John forcing a statement out of Kellin
Fandom: The Magnus Archives x Malevolent
Characters: Jonathan Sims, Kellin Holeman
Content: Murder, abusive childhood, codependent sibling relationships, brief parallels to addiction
Summary: When John gets hungry, a visitor passing through the Archive is a snack he can’t pass up.
[The Archivist is making notes and muttering to himself, when a sudden voice makes him splutter and jump.]
KELLIN
You haven’t eaten in awhile, have you?
ARCHIVIST
Excuse me?
KELLIN
Elias gets that same colour in his eyes when he’s hungry. It’s this grey green. Not as bright as usual.
ARCHIVIST
Yes. Well. [Pauses] Tell me, Kellin. How did your sister die?
KELLIN
[Sighs] I wondered when the Elias’s influence would come out.
ARCHIVIST
Your sister Kellin. How did she die?
KELLIN
Caoimhe says you already know. So does the Fog. And Yellow. They all agree. They rarely all agree. They can feel you routing around in here. Stop it.
ARCHIVIST
I want to hear it from your lips. If I already know what does it matter? Come on, I can see how much you want to get it off your chest.
KELLIN
Stop pretending you’re doing this to help me, we both know you’re hungry.
ARCHIVIST
I can make you. I can drag every painful thing out of you if you keep resisting.
KELLIN (STATEMENT)
I- Fine. Fine. She- She was my twin. Our second parents - Mrs Agnes Holeman and Colonel Manheim Holeman called her Samantha and me Calvin, but she was Caoimhe, and I was always Kellin. And we never stopped, no matter what we said. When the Holemans’ heard us our real names we got the belt but it didn’t matter, they couldn’t take it from us. Just like our secret language that no one but us can know. Our Mama and Papa weren’t good and loving or anything but at least they let us be who we were. Mama didn’t care that Caoimhe didn’t wear dresses and Papa didn’t make me do training every morning. Mrs and Colonel Holeman didn’t exactly care much about us, we were just dumped on their doorstep in their house in the forest off the dirt road into town.
Me and Caoimhe had a special place. A tent by the lake. We had a sleeping bag, a lantern, and some stuff we collected. Random trinkets we found, rocks we liked, drawings we did… Caoimhe found a book but it didn’t have any words in it. It wasn’t a picture book exactly. I mean, it had pictures in it, it had lots of ink drawings of lighthouses and ships but it looked more like someone’s sketchbook. The cover was a thick dark brown leather. Caoimhe couldn’t pronounce the name in on the front, we’d never heard of it before. She said it was from the library of someone. She was pretty good at reading since she taught herself. The Colonel said she wasn’t allowed, said education was wasted on girls, and thick headed beasts like me.
So me and Caoimhe spent most of our time in our tent, we’d go there after our chores were done and usually fell asleep there all night. We looked at the book a lot, for some reason when we poured over it we felt completely separated and isolated from everything but in a good way. In a nice way. It was like we were on our own island, or in a lighthouse surrounded by fog. We were safe. Being around people and away from our tent made us anxious. And scared. But then… it was before the Great War. It was- it was when they wanted me to try and sign up even though I was only seventeen. And- and Caoimhe- Mrs Holeman had found her a husband. And she- I loved her. Caoimhe. She loved me. We never loved anyone but each other. We cut our palms and pushed them together, we’d fall asleep curled up together. She didn’t even love the man they picked, he was ten years older than her and she thought he was… She didn’t like him. He was- his name was something Lukas. So I guess maybe Peter Lukas knew him.
She didn’t argue with the match since she wanted to get away from the Holemans and she said I’d probably sign up. I told her I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be with her. We argued on the lake, we never argued before. To get her to stop shouting I held her. I held her too tightly. She started crying. She tried to pull away from me and it made me so fucking angry. Eventually I let her go, touching her became too painful when she slammed her tiny fists into my broad chest. She sat on the shore of the lake, looking out into it, and as her cheeks were covered in her tears she looked so beautiful. I knew then she could never leave me. Ever.
Next to the house was an axe which I’d been chopping wood with that morning, I took it, almost in a daze. And… And I turned back to Caoimhe, and I didn’t tell her I was there. I looked at her, I looked at her beautiful pale neck and I aimed the blade right there. She didn’t even know, I think she died instantly. But she didn’t really die. Not really. She’s inside me. And I have her head still. It fell into the lake, and I fished it out. The Holemans were mad. Mrs Holeman screamed and cried, the Colonel beat me bad, I still have the scars he gave me from that night. He nearly drowned me in the lake where Caoimhe’s head fell. When he let me go I looked down to see my blood filling the water. He made sure I signed up, that I was drafted even though I wasn’t eighteen. That was the last I saw of them. But I kept Caoimhe with me. She’s always with me.
ARCHIVIST
I- Thank you, Kellin. That’s- yes.
KELLIN
Your eyes are normal again.
ARCHIVIST
Well, seems my diet was lacking in stories of traumatised twins with codependent relationships, doesn’t it?















