with me. Come back to the Collection. You’ll want for nothing, never hungry, never cold, never tired, never lonely, never angry. And you’ll hear such interesting stories. We’ve missed you, my prized Recorder. I’ve missed you so much.”
Jon feels frozen, pinned like a bird in the eyes of a snake, a part of him that he never wanted to know existed clamoring at him to take it, take her hand, you need the stories, you need—
A large, warm, soft hand grabs his, and yanks him back into the fog.
Jon yelps, though it feels like his yell is swallowed up in the crushing, inescapable isolation that now surrounds him. He sees Melanie, but it’s like she’s miles away, her shouting and directionless anger losing teeth as it dawns on her how utterly, utterly alone they both are. They aren’t friends. They can’t rely on each other. They’ll lose sight of each other and perish here, unremarkable and unremarked on and alone.
”C’mon!” A familiar, kind voice comes through the fog, shocking Jon back to his senses. “We’ve got to go! This way!”
His hand is being held.
Of course it is. How could he forget?
He and Melanie are holding Martin’s hands, as the barely visible boy tugs them through the eddies of fog, away from the searcher.
They run through the dreamlike realm of the Forsaken in a weird, birdlike configuration.
Martin had grabbed the hand which was closest to him on Jon, while Jon was still facing the searcher, locked into her gaze. The result is that his arm is drawn almost painfully across his body as they run, his sweaty palm clutching Martin’s tight, sure that if he even loosens his grip enough to change to a more comfortable position, he’ll be lost forever in the fog.
Melanie is stumbling along on Martin’s other side, her legs weak and shaky, almost skipping at some points to try and keep up with the pace Martin is setting, glancing back every so often. Tears are running down her face almost absentmindedly.
For a moment, as they pass through the darkening trees and get further and further away from the playground, Jon thinks they might actually make it. They might actually escape the searcher and live to fight another day.
Jon feels his legs lock up, all his muscles seizing together as though cramped. The burning sensation of being Watched sears itself into the back of his neck, the entirety of him Known and Seen and Exposed.
He faintly hears Martin and Melanie scream as though they’re being peeled open and pinned down for study as he crashes face first into the mossy earth beneath them.
The searcher takes her time strolling up to them, forcing Jon to listen to his friends’ pained whimpers where they’ve fallen.
Martin’s face scraped viciously from the bark of the tree in from of them, and Melanie unable to even inch off of where a root is digging into her stomach.
That’s how he knows it’s the man looking through her eyes, delighting in their distress.
”No,” He can hear Martin choke out, “No, st-stop it, st-stay away fr—!”
”Look at you.” The searcher coos in a tone that has never been her own. “All banged up and bruised. Do you enjoy this, Jon? Do you enjoy hurting your friends?”
Jon wants to scream, to cry, to yell that of course not, of course he doesn’t, he’d never want to, but it feels like his throat is closed up. It’s all he can do to suck in shaky breaths through his nose as the searcher gets closer and closer.
“Kill you,” He can faintly hear Melanie wheeze. Jon’s honestly at a loss for whether she’s speaking to the searcher or to him. “Swear, I-I swear, kill you, I’ll—”
“Come now.” The searcher says pleasantly. “That’s enough games. Time to come back now, children, Recorder. Time to come back to the Collection.”
He can see her hand reaching down for him.
A dark blur slams into the searcher.
Jon hears several short screams, what sounds incongruously like a growl and then a loud, wet, puncturing noise.
His limbs release from the rictus they’ve been forced into.
The burning sensation of being Watched fades to the ever-present prickle on the back of his neck.
Jon jerks his head up with a punched out gasp, reaching for the others, pulling them behind him even as he turns to See what is happening, what’s going on.
There’s a lady kneeling over the searcher’s limp, lifeless body.
She’s got combat boots and a hoodie that’s slipped down from her shoulders to bunch around her elbows. A small burst of scar tissue, almost like a flower, is visible and hidden again as she shifts, more animal than human in her movements. It reminds Jon of a nature documentary he watched with his grandmother once, a mountain lion stalking forward lithely to devour its prey.
There’s the same intent, hungry stare in her eyes that Jon vaguely recalls the mountain lion having as she draws up to her full height and pins the three children huddled at the base of the tree under her gaze.
There’s a penknife in her hand that’s dripping with the searcher’s blood.
He hears Martin suck in a frightened whine behind him, fog spilling out to pool around Jon’s ankles. Melanie’s breathing so fast she sounds like she’s a mere moment away from hyperventilation.
They can’t escape like this. Not from a killer touched by the Hunt.
Not without a distraction of some kind.
Jon’s mouth is opening before his brain can process what an awful idea this is. “How did you get that—”
He doesn’t even see her move.
All he knows is the breath is punched out of his lungs and his feet are dangling uselessly as the Hunter slams him into another tree, a snarl on her lips.
The bloody penknife is pressed hard into the thin skin of his throat.
”So you’re one of them, hm?” The Hunter snarls, the burr of her Welsh accent mixing with a growl that almost drowns out Martin’s frantic cries of “JON!”
A tiny part of his brain that isn’t frantically trying to stay as still as possible notes that she’s got Melanie’s sparkly hair bobble stretched around one wrist.
“I wonder.” The Hunter says, with fake casualness. “What’d be the best way to make sure you can’t ask any more of them pesky questions that hurt people, hm? The tongue? Or the voicebox?”
The Hunt slides away under the young woman’s skin like someone’s pulled a blanket over it. Not gone, the shape of it still plainly visible, but softened, gentled by the cover’s drapes and folds. The arm that’s holding Jon up trembles, ever so slightly, and the penknife is finally, finally pulled away, even if only by a few centimeters.
Jon’s breath hitches in his chest and he has to blink away tears.
As she twists around to face the teenager in the hijab, Jon’s given a clear view of one of her ears, which has begun to flush pink, for some reason.
”Basira.” There’s barely concealed excitement in her voice that is very confusing right now. “Hi. I, uh. I was in the area, and I, uh. Noticed you were having some trouble. So I found those kids that, that you were looking for.”
”That’s. Nice? But, Daisy, I need you to put him down now.” The teenager in the hijab is holding her hands out placatingly. “That boy’s not dangerous, not like Rayner. I wanted to ask him some questions.”
The teenager in the hoodie scoffs, but does as she asks, tucking the penknife away and lowering Jon to the ground. “If you say so. Just don’t let him ask you any—they’re tricky, Eye types like this.”
Jon feels his legs go wobbly the moment his feet touch earth.
He slumps, breath wheezing out of him, heart racing like he’s running from the searcher all over again.
”JON!” Martin’s arms curve under his, pulling him forward into a tight, warm, soft hug. “Oh, oh god, I-I’m so sorry, ah-are you okay?! Did she hurt you?”
Jon can only grip feebly back, burying his head into Martin’s increasingly saturated shoulder as it feels like he shakes apart.
Part of his brain that isn’t focused on clutching onto Martin like he’s a lifejacket and swallowing compulsively to remind himself that he’s alright, he’s whole, faintly registers the sound of something smacking flesh, and the Hunter going “Ow!”
“That’s what you get!” Comes Melanie’s shrill reply. “Don’t you ever touch him again, okay, you big, big, stupid, bullying, ugly—!”
”Okay, that’s enough of that.” The teenager in the hijab—Basira? says. “Break it up, you two.”
There’s the distant sound of dried leaves and tree detritus crunching underfoot, and then Martin’s breath hitches. Jon tightens his grip, preparing to twist him away from whatever’s threatening them now.
”Hey, easy, easy.” Basira’s voice comes from a lot closer. “I’m sorry about Daisy, but she’s very…passionate about stopping monsters. Like the one chasing you three. That was a monster, wasn’t it?”
“Y-yeah.” Martin stutters. “She was going to hurt Jon. Just like she did.”
Jon stiffens at the sound of the warning growl, but Martin doesn’t let go of him, even though Jon can feel his heart racing in his chest. A peek shows that Martin’s staring down the teenager in the hijab with a wobbly lower lip, but eyes set hard.
”And she’s very sorry about that.” Basira demurs. “It was all a big misunderstanding, wasn’t it Daisy?”
There’s a moment, and a decidedly grumpy, “Yes.”
“There we go.” There’s a rustle, and Jon withdraws his head from the safety of Martin to see that she’s pulled out a small leather-bound notebook and a pencil. “Now, could I ask you both some questions? About the whole,”
She makes an all-encompassing gesture to them and the cold fog of the Forsaken coiling around them.
”Our superpowers?” Martin blinks. “Why? Do you have them too?”
The teenager shakes her head. “No. I’m ah, uninvolved in a lot of this. But then a boy I was babysitting got kidnapped by shadow monsters, and I met Daisy while trying to rescue him, so ‘forewarned is forearmed’ and all that. And since I’m under strict orders not to go to the Orsinov Institute—”
”I told you,” The hunter—Daisy—interrupts. “That place is dangerous. They say they research stuff, but something ain’t right there. You’d walk in, and something else would waltz out in your place.”
Jon can’t help his curiosity. “H-how—?”
It feels like his vocal cords dry up under the glare the Hunter pins him with. Thin ice, she mouths at him.
”Yes, thank you, Daisy.” Basira cuts in, shifting so she breaks the line of sight between the Hunter and Jon. “So, as I am banned from ever setting foot in the one reputable center for the study of the supernatural in this country, I have to do my own research piecemeal from subjects in the field.”
Martin and Melanie are giving her blank looks.
“She wants to ask us about the Watcher, the Forsaken and the Slaughter and what we can do.” Jon translates.
Martin nods with a little ‘oh’. Melanie just looks even more confused.
”I just want my Daddy. I wanna go home.” Her voice breaks on the last word.
Basira’s face softens at that.
”Y-yeah.” Martin says, shifting from one foot to the other. “A-and I need to get my train back. My, my mum’s probably worried about me…”
Jon can’t quite help the way his arms tighten at that, though he loosens them quickly. It’s only natural. The sun’s practically gone down, after all. Whether Jon desperately wants him to stay has no import on the matter at hand.
“Right.” Basira scribbles down something in her notebook, then tears the paper out and then tears that into three strips. “This is my mobile number, and email address. You can contact me using either of these to talk about…superpower things.”
”And I’ll find you if you try to vanish, easy as anything.” Daisy adds with a toothy grin. “So don’t.”
”Daisy.”
The hunter holds up her hands. There’s dark red blood on the one that held the knife. “I’m joking, Basira, joking.”
Jon, despite how much he doesn’t want to, detaches from Martin. “I, I don’t have a phone. Or a computer.”
Basira hums, her head tilted to the side. “You know Angel of Islington? Near where you two got on the bus earlier?”
Jon nods as she goes on. “I can be found around there most days. Just drop by if you feel like sharing any of the things you’ve seen so far. And who knows? Maybe I’ll have some stories for you too.”
Something leaps in Jon’s stomach.
Still, the way the Hunter’s gone tense puts him on edge, so he makes himself say, “Only-only little ones. Not, not big stories.”
The teenager in the hijab nods impassively.
She claps her hands together. “Well, that’s enough excitement for one day, I think. Let’s see about finding your parents and getting you all home, shall we?”
Daisy nods, stepping close. Her ears are still red in the fading evening light. “I’ll come with you.”
Basira gives her an unimpressed look and a snort. “And then who’ll deal with that?”
They all turn to stare at the searcher’s body.
Martin shivers and grabs his hand, squeezing gently. Jon almost jumps when he feels something small and warm press close to his other side, before he looks down and sees Melanie’s leaf-and-twig-filled hair. The other sparkly bobble is almost falling out too.
Daisy’s eyebrows draw together and she lets out a small growl. “Ugh, fine. But just, um. Call me, maybe, next time? If you’re gonna go chasing after weird things.”
Basira smiles, playing with the edge of her hijab for some reason. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Jon glances back as she ushers the three of them out of the park, shoulder and throat and everything else aching and feeling like he imagines an orange must do after the juice is squeezed out of it.
The hunter’s eyes shine in the looming dark as they go, shifting from something that Jon wants to call friendliness to a more animalistic bent as she crouches over the body of the searcher, and the two of them disappear into the trees and the twilight.
