#jonah magnus green m&m. much to think about

[geodebiome]

you win some you lose some

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Peach Pit - a Magnus Archives Fic

An AU Somewhere Else - part of the Magnus Monsterverse series.

Spoilers for the whole podcast.

Something is definitely unusual about Jon's experience with the Eye.

Several cheesy sci-fi explanations and eight Jonah Magnuses later, Jon has more questions than ever - but at least it seems like he might have found a new friend.

AO3

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Manuela’s printout made my head spin.

If I let go, if I relaxed the willed mitosis that kept me sane—that retained me as me and not an It to It— her printout would all make sense. 

It tried—pushed that temptation before me, promised without words what utter bliss it would be to know everything here and now.

It would be bliss. I know it would. But that was not what I wanted.

Pleasure is not permission, I told It, because whether or not It understood those words, I did.

“Would you mind explaining what this is and how you obtained it?” I said.

She looked quite surprised. “You don’t just know?”

“I could.” They were all listening. I suddenly wondered if this were a test. “I have no intention of ever giving the Eye unfettered access to my mind again, however, and so, I am limited.”

“Amazing,” said Leitner, clapping his hands together and startling me. “Remarkable. I knew you’d be safe to bring here.”

“Hush,” said Gertrude. “You mean that, do you?”

So it was a test. “Yes.” 

“Even if your lover passed away again?” she said, and I didn’t care what Leitner claimed—those were the eyes of someone who would absolutely try to kill me.

But I wasn’t what I once was.

I knew fear. I certainly had plenty of my own. Yes, I was scared of Jane, of Sarah, of what they could all do.

But I was a little bit scary myself, now. Of course, I could probably still die—but I wasn’t sure how anymore.

I had to take a moment to answer. “First… are you threatening him?”

Her eyebrows rose. “No.”

“Okay. Well, there’s no reason to assume he’ll die for a very long time.”

“The Lonely does not extend lifespan,” Gertrude said.

“Yes, but he’s healthy, lacks genetic predispositions toward inheritable illnesses, and currently suffers from nothing so much as a lack of sleep.” I froze, mouth open.

Gertrude’s lips quirked. “Only that, eh? I thought you weren’t knowing things.”

“Apparently, when it’s really important, it slips through,” I said primly.

Gertrude snorted. “Still. You avoided my question.”

“No, I’m laying foundation for an answer. I’m not wracked by fear of him dying.” I stopped, swallowed, continued. “Also, I don’t think I can express how badly depressed I was when this… when he was murdered.”

His hand was my anchor.

“And a thousand years engulfed in that didn’t make it worse?”

“No, because the Eye was trying to comfort me,” I said, because it was true. “It’s stupid, though. Meant well, I truly believe, but is stupid—and so all it knew to do was remove me from the hurt.”

“Meant well?” said Gertrude with great disbelief.

“The Eye loves me. Damned if I know why,” I said.

She stared. “They don’t love people.”

“They certainly do. It just doesn’t generally turn out well for the object of that love.”

They all stared at me. Gertrude looked offended. Manuela looked fascinated. Leitner was unreadable behind his stupid green spectacles.

They were being ridiculous. “This shouldn’t be that strange,” I said. “They may not be living things like us, but they certainly have tastes and preferences.”

“I knew it! ” said Manuela, slamming her fist into her thigh.

“Manuela,” Leitner started. 

“They have tastes! Opinions! Thoughts!”

“Only in the most basic sense,” I said. “Look, we’ve dropped off the point: I wouldn’t be great if he died, no. But I wouldn’t do what I did then, either. I don’t know how much you know about what happened, but when m… when…” Martin squeezed my hand, and I could keep going. “When he died, we’d been walking for uncountable time through a living hellscape, a nightmare world in which every living thing capable of suffering did, and all their misery was shoved forcefully into my brain.”

Gertrude frowned. “Wait a moment. Are you saying the world ended before you entered your thousand year state?”

“Yes.”

She frowned harder. “Explain.” 

“When Martin died, the world already belonged to the Beholding.”

“How?”

“I was tricked by a man named Jonah Magnus,” I said.

Manuela stiffened.

“What?” Oh, no, I wasn’t letting that go. “What?”

“We just found one,” she said.

I stared at her. “One… what?”

“I mean, we know of eight,” she said, glancing between Gertrude and Leitner and me. “But there’s one who’s actually ready to fetch. His world’s ended. His Fear is feeding on him, and he’s not having a good time. So, I mean. What do you mean, he tricked you?”

So I didn’t know what my face did.

I felt pale. I felt… sort of tingly and numb ( vasoconstriction, the narrowing of blood vessels due to emotional stress). I realized I wasn’t breathing only because Martin came around, knelt in front of me, and cupped my face.

“Hey,” he said.

Him. His eyes. Him. I melted into him, against him, clung to him like a rock in a storm. 

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”

I was shaking. “You don’t understand who he is.”

Martin knew I wasn’t talking to him.

“We do,” said Gertrude. “Possibly more than you, since you’ve only encountered one of him.”

“No, you don’t know who he is,” I said, sitting up, glaring over Martin’s shoulder. “You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

“Ending the world, evidently,” said Leitner. “Like you.”

“No, not like me! At least the damage I did, I did with my own damn hands!” I snapped.

“Shhh. Jon. I get it. They will too, in time. Shhh. It’s not that one. It’s not that Jonah.” Martin hesitated. “I mean. They said everyone in your world was dead, so it couldn’t be that Jonah, could it?”

“What happened to him in your timeline, Martin? When you had to kill me.”

Manuela flinched at the words—and that was right. That’s how it should be. She had a human heart, and I really, really liked her.

“You killed him,” Martin whispered. “You stabbed him and took his place.”

My jaw dropped. “Oh,” I said after a long moment.

He watched me. Watching for… I don’t know. Some response.

My face burned. “I didn’t stab him.”

“What did you do, then?” said Leitner, sounding absolutely fascinated.

“I ate him.”

“You what? ” said Gertrude.

“I mean… not literally.” Fuck it. I pressed my face to Martin’s shoulder. I didn’t want to see how anyone was looking at me now.

“How?” whispered Martin.

Him, I could answer. Him, I would answer. “After you died. After I… lost myself completely. After I turned to the Eye, because… everything else was already gone. When it had me, when it… eased me. We went to the Panopticon.”

“We?”

“I... I suppose it was an I, but not really. It was we.”

“Go on,” murmured Martin.

I sighed. “Jonah was fine with it. If that matters.”

“Fine with what?” said Leitner.

“Becoming one with the Eye. That’s what he thought of it as.”

“And… what did you think of it as?” said Leitner. “What did you even do?”

“I don’t know how to explain that,” I mumbled into Martin’s shoulder. “The Eye ate him. I was the Eye. But we didn’t literally eat? His body fell and rotted. I don’t know.”

“That’s absurd,” said Leitner.

“It’s incredible,” said Manuela. “Jon. I need to pick your brain. Please.”

I sighed. “I don’t know anything, Manuela. Not really.”

“But your experiences, your impressions—”

“Manuela,” Leitner began in a chiding tone.

“Please, Jon,” said Manuela. “I’ll pay you.”

I paused. “Shit. We do need money here, don’t we?”

Gertrude laughed. She sounded like she hadn’t expected to. “You were floating for a while, weren’t you?”

My face burned again. “Oh, yes. Freed from the demands of Capitalism. How very blessed I was,” I drawled.

“Please,” said Manuela again.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Leitner said.

Maneula flipped him off. He sighed.

Right. She reminded me of Sasha, and had summarily gone from liked to among my favorite people territory. “If you really think it’ll do any good, yes. I will,” I said. “Ah… about Jonah…”

“Let’s discuss that as part of everything,” she said. “Obviously, we don’t want Jonah here if he’s a danger.”

“He is,” I said.

“Let’s find out together! Nothing’s decided yet, after all. Here.” She dug into her pocket and produced a business card. “We’ve barely even talked about you yet. Listen—I have satellite feeds monitoring everything. Surges of power (which are observable via atmospheric and magnetic disturbance, heat, radiation, and more, believe it or not), increases in psychological events or unexpected deaths… you have no idea.”

“It sounds like a police state,” I said before I could help myself.

She shook her head. “I’m the only one who gets to see all of it—as annoyed as that makes some people —and I don’t have any authority to act on it, nor the power to do so even if I did.”

I stared at her business card; I was still draped on Martin, and I did not give a damn who saw. (Maybe a little. Maybe I did it at them, as well.) “Do I… call you?” All it had was her name and a number.

“Yes! I’ll come get you.”

“Portal travel?”

“Well, I’m based out of the Alps, so yes, you’ll prefer that.”

“Oh.” I swallowed. “So. Tell me what happened. What I did. Cliff’s Notes.”

She looked thrilled. “I’m calling it prisming.”

“Weird nomenclature? You?” said Gertrude, dryly. “Thought I’d never see the day.”

“Prisming,” said Manuela, like tuning back in after a commercial break. “Of course, you understand the concept—when light, passing through glass, slows and bends at different wavelengths, separating into the colors that make up light, which we normally can’t see.”

Martin snorted. “Are we really doing that goofy sci-fi movie trope?”

I pulled back to stare at him. “What are you talking about?”

His smile was so adorable I wanted to wrap it around my heart like a blanket. “We have got to fix your viewing habits. These movies—they’ll  be talking about something wild like the loss of Earth’s magnetic field, and then they’ll demonstrate it by roasting a peach pit with hairspray and a lighter.”

I laughed.

I laughed hard. I couldn’t help it. It had been so long since I’d encountered anything so silly. “What! What? You’re joking!”

“Not even a little,” he said, utterly pleased with himself.

“You ought to already know about such things,” said Gertrude warily.

It was another test, but I was still laughing and couldn’t be bothered being intimidated this time. “The Eye knows everything, but doesn’t interact with it. That’s a human response.” I wiped my eyes. My smile faded. “I told you the condition it had me in. Believe me, I spent no time with nonsense like that. I would have missed Martin too much.”

Except… It did care about things now, didn’t It?

It was amused by Brother Love. This was new; I could feel it, feel that this development was relatively recent. How could this be? 

I was not going to volunteer the question. Not yet.

“Hm,” Gertrude said. “And do you have the memoirs of all It knew?”

“I honestly don’t know. I feel like I’ve woken from a coma—which I have done, by the way. You’re not… you feel very weird for a while. You are yourself, but not.”

“You were in a coma?” said Manuela. “Tell me about it?”

“We haven’t even finished the current conversation.”

“I don’t think we’ll finish this one for a while,” said Manuela, back on track. “I haven’t figured out how you did it. To be honest, I assumed you’d understand this,” she said, holding up the printout, “and could help explain it to me.”

“Oh.” Disappointed. Embarrassed. “I could try to help?”

Leitner sighed. “Really, Manuela?”

“Well, this is quite new,” she said. “None of the Eye avatars have done anything like this before.”

I blinked at her. “They haven’t?”

“No. It’s one of the reasons I want to investigate your theory about the Eye liking you. That could be what makes this different.”

“But then what are other avatars like?”

“Lenses. Magnification, clarification, seeing through whatever to the truth of things.”

“Peach pits,” Martin mumbled, and set me off again.

“Well,” I finally said. “There may be a way to access all that knowledge, but right now, I don’t know how to do it safely. The Eye is too used to having all of me. It’s a fire hydrant, not a faucet.” I grinned at Martin.

He grinned back and rolled his eyes.

“Right, well,” said Manuela. “What you did is somehow break the hunter—who is effective because they are basically combinations of various avatars—into individual parts. That’s not a little thing.”

“Wait. I did? And they’re what, merged ? Like some sort of Flesh abomination?”

“Not at all. It’s much more homogeneous than that.”

“They’re working together?” Horror erased what amusement I had.

“Or being forced to.”

I stared at her. “Why would someone do that? We’re up against some… mad scientist of the Fears? How is that even possible?”

“We don’t know, but it seems like that, doesn’t it? It’s the reason Jurgen decided to bring people like you here who’d do anything to stop it—it was already happening when we arrived. Otherwise, we’d have to watch the world end again.”

Martin’s eyes were huge. It seemed I wasn’t the only one hearing this for the first time.

“Are you going to tell him everything?” said Leitner, dry.

“Am I going to tell… an avatar of the Eye…” Manuela began with such sarcasm that I think even Tim would’ve been impressed.

“Yes, all right, fair point,” Leitner said, sounding pouty.

He probably wanted to feel important by doling things out. That, or he didn’t trust me. Well, that went both ways. “And why are they called hunters, then?” I said. “Is that the primary Fear they’re made of, or something?”

“No, that was just the name sticking before we could be clever about it,” she said.

That made sense. Humans did that sort of thing—not that I was about to share such an observation. It would make me sound too far outside humanity.

I wasn’t. I was still me. I had to believe that.

“Jurgen, I’m done here,” said Gertrude. “If there’s nothing else for me to do…?”

“You are?” He sounded so surprised.

“Yes. I have come to my conclusion.”

I peered at her over Martin’s shoulder.

“You have?” said Leitner.

“I’ll send you my report, but some of us don’t have the luxury of sitting around in plush chairs all day, staring at stained glass.”

I couldn’t help snorting. 

“Everyone is in such a mood today,” said Leitner, and waved his hand at her dismissively. “I want that report.”

Gertrude waved back—with far more disdain than he’d managed—and simply left without another word to us.

“Was that good?” I murmured.

“Hell if I know,” Martin murmured back. “She didn’t come stare at me in any of my meetings.”

“Well, you not knowing alters things,” Manuela said, “but it’s not a dead end. Give me a few days to correlate and collect more data, then let’s talk.”

“All right. I can do that.”

“I think the question, Jon, is whether you can do it again,” said Leitner.

“I don’t know. I’d advise not making any plans around an incident hat could’ve been a fluke,” I said.

“Do you think it was?” Leitner said evenly.

“I don’t know. It could have been some lingering effect of… everything. It’s a risk. Don’t plan around it.”

He huffed. “Fine. But you could save lives.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll figure something out—but I won’t risk anyone in the process,” I said.

And this time, I received the dismissive hand-wave. “If there’s nothing else, Manuela?”

She grinned at me. “A week.”

“A week. I’ll call.”

She stood, gathered her lawn chair, looked around as though to be certain she hadn’t dropped anything, and opened a portal.

I almost saw how she did it—her lenses example, seeing where she wanted to go, and in the process, tunneling a way there.

Was that good? Did it damage something? I had no idea.

She was gone, and it was significantly less comfortable with only Leitner staring at us. “You really are proving to be as interesting as I’d hoped,” he said.

“I… you’re welcome?” I said, uncertain as to the pleasantries in this situation.

“We’ll obviously need to dive into this further, but both Manuela and Gertrude seem to think you are no threat to us—which was my main concern.”

“And you’d have done what, if they thought otherwise?” I said.

“Well, I don’t know. We’d attempt capture and rehabilitation.”

“Like Nikola.”

“Yes. Taking your life would be the absolute last step. We’ve had enough death. All of us.”

I needed to see Nikola for myself before determining whether that truly was the better option. “I don’t intend to die or harm anyone. I just want to live, and I don’t mean mere survival. All of this took my life from me.”

“I understand,” he said, and sounded like he did. “It’s what they all want, and I try to give opportunity for.”

It was awkward now for a different reason. I wished I could just believe him; it would be lovely if he were honest. 

And maybe he was, but that would have to be proven over time. “Are we done?”

“Yes. Oh—stop and see Agnes on your way out. She’ll give you a lunch voucher.”

Oh. All right.

We held hands and left.

Agnes was indeed there—her hair cut short, dressed as though it were 35 Celsius in here. She smiled; she eyed me in a way I was coming  to recognize as Oh, I killed you in my world, and handed us little coupons for lunch across the street.

We both knew we’d be saving those coupons for later.

I waited until we were outside again before speaking. “How can you stand me?”

“What?” Martin said, startled.

My voice shook. “They all kill me. Even you had to kill me. I drove everyone to it. How can you even—”

He kissed me. Arms around, holding tight so I could not blow apart. “I didn’t want to. You didn’t drive me to it. It was the Web’s plan from start to finish.”

I stared at him.

“She was trying to eacape,” he said. “But to do that, the Eye had to be lured to another world—and that could only happen with you as both bait and bear trap. We both fell for it, Jon. It wasn’t your fault.”

I stared more. “You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.”

“I did. If it was your fault, I’d tell you. But all you did was be yourself, not know what you were doing, and be used. By everyone. I’m not too happy about eight Jonah Magnuses, either.”

“Maybe we can put them all in a room, and they’ll eat each other,” I muttered.

“I’m pretty sure with that many of them together, they would just rule the world.”

“Or wreck it.” I leaned in. “I suppose it might not be like that. Are different versions of people different here?

“Wildly. We saw the Evans earlier, remember? One’s full Lonely; the other went Desolation.”

“Damn,” I said, trying to picture it.

“They get along like siblings—because they just do—but they are very different people.”

I made a face like tasting something awful. “I suppose I’ll at least look at him. Jonah.”

“You don’t have to. He’s not your responsibility.”

“I know him better than anyone here. I do have to, Martin.”

And Jared pulled up. I hadn’t even noticed Martin messaging him. “Right,” Jared said, rising impossibly huge from his vehicle like all the passengers of a clown car in one, and opening the back door for us.  He eyed Martin. “This’s what you wanted, eh? No wonder I weren’t your type.” And he laughed wetly.

Martin shrugged. “Always was. Not your fault.”

“Eh,” said Jared. “Killed him anyway, my time. Don’t feel like I owe nothing bad now.”

“How did you…” I said.

“Got these letters, yeah? An’ your picture. Told me where you’d be. Got into the Institute and there you were—but not for long.”

“Jonah Magnus again,” I murmured to Marrin.

“Coincidence.”

I was beginning to wonder. “I need to talk to Jane.”

“Sure? Let’s do lunch at home, first.”

“Do… do I have food?” I said, eyes wide.

Martin laughed. “I do. It’s time you came to my flat, anyway.”

“You gonna get in or not?” Jared said.

We got in.

I kept Martin’s hand between mine. “Thank you for being there.”

He just held me.

We were silent the rest of the ride back. And nothing was stopping us. Nothing was caging us in, or chaining us down. I still felt increasingly trapped, and I had no idea what to do.

The Eye tried to tell me about Jared’s secret love affair with some Corruption avatar, but I didn’t let that get too far.

Its delight unnerved me. It had changed. 

And I was beginning to wonder if I was the reason it had. 

[eldritchqueerture]

One For The Memory

Chapter 7: Turning Page

Chapter Summary: Elias listens to a tape and has a chat with Jon about his refusal to take live statements. Jon’s dreams become more violent as his regrets come back to haunt him. He realizes Martin didn't come through to this world with him, and he remembers the price he’d have to pay to free his assistants from under the Eye’s influence.

CW: Jonah Magnus, smoking, self-deprecation, fainting, suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, gaslighting, manipulation, mentions of suicide, emotional abuse, gore, graphic violence, injuries, blood, knives, guilt-tripping, spiders, body horror, panic attacks, mentions of and allusions to eye trauma

Author's Notes: Let the Jon Angst begin 💀 This one is on the heavier side, so please mind the content warnings and stay safe. I also decided to change this work's rating to M because of graphic descriptions of violence.

Work Summary: Jon awakens with a tidal wave of memories that don’t make any sense. In an attempt to go on with his life, he searches for the cause of the turmoil in his mind. He knows, though, that something inside him is waking up.

Likes are greatly appreciated, but please consider reblogging so other people may see it! Thank you 💜

Jonah Magnus pinches the bridge of his nose when the tape player clicks off, and the air of the office is once again filled with silence. He turns the words he’s just heard in his mind this way and that, scarcely letting himself believe his ears. He carefully picks up the device and rewinds the tape, just a little bit.

“…And as the last word teared itself from your trembling, bleeding lips, your eyes flashed with green light, blinding the whole world and extinguishing the sun. The sky ripped itself into a thousand little pieces and from every crack emerged a glowing Eye, ready to take in everything about Its new world. And as the new world created itself from the light, you collapsed on the floor, your eyes bleeding and burned, yet still seeing. Seeing It All.”

Jonah pauses the recording, savouring the tremble in the Archivist’s voice. These are the words of a man who has seen what Jonah longed for almost his entire life; a living and breathing proof that his plan could succeed. Did succeed.

A thrill of excitement travels down his spine and his lips split in an unwitting smile. There are still many unknown variables to this equation, primarily how exactly Jon was able to travel through time, since that’s what Jonah assumes happened, but all of those just pose an additional challenge. Whatever travel Jon has been through, it clearly left him in a severe state of disarray, enough not to be able to organize any sort of plans quickly. Which, of course, gave Jonah plenty of time to investigate, and observe, and make preparations of his own.

Jon’s refusal to take live statements had been a worry at first. How was he supposed to become the Archivist, if he didn’t feed the power in turn? Jonah started considering alternatives; if Jon now knew too much to take those first steps towards Becoming, maybe he should think about a replacement, before it is too late. Sasha would of course be his second choice; she obviously lacked the mark of the Web but her ties to the Beholding were the strongest out of all of the assistants, and Jonah knew her to be impulsive. He had offhandedly instructed her to steer the statement givers away from Jon if the situation looked too similar to that of Ms. Herne, and instead take the statement herself. It wouldn’t be as strong without the position of Head Archivist and Jonah was sort of bending his own rules for this, but the situation clearly called for it. Fortunately, time showed he needn’t have worried. Even without live statements, Jon had started exhibiting signs of being in the Beholding’s favour, with an astonishing speed at that. Supernatural, someone might even say.

Jonah Magnus focused on studying the event the night before the Archivist’s first day in his office. Watched it from different angles; the tear in the fabric of the universe, spreading its strands across the cosmos. Throughout the following months he’d observed the unrest among the followers of the Fears. They all felt it to one degree or another, and most of them were devoid of the tools that allowed them to look at the bigger picture. Jonah watched Nikola Orsinov gather her allies and plans for the Unknowing, convinced that the power she felt was a sign that her ritual was destined to succeed. He watched Oliver Banks, haunted by the dreams of an unknown, dark-skinned man poring over files in the office previously belonging to Gertrude Robinson, whom he got to know so well before her death. The veins took Oliver again down the Institute’s staircase, right to the same desk, where he watched a bloody stain bloom over the man’s heart, stark crimson against the white of his shirt. Jonah watched Annabelle Cane scuttling around the old Hill Top Road, where the tear seemed the most pronounced, with a glint of elation on her face, then again with the expression of utmost despair.

All in all, Jonah Magnus wasn’t getting many answers, but it bothered him only to a manageable degree. It was never just about the answers anyway, was it?

He rewinds the tape again.

“…at the sky – it is dark, deeper than dark, something that would be ready to swallow the Earth in its entirety if only given a chance; but it doesn’t. Instead, it watches. The sky watches with thousands upon thousands of eyes following every little movement and thought. And you know that the Eyes are fond of you. You’ve done them a big service. “You deserve a reward,” the eyes say.”

The tower of his Panopticon was never meant to be a beacon of understanding. It was built in the name of observing the experience, of being here and now, and drinking every little detail, every little thought. A state of utter bliss at admiring the work of fear around him that Jon has helped him achieve once. It is no doubt frightening to him, if the contents of the tape and his poorly concealed anger are anything to go by, but it is a sacrifice Jonah is willing to make. Not for a lack of compassion, mind you; if he knew of a way to achieve his goals without causing Jon this much suffering, no doubt he would take it. The voice speaking on the tape belongs to a deeply troubled man, but Jonah finds that sometimes the most troubling stories make for the most powerful ones.

The next breakthrough came just a few days ago, when that twisted thing calling itself Michael had interfered. Jonah observed developments keenly and could barely contain his satisfaction at Jon’s ability to extract answers. Truly a remarkable Becoming, if it really was one. That’s when he began considering that perhaps, the thing that travelled back in time was not entirely Jon anymore. Perhaps he need not Become, but simply Awaken. From that it’s a short work to conclude that—

Elias blinks out of his reverie at the cold breeze on his exposed forearms. He stifles a sigh of annoyance at the familiarity of it and watches the mist gather in the corner of his office, before it fully forms the bulk of a sea captain with his cap slightly askew.

“You know, for one of the Lonely, you surely pay me a lot of visits as of late, Peter,” he says nonchalantly. “One might think you’ve grown tired of your Patron.”

“With your little eye stumbling to my domain so often, my attention is here far more than I would like,” Peter grumbles, but there is a glint in his eye Elias knows very well. “Which lets me see some pretty interesting things regarding your current pet. One might think your Patron has grown tired of you.”

Elias chuckles.

“I wouldn’t keep my hopes up, if I were you. The Archivist is catching up, yes, but the Beholding doesn’t play favourites. Everyone is equal under the gaze of the Watcher.”

“I’d rather associate that phrase with the End, don’t you think?” Peter smirks. “And I wouldn’t be so sure about favourites. I haven’t heard of any other servants of the Eye making a name for themselves in a good while. And here you are, not only successfully evading Terminus, but also with the Watcher’s Crown well within your grasp.”

“You sound rather infatuated, Peter.” Elias snickers. “Have you come to grovel at last?”

“But now, it seems the apprentice has surpassed the master,” Peter continues, unfazed. “What other explanation could there be for this sudden growth in power? Evidently, the Watcher has found its new Pupil.” He raises his eyebrows at Elias, who scoffs.

“Such a short-sighted view. I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, though. All that fog must be so hard to parse through, after all.”

“I see all that I need to be content.” Peter flinches, which brings a smirk onto Elias’ mouth.

“Only because my previous Archivist foiled your masterfullycrafted plans of…” He elongates the vowel as if in thought, feigning a struggle to remember. “Right. An apartment complex.”

“It had potential!” Peter shakes his head. “Besides, I’m not convinced you have a right to claim Gertrude as yours. If I recall correctly, she was minutes from burning down your Archives when you killed her.”

“History is written by the victors.” Elias shrugs. “And only one of us is alive to tell it.”

“And you suppose you’ll always be the last one standing?”

“Let a man dream.” Elias leans back in his chair and tilts his head at Peter. “Is there a point to your visit, or did you simply grow lonely out at the sea?”

“You have an infuriating way of prolonging the displeasure of talking to you.” Peter rolls his eyes. “I’d much rather grow old and lonely with the sea as my only companion.”

“Yet you keep coming back.” Elias waves his hand in amusement. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“Your little eye disturbs the mists.” Peter’s gaze grows serious. “Uninvited.”

“I thought you were meddling in my affairs to be a nuisance.” Elias raises his eyebrows. “He can’t be doing that on his own.”

“Well, it isn’t me either.” Peter crosses his arms on his chest. “Have you let an unknown player infiltrate your precious Archives?”

“I assure you, Martin isn’t a player,” Elias scoffs. “He has no pre-existing connections to any of the Fears, and that includes the Lonely.”

“He certainly has one now.” Peter shrugs. “I’d appreciate it if you got him under control. If he wishes to associate with my Patron then he may well go for it, but not in my domain.”

Elias joins his hands on the desk with a glint in his eye.

“Isn’t that interesting? No connections to the Powers when I transferred him and now an unexplained ability to access a part of it… Did you perhaps invite him without noticing?”

“Of course not—”

“Or,” –Elias leans forward. “Is the Lonely playing favourites as well?”

Peter narrows his eyes at him.

“Just what exactly are you implying?”

“Your Patron could have given him access.”

“It doesn’t do that,” Peter scoffs.

“Neither does Beholding grant the powers of the Archivist to just anyone, and yet.”

Elias stands up to walk towards a window overlooking the street in front of the Institute. The sky is lightly overcast, and the city is rather quiet at this hour.

“Don’t you understand, Peter?” He speaks. “Things have changed. Jonathan Sims has shifted the stakes, for better or worse, and I intend to see where this leads before I interfere.”

“Obviously,” Peter mutters. “How on Earth did you manage to get me involved in it, though?”

Elias turns to him with a grin.

“Don’t pretend you did not get yourselfinvolved. We both know the misanthropy is for show most of the time.”

“Not now, though.” Peter looks away in annoyance that Elias recognizes as played up.

“It shall be over soon. The circumstances may well be aligning in our favour.”

“I highly doubt that.” Peter shakes his head with exasperation, before dissipating into white mist and then, entirely disappearing.

Jonah Magnus smiles to himself. He is a careful man, placing his bets thoughtfully and with the utmost precision, which usually grants him the upper hand. He cannot afford to be in the wrong, and something tells him this time would be no different.

—

Jon is on his smoke break when she arrives at the Institute. He’s not expecting it, not so soon, but he does have to admit that days have an awful habit of bleeding through his fingers lately. The spring sun is high in the sky, and the temperature has been steadily rising to a comfortable degree. He stands outside in pleasant shade when he hears the back door to the Institute open.

“Hey, Jon.” Sasha gives him a tense smile, and he lowers his cigarette.

“Hey.” The way she searches his face and her slightly too tight grip on the door handle register on Jon’s mind, twisting his guts with worry. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Nothing’s, uh… Wrong, per se, it’s just.” She takes a breath. “There’s a statement giver. In the Archives.”

Jon tenses up.

“Elias said that it’s Institute’s policy or whatever, that only you can take live statements, but I could…?” She bites her lip.

“No,” Jon answers too loud, making Sasha wince slightly. He exhales and stubs out his cigarette with a shaking hand.

“I, uh…” He swallows. “I’ll handle this.”

“Jon.” Sasha puts her hand on his shoulder, and he only flinches a little. She withdraws, but her gaze stays sharp on him. “If there’s going to be a repeat of the Herne incident, I’d like a heads-up.”

“There’s…” Jon grimaces. “There might be. Or—Or it could be worse, I-I honestly, uh… Don’t really know how the Eye will take it.”

“Shouldn’t you take her statement then?” Sasha frowns. “Don’t they… feed you, or something?”

“I’m not—” Jon huffs. “I’m not going to condemn Melanie to nightmares for the rest of her life just because I might need a pick me up.”

“So, instead you’re going to let an eldritch entity hurt you?” Sasha blinks. “Also, I never said her name.”

“I know her,” Jon says quietly with a sigh. “After giving a statement here she started looking into it on her own using our library, and eventually she ended up signing a contract with Elias. I’m going to make sure none of that happens. She doesn’t deserve this.”

Sasha makes a few weak protests, but Jon walks down the corridor with a grim determination. The ache in his stomach grows and the closer to the Archives he gets, the more his mind narrows on the idea of a statement. He doesn’t remember about what Melanie’s first statement was, and his mind burns with the need to Know.

As soon as he sees her sitting next to Sasha’s desk he stops, hands curling into fists, nails digging into flesh. He needs to stay focused. He steels himself with a deep breath and clears his throat.

“Ms. King?” He asks, schooling his voice into that clipped tone he tended to use when his public image still mattered to him. Melanie looks at him warily, although he does not miss the latent fear in her eyes. His stomach tightens painfully.

“That’s me.” She stands up, adjusting the bag on her shoulder.

“After you.” He opens the door to his office and lets Melanie through.

“Maybe I should be there in case… You know,” Sasha suggests quietly, and Jon shakes his head too violently.

“No. Stay here. Don’t call anyone.” Jon takes a shaky breath. “Hopefully, she’ll be out of the door before anything… drastic happens.”

He closes the door before Sasha can form any further comments, and promptly makes his way to the other side of the desk.

“So, you’re Melanie King.” Jon sits down and avoids looking her in the eye. He looks down at the form Sasha had given him instead, staring at the date. Halfway through April already?

“Yes…?” She sounds unsure. Jon fidgets with a pen to hide the tremble of his hands.

“From the… podcast. I presume.”

“A show, thank you very much.” He hears her cross her arms over her chest.

“I wouldn’t really know, pretending to see ghosts in old churchyards doesn’t really interest me.” Jon’s gaze stops on the tips of her hair dyed blue; in the corner of his eye he can see her offended expression.

“Excuse me?”

“We have been subjected to jokes from the members of your community before. I’m not very keen on having my time wasted on your made up ghosts.”

“But the clearly fake bullshit about vampires and mummies is all fine and good?” She scoffs. “We may play it up for the camera a little bit, but we use actual scientific instruments and research genuine, documented cases instead of taking the word of every traumatised, drugged up idiot off the street! Honestly, who cares about evidence, about the investigation, when you can just give a statement to the Magnus Institute!”

“Why don’t you go and tell your story to your colleagues then? Do us both a favour.” Jon raises his eyebrows and Melanie deflates.

“I, uh…” She looks away. Jon drops his pen, forming a tightly clenched fist at the ache in his stomach, and swiftly hides it. “They wouldn’t believe me.”

Jon clears his throat, blinking at the form in front of him.

“And what makes you think I will believe you?” His voice comes out strained.

“Isn’t that literally your job?”

“It is not.” A slight shiver passes through him.

“But you do have to take my statement, right? I need to tell someone what happened.”

“I…” Jon closes his eyes around the stifled groan. “I don’t…”

“Are you okay?” Worry joins the judgmental tone of Melanie’s voice.

“Fuck.” Jon hides his face in his hands, fingers reaching up and pulling at his hair. His glasses slip from behind his ears and clatter on the desk. Blood rushes in his ears, his vision swims, and there could as well be a black hole in the pit of his stomach. “Get out of the Magnus Institute.”

“Uh… What…?”

It’s a light at the end of an endless black tunnel, a door outside in a twisting maze, a pond at the centre of an infinite desert, and he’s dying from thirst. The one thing he needs is there for the taking in front of him, how can he refuse, how can he resist?

“Run, Melanie. Get out of the Magnus Institute,” he breathes out heavily. “And do not ever come back.” He inhales sharply. “This place is—” He doubles over the desk in pain.

Melanie staggers back, reaching for the door and opening it to find Sasha already looking at her with a sort of dreadful anticipation. As soon as she sees the fear on Melanie’s face she jumps up and grabs Melanie’s hand to pull her outside the office. Tim, armed with a first aid kit, exchanges tense looks with Sasha and disappears behind the door.

“I apologise, Ms. King, Jon is… He’s been through a lot lately and he’s not exactly himself,” Sasha says giving Melanie a bit of space to gather herself.

“I, uh…” Melanie exhales, no doubt trying to calm herself. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

Sasha frowns.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“He told me…” Melanie trails off, visibly suppressing a shiver. “A-Actually, I think I should just go.

“Are you sure?” Sasha presses her lips together, her expression inscrutable. “I probably could—”

“No, no, I… I think it would be best if I just… Just, don’t contact me. I wasn’t here. I’m gonna go.”

With that, Melanie turns around and flees the Archives.

“Uh, Sash…?” Tim’s muffled voice sounds from the office. “A little help?”

There’s a thud, and as Sasha storms into the office, she sees Jon on the floor, his eyes glowing faintly as he mutters something incomprehensible. Tim hovers over him with a look of fear, unsure what to do.

Jon wakes up with his head elevated and someone’s hand in his hair. He blinks his eyes open with a groan at the soreness of his throat.

“Jon? Are you… here? Is it you?”

Tim. His concerned face clears in Jon’s vision, lines of tension creasing his forehead.

“Yeah, y-yeah, it’s me.” He whispers. “Who else would it be?”

“Oh, thank fuck.” Tim exhales with relief and helps Jon sit up. “That muttering was beginning to get really creepy, no offense.”

“What… What are you talking about?” Jon looks around the empty office. “Where’s Melanie?”

“You have successfully scared her out of the Institute, if that’s what you were going for.” Tim answers with a tinge of sarcasm Jon can’t really quite place. “You passed out and your eyes went all… green. And you were muttering something about old hospitals, and shadows, and… and skin.”

His voice quivers at the last word, and Jon looks up at him.

“Christ,” Jon sighs.

“You can’t do this every time someone comes in here with a real statement, Jon,” Tim says seriously. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“That’s unavoidable,” says Jon, quietly. “I can at least make sure no one else gets hurt with me.”

“Jon.” Tim grips his shoulders tightly. “I’m not going to watch you let this thing hurt you over and over again and do nothing!”

The door to the office opens and Sasha walks in with an inscrutable expression on her face.

“So,” she starts conversationally. “You’re back, I see.”

“I’m sorry, Sasha—”

“How are you feeling?” She interrupts him and kneels beside him on the floor. Jon sighs.

“Had better days. But I’ll manage.”

“I talked to Rosie,” Sasha starts tensely. “Elias wants to talk to you in his office.”

Jon huffs out a laugh.

“Right.”

“So much for the pretence, huh?” Tim grimaces.

“It’s fine,” Jon says, unconvinced. “That’s fine.”

“Regardless, this cannot continue.” Sasha crosses her arms on her chest. “This is the last time I let you do this.”

“I’m your boss,” Jon chuckles weakly, but it dies under Sasha’s glare.

“A couple of bad dreams isn’t worth this, Jon.”

“You don’t understand—”

“You’re going to seriously hurt yourself if you keep this up.”

Jon meets Sasha’s gaze and curses in his head.

“I can survive on written statements. I have before,” he says hoarsely. “I’m going to get the meeting with Elias over with. Where’s… Where’s Martin?”

“Still in the library,” says Tim.

“Don’t… Don’t tell him about this. Please.”

Tim and Sasha exchange looks.

“Fine.”

Tim helps him get up, and Jon momentarily winces at the pang in his stomach.

“Oh, and, uh…” Jon looks up at them both, trying to conceal the pain in his eyes. “About Martin. He’s… If it really is the Lonely reaching for him, then he needs friends more than ever. P-Promise me you’ll, uh… You’ll be there for him?”

Tim frowns.

“We can all be there for him together, Jon. Right?”

“W-Well, yes, technically, but I’ve been, uh, thinking, and… And if the fog is really there because of me then—then my presence might be making it all worse. And—And if the obvious trigger is gone then perhaps he’ll be able to completely overcome the Lonely.”

Tim observes him with a scrutinizing gaze.

“I don’t think that makes complete sense—”

“Please. I—I need him to be okay. If he has a chance—If you all have a chance at a normal life without all of this then, then I have to ensure you get it.”

“But we haven’t actually established that we do, have we?” Sasha remarks sceptically. Jon wets his lips.

“I… I might be onto something. I’ll, uh… I’ll let you know when I have something more concrete.”

“Look, we’re Team Archives.” Tim tries for a smile, gently nudging his shoulder. “We’ll take care of each other. You too, yeah?”

Jon nods, swallowing through the tightness in his throat. “Yeah.”

Jon climbs the stairs already exhausted, wondering how much Rosie knows about what’s really going on in the Institute. She gave him a strange look when he was passing her desk, and he isn’t sure what it was supposed to mean.

A deep breath in front of the door to Elias’ office isn’t nearly enough to prepare him for the conversation, but it is all he’s going to get, so without further delays, Jon knocks and enters when he hears Elias’ voice.

“Sit down,” Elias says immediately after he closes the door. Jon obeys reluctantly; though he doesn’t favour standing, weak as he is, the couch in front of Elias’ desk has the worst texture he’s ever touched in his life. He wonders briefly if it’s deliberate.

Elias regards him with an air of a disappointed teacher. There is no anger to his gaze, no aggression or cruelty, just… Concern.

“I think it is time for us to talk openly,” he says.

“Melanie didn’t want to give the statement. That’s all there is to it.” The attempt at a lie is laughable even to Jon as soon as he hears his strained voice, and the words tumble out of his mouth too fast. Elias sighs and joins his hands in front of him.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t make this harder than necessary.” He meets Jon’s gaze. “I’m going to put it bluntly, Jon. Are you suicidal?”

Jon opens his mouth, but no words come out.

“We both know you need the statements to survive. We both know you’ve been getting weaker. At one point old statements aren’t going to be enough, and you know this. Especially since your powers are coming on so fast, you need the sustenance. So, are you trying to kill yourself? Because there are easier ways to do so.”

Jon blinks and swallows.

“No.” His voice is hoarse and his throat tight. The rawness of Elias’ words feels like a punch to the gut.

“Then what are you trying to do? I don’t understand the resistance.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Jon laughs quietly. “You’ve never cared about your humanity.”

Elias chuckles.

“Ah. Humanity. Such an elusive concept.” He tuts. “Do you really think it’s worth dying for?”

What does humanity even mean? What does actually separate him from the monster in his dreams? From the monster he’s afraid he will become?

He thinks of Martin. He remembers holding his hand while they walked together through a desolate wasteland, different facets of the same, broken world. You are my reason. His reason. His anchor.

What is he without it?

“It isn’t what you thought it would be, is it?” Elias asks quietly as Jon blinks away tears. “Going back.”

Jon takes a shaky breath.

“I didn’t…” He trails off. How much does Elias actually know? How much can he say? “It doesn’t matter.” He clears his throat.

“So, what is your plan, Jon?” Elias tilts his head. “Do you even have one? Or are you planning to teeter on the edge of being human until you starve yourself to death?”

“It’s not what’s happening.”

But isn’t it? How long can he wait for a miracle that will solve his problems, for an answer that will make everything better, bring Martin back, and save this world from the apocalypse? He’s barely just remembered enough to make sense of what’s happening to him, and yet it feels like he’s been wasting all this time chasing shadows.

“I’m not your enemy, Jon,” Elias speaks up. “It really doesn’t have to be this hard. We don’t have to be on opposite sides.”

“You ended the world.” Jon huffs out and closes his eyes, his head hanging low. He’s so tired, so drained. He can tell Elias is trying to manipulate him but he’s almost too tired to care.

“And yet it continued.”

Jon can tell Elias is looking down at him. Is it pity? Contempt?

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “It started torturing everyone.”

“Do you really care?” Elias leans back in his chair and crosses his legs. “What is ‘everyone’ really, if not just a measure you can’t really wrap your head around?”

“I do care.” Jon meets his eyes. “I felt everyone’s suffering. Both all at once and individually. I’ve seen it all.”

“And did you not enjoy it at all?”

Jon looks away.

“Seeing it all, drinking in every little detail… Was the new world not everything you’ve ever needed?”

Jon refuses to answer. He’s thought about it before, and he knows that Elias is right. He did enjoy—The part of him made of eyes, the part that feeds on the statements and pushes him towards knowledge enjoyed it. It drank all the terror in, and he remembers how Martin told him it must be horrible to witness it all in his mind. He knows it wasn’t.

“That’s what I thought,” Elias answers himself gently. “You think that you should care. You tell yourself it’s bad that people suffer because you think that’s ‘the right thing to do’ but you don’t really care about that, Jon. You need to face the fact that this is who you are; it’s not in your nature to live in denial.”

Jon shakes his head; his heart is drumming in his chest, and he feels tingling in his palms.

“If I’m dead, your ritual won’t succeed. Regardless of whether I care or not, I’m not going to let you bring them all here.”

“Right.” Elias nods. “And what stops me preparing Sasha to take over your role?”

“I know how to kill you.”

Elias raises his eyebrows.

“Perhaps you do.” He chuckles. “Really fascinating. Are you aware you’re going to hurt the entire Institute with that? There’s no telling what will happen to them.”

“I know what happens when you succeed,” Jon growls. “Anything is better than that.”

“Alright then. If you’re sure.” Amusement plays in Elias’ eyes and a spark of frustration makes Jon’s hands shake. “My offer of working together is still on the table, though. If you ever change your mind.”

Jon stands up and leaves without another word.

—

The knife, once again, finds home in his flesh, cutting deep into his shoulder, and bringing with it fresh and hot agony. Jon opens his eyes with considerable effort, eyelids stuck together by the quickly drying blood that must cover him head to toe by now. The stab wounds and lacerations on his body bloom with crimson as he lies on the ground, exhausted; blood draining from him yet never running out. His breath comes in ragged, punctured lungs filling his airway with blood, yet still letting oxygen through. Whatever holds him in its grasp won’t let him lose consciousness. Not yet.

The face of his assaulter changes yet again. As his vision stabilizes, he’s met with Tim’s hard stare. Jon can see the ashes of hatred that once used to burn in his eyes, now a cold pile ready to be scattered by the first wind.

“You look like shit.”

Tim towers over him, standing with a knife gripped in his fist so tight, it makes his knuckles go pale. Jon inhales to answer and chokes on his own blood. He can feel his heart valiantly beat to keep him alive, and he can’t decide whether to feel grateful or resentful towards it.

Tim kneels beside him. Jon regains the shaky balance of breathing through his pierced lungs and splutters.

“What a fucking shame. You were my friend once, you know that?”

Jon whines weakly. He’d really think the pain would lessen after all this, that his mind would find a way to numb the agony, but no such luck was granted to him. This is a banquet and he’s tasting every flavour of suffering, making sure to really savour each one, truly get to know them. He feels the Archivist’s gaze on him from afar, or so he thinks, though that thought only makes him want to laugh.

“I wanted to hurt you,” says Tim and a spark of that anger, smouldering somewhere underneath the ashes comes to life for a second. “I wanted to make you suffer so that I would forget what I felt, and the only thing that mattered would be your pain and the fact that I was causing it.”

He lets out a mirthless laugh; the anger sputters out and dies.

“But then I saw you here. Like this.” Tim shakes his head. “It’s not how I imagined it. I don’t feel angry, I just… You’re just too pathetic.”

The cold steel of the knife’s blade touches Jon’s throat. Tim rearranges it so the tip is placed right below Jon’s voice box. Jon swallows unwittingly, feeling the pressure of the sharp point on his skin. He curses his own heart, ushering himself over to the side of resentment. It would do better to give up on him and save everyone the trouble.

“I’m going to end it now. I don’t forgive you.” Tim’s eyes glisten with unshed tears as he grips the handle tighter. “So don’t you dareforgive me.”

His world does not end when the knife pierces through his larynx. The pain disappears as he feels his flesh knit itself back together, and he is once again breathing freely. He takes a moment to enjoy the relief of clear lungs, his body shaking with the adrenaline.

Then, he opens his eyes. He finds himself in the darkness of night, laying down in what feels like a rectangular wooden box. His eyes don’t need long at all to adjust to the darkness, and, with a start, he realizes he lies in a fresh grave. He attempts to rise, but something pulls him down, pinning him to the cold wooden floor. His breath picks up the pace as he struggles against the force; then he stops. There’s a sound of steps on the ground, dirt crunching under someone’s boots, and soon, he sees an outline against the grey darkness of the sky.

He knows it’s her as soon as he sees her, despite the fact that her face is nothing but a blur of skin tones, weaving through each other like paint being mixed. Her body is fluid, changing shape and size in waves, and he cannot recall how it is supposed to look. Her voice doesn’t have a sound to it that he can pinpoint in his mind, yet the words are clear, accusatory, and full of regret.

“You never dream about me,” Sasha says.

“What?” His voice is hoarse and quiet, trembling under the guilt and shame that build up on instinct.

“Not like you dream about the others. Their faces haunt you as you sleep, the past coming back to remind you how it used to be. Do you even remember me, Jon?”

Jon lets out a gasp, wracking his memory in search of the smallest details about his friend that he could recall. Was her hair black? Brown? Maybe it had a ginger tint to it, or—or maybe she had it dyed?

“Did you ever even care about me? Maybe that’s why you can’t remember.” She presses her non-existent lips together. “Do you even remember my name?”

“Sasha,” Jon begs. “Please, I can’t—”

“Do you have any idea how much it hurt? To be devoured by that thing, for it to wear my identity like a new fucking suit? And no one noticed. I watched it parade as me, so obviously false, so clearly, appallingly not me, and you didn’t even notice.”

“I… I tried—”

“Yeah, you did try,” she laughs cruelly. “You set it free. After it ate me under your very nose, you rewarded it by breaking its prison. How could you be so stupid? It was so obvious the table was binding it, a blind man could see it.”

Jon shuts his eyes with pain, the sheer weight of the guilt itself pinning him to the floor of the coffin.

“I can’t take it back.” He whispers, voice weak. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself in a dark room. There’s dust in the air and old cobwebs on the wooden ceiling. Jon sits up with considerable effort and notices kitchen cabinets, a table, and a big, bare tree outside the window, that casts ominous shadows in the faint moonlight. Everything is visibly old and covered in a sizeable layer of dust, and Jon can’t shake the feeling he’s seen it before.

“It’s you.”

He freezes when a voice sounds behind him, striking a familiar cord in his memory – something buried deep in his mind. He turns around and flinches back violently, crawling away until he stumbles into the old cabinets. In front of him sits a boy of about nineteen in an old, tattered sport uniform. There are eight glistening black eyes on his pale face, and additional spindly appendages sprout from his body here and there. He crawls closer a step or two, and Jon crams himself back into the wooden panels of the cabinets.

“I remember you,” the boy says. Jon swallows in terror as the voice finally connects with the barely recognisable face, yet the name eludes him. “What? Little Einstein can’t even remember his friend’s name? Such a shame.”

He crawls up closer, painfully taking his time, and Jon pushes himself back into a corner with a whimper.

“Get back!” He breathes out, unable to find his voice. The boy laughs.

“Or what? You’ll feed me to a giant spider from a book? Oh, wait,” –he crawls up until he’s just five feet away and reaches with two of his black, hairy legs to lean on the wall over Jon’s head. “You already did that.”

“I—I didn’t mean to, I swear, I didn’t know what I was doing—” Jon stammers out but stops with a cry when the boy leans over him with fangs emerging from the corners of his mouth.

“I was just a boy,” he hisses. “And you’re what? A chosen one?” He scoffs. “It should have been you. It should have taken you, and we would all have been better for it.”

Jon presses his eyelids shut, squeezing out tears of terror. His body trembling violently, he anticipates the stinging pain of venomous teeth, but it doesn’t come. He breathes shakily, not daring to open his eyes even a crack. Is the spider torturing him? Trying to make him believe the danger has passed, to relax just a little, so it can strike and rouse the fear all anew?

“It’s over now.”

He flinches at the voice in his head, the coating of static almost pleasant. He can’t open his eyes, though, can’t trust the words. His body is frozen in dread and has lost all connection to the signals of his brain.

“Jon. You can open your eyes. You’re safe now.”

All he can do is shake uncontrollably and breathe. His throat is closed up and he doesn’t think he will ever be able to move or speak. All that matters is that he’s alive right now and the slightest alteration of his position could change that.

“Very well. Take your time.”

The tiniest whimper escapes Jon’s throat with an exhale. Could it be that he’s safe? That the spider’s really gone?

“I suppose I shall watch over you, until you come to.”

Jon can finally feel the tensed up muscles in his entire body. He starts to loosen them, bit by bit, first his forearms, then shoulders. The room around is quiet, save for the distant sound of wind outside. He moves his fingers and curls his hands into fists, only to rapidly unfurl them to relieve some tension. His left hand gives him a familiar ache.

After some time, when he brings back life to most of his body, he dares to open his eyes. The Archivist sits on the floor, some distance from him, and the dusty floor is covered in heaps of magnetic tape.

“What is this?” Jon mouths the words, his voice not yet fully responsive. He clears his throat, but the Archivist understands him.

“You could call it my prison if you wished to, although this place binds far more than just me. It is an end as well as it is a beginning.”

Jon looks out the window at the bare tree, swaying in the wind, the looming shadows swaying with it; long branches reaching across the floor akin to the legs of a spider.

“Hill Top Road,” he whispers.

“We were bound to end up here sooner or later.”

“What are we doing here?” Jon asks, his vocal cords finally starting to work.

“Dreaming, in your case. Waiting, in mine.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Fate, I suppose. I’ve done what I could, and I don’t think…” The Archivist trails off, and its human eyes blink. “The matter is in our hands in the waking world. There’s nothing more I can do for you.”

“I still don’t know how I got here.” Jon hugs himself, bringing his knees up to his chest. “There’s still so much I don’t remember…”

“As long as we are separated, some things will remain forgotten. There are parts of the Becoming a mortal mind cannot comprehend.”

“I don’t think I can do this.” Jon shakes his head, feeling tears gather in his eyes. “It’s just… I can’t. I can’t.”

The Archivist observes him for a moment, the eyes unmoving but for the two natural ones that take in his face, bit by bit.

“The fear seems all encompassing, vast, unending; but it is an illusion. It will fade with time. You may be plagued by the images of the past and the crushing guilt for all your remaining time, but the fear will lessen. It would become mundane if it did not.”

Jon snorts through the tears.

“I’m not sure whether this is supposed to be comforting or not.”

“Do you find comfort in it?”

Jon sighs and rubs at his eyes. “Sort of?”

“Then let it be meant as comforting. Whatever it may be, it is still the truth.”

Jon nods and stares at the tape on the floor, glistening in the faint light from the window. They sit in silence for a moment, his breathing finally stabilizing, and the Archivist as motionless as ever.

“Something went wrong, didn’t it?” Jon says quietly, unsure whether he’s addressing the Archivist or just thinking out loud. “Whatever we did to stop the apocalypse at the end… I think I’ve made a big mistake. Whatever it was, it’s… It’s resulted in this.” He waves his hand half-heartedly. “It must be my fault. This—This guilt couldn’t have come from nowhere.”

“Do you want to know what you’ve done?” The Archivist asks. “The knowledge may be tempting, but it holds many dangers. They say sometimes it is better not to know.”

“Yes. I do want… I need to know.” Jon bites his lip. “Not right now. But I do.”

The Archivist nods almost solemnly, although Jon can’t tell from where he’s got that impression.

“Appropriate, I suppose.”

—

He can barely feel his body. His clothes are soaked through, and his skin frigid and numbed by the delicate mist that coats the landscape whichever way he looks. It’s dark, yet somehow the grey wisps are visible, hanging low and swaying softly on a non-existent wind.

When he begged for relief from whatever nightmare has held him in its grasp until now, it was not exactly this that he had had in mind. Jon lifts himself up from the ground with a groan of effort and a tremble in his arms. It is cold.

Hugging himself tight, he looks around again, searching for anything that might offer him shelter. He has found himself on a shore that looks suspiciously like a secluded part of the beach at the edge of Bournemouth, where he used to sneak off as a kid. It was never a hot spot among tourists, the access to it overgrown and less than comfortable, but the locals were known to be around sometimes. Now, the place is desolate; not a living thing in sight. On an evening like this Jon would expect the cicadas and nightly insects to be well into their regular repertoire of songs, yet the only sound breaking the deadly silence is the gentle sound of waves on the shore.

A full body shiver runs through him, and Jon tightens the hold over his arms. The mist feels oppressive in the air, as if waiting for something. It’s too quiet. After the adrenaline heavy rush of the nightmares, the stillness plants an agitating unease high in his stomach. The trees behind him are but a looming mass of shadows, waiting for him to seek refuge among them, only to devour him before he knows it. Jon thinks he sees eyes glistening amidst the darkness, watching him intently, but the next second they’re gone. He grits his teeth and turns towards the shore.

“Am I dead?” He asks in a whisper so quiet he can barely hear it himself. He cannot feel his heartbeat anymore, and his body is just weight that he needs to carry around. The mist touches his cheek softly, and he briefly wonders how it is possible that he can feel it at all.

“Does it matter if you are?” A sound answers him. It’s not a voice and it doesn’t speak in words, yet the meaning makes itself crystal clear in Jon’s mind.

“No… I suppose it does not.” Jon takes a couple steps on the hard sand. The sea is still a couple yards away from him, yet the beach is hard packed and wet, as if the water of the flow reached here as well. He glances back and sees his footprints fade away on the ever so slightly shifting sand. “This is what you do, isn’t it? Feeding on what’s left of broken souls; like a vulture disguised as shelter.”

Jon sees a set of footprints some distance from him, near the edge of the water. If he squints and focuses on the spot, he can make out a denser patch of fog, but it disperses soon after, the sand as smooth as it was before.

“There is nothing here to feed on you but yourself. No one is speaking but yourself.”

Jon takes another heavy step towards the water.

“Right.” He sighs. “It’s just me now.”

“Maybe always?”

“No, not always.” Pain tightens his chest, and he grimaces, looking out onto the horizon. “There was a time…”

“What was it like?”

Jon looks down and presses his eyes shut, willing the tears away.

“It was… He…” His lips split in a pained smile. “It was like coming home. Like finding a place to really belong. Safe.”

The mist touches his closed eyelids, and Jon shudders.

“It sounds nice.”

Jon chuckles bitterly and kneels on the coarse sand. He reaches one hand to touch the grains that give way under his fingers.

“Where is he now?”

Jon shuts his eyes in pain. His eyes prickle, as if the tears want to gather in his eyes and flow freely, yet something doesn’t let them.

“I killed him,” he mouths the words, not brave enough, not strong enough to say them out loud. “I don’t know how, but I know he’s… And I…” He takes a shaky breath. “It’s my fault. Whatever I did to get here, to get another chance…” He shakes his head. “I think that’s what killed him. Stupid, idiot, selfish—”

“It’s okay,” the mist caresses the outside of his palm, and he feels the gentle waves wash over his knees.

“And now…” Jon continues. “Now it’s after him again, except this time he didn’t… He had a chance to escape. He had a chance for a normal life, it wasn’t… I brought this on him. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

He slumps his shoulders, feeling the cold water take away the grains of sand from under his palm.

“You don’t have to fix anything.” He opens his eyes and sees the mists slowly gather around him, like fluff from a cloud making a bed for him to rest on. “Least of all here and now.”

“This is a trap,” Jon says half-heartedly, knowing he doesn’t really care. He’s so tired.

“Then you’ve set it up yourself. There’s nobody else here.”

Jon closes his eyes and loses himself in the soft sound of waves that caress his numb body. Maybe it’s what he needs; what he deserves. To fade away. To finally rest. To die. To let go.

“Jon. Jonathan.”

He flinches, feeling a presence beside him. The sound of the waves still fills his ears, and the scenery hasn’t changed, but now the Archivist sits to his left, its open eyes on the lower parts of its form unflinching at the contact with the water.

“You’re here,” Jon says, his voice weak and broken with unuse.

“Someone had to wake you.”

“Isn’t this still a dream?”

It doesn’t have any facial features to emote, but Jon can’t shake the feeling it glares at him.

“So, you’re giving up?” It asks, and Jon looks down at the sand.

“I… I don’t know. I shouldn’t. Not yet. Elias…”

“Needs to die. Yes.”

“Do I know how to kill him?” Jon frowns at the calm sea. “Do I actually know anything?”

“All that has to be done is finding his body in the Panopticon.”

“What about the Institute? About Tim, and Sasha, and—and Martin?”

The Archivist closes its human eyes.

“There is a way to get them out. Before you kill Magnus.”

Jon blinks and straightens his back, looking at the Archivist. “What do you mean?”

“If you manage to sever your own link to the Eye, they will be free as well. No more ties to the Institute, or the Beholding.”

“But that would mean my death,” Jon remarks, but the Archivist shakes its head, its two eyes still closed.

“Not necessarily. It’s not something I can Know but blinding yourself should be effective and might be something you can still survive.”

Jon exhales, staring off somewhere ahead. Pluck them out. End it now. You can stop it before it’s even started. Save them. Gouge them out and be done with it. They could be free from the Eye, truly go back to their normal lives. Be happy.

“Wait.” He blinks, drawing a breath. He turns to the Archivist. “Why are you telling me this? Wouldn’t that… Wouldn’t that kill you?”

The Archivist’s eyes bore into him with prickling intensity.

“I…” It’s voice falters in Jon’s head and for a moment, his mind is only filled with static. “I don’t know how much longer I can resist the pull. It’s been getting harder and harder, and I hoped that Martin… He was our anchor. And now, he’s gone.”

Jon frowns and swallows, thinking about his next words.

“But he’s not entirely gone, is he? And—And Tim and Sasha are alive, that’s got to count for something?”

The Archivist’s human eyes stare out into the sea.

“I suppose it’s all about being alone. None of them went through what we did. I can’t bear this guilt on my own. I can’t resist the pull of the Eye like this, and I’d rather die than let them see what will be left of us after that.”

Jon bites his lip. “You’ve never been this honest with me before.”

The Archivist chuckles bitterly.

“Last pieces of humanity, perhaps. There isn’t much time before I fully become the monster you see in me.”

“Used to,” says Jon before he can stop himself. The Archivist looks at him with wide eyes, and Jon clears his throat. “I, uh. I may have changed my mind. You’re… Well. There are worse things out there.”

The Archivist buries its black limb in the sand, and grains of sand land in an eye on its hand. It doesn’t close due to the lack of eyelids, but moisture gathers in it, expelling the sand with tears that sink into the ground. Jon unconsciously mimics the gesture with his hand.

“Thank you.”

—

Jon stares blankly at his sink in the pale yellow light of the lightbulb for what seems like years. He turns the needle in his shaky hands, familiarizing himself with the smooth texture. The metal absorbed the heat of his fingers a long time ago. Jon takes a shaky breath.

“If I don’t make it out of this,” he says shakily to the tape recorder whirring on the floor. “You need to kill Jonah Magnus yourselves. You’ll be free from the Eye either way, so it—it won’t affect you. The tunnels under the Institute are huge and can be manipulated with a Leitner book. I, hah. I think Leitner still has it down there.” Jon takes another shaky breath. “You need to find the Panopticon, and there, in the tower, is Magnus’ body. O-Original body. Killing it should do the trick. If—If you want to be thorough, killing Elias and burning his eyes won’t hurt. I suppose.”

Jon lets out a trembling chuckle.

“I’m… I’m sorry. For everything. This is… I need to do this. I should still be able to survive.” He swallows and looks down at the needle. “Right.”

He looks up at himself in the mirror. His eyes are still brown, with the smallest tinge of green in the retinas; exhausted but wide open in fear. He realizes he hasn’t had the need for glasses in a good while.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath and brings the needle over his face with a trembling hand. “Okay. Okay.”

---

Author's Notes: I apologise.

Today's chapter title was brought to you by Turning Page by Sleeping At Last :)

[scrutineyeze]

i’m seeing a lot of ppl tossing around ideas about the nature of Fear & the Fourteen Fears (& some about the Extinction & its place in that), so i thought i’d try my hand at it too, lol. these thoughts have been kicking around my head for a while, & i’d be really interested in hearing what others think about this !

gonna put a warning here just about descriptions of fear/s & stuff. also a heads up: this contains spoilers for all of the magnus archives up to date [6/29/2020] and also i have A Lot of thoughts & can Not shut up, so this got. long. (2.7k) & ,,, increasingly weirdly worded bc uhh that’s kinda How I Write

without further ado: my thoughts on Fear, its facets, & how Old these might be. possibly also featuring mentions of the sublime & various things i’ve read. (i’ll work to paraphrase and/or quote these things as succinctly as possible.)

01. introduction 02. Fear: that it is not distinct Fears 03. Fear: a continuation, that it is in Facets 04. on the separation & age of such Facets 05. on, indeed, why such facets cannot be seen are Separate 06. some closing thoughts

01. thesis: robert smirke is Wrong about Fear. robert smirke believes that Fear is distinguishable into Fourteen Separate Fears; this has been shown to be, of a sort, already incorrect, as jonah magnus figured out & demonstrated with the only successful ritual, which entailed bringing in all the “fears” at once. however, to think of them as distinct Fears as in plural is a misunderstanding.

02. the following are selections from the meno, a dialogue written by plato & this translation is from Cathal Woods. beginning at 71d.

Socrates: … But you yourself, divine Meno, what do you say virtue is? … Meno: M: But it's not hard to say, Socrates. To begin with, if you want the virtue of a man, it's easy. A man's virtue is this: to attend to the affairs of the city effectively and in the process to benefit his friends and harm his enemies and make sure that he suffers nothing similar himself. If you're looking for the virtue of a woman, it's not hard to express. It's to manage her home well, preserving her possessions and being obedient to her husband. And there's a different virtue for children, both male and female, and for an old man, and, if you want, for a free man and, if you so desire, for a slave. And there are so many other virtues that there's no problem saying what virtue is, since there's a virtue for each occupation and stage of life with respect to each function of each person. And I take the same to hold for vice, Socrates. Socrates: It seems I've had some great good fortune, Meno, if, when looking for a single virtue, I have discovered in your possession some kind of swarm of virtues.

socrates then goes on to ask about bees & if meno thinks that they differ from each other insofar as “their being bees” or if they only differ through other means, such as beauty, size, colour, etc. meno says that they differ by other means, not through their being bees, & socrates presses then that virtue must be the same: there must be something which makes each of the attributes which meno listed virtues, and that connecting thread must be Virtue.

imagine, then, that we are talking about fear. (not so hard to do, when we are talking about fear lol.) so it might follow thus:

Socrates: meno, what is fear? Meno: Well, it is of corruption, and of violence, and of death, and of …

and so on—except that meno could, of course, differentiate further than simply the fourteen which smirke spoke of. as said in 111 “Family Business:”

I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red?

and, of course, he goes on to say:

I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.

but i would (will) argue that it isn’t meaningless to try to describe Fear as it is, which is as a single Entity. because it is the differences by other means (beauty, size, shape) which distinguish the facets of Fear, and not that it is distinct from itself by its Being Fear. that which makes us afraid—and us here, and likely everywhere, will be in reference to living things which feel fear in general, tho i will try to make myself clear at any time i speak less or more generally—makes us afraid through its Shared Connection to Fear, not through its connection to any other thing or other attributes. if something has the capacity to induce fear, then it must contain within itself the connection to Fear, or its being scary—the way that a bee, regardless of its other features, will always share with other bees their Being Bees, and the way that virtues must all contain within themselves that which Makes Them Virtuous in order to be listed as virtues at all. “that which Makes Them Virtuous,” socrates says, must be Virtue, & he spends the whole dialogue trying to get meno to help him answer that question (plus an interesting part about memory & reincarnation, but that’s unrelated).

(i’m going to say here that you Really Don’t Have To Read the meno. i uh personally dislike plato, esp when he’s not talking about love—but this is neither here nor there.)

03. so this brings us to, well, if Fear isn’t separate, then what are the Fourteen in relation to Fear? i’d say that they’re Facets of Fear, the way that honeybees and bumblebees are both bees, and aren’t different insofar as “their being bees,” but they are different in terms of other things, such as size and shape, so you might call them Facets (or different manifestations) of Bee-ness.

this does, also, allow for the looseness of seeing Fear like Colour. you can stick to the basics—blue, red, yellow, green, etc.—or get into specifics—ochre, cerulean, lilac—but you’re still discussing Colour. at the same time, Fear works similarly; you can speak of Fear of change (which would include fears such as uninjured to injured, healthy to sick, alive to dead), of depths (which is my reasoning against the point in 111 that “[s]ome really clash, and you just can’t put them together” … “I doubt The Buried would be bringing through The Vast,” because the fear of both seems to me as significantly more similar than dissimilar: the fear is often categorized as not being able to breathe, due to a too-much or not-enough, and also as the fear of being insignificant in comparison to the size, the fear of a deepness you will Never comprehend that Will Swallow you—a video i would Highly Recommend is “Fear of Depths,” made by Jacob Geller; he talks mostly about caves, the darkness you can’t see into, the call of the void. he talks some of the creatures at the bottom of the ocean, a lot about various video games, including a platformer which causes you to lose the floor. it’s a game about going deeper, ever deeper, and yet … you’re plunged into a massive, empty space. it’s a very, very good video. cw for talking about someone dying stuck in a cave.)—and you can speak of Fear in specifics, even more into detail than the Fourteen do. the Fourteen seems, to me, as a relatively easy nomenclature for these things, especially as understanding these things involve “paradoxes that most adults couldn’t handle” (111)

04. and i’m not arguing, necessarily, against using such nomenclature. to talk about Fear is difficult—i believe, much like socrates believes in Virtue, that there must be something that we can speak to which will succinctly categorize all that we find Scary, but, just like socrates and his search for Virtue rather than the naming of virtues, i find myself at a loss. i have my own thoughts on its connection to the sublime, & how terror and awe meet—how i find it impossible to separate the two, and other thoughts on how perhaps calling what i’m speaking of Fear is a reduction of what it Is—but i think putting those thoughts in another meta is a better organization of my thoughts.

so to talk about Fear in a much more manageable way, to talk about it in its particulars, in its Facets, allows us to better speak to it, just as, when trying to speak of Bravery, one does not need to speak of all things Virtuous.

however, i do believe it important to bear in mind the distinction between something being a Facet of Fear, and something being A Separate Fear. this is when we come to the “age” of various “fears,” or facets. this is another point at which i believe that robert smirke is wrong. he believes that the flesh is the youngest entity, that the end is old & so is the dark—and i’ve seen further speculation from there, about the eye being young—which, in light of how the eye (or, at least, jonah magnus, which i think is more likely, as it does seem Fear is malleable based on belief—as it should be, if it is to reflect our Fear) feels about children’s fears (cf. “Night Night,” ep. 173), i’ve seen quite a bit about

in order for fear to exist, the Fear must have been there since the first time fear was felt—or must have been created simultaneously with it, or some such thing. if Fear is indeed how i’ve described it, and smirke took the easy way out by calling it by its Facets as meno did Virtue, then i would argue against the saying that one facet of Fear is older than another—especially because the difference seems only to be in how close one pays attention.

consider the hunt and the eye, for a moment. at first glance—indeed, likely from smirke’s point of view—the hunt would be an older fear than the eye. we understand the hunt to be the fear of being chased, the fear of being made prey, the fear of predators lurking or stalking or hunting. and we understand the eye to be the fear of being watched, seen, known, of having our secrets brought into the light—the eye, as i’ve seen algie @equalseleventhirds say (along with a great deal of other things that i find highly interesting! they have had a lot to say about the connection between fears—fear soup is the nomenclature there—& also about jonah’s effect on the apocalypse & the distinction of Fear that we’ve seen in season five; all of this i highly recommend checking out) is younger than others, and from how these facets are understood now, it seems possible

after all, animals have been afraid of being prey since there were first hunters.

except to be hunted, you must first be Seen. how many animals protect themselves through camouflage? how long have animals used camouflage to protect themselves? how many animals Must fear being Seen just as much as being Hunted because, to them, those facets are inextricable?

05. which brings us to the facets being incapable of being made separate. we—and once more, this is all living things which can feel fear—don’t ever fear only One Thing At A Time.

from a piece of my writing (which is still very much in the works):

“Fear … isn’t that separate. The cabin fed on your fear of loss, yes, but also of being alone—of being left alone. Of being the sole survivor. Of watching us slip away—of losing us to an unfathomable violence that hid[es] … you’re not only afraid of one thing, Tim. It all blurs together.”

in this instance, i’m talking about desolation—kind of. 111 describes it as the “[f]ear of pain, fear of loss, fear of unthinking or cruel destruction.” but where does the fear of pain stop connecting to the fear of being prey, of being the victim of some unexpected violence? from “the Eye Opens,” ep. 160:

You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?

where does the fear of loss stop being the fear of being alone? if you’re afraid of losing those you love, you’re also afraid of being made separate from them, of being alone, aren’t you?

even the flesh, which smirke thinks began with the industrial revolution, must have existed since there were first bodies. even if included within other facets, there are so many things which force us to recall our own physicality in the worst way. in the disease & decomposition of bodies—in things like gangrene, in the bacteria that consume flesh—in the witnessing of flesh (sometimes yours) in the mouths of predators—hyenas and lions don’t always kill their prey being beginning to consume it—

humanity’s stories are full of reminders, too. we have cannibalism in our fairytales (hansel & gretel) & we have it in our propaganda: horror stories ranging from during the famine in Jerusalem during Titus’ siege—Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, “There were scattered reports of Jews who succumbed to eating the dead.” and i think i’ve read of similar rumors spread about early christians eating children, tho can’t currently find any sources—and also in significantly more recent times we also tell stories of various people participating in cannibalism, or of monsters which only consume human flesh, or people driven to starvation (cf. ep. 58, “Trail Rations”)—these stories aren’t new. living things have probably feared our own bodies since we had the knowledge that they age and deteriorate and die—that we must eventually end because of them.

this is also why i don’t believe the extinction is any more than another facet of Fear, just like any other; (from “Rotten Core,” ep. 157) “[p]erhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore.” it overlaps with and through and into the other facets just as each other in turn folds into the rest. i mean ,,, how many apocalypse-setting shows/books/movies/podcasts exist now? how big was the “2012 as the end of the world” thought? (they made a movie about it: 2012.) us, our end, & the life that comes after … i’m put in mind of a post i recall going around:

“but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.”

06. this has all been a rather long-winded (and somewhat meandering) proposition on how Fear might work—i’m Very interested in how other people think about Fear/the Fears/the Fourteen (& if anyone wants to talk to me about the Sublime & where that meets Fear, i’d ! be Very interested in talking about that, i might make another post about that too). i see each facet of Fear as inextricable—when talking and/or writing about them, i find it hard to keep any of them separate at all, especially when it comes to fears i specifically have myself. what do other ppl think ? how separate do you see the various fears/facets ?