Magnus Archives fic in progress (I THINK it's called The Notebook)
You ever wrote a chapter and realize it's the scene you wanted to see but nobody's done and so you had to do it yourself?
So this is the Magnus Archives/Malevolent, beginning Somewhere Else.
(And if that made sense to you, you might be my target audience.)
(And this is just part of a scene, unedited, so please be kind.)
The actual traveling is dizzying as hell, and Jon can’t block it out.
Can’t avoid the vacuum-pinch in his ears or the clench of his sinuses or the spin of his gut.
But then it’s over, and they’ve arrived.
It’s a temple. Dimly lit by distant daylight, all white marble, pillars carved with what look like tentacles or really thick vines, and the King’s three-hook symbol prominent in ebony and taking up most of the floor.
And apart from the King and Jon, it is absolutely empty.
Jon is on his knees, gasping.
Long game, he thinks, because it’s inevitable that this monster-god will lose patience over his continued refusal, and when that happens, it’s going to be bad.
Jon knows he’ll be tortured. Skinned. Burned. Broken. But until that time, he intends to give this thing no reason to hurt him apart from that one, crucial thing that he will not do.
Thus: he remains on his knees.
He’ll hold out as long as he can.
“You’re so certain I’m going to harm you,” says the King, who sounds (and hopefully still is) amused.
Jon swallows.
“Have I hurt you so far, Archivist?”
“Just Jon,” Jon says, and flinches, because apparently he can’t not be contrarian for two seconds, even when he’s trying. Jonah couldn’t have picked somebody sensible, oh, no, that wouldn’t do…
The King leans in, close, so close that whatever weird heat he gives off makes Jon feel like he’s going to be sunburned. “As you wish - Jon.”
Jon suddenly wishes he hadn’t asked this thing to use his name. The way he says it is… not good. He feels it somehow, deep and violational.
The King’s laugh shudders through him, drives his hands to the floor, keeps Jon’s head down.
“Have I hurt you?” says the King.
Jon’s fingers tense on the marble floor. “Apart from emotional scarring through… whatever happened at the Grove, and only ripping me away from my soulmate, no. Not at all.”
“Look at me, Jon,” the King says, and one of those hideous tentacles touches under his chin, lifting his face.
The King’s gaze pins him like nails through his eyes.
(And tempts with so much knowledge and so many statements and Jon could sit over this thing and feast on fear for a thousand years and never come to the end of it, and he pushes that thought away).
“There. Was that so hard?” says the King. “Now, I’ll ask you this: what do you think I want from you?”
Jon is still shuddering. “Something I can’t give.”
“Can’t you? I only ask for something you already want to give.”
The King isn’t wrong. Of course there’s a broken, bruised part of him that wants to answer their call.
Jon will never listen to it. “I don’t.”
“You do. A strange state of affairs, isn’t it? For one whose very blood flows with truths to deny one of his own.”
It’s prodding through his head, that’s what’s happening. Finding thoughts, lifting sensations like rocks to see what’s underneath. Finds, somehow, his tether to the Dread Powers, that connection, always on, circuit always open, always calling, always beckoning.
For all the world, it feels like the King plucks that tether.
- and Jon finds himself curled on the floor with no memory of going down. He’s gasping.
The King waits. Silent. Watching.
Jon doesn't know what just happened. He completely blacked out; feels the horrifying vibration of the Dread Powers in him, still calling - but he didn't answer. He didn’t. Relief brings tears to his eyes.
And there’s a bad sound, a rumbling sound, something like a growl but almost mechanical, a terrible tremor that Jon knows is the King’s anger.
Jon forces his voice to work. “You don’t understand. I already did this. I damned everybody. I… I can’t do it again. You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
So much for the long game.
Not like I’ve ever been able to avoid irritating anyone, even when they were about to melt my hand, he thinks, and almost laughs, but that would peel right off into hysterics, so he keeps it down.
“Speak. I hear your thoughts, anyway.”
Someday, Jon would like to deal with a monster who doesn’t do that. “I contain an entire world’s torture in me,” he says, haggard with memories planted under his skin. “I’ve seen it all. Felt it all, every scream, every torment. I know what can be done to the human body and mind, and I’d rather just get on with it, if it’s all the same to you.”
The King studies him, and Jon can’t read him at all, can’t get a whiff.
“Walk with me, Jon.”
Jon grits his teeth, shudders. The King makes his name resonate deep, scraping some string hooked directly into his soul.
Somehow, he stands, and walks.
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