#like when she hears that jon is suspected for murder asking who he killed

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

You know that thing cats do before unleashing incredible violence upon your socks or wtv, where they hunker down and stare with huge round eyes and enormous pupils, oh so eager and oh so ready to kill? Melanie does that entirely with her voice sometimes and it is my favorite thing ever

[get-your-fuckin-star-bitch]

[Unwinding AU]

Just realized that if things go generally the same as they do during Infestation and Human Remains… and Michael gets Basira’s statement later, and the tapes…………..

Cause he’d DEFINITELY still want to, now more than ever, cause she was the one who really knew things! And he feels completely lost in the middle of everything that’s been going on. He really, really wants/needs to hear some of his old mentor’s advice.

(Jon’d also be, uh. The way he is in the original canon, to an extent… lol. Though this time Michael’s probably his prime suspect… for, er… odd reasons. He’s ironically worried that some supernatural creature took Michael’s form and killed Gertrude to take the position, which is so close but also no, Jon, he’s just as scared as you…)

And of course he recognizes some of the files-

God, probably almost cries when he finally hears her voice again for the first time in way too long…

…Only to find that she’s… not who he thought she was. Not in any way, at all. Every single thing he thought he knew about her has just been thrown to the floor and shattered by the end of the first tape.

The archivist doesn’t know what to do with this information at all.

He just. Is a mess of emotions for a while after this. All of which probably isn’t helped by the fact that Jon keeps looking at him suspiciously/like he’s seen a ghost, every time Michael’s around.

CONTINUED BELOW, (this turned into A Thing again lol)

(OH YEAH OK FORGOT TO MENTION UH)

(So basically before this: Michael finally gets jumped by the door, terrified out of his mind… and escapes! Though not in the way people usually do it. And as he discovers very shortly after, the method has left a mark.)

(And now he’s struggling to fight the occasional compulsion to basically do murder, and he can’t look at his reflection cause it’s all warped and stuff.)

(Elias is very intrigued about this.)

(Still working out the details of many different events, which is why those bits haven’t been posted)

Anyway-

So the whole Jon thing isn’t helping him work out how Gertrude basically lying to him the entire time feels, much less how his actual physical/mental/creature state feels.

Not sure how Sasha and Tim are yet, but Martin is probably gonna be nice to have around in the middle of all this.

OOHHHH BOY HELEN

Michael goes for a walk while upset over a particularly world-shattering tape. Sees someone get trapped in door. Hesitates at first, but then runs after her, trying to help. Jon thinks it’s him when she comes in for the statement, until Michael comes in JUST after the door closed, cause he felt it open in JON’S office and even if Jon HAS been snarky, it’s “for GOOD REASON” and so he BURSTS in, panicking, and jon’s like “AH FUCK- WHAT-????”

So Michael’s briefly VERY relieved, and apologizes, then realizes that someone else must have been there- then gets the whole story and is mortified.

Just… walks away to lie down.

Does not even bother assuming his “normal” form.

Nearly gives Martin a heart attack when he walks in to make sure everything’s ok- but like he’s not even threatening at all, he just seems really, really not ok, so like… why panic?

He just asks if Michael wants a cup of tea, and Michael almost starts crying again, but from GOOD feelings this time, and thus Martin keeps Michael from falling down an awful downward emotional spiral simply by fucking caring. I love Martin so goddamn much.

Over time, Michael starts learning more and more about a lot of things, actually. He may have been wrong about Gertrude as a person, but he had been right about her maybe knowing stuff that could help him understand. VERY right, indeed.

And even though he now knows she lied to him, he still finds comfort in hearing her voice. On some level, he’s gotten it into his head that maybe she just did it in the hopes that he wouldn’t ever have to worry about these things… after all, hadn’t she once said something about how he “really should be quitting by now”, or something?

Regardless, he finds that he actually sort of likes the new face of the old woman. She had this sort of fire in her… and he wishes he could have really known that side of her. Gotten to experience it a little. I mean, come on- she was honestly a bit of a badass!

And this new image he has of her just makes him miss her even more, on a whole new level.

And then he starts to wonder if maybe she knew anything about the door, remembering how she’d reacted to that awful book, ages ago. Maybe she’d (posthumously) be able to tell him what’s going on with him, and maybe even how to fix it?

So he tries looking through her tapes for anything regarding doors.

He finds nothing.

Maybe… creepy mirror-people?

There are a handful of incidents involving that kind of thing, but none that describe his situation.

He does find the one about the stair dude, and has to take a day off work after that, but he’s starting to feel pretty sure there’s nothing in the archives that matches anything he’s seen.

…Until he stumbles upon that worker-in-clay statement. The one in “sculptor’s tool”.

Reads the date on the statement after reading over it, (not aloud, or on tape), and it clicks. The boat ride. The one that he almost thought he’d just dreamt because of how bizarre it had all been-

She had said they were going to Sannikov land.

No wonder she’d been so worried about the boat turning around… they’d been off to go stop “Gabriel” from succeeding in starting the thing that had happened shortly after! But it had stopped… so clearly they’d messed it up anyway, thank goodness.

…but…

…why hadn’t she mentioned all of this to him beforehand?

If he was supposed to help her in that mission, why hadn’t she told him anything about what they were supposed to do?

How could he help her if he didn’t understand?

…If he didn’t…

In a moment, all the recent conversations and interactions he’d had with with others came back to him at once, and he looked into the mirror at his distorted reflection.

…what was it she’d called it…?

“It is not what it is?”

Indirect answers. The door. Mirrors. Even his own appearance never quite showed the truth.

And he’d been subconsciously noticing how much he relied on the confusion and lack of understanding of others in order to-

No.

He was thinking too far into this- and going based off of almost nothing at all, and-

Dark.

Snowing. Crunching ground under feet and footprints in shifting snow and the world around is wrong. And yet is also right, it knows better, much better, and more than he does, it is more than he is, to it, he is nothing, and-

Map. Door.

Go through.

There is

no

Way

Back.

And he is gone, but no, he is elsewhere, he is

It is there.

The center.

Replace it.

No. No, no no no no no no NO-

The fear crackles and piles up into a buzzing crescendo as the feeling of his entire body being rent apart and reshaped like clay is etched into his brain. And no one is going to save him.

She wasn’t there. She had won. He had just been an offering.

She was satisfied.

He was screaming.

The image broke like glass around him and he slid to the floor, gasping for breath and clutching at his head, hands, torso- reassuring himself that he was still there.

Still… whole.

He was still in his office.

Still sort of held the statement in his hands… although-

Claws. Laughter, and laughter, and laughter that would not stop-

He frantically shook off the punctured paper with a strangled cry, willing the talons to go away.

His fingers returned to normal.

But the feeling — that horrible twisting sensation, like his whole entire being was suddenly just putty, held firmly in a pair of hands that were warping and stretching and pulling him apart — stayed.

…and then, from somewhere in the direction of artefact storage… someone screamed.

[help how do I tag this- my head /gen hurts 🫠]

[weirwoodking]

I have a small headcanon that Sansa has already skinchanged into a bird without her knowledge once before. This passage about Marillion in the sky cells in particular:

“When she closed her eyes she could see him in his sky cell, huddled in a corner away from the cold black sky, crouched beneath a fur with his woodharp cradled against his chest.”

What do you think?

Oh, absolutely. I do think that she’s experienced her powers in some way, she just hasn’t thought about them.

George does leave these little subtle hints in the text that point to the Stark kids abilities, the earliest being in chapter one:

Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up suddenly.

“What is it, Jon?” their lord father asked.

“Can’t you hear it?”

Bran could hear the wind in the trees, the clatter of their hooves on the ironwood planks, the whimpering of his hungry pup, but Jon was listening to something else.

“There,” Jon said. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling.

“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said. (Bran I, AGOT)

While on horseback, and halfway across the bridge, already far away from where a mute direwolf puppy was, Jon was able to “hear” him. Obviously, he didn’t hear Ghost, he sensed him. Already, he was bonded with Ghost, even though this was about a year and half before Jon had his first “true” wolf dream. And furthermore, it takes a while before he’s able to clearly remember these dreams:

The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. (Jon I, ADWD)

So, yes, I definitely think that Sansa could already be having skinchanging dreams with a bird/birds. She just might not remember it. Also, she doesn’t have to have been having direct dreams, but moments of using the bird’s senses. Not fully in the animal, just sharing it’s space for a moment.

Unlike the sh*w, where skinchanging is an on/off switch (you’re either inside the animal or not inside the animal), skinchanging in the books is more nuanced. Jon is able to brush his hand up against Ghost and tap into the wolf’s senses, without fully warging him. He can even taste blood in his mouth after Ghost kills, and he can feel the wolf’s hunger. The most notable instance of this “one mind in two bodies simultaneously” thing is with Arya and the Braavos street cat:

That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

The tavern was near empty, and she was able to claim a quiet corner not far from the fire. No sooner had she settled there and crossed her legs than something brushed up against her thigh. "You again?" said the blind girl. She scratched his head behind one ear, and the cat jumped up into her lap and began to purr. Braavos was full of cats, and no place more than Pynto's. The old pirate believed they brought good luck and kept his tavern free of vermin. "You know me, don't you?" she whispered. Cats were not fooled by a mummer's moles. They remembered Cat of the Canals.

[...]

The Lyseni took the table nearest to the fire and spoke quietly over cups of black tar rum, keeping their voices low so no one could overhear. But she was no one and she heard most every word. And for a time it seemed that she could see them too, through the slitted yellow eyes of the tomcat purring in her lap. One was old and one was young and one had lost an ear, but all three had the white-blond hair and smooth fair skin of Lys, where the blood of the old Freehold still ran strong. (The Blind Girl, ADWD)

"It is good to know. This is two. Is there a third?"

"Yes. I know that you're the one who has been hitting me." Her stick flashed out, and cracked against his fingers, sending his own stick clattering to the floor.

The priest winced and snatched his hand back. "And how could a blind girl know that?"

I saw you. "I gave you three. I don't need to give you four." Maybe on the morrow she would tell him about the cat that had followed her home last night from Pynto's, the cat that was hiding in the rafters, looking down on them. Or maybe not. If he could have secrets, so could she. (The Blind Girl, ADWD)

While Arya is not fully outside of her body and in the body of the cat, she’s able to use the cat’s eyes as her own. And she isn’t even aware that she’s doing it, it’s just occurring naturally. I do believe that the same cat she dreams as in AFFC is the tomcat that she sees through in ADWD.

So, yes, I do believe that Sansa could be looking through the eyes of a bird. She’s just not aware of it.

It does seem like the Stark kids are much more powerful than the average skinchangers/wargs, immediately bonding to the wolves without realizing it, and already connecting with other animals. Arya is able to warg Nymeria from an entirely separate continent, which probably isn’t standard behavior, especially not for someone who doesn’t even know what they’re doing and has no training. Even Varamyr, a man who has mastered the control of five animals, recognizes Jon’s power:

The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it. (Prologue, ADWD)

So, the Starks seem to be pretty powerful. And that includes Sansa, as GRRM has confirmed that she is still a skinchanger, meaning that he’s definitely going to have a bond with an animal at some point. It would make sense for him to have already been leaving little hints about it.

A very important component to Sansa’s character, which could be affecting her skinchanging powers, is her memory. The way that Sansa’s mind has coped with her trauma is by suppressing and rewriting certain distressing, scarring, and confusing memories. This is something that all the Stark kids do, in different levels. For example, Bran believes that Rickon intentionally suppresses the memory of Ned being dead:

"Tell Robb I want him to come home," said Rickon. "He can bring his wolf home too, and Mother and Father." Though he knew Lord Eddard was dead, sometimes Rickon forgot... willfully, Bran suspected. (Bran V, ACOK)

Bran himself does this as well:

The dream he'd had... the dream Summer had had... No, I mustn't think about that dream. He had not even told the Reeds, though Meera at least seemed to sense that something was wrong. If he never talked of it maybe he could forget he ever dreamed it, and then it wouldn't have happened and Robb and Grey Wind would still be... (Bran IV, ASOS)

Sansa does this the most out of her siblings, it’s her primary coping mechanism. One example is how remembers (or tries not to remember) Jeyne Poole:

Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. (Sansa II, ACOK)

She tries to not to think of her, because it’s too traumatic for her to do so.

Another example is how she’s trying to process the situations she’s in at the Eyrie.

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though. If not for Petyr Baelish it would have been Sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death six hundred feet below, instead of Lysa Arryn. He is so bold. Sansa wished she had his courage. She wanted to crawl back into bed and hide beneath her blanket, to sleep and sleep. She had not slept a whole night through since Lysa Arryn's death. (Sansa I, AFFC)

He is serving me lies as well, Sansa realized. They were comforting lies, though, and she thought them kindly meant. A lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant. If only she believed them...

The things her aunt had said just before she fell still troubled Sansa greatly. "Ravings," Petyr called them. "My wife was mad, you saw that for yourself." And so she had. All I did was build a snow castle, and she meant to push me out the Moon Door. Petyr saved me. He loved my mother well, and...

And her? How could she doubt it? He had saved her.

He saved Alayne, his daughter, a voice within her whispered. But she was Sansa too... and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle... but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she'd known at King's Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei's ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as his little finger for her.

Except to get me out. He did that for me. I thought it was Ser Dontos, my poor old drunken Florian, but it was Petyr all the while. Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. (Sansa I, AFFC)

Sansa knows deep down (not even that deep, just down) that Petyr is untrustworthy. She knows he’s fed her lies, but she wants to believe them. She wants to be able to trust him. She wants to feel like she can be safe with him. She wants to be safe. It bothers me a lot whenever people say Sansa is “stupid” for trusting Petyr, or “uncaring” for not thinking often of Jeyne. She isn’t stupid or uncaring, she’s a traumatized thirteen year old whose brain is trying to cope with what she’s gone through and what she’s currently going through.

So, she has built a wall. And behind that wall are the memories of Lysa’s death, the truth about Jon Arryn’s murder, and Jeyne Poole. I think it would make sense if skinchanging, something that involves the mind, is also something that she’s subconsciously repressing. I talked about this sometime a while ago, but I believe that a big moment for Sansa in TWOW is going to be her confronting her memories. And most significantly, confronting Baelish about what happened to Jeyne Poole and exposing the truth of Jon Arryn and Lysa’s deaths. Thus, defeating Littlefinger, the mockingbird.

It would make sense if this coincided with her skinchanging abilities truly awakening. As her mind opens, her powers become stronger. I’m pretty deadset on Sansa’s bird being a falcon, not just for the House Arryn connection and because she’s gone hawking with a falcon before, but also because of the symbolism. Falcons symbolize “vision, freedom, and victory. Hence, it also connotes salvation to those who are in bondage whether moral, emotional, or spiritual”. I think that Sansa bonding with a falcon and “flying free” would be perfect for the conclusion of her caged bird arc.

Sorry, this got really long, it just kind of turned into all my thoughts about how skinchanger-Sansa might come to be in TWOW. I think it’s going to be an important part of her story, as you don’t just give four of your POV characters the ability to control animals with their minds and not have that matter. (And, it’s already an important part of Jon, Arya, and Bran’s stories, so it most likely will be for Sansa, too.)

[thearchivistsmanyeyes]

Can I just say I am in LOVE with the Teacher Jon AU. Just,, imagine the absolutely ABSURD things his students could find out about him. Imagine the shenanigans.

Love thinking about the bizarre answers he could give to their questions

“Mr. Sims how did you burn your hand?” “Let's just say I shook hands with someone who had a very firm grip.”

“How did you get all those weird holey scars?" “...worms.”

“What was it like working at that Magnus place?” *small smile* “Hell. Anyway back to the lesson-”

“Did you know you were a suspect in a murder?” “I was aware, yes." “And..did you kill someone?” “I mean, I didn't kill her.”

And I know people have talked about this before but think how hilarious it would be for both his friends & the avatars to have a blast bugging him at school.

Martin shows up all the time of course, all the students love him. He's on the pta even though he doesn't have a kid there. Everyone is a little confused though since he seems so nice and normal when Jon is so...not

Daisy will come by to pick him up sometimes, the kids are mostly scared of her but think she's really cool. Everyone is confused as to how this tall strong butch lady is bffs with their tiny stick-thin English teacher but it's amusing all the same.

Melanie and Georgie found out early on that bugging Jon at work annoys him so they come all the time and think it's HILARIOUS. All the students who are What the Ghost fans freak out. They love telling students New Mysterious Facts about Jon that makes them even more curious about him

Helen will pop in out of nowhere and Jon just facepalms like “what are YOU doing here” “oh, you know, just checking up on you!!” she makes a lot of jokes and probably scares some of the students and has a great time

Oliver randomly shows up one day, sticks his head in like ‘oh hey Jon what’s up’ says some vaguely ominous things, and leaves. Jon is very confused. He came because Helen payed him fifty bucks to do so

Are there any other like. Living avatars?? I can’t think of any, that is sad

And lastly can we just appreciate the random weird things Jon would do that would confuse his students. Like.

They come in to class one day to find him ferociously batting away ceiling cobwebs with his broom, muttering 'damned spiders..not TODAY web....you hear me annabelle?? Not on my WATCH' they are all a little disturbed and Jon is even more mortified that they saw.

If he still has his Beholding powers after the apocalypse then he can A) automatically know when someone is cheating and B) know things about his students that he definitely shouldn’t know. Sometimes it works in their favor, sometimes it doesn’t

Sometimes he just makes offhand comments that are totally bizarre? Like one of his students will say “dont take this the wrong way but you’re really weird, Mr. Sims” and he’ll be like “Oh you think I’M weird, you should meet some of the other people I know.” and one of the kids will ask “...like who?” and he’ll just count off on his fingers “ohh met an undead goth once, couple of vampire hunters, Jared Hopworth was quite a character. Still mad I gave him two of my ribs. Anyway, our lesson for today is about-” and he’ll just say it all with a completely straight face!! And all his students are very very confused

When they’re analyzing a character from literature or idk something like that, Jon will sometimes be like “oh that reminds me of this guy I knew” and proceed to say something so wacky that everyone thinks he must be making it up (but who really knows at this point.) He’ll say “ah yes, people will believe the craziest things. I knew a woman once who thought her purpose in life was to kill the sun” and no one will say anything because what are you supposed to say to that?? 

He gives the weirdest advice too. After the bell rings when everyone is leaving class he’ll be like “and remember, don’t trust deliverymen” or “never go through a door that wasn’t there before!” or “don’t ever ever listen to a singing wasps nest.” all his students are just like “okay Mr. Sims whatever you say”

Someone asks “oh who’s the guy in the picture on your desk?” And Jon will say “oh that was my friend Tim, sadly he died trying to blow up a bunch of clowns” and the kid will just be like. “okay Mr. Sims” because who KNOWS at this point

This was super super long but. Teacher Jon AU guys

[insomnia-productions]

jonelias fake dating bullet fic

help

So Jon’s about a month into his new position as Head Archivist. it’s… fine. this is fine. gertrude was a mess, clearly, and elias is even more of a mess for allowing things to get this bad, but it’s fine. it’s fine. he’s fine.

yes, really, martin, stop asking,

And he’s - look, he’s always been a diligent person, always very committed to his work, so naturally he would spend every waking minute trying to organize the Archives, and naturally he would forget to sleep once or twice or five times a week, and honestly so what if he hasn’t actually touched his bed in nine days? It’s not like the lack of sleep is impeding his brain function. Much.

So it’s a bright and sunny morning in the Institute, and he’s up in one of the many libraries, looking up something about what may or may not have been a sentient kitchen sponge, and one of the researchers comes up to him looking oddly red and kind of stumbling over her words and oh lord no he’s being asked out

He quickly stutters through a rejection, but instead of just accepting it like a normal person (though, in fairness, what normal person would work at the Magnus Institute?), she asks him why not

like. what the fuck.

And Jon isn’t exactly the nicest or most tactful person, but even he isn’t about to look this woman in the eye and tell her that he just straight up does not like her. he’s not even sure he knows her name. there is a whole realm of possibility as to what reason he could give, like he’s too busy, or he isn’t looking to date anyone right now, but those would sound too much like excuses, wouldn’t they, rather than valid reasons to reject her.

He picks the worst option.

“I’m already seeing someone, actually.”

An eyebrow goes up. She looks him up and down. A second eyebrow goes up.

“Really? Who?”

Fuck. Now he has .2 seconds to make up a love story. He’s too tired for this, and he’s never been one for love stories. What makes for a believable romance? And in that panicked, sleep-deprived instant, his eyes fall on a portrait of Jonah Magnus nestled between two shelves, and somehow that prompts a spectacularly terrible response.

“Uh. Elias.”

Twenty minutes later he’s sitting at his desk in a spiral of anxiety. It’s fine, though, right? That woman will probably keep it to herself, and she’s just some random researcher, there’s no way anyone else will hear about his stupid comment. There’s no way Elias will hear about it - and even if he does, Elias has always been a pretty laid back boss, maybe he’ll even find it funny?

Oh lord he’s going to die  

The next day, everyone has heard about it. Jon can just feel it in the way people’s eyes follow him. Tim and Sasha give him twin funny looks, kind of half-disbelieving, half-amused. Jon slams his office door slightly harder than necessary. He puts it forcefully from his mind, and the day passes without incident. Until.

It’s the end of the day. Jon is walking towards the Institute’s main doors. Half the Institute seems to be there (fair enough, it is closing time), gathered in bunches, talking quietly, eyes flitting to him and away. Tim and Sasha are sitting on their Gossip Couch in the lobby, watching him. Elias is there, and waves him over, holding something that looks like a statement. Of course, today would be the day he decides to get involved in the archives.

Jon begrudgingly walks over. The second he reaches Elias’ side, Tim’s voice rings across the lobby. He’s walking towards them, saying something about hearing the most interesting thing from a woman in research, and how long have they been together?

Elias looks at him. Jon can see the instant when he realizes what’s happened, and, more importantly, he can see the precise moment when Elias decides to make things infinitely worse, because his eyes light up like he’s just been offered a second Christmas.

Elias turns back to Tim and, entirely matter-of-factly, says, “Two weeks.”

Tim, honestly, had not been expecting it to be true.

It’s bad. It’s bad, but… it could be worse. Two weeks isn’t a long time. It’s not like Elias has gone and made up an entire marriage or something. Jon will just put up with his coworker’s teasing for a couple of weeks, and then drop some vague comment about being too busy to date, and an amicable breakup, and that will be the end of the whole ordeal. This is fine.

Jon goes straight to Elias’ office the next morning to tell him just that, ignoring Tim and Sasha’s loud whistles as he reaches that particular set of stairs. He gets through a begrudging thank-you and a short explanation of his game plan, but once he’s done, Elias just folds his hands on his desk and smiles in a perfectly pleasant way that makes Jon feel like a minnow suspended between the open jaws of a shark.

Elias, as it turns out, has a party coming up next month, hosted by the Fairchilds, although Jon doesn’t know that name just yet. It’s an opportunity to garner more funds for the Institute, and he suspects one of the Lukases is going to ask him to it. Elias can’t afford to offend the Lukases, but he would also prefer to avoid getting roped into dating one of them again - (again??) - so why not stretch this fake dating thing out just a little longer.

Well, Jon thinks, there’s no harm in it, really. It’s just a month, just a party. And he does owe Elias for covering for him yesterday. So he agrees.

A week after the party, he’s preparing to drop his breakup comments over tea in the breakroom, when his cousin calls to invite him to her wedding. Bring a plus one! Oh god. He can already hear all the aunties, asking him when he’s going to settle down, why he hasn’t found someone yet. He bites his tongue on the breakup comment, puts his cup down, and walks up to Elias’ office.

It becomes a sort of unspoken agreement. Fake dating isn’t even hard; they’re adults with jobs, after all, not high schoolers spending every waking moment together. It’s an arrangement of convenience, more than anything, and the only thing that changes between them is that Elias visits the Archives more than he used to, and they talk more, and one time at one of Elias’ parties they danced, and it was nice, actually.

Meanwhile, for Jonah’s part, he’s having a baller time. Fake dating is such a small, petty thing, but the scheming that goes into laying out all the right little hints of domesticity, not to mention the fun of walking the line between performing for the others and legitimately flirting with Jon, always just short of anything that couldn’t be explained away - it’s like a fun, relaxing warm-up to his more important schemes.

Plus, he now has an excuse to spend more time with Jon, evaluating and pushing and molding the man who will become his Archive. It isn’t hard - and people like Jane Prentiss and Jurgen Leitner and the not-Them make it all the more easy.

On which note - Jane Prentiss happens. The Archives are in upheaval, someone definitely murdered Gertrude, and Jon is freaking out. Someone - Sasha, this person is Sasha - comes up to him to tell him that he shouldn’t be alone right now. Any good boyfriend would take him home, take care of him after something so traumatic. Elias is sitting next to him, and he gives Sasha a strange, sharp smile, and just as she’d suggested, he takes Jon home. Jon is too caught up in stress and exhaustion and who killed gertrude to remember that Elias is not, in fact, his actual boyfriend.

Maybe some part of him recalls, somewhere between the part where Elias so carefully tends to his wounds and the part where they fall asleep curled around each other, that this is not what fake-dating-at-parties-for-mutual-convenience is supposed to entail, but he’s so tired and there are so many bigger things to worry about than whether or not this is a boundary they shouldn’t cross.

He wakes up with Elias’ arms around him and Elias’ fingers combing gently through hair, and after that the line between fake dating and actually being in a relationship just gets blurrier and blurrier. But nothing really happens, not yet. Jon is in the midst of a murder investigation, after all - one even Elias is still a suspect in, warm mornings together or not. So they remain walking that line for months and months as Jon sinks further into paranoia, isolated from everyone - except Elias, who stays by his side like the supportive boyfriend he isn’t.

And then there’s the table. And the thing that is not Sasha. And Jurgen Leitner. And now he’s the one being suspected of murder. Jon does what has become his habit over the past two years when he is faced with a social situation he feels ill-equipped to deal with on his own. He goes to Elias.

And Jonah starts to rework his plans.

Maybe the fact that they now live together will make getting Jon marked by the fears harder, maybe it will take longer for him to be ready for the Watcher’s Crown. Maybe it will add years to his plans. But what good is a world without someone to rule it with? Maybe even, with time and patience, someone willing? Jonah’s waited 200 years to perform his ritual; for his Archive, he can wait a few more.

[aster-aspera]

One place to fall

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: Can’t go home

Relationship: Jon/Martin/Tim/Sasha

Warnings: food, Jon just generally being a bit sad? Idk, if there’s something you want tagged, feel free to tell me

Masterlist

If you liked it, please reblog

Jon woke up that morning with a strangled gasp, the afterimage of his dreams still burned into the back of his eyelids, keeping him from falling back to sleep. He rolled over, expecting to find the comforting warmth of one of his partners to keep him company in the lonely hours of an early day. Instead, what greeted him was the cold grey wall of Georgie’s guest room. It didn’t take long after that for the memories to flow back.

Three days. He really should stop expecting them to be here at this point.

They’re not here, they can’t be here, and he can’t go home, not for a long while, not till the police stop suspecting him for a murder he didn’t commit.

He sighed, rolling over onto his back when aches started running up his side. He stared up at the off-white popcorn ceiling, trying not to think of how Tim was probably sprawled out over Martin and Sasha, stealing most of the blankets and driving his sharp elbows into their sides. He tried not to miss Sasha’s warmth against his side and the sound of Martin’s soft snores. He always used to complain about their sleeping arrangements, but now he would do anything to be back in that bed.

He groaned and rolled over a few more times, trying in vain to find a position that was comfortable enough to attempt sleep again, not that that would go very well, with the nightmares plaguing him as soon as he closed his eyes.

Eventually, he conceded and got out of bed, grabbing his cane from the wall and taking a moment to work the stiffness out of his limbs. He limped into the kitchen and smiled at the Admiral when he raised his head sleepily. He wondered if he could convince the others to get a cat when he got home. If he ever got home.

The smile slipped off his face and he turned to open the curtains, letting in the greyish light of an early dawn. The Admiral mewled plaintively at his feet, pushing against him. He bent down carefully to run his fingers along the cat’s back, closing his eyes for a moment and just letting the feeling ground him.

He straightened and made his way over to the cramped kitchen, intent on making himself a small breakfast to keep him company whilst he waited for the world to wake up. He reached towards the cabinet over the sink, and for a moment expected their mismatched collection of mugs with ridiculous quotes and terrible puns. He shouldn’t have felt the disappointment he did when instead it was just a shelf of plain white cups.

He shut the cabinet door a little more forcefully than strictly necessary, breathing deeply against the sudden swell of emotion in his throat.

In the scope of all that had happened to him, this should have been minor, this should have been fine. It was just Georgie, the person he had used to love, the person he still cared for. And his partners were really just a phone call away.

So why then, did it feel like he was breaking? Why did every little reminder this wasn’t his home tear something apart deep in his gut?

Home had always been his safety net, and now, he had nowhere to fall.

And now he just had to sit here, stare at the blank walls and hope the police would finally realise he hadn’t been the one to kill jurgen Leitner. Every day that hope felt a bit further away.

He opened the group chat he shared with the others. There were no new messages, of course not, none of them were awake yet. Six am was a bit early even for Tim. He scrolled back to their conversation from last night.

A picture of Tim grinning into the camera while a pot bubbles over behind him.

Sasha: Tim’s cooking tonight, send help

Martin: If the house burns down or he poisons us, I want you to know I love you

Jon: I’m sure it won’t come to that.

He scrolls back down to the bottom of the chat, a small smile on his face at the easy conversation of last night. It wasn’t the same as being there with them, but it was a small comfort.

The three dots that signalled someone was typing popped up on his screen and he noted with surprise Sasha was already online.

Sasha: Youre up early

Jon: I could say the same for you.

Sasha: Needed to pee

Jon: Yes, I suppose that makes sense.

Sasha: So what’s your excuse

Jon: My back hurts again.

Sasha: :(

Sasha: And is that the only reason?

Jon: No

Jon: I miss you.

Sasha: Darling

Jon: I’m alright, I just wish I could see you

Jon: In person that is.

Sasha: We could come over?

Jon: I don’t think that’s wise.

Sasha: Yeah, i guess

Sasha: We miss you too

A swarm of emotions bubbled up in Jon’s throat at the words, threatening to spill over in a mess of heartache and sorrow and fear. They press against the bounds of his throat, choking him, filling him with so many feelings he could not even begin to parse them out. He just wanted to go home.

He swallows it down, tucks the whole mess into a corner of his mind and puts down his phone. He doesn’t want to bother Sasha, or any of the others. He’s already put so much on them, dragged them into the fear and confusion that was the archives, he had no right to bother them with more.

And he knew he was just being dramatic, he was a grown man, he should be able to handle being away from home for a while. He just needed to get himself together, focus on the next step.

He picked up a stack of statements from the coffee table, slipping on his glasses and burying himself in the comforting rhythm of paper and pen. At least this was something he still controlled, still knew how to do.

Georgie appeared at some point, giving him a disapproving glance to find him working so early and coraling him into eating breakfast with her. She can’t stay long after that, and both Jon and the Admiral watch her leave with the same forlorn air.

Jon looked up from his work as a heavy knock resounded from the front door. His first thought was that it was Georgie, back from her errands early. But she would just have let herself in, and Jon knew for certain she had her key with her when she left.

And who did that leave? The police? Some avatar coming to settle a score? Gertrude's killer finally come to finish the job?

Every option was bad, and every option would not let a flimsy door stop them. He stood up, walked into the kitchen as calmly as he could with dread and paranoia hanging over him like a dark cloud and grabbed the largest knife he could find. The knock came again, and he could hear indistinct whispering from behind the door.

Multiple people then. That wasn’t good for his chances. He gripped the knife just a little bit tighter.

“Hey boss, open up,” came a familiar voice, one he used to hear rough and sleepy in the mornings and soft and loving in the evenings. His heart brightened in a momentary thrill at the thought of his partners, or at least, one of them, being on the other side of that door, so close to him again after all those days without them. And all he had to do was open up that door and pull them into his arms once more.

That thrill was almost immediately dampened again as he realized they should not be here. It was why he had left in the first place. They were too connected to him, too wrapped up in his messy web of conspiracy and paranoia. If the police saw them here, if Elias saw them here, they would be leading all of it right to Georgie’s doorstep.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” He told the door and tried not to think of the warm hands behind it.

“We’re not supposed to do a lot of things,” Came Sasha’s amused voice.

“Like date each other,” Tim filled in, “But here we are, so you going to let us in now?”

“No, the police could find out, and you might get Georgie in trouble and there’s just so many reasons this is a bad idea.”

“Jon please, we’re worried about you, Georgie said you weren’t doing well,” Martin said softly

Jon sat down on the couch heavily, knees protesting from standing up too long. He stared at the door.

“And standing out here is probably a lot more risky than being in the apartment, so best let us in.”

He sighed. You never could argue with Sasha’s logic. The others looked up victoriously when he finally unlocked the door.

“There he is!” Tim crowed, as Sasha and Martin offered him a warm smile while bustling into the apartment, both laden with grocery bags. Sasha pressed a light kiss to his forehead as she passed and he tried not to start crying at the feeling.

“You have to leave,” He said as he shut the door, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Martin and Sasha didn’t look up from where they were unloading piles of vegetables and snacks from their bags.

“What? No, hey guys, I missed you, happy to see you all?” Tim complained as he draped himself over Jon’s back. Jon scowled at him.

“Jon, stop being stubborn, we’ve all been through hell the past few weeks, and right now we just want to be here to keep you company,” Martin said in that firm yet gentle voice of his.

“You really shouldn’t be alone after all that,” Sasha said as she dumped out a tupperware container into a pot.

“I’m not alone,” Jon said grumpily, “I have the Admiral.” Though he had apparently decided to make himself scarce for the time being. Jon cursed him for the betrayal.

“Are you saying you prefer the company of a cat to ours?” Tim asked, pulling them both back onto the couch and settling a blanket over them.

“Maybe,” Jon pouted, burrowing into Tim’s chest despite the fact that he was still upset with them, “He doesn’t uselessly endanger everyone to come give me cuddles.”

“Well we’re here now, and we’re not leaving till you feel better.”

“And admit it, you’re happy we’re here,” Martin said, apparently finishing up with his preparations in the kitchen and curling up next to Jon on the couch.

Jon did not want to admit it, but something warm and content curled up in his stomach, the warm feeling of home returning to his bones. A warm and savoury smell drifted through the room, clearly coming from whatever Sasha was warming up on the stove.

This apartement did not look like home in the slightest, the walls and ceiling all wrong, the furniture hard and uncomfortable and unfamiliar. But with all of them here, and that familiar smell of soup and Tim’s conditioner surrounding him, it wasn’t all that bad.

Sasha sat down on his other side, handing everyone a bowl of soup and giving Jon a gentle kiss on his knuckles. Martin pressed one to his temple and Tim just ruffled his hair fondly.

A few words were exchanged between them, but Jon didn’t bother paying too much attention. He knew he should still be angry, or at least have a firm conversation with them on what they had agreed on. But not now, not when they were here and he was home and for a moment he could forget all about Leitner and the institute and just be safe.

[staysaneathome]

This Was Not A Dare, Reigen

Jon glares at each of the— the suspects traitors in front of him, tape recorder clutched tight in one hand.

Martin, wringing his hands uselessly, eyes wide and beseeching. Tim, fists clenched hard enough for his knuckles to go white and returning his gaze with a death stare of his own. Sasha, arms folded to form a barrier between Jon and herself, expression a perfect mask of concern. Reigen, radiating disappointment in every one of his gestures and quips. Elias, eyes weary, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Some intervention this is turning out to be.

Jon wants to scream. Wants to reach out and shake someone, anyone, until they admit he’s making sense and it’s the rest of the world that’s gone mad.

Every single one of them (except Martin) could’ve killed Gertrude. He knows he has no proof that they did, but he has no proof that they didn’t either, can’t they see that? If they don’t want him to suspect them, it should be easy for them to actually give him proof of their innocence (like Martin did), instead of just repeating platitudes of “you know this isn’t acceptable adult behavior, Jon” and “you’re better than this, Jon”.

Who cares about knowing better or acceptable behavior when it’s your very life on the line? He’s half tempted to throttle the con artist, see how dignified or adult he is when he’s the one with a murderer on his tail!

…Not that Jon is a murderer. It’s just the principle of the thing, is all.

“Jon,” Elias says, tone soothing in all the ways he doesn’t want it to be. “This is absurd. This goes far beyond an unhealthy work environment. I’ll admit it’s partly my fault for letting it get this bad, I should have intervened earlier.”

Reigen cuts in with a hand gesture that is as effusive as it is dismissive. “That doesn’t make his behavior okay, Bouchard-san. It may be bad here, but Jon chose to follow me, Tim and Sasha, and yell at Martin, rather than going to the police or paying a detective, like Herlock Sholmes or something.”

Jon sputters. “Wh- It’s Sherlock Holmes, not—and he’s fictional!”

Reigen blinks sleepily, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? That doesn’t sound right. Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Jon all but shouts, rapidly reconsidering his stance on braining the sardonic little git with his tape recorder. “Don’t you even—an-and you’re deflecting again! Just like with your ridiculous ‘haunted gun’ nonsense!”

“I’m not!” Reigen says, clearly deflecting. “I’ve seen this kind of thing loads of times as the number one psychic. When a weapon kills lots of people over 100 years, the bad energy gets bigger and bigger until the gun grows an evil spirit and is hungry—”

“I refuse to believe Gertrude Robinson was murdered by a sentient blunderbuss!!”

“Be that as it may,” Elias interrupts, shooting them both a stern frown. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, Jon. Given how badly it’s affected your work ethic, I will be taking direct action to ensure it does not continue.”

Jon can feel his shoulders hunch almost against his will, dread pooling in his stomach at the thought of whatever punishment is about to be unjustly inflicted on him.

Only Martin looks half as worried as he feels, glancing between him and Elias nervously. By contrast, Tim looks downright triumphant, smirk nasty and vindictive. Sasha’s somewhere between those two, not openly celebrating his soon-to-be-downfall, but not acting like she’d lift a finger on his behalf either, though he’s unsure why that feels like it should surprise him. She’s always been as neutral as Switzerland.

Reigen, oddly enough, has more in common with Martin than with Tim. He’s staring at Elias like he’s waiting for a bit of news he knows he won’t like.

Jon thinks he’d appreciate that more if he wasn’t about to be unfairly lambasted simply for trying to stop a murderer and bring justice for an old woman who probably died frightened and alone. Much like Jon probably will once he’s been hobbled by whatever Elias is about to say next.

“Such as by restricting access to the archives from members of the public who are ultimately doing you more harm than good.”

…Wait.

What?

“What?!” Tim, Martin, and Sasha echo.

Reigen glances between them all, blinking in confusion.

Jon shares the sentiment entirely. His punishment is…for someone else to be removed from the archives? Someone he doesn’t employ or even like that much, no less?

He must have misheard, surely.

Though maybe not, given how Tim looks aghast, glancing between Elias and Reigen. “Okay, no, Reigen’s clearly not the problem here—”

“I’m very sorry, Tim, but Jon has made several remarks about the disruptive nature of Mr. Arataka’s presence in the archives.” Elias sighs. “From the arguments like the one we just witnessed to the nonsensical purchases of oddities inspired by his presence, such as Duolingo subscriptions,” Meaningful glare at Jon who resists the urge to clutch his phone guiltily, “That are now billed on the Archives’ expenses, it unfortunately seems as though he is dragging down productivity for all of you as an active stressor.”

“But we’re much better equipped to take statements from people who don’t speak English because of that!” Martin protests, stepping forward. “Isn’t it an advantage to have a more, more international perspective for our work?”

“One positive in a sea of negatives does not an advantage make.” Elias says, sounding infuriatingly like he’s misquoting something. “And really Martin, how realistic is it that this would help in more than a few isolated cases? I expected better from you.”

Martin’s face crumples, and his shoulders hunch, making himself smaller.

Jon finds his own mouth opening to—what? Say something? What would he even say?

Luckily, Sasha intervenes before he can dig his own grave further. “That’s as may be, but he’s a wonder for morale. He and Jon are funny, not anything serious, and I don’t think we’d have come to you about Jon‘s behavior unless he encouraged us to—”

“Which only fits into the delusion where Jon feels an outsider is rallying his subordinates against him, which is not good for his paranoid outlook.” Elias replies calmly. “And it’s never a healthy work environment when one employee feels the others are making them the butt of a joke.”

“I’d say that’s not as bad as when the boss feels he has the right to violate everyone’s privacy whenever he wants to just ’cause he’s feeling sad!” Tim growls.

Elias begins to answer, before Reigen finally speaks up.

“Sorry,” The con artist says carefully. “But you are…«I know this one…» banning me from the Archives? Yes?”

“That is the long and short of it, yes.” Elias says, grudgingly

“Why?” Reigen challenges, eyes hard and searching. “What have I, personally, done that’s wrong here? What behavior do I need to correct?”

There’s a moment of silence. The whirring of the tape recorder sounds uncomfortably loud.

“Mr. Arataka, are you currently under the employ of the Magnus Institute?” Elias asks, brow furrowed.

“Ah, no, no, but—”

“Are you looking to become employed by the Institute at this point in time, as a prospective member of the Archival Staff?” He fires off rapidly.

“Su-Sorry, but if you could just go a little slower—”

“Then I am afraid that unless you’re looking to fill out an employment contract or a Statement form, we cannot help you, Mr. Arataka.” Elias spreads his hands wide. “We are an academic institution, a place of research and learning. The Institute cannot allow for social dalliances on company time, especially not when those visits are negatively contributing to the work environment and the wellbeing of our staff.”

Tim throws up his hands, “I-I cannot believe this!”

Reigen’s mouth works soundlessly for a moment.

“Arataka is my…what do you call it? First name?” He says, at last. “Using it in this context is…inappropriate. Please call me Reigen, if you would, Bouchard-san.”

“Of course. My mistake, Mr. Reigen.” Elias does have the decency to look somewhat abashed. “Though, regrettably, I am going to have to ask you to leave the premises within the next twenty minutes, or I will be forced to call security.”

Reigen nods, jerkily, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Jon almost wants to call out to the fraud as he turns to go, grab him by the shoulder, pick another argument, something. He knows he should be happy, be glad that this thorn in his side will finally stop bothering him, but instead he just feels—befuddled. Off-kilter.

What happened to the man who once spent three hours arguing for the “spiritual effectiveness” of entirely performative and useless rituals, saying that ensuring his clients left his office fooled and contented was better than actually uncovering genuine supernatural forces and learning all there was to know about them? Why is he going so-so easily now, when he’s made Jon fight tooth and nail in every debate he’s had with the so-called psychic?

At the door, the con man pauses.

“Bouchard-san. You said I could come back if I had a statement to give?”

Elias shifts in his seat, looking bemused. “W-well, yes. That is a service we do provide. Of course, the statement would have to be genuine, and verifiable as such before we let you back into the Archives.”

“We don’t even do that for most of the rubbish we do take,” Tim mutters under his breath, and though Jon is glad he’s not the one being shot a quelling look, he does have to agree.

The con man turns back.

He’s got that smirk on his face that immediately puts Jon’s hackles up on instinct, prepared to argue against whatever inane point he’s come up with now to defend his phony psychic title.

“Gotcha.” Reigen says, far too cheerfully. «Ja ne.»

Then he strolls out of the office, as cool as a cucumber.

Jon could even swear he hears him whistling as he makes his way down the stairs.

There’s a moment of stunned silence.

“I’d do him.” Sasha pipes up, unhelpfully.

“Sasha!” Martin hisses, scandalized. “D-don’t you have a, a—”

“Oh, I don’t have to worry about that.” She remarks, far too blasé for someone in a newly committed relationship. “Tom’s heard about him too, and he agreed he’s just our type.”

“And I’m not?” Tim jokes, but there’s a hard edge to it that Jon’s found himself increasingly familiar with in the past few weeks.

Sasha shrugs with a mischievous little smile, as if that mattered very little to her.

Elias coughs. “Right. Well. Whatever your relations to Mr. Reigen are, please try to limit them to outside the workplace in future.”

The rest of the intervention is surprisingly subdued. Elias gives Jon access to the footage from the cameras in the rest of the Institute, and Tim bodychecks him on the way out of the office, muttering about how nice it must be to never face any consequences for his actions. Sasha follows, the way she won’t meet his eyes a condemnation in its own right.

Even Martin doesn’t say anything to him, just bites his lip and hurries past back down to the Archives. It doesn’t sting. It doesn’t.

Even as he settles in to watch and rewatch the CCTV records of Gertrude’s last week alive, Jon can’t shake the ridiculous feeling of foreboding that’s dogged him since Reigen left.

Most of him wants to say it comes from the fact that despite the fact that Reigen has not appeared in any of the camera records for the Magnus Institute before he started his term as Head Archivist in 2016, isn’t banning him from the Archives just letting the con man run around London with impunity, with no way for Jon to ascertain his movements or motives? That instead of solving a problem, Elias has just given a potential murderer free reign to escape?

But a small part of Jon, one that never could deny the sensation of being watched, that is frozen in second-hand terror whenever he reads a Statement, knows, Knows that it this stems more from the idea that the fraud will actually accomplish what Elias has unwittingly challenged him to do.

The illogical but pervasive surety that he will do so.

Jon’s not sure if he’s more afraid that Reigen Arataka will vanish entirely, another unfortunate victim become an unsolved mystery.

Or that he’ll come back, and bring whatever he’s managed to unearth on his insane quest with him.

[tma-more-like-suffering]

How to Successfully Attempt Murder

starring, Elias Bouchard as the murder victim.

A/N: So even though this technically isn’t a reader insert, its still in second person because- uh- because I’m currently stuck writing in second person? Like, okay, I’m having fun, alright? Lemme be.

But hey. For everyone who has repressed feelings of anger towards one Jonah Magnus, this one’s for you.

-

"Hey Mel- oh. Are you... going somewhere?"

Melanie startles, almost dropping the cup of coffee she has clutched in one hand. You stop just shy of the kitchenette doorway, feeling awkward for have accidentally snuck up on her.

"Jesus- I didn't hear you coming at all."

"Yeah... sorry. What're you doing?"

"I'm-" her expression goes through a series of stages, each somehow more interpretive than the last, "I- I went out to get coffee, that's all. And I thought I'd bring some for Elias..."

You squint at her, suspicious, "Elias?"

You don't know how, but Melanie's expression remains completely smooth beside the slight twitch of her eye, "Yes."

"Riiiight." You know that she can probably tell you don’t believe her. Still, you gesture at the cup, "You're going up to deliver that to him, then?"

Melanie glances down at the beverage, "Ah- yeah." She pauses, seemingly thoughtful, before her eyes settle on you again, "D'you wanna come up with me?"

Frankly, Melanie is acting very suspiciously right now. You know for a fact that this isn't just her 'having' gotten Elias a coffee while she was out. But you don't quite know what she's actually up to, and you have a feeling that something is about to happen.

"Alright, I'll come with."

-

You're standing beside the door to Elias's office, falling just outside his line of sight. Melanie told you to wait out here as she delivered her 'coffee' but left the door ajar just so that the conversation inside can be easily overheard.

"-I assume you don't believe me, then? That murdering me would also kill you?"

You can only imagine what kind of look must be on Melanie's face, right about now, "I-I-I don't know what you're..."

Despite the topic of conversation, Elias sounds unnervingly calm. You're not even the one who’s tried to kill him and yet you still feel a twinge of annoyance, "Coffee is not as good for disguising tastes as you might think. And it's even worse at disguising texture. Dissolved pills always leave such a- hm- chalky residue."

Melanie bristles, "Look, Elias, I never-"

"I assume this is your first time attempting to poison someone." You silently shake your head. Poor Melanie, Elias doesn't even sound fazed, talking about an attempt on his life like he's just scolding her for coming into work late, "Do you actually know how many painkillers it takes to kill someone, or were you just hoping I'd take enough to get sick, and you could finish the job... manually?"

Melanie takes a deep breath, but even from here you can hear the fine tremor underneath it, "Why...? Why bother asking then? Why bother if you know everything?"

Elias chuckles, unperturbed, "I don't know everything, Melanie. Do you know how exhausting that would be?

"I'll tell you one thing I don't know," he continues, "and that's how to convince you that I'm trying to help. Honestly, you're one of the lucky ones. But not if we're all dead thanks to an... overzealous-" you wince, "-attempt at independence."

Melanie sounds like she's gearing up for a fight, like a toy with its key turned too many times, "I don't need you to-"

Elias interrupts, speaking with an infuriating condescendence, like he's just turning down Melanie's request for a promotion the third time this month, "Let's have no more clumsy assassination attempts, alright? And we'll say no more about it. Consider this your first warning." His voice swoops lower, quieter, dangerous, "Next time I shall have to escalate matters, and that won't be a pleasant process for anybody."

A pause for dramatics. "Understood?"

Melanie grits out her own assent, "Yes."

Melanie seems now to be a problem neatly taken care of and filed away, never to be considered again except maybe for his own occasional amusement. There's an audible smile in Elias's voice, "Good."

Next thing you know, Melanie storms out of the office and straight past you, looking too angry to have remembered that she left you standing there. You blankly watch her go, mind spinning in lazy circles while considering the conversation you overheard.

"Will you close the door before you leave, Alex?"

You don't bother to stop long enough in his office for a chat of your own.

-

It’s curious, really.

He said, 'I don't know everything. Do you know how exhausting that would be?'

He's some form of omniscient, that's for sure. Maybe like a maid working in a Victorian household, always on top of the gossip. Whether that be creating the gossip himself, or simply being the agent who spreads it, that depended on the time of day.

But he can't know everything, all the time. Because that would be too much.

Which means there are loopholes.

"Hey Rosie."

Little nosy Rosie looks up, smiling politely as you stop by to say hello. It's not a very comfortable smile, because anyone who's anyone knows to stay well away from the Archives and their staff. Not Rosie though, little Rosie has quite the fine palette for juicy bits of gossip, reason why she bothers talking to the lot of you, "Hello Alex. Everything well in the Archives?"

You wave your hand dismissively, "We're getting along, I suppose. Lot of excitement with all that murder business, you know how it is."

There's that gleam in her eyes now, that 'oh, what's this?' gleam of curiosity, "Not quite, no. Listen, did I hear it straight that Jon's back? Even after being accused of murder?”

You shift, getting yourself comfortable leaning against Rosie's desk, "Well, they dropped the charges, right? Turns out they had it all wrong, Jon wasn't the one who took a pipe to some old man's head. I mean, look at him? D'you think he'd do it?"

Rosie squirms under your gaze, looking distinctly guilty, "I suppose not. He's a bit of an arse sometimes but- maybe not murder."

"Oh, it's all right Rosie, if my body ever turns up dead you know where to look." You wink. Her lips quirk up in a smile. It's just a spot of joking you two are doing here, really. You turn your head then, just slightly, pretending to look around a bit when you spy a tea kettle boiling away in the corner. "Having a cuppa?"

"What?" She follows your gaze and startles, "Oh! No, no, that's for Mr. Bouchard. He takes his tea this time of day."

You make a low noise in the back of your throat, casually interested but not obviously, "That so. You deliver his tea all times of the day, then?"

Rosie gives you a bemused look, as if she suspects you're trying to turn your nose up on the fact that part of her job is to bring tea to her boss. "It's only twice a day. He's never broken from schedule, doesn't bother me for it otherwise."

You hum an empty agreement, "Seems like the kind of man to keep on schedule."

"I should get to that actually," She pushes away from her desk and starts to her feet, "The water's probably done."

"Yeah, alright." You push off of her desk, giving her nod as you wander over to the door of her office, "Nice chatting with you Rosie. You should come down to visit the Archives sometime."

The last thing you see is her indulgent smile, the kind you give someone when you're only putting up with them until they're gone. In this case specifically, it's a -I don’t want to get caught up in whatever goes down there in the Archives, no thank you- kind of smile.

Oh well. You got what you came for anyways.

It's rather easy after that.

A month of seeing neither hide nor hair of him, Jon comes back. He looks remarkably harried, and you don't think you'd have even noticed him coming into work had you not been in the reception area during that time. As such, you watch him rush straight past you and for the stairs, and you can make a guess for where he's headed with a single-minded focus like that. It seems like Elias has a lot to do with the nonsense that occurs down in the Archives, and people can't be happier having someone to blame.

You pop down in the Archives and tell Martin that Jon's back. He sighs in relief. Even before becoming scarce at his own workplace, it was always Martin that Jon kept the most contacts with, only to completely drop off the grid these last few weeks. Somewhere in the midst of your conversation Melanie comes marching in, a crazed look in her eye, and you know what she's planning too.

I mean, what better time than when the boss-bossman is distracted, eh?

An uncomfortable few seconds of watching Melanie stomp about before she leaves, the door closing behind her with a bang. Martin sighs tiredly and you know that he wishes she would just stop with all of this. These days, he’s more and more like a tired father of two toddler who has accepted his horrible lot in life, and yet still his children continue to insist on making it worse.

You give him a comforting little pat on the back. As far as you’re concerned, it's their loss if they insist on putting their heads in the lion's mouth.

Heading upstairs, you find Rosie's office empty. It must be if she’s settling the little dispute going on up in research. The kettle is however turned on, because Mr. Bouchard has always been a man of schedule.

It's easy, to slip in something into the water.

-

Elias can't know everything, all the time.

He knows he needs to keep an eye on his Archivist's development. The brunt of his gaze has always rested on Jon and it’s obvious that none of you Assistants can ever hope to stand in the same regard, not really.

Elias keeps an eye on Melanie. Melanie is unstable. She doesn't like her actions being controlled; she doesn't like being trapped here in this place. Never mind that she agreed to join the Institute on her own violation, it's her free will that matters to her now, or at least the illusion of it. Melanie is the kind of person who isn't afraid to fight for what she wants.

Elias keeps an eye on Tim too, though he pretends he doesn’t. It just makes sense. Tim is almost like Melanie, but he's been beaten down too much too soon, and won't take it out on Elias. His target is instead Jon, who seems to be at the center of most of his problems and is a much easiertarget. As long as that continues to be true, Tim is content on simply being indirectly snide towards Elias.

Elias doesn't really keep an eye on Martin. Oh, he knows that Martin is just as angry with him as any of others, but Martin has never been the kind of person to do anything about it.

Elias doesn't really keep an eye on you. You know what people think of you. That you're kind of an airhead. Always lost in your head, can't be bothered with the world outside it half the time. You're the kind of person that likes keeping their head down and quietly working away at your desk, and that hasn't much changed since... well, everything.

Nah. The murder thing isn't even on the top of your list. You'd just like some peace and quiet down here, for once. And, well, Elias seems to be the root of everyone's problems, including yours...

Still, there's no point in doing anything without at least enjoying the results. You researched extensively on what kind of poison to buy, taking into mind Elias’ oh-so-kind lecture to Melanie about picking your poison. It wouldn’t have done for him to taste something off about his tea the moment he took the first sip.

So, after exactly the time it would take for his tea to kick into effect, if you compensate for the time he would take to drink enough of it, you check in on Elias.

The first thing you see is the man collapsed onto his desk, eyes wide open and mouth frothing. The second you see is Jon, staring at the now dead body in front of him with surprise.

"Oh. It worked."

Jon's eyes snap toward you, "Wh- Alex? Did you do this?!"

You rub at your ears at the pitch of Jon's voice, an octave or two higher with hysteria, "I didn't know it'd work, you know?"

"You killed him!"

You shrug, slipping inside the room. "Sure." You can't be bothered to close the door behind you as cross over to the desk. Jon scampers out of his own seat, edging warily to the other side of the room. He can do whatever he wants as long as he doesn't call the cops immediately.

You check for a pulse on the body and find it missing.

From the furthest corner of the room, Jon stutters, "Y-you're insane."

You can't be bothered with an answer.

Fascinatingly enough though, Elias's eyes are still moving. They rove around wildly in his sockets, almost like they're the only way he can convey his surprise at being got. It's still unnatural though, and you have the strangest surety that it's an important detail.

Jon by this point has left the office, and you should really clean up here before someone comes in. Still, it almost feels like things aren't finished here. You have the strangest sense when it’s obvious that a story hasn't reached its conclusion.

You cast about the room and stop at the pen stand, holding fancy fountain pens that look like they cost more than your entire salary. You grab onto one, sliding the cap off by neatly jamming your thumb nail into the line where the cap meets the body of the pen, and look down contemplatively at the eyes that have stopped pinballing wildly, fixed on you. They almost look scared.

Well. This is going to get messy. At least you know that Melanie will be willing to help you clean up the body.

Tip of the pen poised; you get to work.

[haberdashing]

second skin

the tale of jonathan sims, selkie.

on ao3

jonathan sims’ first memories are of living by the sea that he loved with a woman who feared it.

he longed to spend every second he could in the water. jon would race home after school every day and grab his skin and race back off to the beach, not listening to his grandmother’s shouts for him to stop. the water was always cool and sweet and right as it pressed against his skin.

he couldn’t understand, at the time, why she was always so worried about him.

threats didn’t stop him. the police having to intervene in his journeys towards the beach didn’t stop him. the water was his home as much as the air, and he didn’t care what he had to do to reach it, or who didn’t care for his actions along the way.

what finally stopped him from making those frequent treks to the beach was when his grandmother took his skin when he was at school and hid it away, saying that she would only give it back to him when she felt he was responsible enough to handle it.

the two never spoke of the matter again.

.

going to oxford for uni was... an experience. jon had never spent so much time inland before, had never lived somewhere that didn’t smell strongly of sea salt. it was disorientating, even more than going from bournemouth to oxford normally would be, and jon flailed a little at first--not in his classes, which he always aced, but in everything else.

and then he found his path, found his people, even found a girlfriend for some time. he started his studies of the paranormal and supernatural in earnest, though he never dared tell anyone why he was so interested in the topic.

(one night georgie happened to be writing a paper on selkie lore while jon was there, and somehow things devolved into her grabbing a fur coat from her closet and making jokes about jon stealing “her coat” from her.

jon bit his tongue until it bled to stop himself from shooting back that she wasn’t the one who had to worry about such things.)

.

jon’s grandmother passed away not long after his graduation from uni when he was living in london, still struggling to find his place in the world.

he’d almost forgotten that she had his skin until he stumbled upon it again.

it wasn’t anywhere too special, wasn’t locked up tightly. it was just in a dusty cardboard box underneath her bed, one of many.

jon almost didn’t recognize it at first. he thought it’d be smaller. it had been smaller when he’d lost it, after all. it must have kept growing as he did.

(some small distant part of jon’s brain wondered about the mechanics of a skin growing while unattached to the person it belonged to, the science behind it all, but it wasn’t as if he could go back in time and do experiments to prove any hypothesis he might develop.)

but he knew it by sight, and though it’d been over a decade since he’d last worn it now putting it on was like a reflex, a motion as practiced as if he’d done it daily all his life.

only after he put it on did jon remember why his grandmother had hidden it from him in the first place, realize the implications of it still being tucked away in this dusty old box.

maybe she didn’t understand. she wasn’t born to the water like he was, after all. she didn’t know what it was like, didn’t know how much of a part of him it was.

or maybe she understood well enough, and to her dying day, she still didn’t want him to have his own skin. maybe she didn’t believe that jon had matured enough to handle the responsibility of it, even after all this time.

he’d never get to ask her about it.

the skin was soft and warm, but as jon sat there in that gloomy old house, he still felt chilled to the bone.

.

when jon joined the magnus institute as a researcher, the first thing he was assigned to look into involved the history of the selkie-hunting field, especially as it related to a recent case involving two especially bold and bloody selkie hunters.

jon had avoided looking into the topic too closely before then. he knew his heritage came with risks as well as rewards, he wasn’t that naive, but he’d never wanted to face those risks head-on, never wanted to look into the details, had worried that doing so might well be enough to attract unwanted attention.

but it was his job now to read case after case about selkies being abused, being killed, being sold as slaves or spouses or pets... and the people who said that their pain didn’t count, didn’t matter, because after all, it’s not like they were human...

after the first day of this research, jon went out and bought a large safe, stuffed his skin inside of it, locked it up, and vowed never to mention the matter to anybody again unless absolutely necessary.

(it wasn’t until long after that first research session that jon first suspected that elias hadn’t assigned him that particular case by mere coincidence.)

.

jon knew the supernatural existed, of course. hell, jon was supernatural himself, despite all outward appearances to the contrary.

that didn’t make the sinking feeling that he was being watched every time he read a statement in his new position as head archivist any easier to stomach.

just because he knew some magic didn’t mean he knew this magic. he didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what it meant, and he didn’t like it, didn’t trust it.

it felt like the safest thing was to deny it all, play the skeptic. nobody’d suspect his own supernatural secret if he refused to admit that the supernatural was real, after all, right?

(for better or for worse, prentiss at least didn’t seem to discriminate...)

.

learning that gertrude had been murdered brought back memories of those early research sessions for the institute, except that jon knew this time there was a different motivation behind someone wanting to kill him. presumably, anyway.

it was kind of sad that jon could think of at least two different reasons someone might want to kill him now. he hadn’t even done anything to warrant what felt like a certain and looming execution. he was at risk simply because he existed.

jon investigated his coworkers’ secrets over the months that followed, but didn’t dare trust any of them with his own.

one target on his back was enough already.

(as jon found out the details of the true threat to his existence, as he hid in the tunnels under the institute from the thing that was not sasha, he wondered if, when it replaced him--and it seemed inevitable, at this point, seemed like a “when” rather than an “if”--if it would know the secret he’d hidden so well, or if his imposter would appear perfectly, blandly human, with nothing of value left hidden away in that safe in his flat.)

.

jon didn’t have much time to grab his things before heading to georgie’s, but he still made sure to bring his skin with him. he couldn’t risk someone else getting a hold of it or risk the safe being thrown away when he went on the run, ending up in a landfill far away with none aware of the precious cargo still hidden within.

naturally, when jon arrived at georgie’s door, halfway into a breakdown and carrying what appeared to be a thick fur coat in his arms, one of the first things she said to him was an offer to take his skin off his hands and put it away for him.

jon wasn’t sure of the exact expression he made upon hearing that offer, but based on the look on georgie’s face, it must have been quite the sight.

he stammered his way through his refusal, saying that it was a family heirloom, precious and fragile, and it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, obviously he did, but he still preferred to handle it himself... and none of it was a lie, exactly--and perhaps that was what led georgie to back down, as she knew his tells well enough, knew that he wasn’t lying to her face--but he certainly wasn’t divulging the full truth, either.

jon caught georgie looking curiously at the skin a few times, but she never voiced the many questions she must have had about it, never said a word about it after that first night, and for that jon was certainly grateful.

.

the worst part about being kidnapped by the circus-

no, that wasn’t right. there were a lot of horrible parts about being kidnapped by the circus, and jon wasn’t sure which, if any, could truly take the title of “worst.” there were plenty of contenders for the title.

but one of the terrible parts about being kidnapped by the circus, at any rate, was that of all the places they could have taken him, they’d chosen to keep him by the sea.

he could smell the sea salt in the air, could feel the cool ocean breeze against his face. he was so close to the sea, the closest he’d been in years now... while bound to a chair, unable to approach the water he could sense was just a few short blocks away from him.

he could feel the sea calling to him, but he couldn’t answer its call, no matter how much he wanted to do so.

(jon wondered what the living mannequins that tended to him would do if, when they were in the middle of so painstakingly moisturizing his skin for nikola’s future use, he pointed out that that wasn’t even his real skin they were working on, that his true skin was safely locked up some distance away.

jon decided against finding out the hard way.)

.

jon told the archives staff, after he... got back, that he’d been held somewhere close to the sea.

martin asked how he could be so sure, and jon sputtered a bit before saying that he could smell the sea from where he’d been held.

it wasn’t a lie.

but apparently when most of them returned to the wax museum, ready to put a stop to the unknowing one way or another, none of the rest of them could smell it from that distance, even though the sea was right there, right there, how could they not-

none of them pressed the issue. they had enough to worry about already.

.

when jon returned to the institute, after waking up from his coma (after escaping death), he had assumed that his skin was long gone at this point, that his fears about leaving it in his place to be discarded or picked over by others had been assumed after all, that he would never see it again.

and then, in an unassuming plastic bag containing an assortment of his things that was all he had left to his name now, he found it, buried under an old band shirt and a few sets of underwear.

he knew what it was at a glance, of course, and he had to suppress his reflexive gasp, had to suppress his initial instinct to throw it on immediately. melanie and basira already thought he was a monster; jon had no interest in turning into a seal within sight of them and proving them both right.

but jon pressed his hands into the thick, soft fur, and for the briefest of moments, despite everything, the world felt right again.

.

jon wondered, briefly, if he really needed to remove a part of his body to serve as an anchor, if he really needed the boneturner’s assistance on the matter.

after all, his skin was already separate, already removed, already waiting for him in the archives.

but was that enough? he’d gone over a decade without it before, after all, and it hadn’t magically called him back or anything like that. he’d only stumbled onto it again by mere happenstance.

no, better to be sure, better to leave behind something that was always meant to be attached to him...

his rib would do the trick quite nicely.

.

when jon heard that there was a way to quit the institute, a way to leave behind the beholding, he grabbed his skin and brought it with him as he rushed to discuss the matter with martin.

they could leave, they could be free, they could be together; blindness was a small price to pay for that, wasn’t it? all martin needed to do was take his hand, take his skin... take it, martin, take it-

martin refused to take jon’s skin from him.

as jon cried afterwards, his tears tasted a bit like sea water.

.

the lonely was a poor imitation of a beach, really.

maybe if things had been different jon wouldn’t have noticed, but he knew beaches, knew the sea, and it didn’t make his eyes sting like this, wasn’t this quiet and empty and desolate.

it still called to him a little, but the call was not that of the ocean, but that of another part of himself, the part that didn’t dare connect with people, didn’t dare share the truth of his life with them.

jon ignored the call. he had a greater duty here.

besides, seeing martin’s face light up was more beautiful than the sea could ever be.

.

daisy’s safehouse was only a few short miles from the sea, though martin swore he couldn’t smell it, wouldn’t know how close it was if he hadn’t seen it on the drive there.

jon had his skin with him, of course, and part of him longed to retreat into the sea. the magic of the ocean was different than that which surrounded him now, and perhaps if he threw on his skin and launched himself into the depths, the beholding wouldn’t be able to reach him.

but then, martin wouldn’t be able to reach him, either.

martin was still human. jon was a monster in more ways than one these days, but martin was still human, and if jon went into the sea, martin couldn’t follow.

so he contented himself with seaside outings, dashing into the sea with his skin on like he was a child again, but this time the human onlooker by his side would laugh and join right in. martin loved him in both forms, and he loved martin, and that mattered more than giving in to the ocean’s call any day.

.

at least when the world got turned upside down, nobody cared what form jon took anymore. nobody cared if he was man or seal or both or something else entirely. nobody cared what kind of monster he was now.

the world had bigger problems to deal with these days.

[nanoland]

title: Compass Rose 

series: Lucifer (TV) 

pairings: Mazikeen/Eve

summary: In which Mazikeen exercises her renowned patience. 

warnings: Lucifer is kind of a dick in this. Not intentionally; he’s just young and colossally self-centered. 

 Also on Ao3! 

0 

“You. Demon. What’s your name?” asks the Morningstar, looking bored and depressed, as usual.

She straightens up, brimming with nerves and excitement, feeling her acidic blood bubble happily because he’s so handsome! And he’s talking to her! Her siblings will shriek with jealousy when they hear of this. “Mazikeen, my liege.”

“Mazikeen,” he repeats, mispronouncing it. “Great. Maze, do something about… all that, would you? It’s dreadfully grating.”

He gestures to the sea of damned, miserable human souls milling around the base of his throne, calling up to him for help or mercy.

“Yes, my liege,” she says, her bright mind already hard at work planning the next few millennia of punishment.

 0 

“Maze, is there a letter from Amenadiel?”

Mazikeen is now four hundred years old and in all that time, not a single letter has arrived in Hell, from Amenadiel or anyone else. Regardless, her handsome king asks every week.

It’s fine. She’s far too mature and cunning to feel even the slightest scrap of envy towards some pompous old angel she’s never even met, regardless of how obviously Lucifer loves him.

Regardless of how obvious it is that he loves no one in Hell half as much.

“No, my liege.”

“Hmm. Fine. Whatever. Fuck him, then. Brothers – who needs ‘em?”

She nods. She herself has many, many brothers, and sisters, and siblings who are neither or both, and she certainly doesn’t need them.

(Sometimes she longs for them, especially when she’s weary from the years and years dedicated to building and securing Lucifer’s kingdom, but she never needs. Needing is for the weak.)

It occurs to her that that king might be cheered by stories of Tradiusis, her most treasured and most useless brother, who is prone to chatting with the damned and asking them about all the silly human indulgences they enjoyed in life, like movies and theme parks and hot dogs. Fool that he is, the mere thought of him always brings a smile to her face.

But she decides against it, suspecting that if she were to begin telling Lucifer about her family, he’d get that same dull, faintly irritated expression she sees every time she reads him a report about the number of new arrivals and how various parts of Hell will need to be restructured to accommodate them all.

(She wonders what will happen when Hell is full – does he have a plan? Is she expected to have a plan?)

(How long, exactly, are they supposed to keep doing this?)

(Surely this can’t be all they were made for?)  

 0  

“Maze, get me a drink, would you?”

Mazikeen is Lucifer’s right hand, his bodyguard, the highest-ranked demon in Hell, named the Lady of Pain, the Whirlwind, and the Blood Dancer by her peers and underlings.

Pouring drinks is… new to her.

But this is what he wants; this club, this loud music, these inebriated humans constantly demanding attention and entertainment, constantly needing to be managed. And he’s her king.

She pours him his drink and listens to him play the piano, until some wretch attempts to grope her and loses two fingers.

 0 

Running a nightclub is, it turns out, complicated.

There are all sorts of rules and regulations regarding what can and cannot be done inside it.

At one point, Lucifer decides it would be fun to have white tigers roaming the dance floor. After a few days spent looking into that option, she has to explain that they may to have settle for waitresses dressed as tigers. He pouts like it’s her fault and goes back to the piano.

She’s also not allowed to kill anyone, which is, honestly, ridiculous. Mazikeen is an ancient being, a warrior nigh unparalleled, with centuries of experience contending with the worst the human race has to offer, and every single night she endures treatment from at least one of Lucifer’s guests that, even to her vast, reasonable, and patient mind, clearly warrants swift annihilation.

If murder is, indeed, illegal, how do all the mortal women in this city who serve drinks cope?

“You block it out, I guess,” says Suzy, a waitress with thick red hair and tired eyes, after Mazikeen has had to save her yet again from a patron with wandering hands (and now broken hands). “You know, just… don’t let it get to you. Grow a thick skin.”

Mazikeen considers the half of her body that has no skin whatsoever and snickers inappropriately. Then she gifts Suzy one of her knives.

 0 

Chloe gasps. “Maze! No! Absolutely not!”

“Why?” she asks, annoyed but also genuinely curious.

“I can’t just torture a suspect to get information, Maze. It’s wrong.”

Mazikeen considers saying: You already torture people. You lock them up in tiny boxes until their minds break and their lives are utterly ruined. How is that different? I don’t understand.

Mazikeen considers saying: You let Lucifer violate peoples’ innermost selves to obtain information. How is that better? I don’t understand.

Mazikeen considers saying: I don’t want to be good. I don’t care about being good. So why do I seem to put so much more thought into how to be good than you do? I don’t understand, I don’t, I don’t.

Instead, Mazikeen rolls her eyes and says nothing.

 0 

“Maze! No! What were you thinking?” cries Linda, rushing over to the cradle. “You can’t give that to a baby!”

She snatches away Mazikeen’s present; a blade, small and silver, just right for tiny hands, the same blade Mazikeen herself received from her favourite sister on her fourth birthday. It has tasted the blood of over a hundred enemies.

Charlie starts to cry and Linda puts the blade aside so she can pick him up and comfort him.

“Children need to be able to protect themselves,” Mazikeen insists.

“No, Maze. Children need to be protected.”

“No one protected me.”

Linda doesn’t say: Exactly. Why would I want my son to be anything like you?

Because Linda is kind.

But Mazikeen is perceptive and she sees it in her friend’s eyes all the same.

 0 

“So then, then it turns out that Jon Snow is actually Daenarys Targaryen’s cousin, right, which makes him – oh no! – a rival contender for the Iron Throne, and…”

“Ugh,” Mazikeen groans, cutting Ella off. “I thought this was a show about dragons! Why does it waste so much time on people either fucking or killing their relatives?”

She laughs at Mazikeen’s exaggerated annoyance. “It’s not just about dragons. There’s a lot of stuff about politics and war and, yeah, fucked-up family dynamics. Honestly, that’s one of the reasons it grips me so much. My own family’s always got a ton of drama going on, too. I mean – no incest. Not that I’m aware of. But you know all about my brothers.”

Mazikeen is about to ask what the dragons look like – whether the show’s version bears any resemblance to the beasts she’s ridden into battle – when Ella tilts her head sideways and squints at her. “Huh. Now that I think about it… I’ve told you all about my brothers but I’ve never asked anything about your family. That was shitty of me! Can I ask now? Or is it, like, one of those things you don’t talk about? Like where you’re from and how you met Lucifer?”

Fiddling with a lock of her hair �� it’s straight and black today – Mazikeen says, “I don’t mind talking about it. Just… most people don’t care.”

Ella frowns, briefly (cutely, curse her). “Well, I wanna know! You got any brothers?”

“Yeah.”

“How many?”

“A lot. I’m not actually sure exactly how many there are now.”

“Oh, right. Gotcha. Are you close to any of them?”

“Not these days. But when we were young, we were pretty tight-knit. Didn’t really have anyone besides each other.”

Ella asks her more questions and though she has to keep her answers extremely vague, Mazikeen finds that she likes talking about her home and her childhood. Prolonged exposure to the human world has begun to make her feel insubstantial; a tool, a disguise, a thing without roots or history. Lucifer’s been no help with that, for he’s only ever known her as his servant (and, sometimes, when he’s in a good mood, his friend, by virtue of the fact that friendship with someone who works for you – who can do nothing but work for you – requires no tedious emotional labour whatsoever).

It’s nice to remember that she has, in fact, been other things. That she could, perhaps, be other things in the future.

 0 

“So,” Dan slurs, hunched over his beer. “You got whores… hordes… horns? Thought demons had horns.”

She’s busy applying a fresh coat of candy-pink lipstick to match her powder-blue bob. “Some do. I don’t.”

“Well, that sucks. That’s not fair! You deserve horns. You’re cool, Maze.”

Because that provokes a twinge of genuine affection, she says, “Wanna see what I have got?”

“Hell, yeah!”

He grins drunkenly.

“You need to promise not to scream.”

“Oh – oh, man, is it scary? Is it gross?”

She shows him her true face.

After a moment of owlish blinking, he shrugs and returns to his beer. “Eh. S’not that gross. Lucifer’s grosser. Wanna play pool?”

 0 

Amenadiel presents her with a beautiful black sheath. “I crafted it from my own feathers. It will keep the blade contained until he’s old enough to wield it safely.”

She slides Charlie’s knife into it. “Someone will need to teach him.”

“Who taught you?”

“Me? No one. They just threw us at one another and clapped for whoever survived. But… well. He’s not like me, is he?”

The angel places the sheathed blade down beside Charlie’s stuffed rabbit and plastic truck. “Maybe not now. With any luck, that will change.”

 0 

“Ma-aaze,” Lucifer groans, flopping back in his armchair with his long legs artfully folded and his hand over his eyes. “I’ve had such a tiresome morning. Pour me a drink, would you?”

“Pour it your damn self,” she suggests, standing on his penthouse’s balcony and admiring the view. His throne in Hell was about as tall as this building. From up here, all the little people down below look exactly the same.

He pouts and fetches a glass – and, to her surprise, one for her as well.

 0 

Mazikeen brings an abrupt, efficient end to the bar fight by slamming her palm into an assailant’s solar plexus.

He drops like a ton of bricks, joining the pile of groaning men, broken furniture, and smashed bottles. (Shit; it’s going to take ages to clean all this up. If Lucifer didn’t have infinite money, Lux would have gone bankrupt eight times by now.)

She turns to see Eve staring at her, beautiful mouth hanging open, and braces herself for the “Maze! No!”.

“That was so cool,” Eve breathes, and rushes over to leap into Mazikeen’s arms, only to draw back at the last second. “Oh no! You’re hurt!”

There is, indeed, a small cut on Mazikeen’s left hand.

“Don’t care, doesn’t matter,” says Mazikeen, reaching for her, wanting badly to be kissed.

But Eve drags her into a quiet back room where she applies disinfectant and bandaids with cartoon cats on them.

“I really wanna learn how you did that thing with your elbow,” she chatters, wiping away a few spots of blood with a white handkerchief. “The way his nose just went crunch! – man, it was fantastic.”

“I can teach you. If you like.”

Eve’s dark eyes are fond. “You’re always offering to do something for me – to teach me how to fight, or to carry something, or to protect me. It’s… like, I love it. But you know you don’t have to, right?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“I wanna do stuff for you sometimes. Oh! That reminds me. Lucifer was going to take Chloe to a wrestling match but then they had another fight and he’s back to being sad, sooo I stole the tickets out of his jacket. Wanna go?”

“I love you,” says Mazikeen, even though she’s said it five times today. She likes the way it sounds in her mouth. She likes the way it makes Eve’s whole face sparkle.

“I love you too, babe.”

[that-one-girl-behind-you]

Illicio 10/?

Part 9

Bit of a content warning for the first section because Martin's Lonely thoughts are starting to feel a little like suicidal ideation, just in case.

"What part of 'don't antagonize Martin' translated into 'go and lie to his landlady to break into his house' to you?" Jon asks that evening. The bus is nearly empty, and Gerry's arm is a comforting weight across his shoulders, a nice contrast against the hard plastic seat.

"I knew he'd tattle," Gerry rolls his eyes. "Go figure, pull a guy out of the Lonely with a nice cup of tea and some good conversation, and the first thing he does is go tell on you with his crush. 

Martin bundles himself a little tighter in his coat, as he waits for the kettle to boil. The worst thing about the Lonely is definitely the bone-deep chill that follows wherever you go, no matter how many layers you wear, or how high you crank up the heater. The cold is inside you, and Martin is starting to run out of ways to chase it out.

The kitchenette attached to Peter's office is smaller than the one at the Archives' break room, but also much better equipped; it has a high end coffeemaker and all sorts of coffee and tea sorted in delicately crafted tins. Martin has the thought that he would've been excited to try them all before, but now he just cracks the tin open and pulls out a bag at random. This is just... something else he's supposed to do, like eating, like breathing. It doesn't matter that they don't bring any satisfaction, because nothing really does anymore, when he's like this.

He goes to pour the hot water into a single mug, and drops the bag inside, watching it sink and bob with a curious sense of detachment. It smells like nothing, and it tastes like nothing when he takes a sip. His hands barely even register the warmth of the cup, and Martin places it back at the countertop. He'd expected it would make him feel something, but there goes that hope.

The only spark of emotion comes when he finally listens to the prickle of unease in his chest, and goes to close the small room's exit where it connects with Peter's office. Standing alone behind two locked doors, he almost feels at ease. Nobody can find him here- or they wouldn't, if anyone was looking for him of course. Jon hasn't come to him since the last time they met before the coffin, and Gerard seems to have a supernatural sense to know when Martin just finished an Extinction statement to come pester it out of him.

It's a bit pathetic, that Jon's- that Gerard is the only one who seeks him out, and even then it's only out of necessity. The Lonely likes it, and it likes even more that Martin doesn't feel any special way about it.

Outside, someone walks past the door to Peter's office, and Martin's stomach clenches. The room around him loses a little more color. Maybe… maybe he'll go home early today. Peter won't care; he would probably encourage it, now that Martin thinks about it. Just... it'll be easier there. More quiet. Calmer.

Martin leans his head back, and the room around him begins to dissolve.

--------------------------------------

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Gerry asks with a smile, and Melanie nods, entranced.

"We should find another," she declares. The Flesh book -aptly titled just 'Guts'- burns nicely in a metallic garbage bin between the two of them.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you." Gerry snorts. "I've been hearing some rumours about the Desolation. Some weird fires around the city; might be worth taking a look at."

Melanie squirts some more lighter fluid onto the book, delighting when the fire roars and flares up.

"How is it different?" she asks, the question popping suddenly into her mind.

"Sorry?" Gerry arches an eyebrow.

"I know the Desolation is destruction, and Slaughter is violence." It's odd, to talk so freely about the entity that would've claimed her soul; like mentioning someone you knew in passing, one of those who were impossibly important once, but now are just a memory you're not sure how you feel about. "But I wanted to destroy too, when I was- you know."

"I know." Gerry lets out a careful huff, running a hand through his hair. "They tend to bleed into each other, some more than others. Some care about the end result only, like the Desolation, some care about the process, like the Slaughter or the Hunt. Smirke had a good idea with the list, but sometimes I think he oversimplified."

"So what's your take on it?"

"Colors," Gerry shrugs, then adds with a small smile, "if colors hated you."

Melanie has no idea what that's supposed to mean, but his tone makes it fairly clear that it's got something to do with Jon, and she rolls her eyes. Ridiculous, but apparently something she'll have to get used to, considering the sneak peeks she's gotten through the Institute's windows in the past week.

"How's Georgie?" Gerry asks after a moment, once the flames have started dying down. "You've been going out more lately, right?"

"Yes. I'm-" Melanie feels her body tense, and takes a deep breath, until it relaxes again. This- she can tell Gerry this. It's not a big deal. They're- they might be friends, now. "She takes me to therapy. I've been feeling- I added an extra day. I feel like it's working."

Gerry gives her a quick look and a quicker smile, before focusing on the remnants of the burning book again. "That's good. I tried therapy once, but it turns out there is just no way to work 'my mother accidentally framed me for her gruesome murder and then came back to life and continued to stalk me until I handed her over to an old woman to be destroyed' into a credible lie. Not that you would know the difference, of course," he adds with a wink over his shoulder.

"I'll have you know my therapist doesn't suspect a thing, so I'm clearly not as bad of a liar as you think." Melanie rolls her eyes, smiling. There's a certain giddiness to her chest, a kind of light-heartedness she'd almost forgotten.

"Mmmm nah, you're very bad." Gerry reaches a hand towards her, and she passes him the bottle of lighter fluid. He squirts the rest of it in the trash can, unflinching when the flames roar up again, before he turns back to look at Melanie. "But I'm glad it's helping. I'm guessing the after-session dates with your girlfriend are nothing to scoff at either, are they?"

"They help," Melanie's smile turns a little smug. It may be sappy, but she's allowed a bit of happiness, thank you very much.

"I can imagine," Gerry rests his closed fist against her shoulder and gives her a little shove. Melanie kicks at his boot, rolling her eyes.

This is... comfortable. Life is far from perfect, and the number of things that make Melanie happy are still in the single digits but this- this might be one of them.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you something..." Melanie starts after the fire has died down again and the relaxed silence has stretched for a few minutes, making her voice as casual as possible. "Remember when you told us that you fed on Jon's voice? Recharging a battery, kind of?"

"I... do?" Gerry looks down at her with an arched eyebrow.

"Okay. And remember that other time you told me there was nothing going on with Jon, but you let me believe that so I didn't find out you were leeching on him to survive?"

"Ah." Gerry averts his eyes, and the line of his shoulders stiffens. Melanie frowns, puzzled; it's been a while since she's had any friends to joke with, but this is most definitely not the mood she was trying to set up. "I didn't want any trouble, Melanie. You and Basira were very on board with killing me that first day because you thought I wasn't human, and I was just- well, I knew if you got actual confirmation of that, then-"

"Oh- oh no, that's not what I'm talking about," Melanie shakes her head, rolling her eyes. "I get why you did that. You were right, too, I would've killed you," she shrugs.

Gerry turns to look at her again, amused and confused in equal measure. "Okay? So what's this about then?"

"I just wanted to ask," Melanie struggles a little to keep her face blank now that she's put them back on track. "Do you also feed on holding hands with Jon, or is that just so he doesn't get lost into another entity when you're on your way from the bus stop?"

Gerry freezes when her words register in his mind, his face a carefully blank mask whose only emotion lies in the slight panic brewing behind his eyes.

"I-"

"Yes?" Melanie lifts her eyebrows, nodding along with pursed lips. The flush starting to darken his cheekbones is fascinating to watch, a much deeper hue than would correspond to his skin tone, probably on account of the ink that runs through his veins.

"Have you been- listen, we have- the fires." Gerry turns abruptly to start walking away from the smoldering can, and Melanie smirks. "We should look into it, could be a new avatar."

"Mhm. Alright. Just a little question I had, don't let it keep you up at night." Melanie follows, not even angry that she has to trot to keep up with him.

"I won't."

"Good, good."

--------------------------------------------

"You're far too early. Nothing to find today?" Jon looks up when the door to his office is pushed open, a smile already on his lips. Gerry shrugs, taking his jacket off. Jon's gaze trails over the burn-smooth skin of Gerry's arms, the tattooed eyes at his elbows seeming to almost look at him when Gerry's muscles contract and stretch as he moves to hang the jacket by Jon's coat.

"Hello there?" Gerry asks, and Jon's eyes snap up his face. He's got an amused smile and a raised eyebrow, and Jon whips his burning face back down to his statement. "Melanie's busy today, so I did some recon by myself, but there's nothing tangible asides from Rayner's freaks."

"This is- yes, alright." He's not terribly worried about the Church of the Divine Host, he thinks, his fist clenching tightly around the pen he's using to make annotations on the statement; they cannot come into his Archives, because they won't risk being Seen. It still irks him that they dare come this close to the Institute, like a taunt to-

"What are you working on?" Gerry's long, black hair curtains down by the side of Jon's face, and all thoughts of Seeing the Darkness into oblivion evaporate from his mind.

"I just- I'm going over old statements," Jon clears his throat. "I'm trying to find anything that feels like the Extinction."

"I see... Found anything yet?" Gerry leans closer to look at the paper on the desk, and Jon freezes at the warmth at his back.

"I don't-" this is where Jon admits he hasn't been able to focus for the past three hours, isn't it? "Martin left early yesterday. And he didn't come to work today."

"Ah," Gerry sighs, before retreating to go sit across the desk. His eyes are soft and sympathetic, because it's just Jon's luck to be surrounded by good, caring people that he doesn't deserve. "How did you-"

"I just Knew it. I think- I think it was too much today." Jon averts his gaze again; Gerry's gentle concern is too much to deal with, what with everything that's been tumbling around in his head. "Which is why I'm looking into this, but the Watcher doesn't seem to be too interested in the new competitor." Jon scowls down at his desk. No helpful tidbits from the Eye either when picking out statements to revisit, or when going over things he already knew.

"Hey." Gerry slides a warm, heavy hand on top of Jon's, and Jon, because he's a selfish coward, doesn't move away. "You're doing what you can. We all are, Martin too."

Jon nods slowly, after a moment. Martin is- Martin knows what he's doing. He's far from stupid or weak, Jon knows that now. Even though he's still human, Martin moves through this world of fears with a sense of cunning and determination that Jon couldn't even begin to emulate, despite being a key player himself.

"I must admit, I... it's nice that you have changed your mind about him." Gerry hasn't told him what brought on the change, but Jon finds that he doesn't care. It's just one less thing to be worried about.

Gerry shrugs, giving his hand a squeeze. "Turns out we have a few things in common."

"You do." Jon nods; that much has been clear to him for a while. A fatal flaw that bears his name and his face.

Gerry's gaze is heavy on him, far from the usual playfulness in their interactions, and Jon feels his heartbeat start racing.

"Jon, we-"

"Jon?" the door opens again, and Daisy pokes her head through. "Oh. Sorry."

"No, it's- do you need anything, Daisy?" Jon asks, extricating his hand from Gerry's in the softest movement he can manage.

"I can come back later," Daisy shrugs.

"Actually, let's trade." Gerry pushes off his chair, and onto his feet. "You stay here. I'll see you when it's time to go home." He doesn't seek Jon's eyes when he says this, moving instead to grab his jacket and shove his arms through the sleeves.

"Careful," Jon mutters quietly.

Gerry stops at the door, his shoulders dropping in what might be a sigh, and he turns to look at him over his shoulder, his eyes softening just the slightest amount. "...Yeah. Yeah, you too."

And he's gone.

Daisy comes in once the sound of Gerry's boots stomping against the Institute's polished floors fades from earshot. "That was very dramatic."

Jon crosses his arms over his chest. "No, it wasn't."

Daisy rolls her eyes. "You're making this too big of a deal, just like the monster thing."

"I- excuse me?" Jon's face goes slack in disbelief, but Daisy merely leans a hip against his desk, looking down at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Poor, poor Jon, with these two men who lo-"

"Daisy! We don't- there's no-" Jon sputters, as it becomes increasingly clear he doesn't have anything to say, and just wanted to stop her from finishing the thought. "What did you need?"

Daisy shrugs. "Basira went to see Elias, and Melanie's out too."

"I see..." Jon sighs; the only reasons he's able to brave being alone are both the fact that recording statements keeps the walls from closing in, and the terrifying knowledge that Gerry would stay in the office just to keep him company if he asked. "Well I- it's good that you came. I need your opinion on something."

As soon as it becomes clear that she's wanted here, Daisy's entire body relaxes; Jon smiles to himself as she goes to take the seat Gerry left. Daisy deserves some kindness, she's just... another victim. He's the only one who chose this.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Did yo- have you seen Martin lately?" Jon reaches into a desk drawer for a tape recorder that wasn't there a minute ago. This one, he Knows, will contain Martin's recording on the Extinction.

"Not really. Where is he?" Daisy frowns.

Jon's eyes fall to the recorder in his hand. He doesn't know if he feels guiltier for Knowing about Martin, or for not going to him after what he found out.

"Taking a break from all of this, hopefully."

----------------------------------------

"-tin Blackwood? Yes, he lives here. We haven't seen him in a few weeks, though." The woman's eyes narrow in suspicion. "Did he die?"

Gerry snorts. God forbid landlords have any tact. He thinks back at one of the many things he learned about Martin while trying to Know the address to his flat.

"No, he's fine. But he had to go out of town for a while, because his mother passed away." He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to look solemn. "I'm going to go stay with him for a few days, but he wanted me to pick up his phone and some other things for him."

"I see... and who are you again?" The woman asks; the mistrust is a fair response, honestly, considering what Gerry's here to do.

"Well, you know..." he gives her a little smile and a non-committal gesture, pointing at himself and an imaginary Martin by his side. Whatever, it worked with Melanie and Basira, it'll fool a random landlady.

"Ah. Huh." The woman runs her eyes over him, evaluating him under the light of the new revelation; Gerry probably -hopefully- doesn't look anything like a self deprecating mop that specializes in giving off mixed signals and avoiding necessary conversations, but this woman clearly doesn't know Martin enough to know his tastes, because she just shrugs. "Then don't you have a key already?"

"Oh yes, I have one,' Gerry hurries to say. "He just wanted me to tell you that he's, you know, coming back and-" and here he crosses a leg over the other, bringing a knee up against the desk with enough force that the landlady's mug topples over the edge and spills its contents on her lap. "Oh shit, I'm sorry! Did you-"

"I'm alright," the woman says through gritted teeth, her skirt dripping lukewarm coffee on the carpeted floor when she climbs to her feet.

"I'm really sorry," Gerry apologizes again, but the woman is already heading towards the door without sparing him a glance. Good.

He Knows she keeps the spare keys in the bottom left drawer of the desk, and it only takes him a couple seconds lto find the one labeled with the number to Martin's flat, before unhooking it from the ring and pushing the drawer closed again.

By the time the woman comes back, patting at her damp lap with a towel, Gerry's already sitting back on his chair, sporting his best apprehensive look. "Did you need anything else?" she snaps.

"No, I'm just-"

"Sorry, yes. Thank you, could you leave?" the landlady's lips are pursed into a tense line. "I need to change."

"Yes! Sorry, I'll just-" he hops to his feet, crossing the office hurriedly. "Sorry!" Gerry apologises again before she closes the office door in his face, and he smiles. That's one less thing to worry about.

Martin's door opens easily enough with the key, and fog spills out like some sort of cheap haunted house trick. Not great, Gerry decides. The interior is freezing cold, and he bundles a bit tighter in his jacket, before closing the door behind him. There's a picture of a woman on a small table by the door, right behind the key bowl, and Gerry remembers the tape he listened to, with Elias' cruel, mocking voice and Martin's pained, choked back sobs.

It's a little selfish, but it's nice to know that Gerry's not the only one who can't bring himself to get rid of the memory of a mother who never loved him.

"Martin?" he calls out, bundling himself tighter in his clothes. "Are you-"

"What are you doing in my flat?!" Martin says by his side, where Gerry's pretty sure he wasn't a second ago. "How did you get in here?"

"It was open," Gerry shrugs. Martin looks... gray. His eyes, his hair, even his skin seems desaturated, blending in against the muted hues of his lightless flat.

"No it wasn't." Martin says firmly, and a bit of green starts seeping back into his eyes. Gerry lets out a relieved exhale. He's not too far gone, yet. "In fact, I made sure it was locked, because I've been being stalked lately."

"That sounds terrible," Gerry says, and because it seems like Martin is gaining more and more color the more exasperated he grows, he walks past him into what turns out to be the kitchen. "Want me to beat them up for you? I'll do it, just point me at 'em. Do you have coffee here? I'm not much for tea."

"I don't- why are you here?!" Martin sputters angrily, closing the cupboard doors Gerry purposefully leaves open as he moves down the room. "I'm not exactly going to record Extinction statements at home!"

"Well, I'm not here for that." Gerry gives him another look. He looks mostly solid now, enough that it might be a good time to let him know. "Jon was worried about you, so I came to check how you were."

"...Oh." Martin's flustered face goes slack at the news, and Gerry snorts. These two are the freaking same. "I- does he know?"

"That you're trying to save the world?" Gerry arches an eyebrow. "Or that you're doing it for him?" that has Martin's face regaining the color it was lacking.

"Both, I guess," Martin mutters, bringing a hand to rub at his arm nervously. "...I think I do have coffee, but it's- I don't drink it, I just had it for when Sasha- for when friends came over. I don't know if it's any good."

"I've probably had worse." Gerry knows what it's like to be alone. He's been that way for most of his life, but it's... he chose to live like that, it was never a burden for him. Here, as Martin talks of friends ripped from him by a world that feeds on despair, he feels a pang of sadness for this man who clearly didn't. "I have an hour before I have to go get Jon."

"Alright," Martin lets out a noise between a sigh and a groa, before he finally moves towards the cupboards again, and starts pulling out mugs and tins and spoons. "But you have to tell me how you got in."

"I'll let you guess," Gerry smirks as he sits at the breakfast table.

"How is he?" comes Martin's voice amidst the clinking of metal and porcelain. There's a careful quality to it, like he thinks he's not allowed to ask, and Gerry sighs.

"He's alright. Very defensive when we talk about his rib-related choices."

The sound of a mug dropped on the countertop, and Martin spins around. "Excuse me, his what?"

Gerry arches an eyebrow. "I hadn't told you? Could've sworn I mentioned it when we spoke about the marks." He wipes a hand under his nose, but it comes away ink-free. Edging around the topic is okay then, good to know.

"I don't- you didn't mention any ribs," Martin's voice is this close to a groan, Gerry notes with a smile. "What did he do now?"

"You better finish making that tea, you're going to need it."

--------------------------------------

The door to the cell slams shut, and Elias rolls his eyes. Frankly... he'd known Peter wasn't in the best of moods, but this is childish.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to either calm down or leave."

"How are you doing it?" Peter lands heavily on the chair across the table, blue eyes stormy with badly concealed rage and a muscle twitching on his jaw. Elias tries, he really does, but he can't hold back a snort. "Elias!"

"I'm sorry, sorry," Elias chuckles. "It's just amusing, really, that you seem to think I have the power to stop your puppeteering from in here. You mistake me for the Web's own, Peter."

He gives him the smile he knows Peter despises, just the slightest curve to his lips, and a single arched eyebrow.

"Don't play coy with me, Elias. Martin was progressing incredibly well, and all of a sudden he's stuck? Don't pretend you had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, but I didn't!" Elias reaches over to pull out the scotch bottle and the two tumblers, and Peter's hand closes around his wrist with bruising strength. "I'm afraid I did warn you the Watcher wouldn't let its own go so easily."

"How?" Peter's eyes narrow as his grip tightens even more. "I will not ask again, Elias."

Elias laughs, amused. Peter is awfully easy to rile up- if you know how to play him, and Elias has had decades to learn.

"Tell me something Peter... what do you know of Gertrude's last ill-fated assistant?"

--------------------------------------------

There's a person standing across the street from the Institute. They're wearing dark clothes, and over their chest rests a pendant fashioned to look like a closed eye. It's a ridiculous notion, to come to the tower of the Ceaseless Watcher, and believe their god will protect them here.

Jon comes to a stop before the Institute's doors, the taste of Markus Burnett's encounter with the End still fresh in his mind, and considers crossing the street towards them. It would certainly send a message to the rest of-

"Jon?" the voice is puzzled and soft, and it feels like a curtain is lifted from Jon's mind, as he sees the person scurry away; he turns to find Martin looking down at him in concern. "Are you alright? Oh- your... your eyes."

"Ah- yes I just- it's-" Jon gestures vaguely towards the spot where his would-be victim was just standing.

"Oh. That's- that's not good, is it?" Martin frowns. "It's probably good you didn't-"

"I wasn't going to. Or- I hope I wasn't," Jon scowls as well. He definitely wanted to. He can still feel Martin's eyes on him, but for all that he's fantasized about this encounter, he can't think of anything to say. "You look better."

"I guess." Martin's frown melts into a mask of dry resignation. "Gerard broke into my flat two days ago. He won't tell me how he did it."

Of course, the Eye chooses that moment to let him Know exactly how Gerry got a key to Martin's flat, and Jon feels his face grow warm. It's a bit of a whiplash mood, to go from preparing to Behold a person to thinking about- yes, okay.

"I- yes. He does that," Jon clears his throat, "keep him away from your sofa."

"I'll keep that in mind. Just-" Martin gives a nervous look around, and Jon frowns.

"He's not around." Jon says, the static rising in his ears as he Sees both what Martin wants, and the answer to it. It still feels odd to use his powers willingly, but he'll do it for Martin anytime. "He's on his way back from meeting Elias."

"Oh- okay?" Martin blinks. "Thanks. I- he can't do that, Jon."

"Peter-?"

"Gerard." Martin's face grows pained, serious. "Peter is- he's happy I'm going along with his plan. If Gerard keeps trying to meddle in... I made a deal, and I have to keep it. Please tell him to leave me alone."

"Martin, you don't have to-"

"But I am," Martin sighs. "You said you'd respect that."

And he does, he really does respect the sacrifice Martin is making, but- but watching him hurt himself is just too much. This is the first time Martin has looked like himself in months, and Jon is suddenly confronted with just how much he's missed him.

"I'll talk to him." Jon says, before anything else can get out. "I'm- I'm sorry, Martin."

Martin nods wordlessly, before turning back to walk into the Institute. Jon watches him go, a million things he should've said running across his mind now that they're utterly, completely useless.

I dreamt of you in the Buried. Thank you for the tapes. You don't have to be strong all the time, please let me help you. I miss you so much it scares me, but it's a kind of fear I want to feel, the kind of fear I'd dedicate my life to.

None of it matters, because by the time Jon walks in after him, all that's left of Martin are a couple wisps of fog.

----------------------------------------------

"What part of 'don't antagonize Martin' translated into 'go and lie to his landlady to break into his house' to you?" Jon asks that evening. The bus is nearly empty, and Gerry's arm is a comforting weight across his shoulders, a nice contrast against the hard plastic seat.

"I knew he'd tattle," Gerry rolls his eyes. "Go figure, pull a guy out of the Lonely with a nice cup of tea and some good conversation, and the first thing he does is go tell on you with his crush. You didn't tell him I had the key, did you? I don't want him to change the locks."

"I did not." Jon rolls his eyes. "But you can't- Gerry, I promised I'd leave him alone."

"And you did. Very respectful of his boundaries."

"And you should do so too. We're- we agreed we'd investigate about the Extinction so he didn't have to do everything on his own, not that we'd intrude on his plan."

"It's not a great plan, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask." Jon slaps lightly at Gerry's thigh with the back of his hand. "Listen, I trust Martin-"

"And I trust him too, sure. But I'm not going to- I can't just leave it alone, Jon." Gerry turns to look at him, and Jon -as he often does- finds himself distracted by the lights of the street outside gleaming off the metallic rings and beads on his face. "I'm not going to let them win. Not if I can help it, especially with someone they seem as hell-bent on getting as Martin."

Jon sighs. Of course he won't; Gerry's far too stubborn, far too-

"Just- Martin knows what he's doing."

"And I know what I'm doing too." Gerry shrugs, his shoulders set and his brow furrowed. "I'm not- I can't exactly stop him from aligning with the Lonely if that's what he wants. I'm just slowing it down. Getting us more time."

"And what happens when Peter Lukas finds out you're breaking into his flat to sit him down for tea?"

"Well, he doesn't have to find out," Gerry says, smirking. The gesture leaves the ring on his lower lip just the slightest bit off-center, Jon realizes. He runs his tongue over his own bottom lip, that feels too dry all of a sudde. "As far as anyone knows, it was just a very considerate man looking out for his partner."

"You can't possibly believe that was anywhere close to a good lie," Jon hisses, trying his best to ignore the fact that he doesn't know if he's annoyed or just embarrassed by the ruse.

"It's not unbelievable. Anyone could be my boyfriend," Gerry shrugs. "Martin could have good taste."

"I very much think he doesn't." Jon grumbles.

"I think he does, actually," Gerry's arm gives his shoulders a squeeze that has Jon's face burning, "besides, the position is open."

Jon coughs. "This is our stop," he says, ignoring the way Gerry rolls his eyes before climbing to his feet.

The conversation is pretty much over after that, but Jon finds -as he usually does, lately- that he has to let go of Gerry's hand to pull the keys out of his pocket.

--------------------------------------------

"Did you do your exercises today?"

Daisy exhales slowly, her hands on her stomach and her gaze nailed to the ceiling. The cot she shares with Basira feels small at the best of times, but now under her too-heavy stare, it's like laying on a coffin, waiting for the lid to be slammed down again.

"They won't work."

"What?" Basira doesn't come closer, doesn't sit by the edge of the cot, and Daisy feels more and more like a disgusting, wasted carcass of her old self.

"The exercises. I- it's not going to work." The truth of her words weighs on her, the call of her blood begging her to follow, to lose herself again. "The only way I'm going to get better is if I hunt again, and I don't- I'm not doing that."

In the long silence that follows, Daisy darts a quick look at Basira. She's standing by the door, her white-knuckled hand shaking around the crumpled edge of a bag of Daisy's favorite takeout.

"There has to be another way," she says in the end. "What are we supposed to do, just wait for you to die?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask Elias?" Daisy shrugs. There's a dark pang of delight in her stomach when Basira stiffens, and she sighs. Not exactly a chase, but the Hunt will feed wherever it can. "I'm sorry."

"Do you think I haven't?" Basira's voice is tense and hurt. "Do you think I haven't spent every waking moment since you came out trying to find a way to make you-"

"Back to how I was?" Daisy says quietly, and the way it's enough to stop Basira's rising tirade really says a lot.

"That is not what I want," Basira forces through gritted teeth.

"But it's what you need, isn't it?" After a moment's hesitation, Daisy pushes up into a sitting position, and turns to face Basira. "You were there when I needed you, and now I can't do that for you."

"This is not- I don't keep a tally, Daisy." Basira finally takes a firm step forward and then another and another, until she's standing so close Daisy could reach her if she stretched her arm. She doesn't. "I don't have- I'm just trying to keep everyone from dying, or-"

Basira's voice breaks, and Daisy flinches, eyes wide. In their years working together, she can count on one hand the times she's seen her lose control.

"You were gone," she snaps, "you were dead, I mourned you. I had to- there was no one else. Everyone was dead, Melanie was more and more unstable, and Martin was doing his secretive bullshit. What was I supposed to do? I was the only one. If I gave up, then it was like letting Elias win, and I was not going to let that happen."

"Basira-"

"Of course I wanted you back. As soon as that lying worm told me there might be a way to pull you out, I-"

"I heard your voice in the Buried."

Basira freezes. She looks- Daisy has been her partner for years, and the thing with her is, Basira always knows what to do. Even when she doesn't, she knows what should be done next. Never a second guess or a moment of doubt, or anything less than cold, hard certainty. Now Basira looks lost, and Daisy can only wonder what that means for her, who's always depended on Basira's solidity to ground herself.

"I'm- I want to be here for you. I want to help, Basira, but I can't- I don't want to go back to the Hunt. Or rather, I want it too much, and I know I won't-" Daisy groans. She's never been good with words, one would think spending an eternity with the Archivist would've helped, but apparently it's too much to wish for. "I just want to be myself, for however long I can. I'm- sorry it's not what you-"

Basira crashes against her, and Daisy feels her breath leave her all at once, as they topple over onto the cot, the crumpled falafel bag landing on the floor to be forgotten.

"I'll figure something out," Basira's breath is hot against her shoulder. Daisy can smell her coconut shampoo through her headscarf, and it's all she can do to hold her tighter, because they live in a world in which these moments are fleeting and fragile, and all the more precious for it. "For this. For you."

Daisy nods furiously, her eyes shut tight and her blood singing an entirely different song.

"Basira," she says, the only word she knows, the only word that matters.

Basira nods like she understands, and Daisy can't bring herself to care about anything else.

[mischiefandspirits]

Colony of Gotham (7/7)

The Colony of Gotham is an urban legend that is whispered about in the dangerous city. It’s said the Colony is a family of demons and spirits that stalk the night, hunting for the souls of the guilty.

When Bruce became Batman, he’d never intended to be mistaken for a demon. He was happy to lean into it, though, and as he gained his partners – as his family grew – they all followed suit.

First Part ~ Previous Part

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once Tigress had escorted Flash and Young Justice to the Watchtower and had calmed everyone down, she explained that the Colony was not, in fact, malevolent.

She told them that the family was simply territorial of the area they protected. Their actions had just been them making their point in their typical chaotic and playful way. She and Flash had encountered some of the Colony the night before and after assuring them they would continue to keep their business out of the city, the bats and birds had agreed to a truce. The Flash's kidnapping was just Flash wanting to get in on the joke. He was meant to show up that night with a figurative olive branch from the Colony, but then Young Justice had rushed in and the Colony reacted in kind by capturing them. They then informed Flash so he and Tigress could return them. The team was reprimanded for rushing in without backup and Flash was given extra monitor duty as punishment for his trick. He accepted it graciously, having expected it.

When they made it back to Gotham, Dick explained Damian’s past to Artemis and Wally. The latter was not pleased to discover the young boy he’d been teasing and calling cute for years was an assassin.

“He might be a former assassin, but he’s still adorable.”

“No, Dick, you don’t call people who can and will slit your throat if you upset them adorable. You could have warned me! I nearly died!”

“A lot,” Jason added from off to the side where the rest of Dick’s siblings were watching the show with popcorn.

“Damian wouldn't have actually killed you,” Dick argued.

“Maybe just maimed you a little. But hey, you heal fast.”

“Not helping Tiny Jay,” Dick hissed as Wally pointed at Tim and nodded.

“Maimed! I could have been maimed! Just because I heal fast doesn’t mean getting maimed doesn’t hurt!”

“Dami never meant to kill. Dami only meant to maim or seriously injure,” Carrie croaked from right behind the speedster, causing him to jump with a shriek.

“No voice filters in the manor,” Dick huffed at her before turning to his siblings as a whole. “Guys, please stop traumatizing my partners!”

Artemis, who until this point had been pinching the bridge of her nose, looked up with a murderous expression. “YOU STARTED IT!”

When Bruce and Selina returned from their honeymoon, the kids explained what had happened.

Bruce would never admit it, but he was proud of how the kids handled the situation. They ensured the other teams wouldn’t interfere in Gotham and limited the amount of information that got out about them to people who were already trusted. That said, he would have preferred they had taken the situation more seriously, which he made sure they knew.

No matter how amusing the recordings Barbara had shown him of the heroes’ reactions were.

He also would have preferred no information got out about them, but he knew it was only a matter of time for those who did find out. Young Justice was just a little too invested in Tim’s wellbeing, not that he was complaining, so they were sure to notice something eventually. As for Wally and Artemis, he’d been waiting for this since they’d found out the family’s other secret.

Selina had bet the engagement announcement would happen first, but he knew Dick wouldn’t have agreed without all secrets coming to light first.

He was a little less forgiving of the rest of the kids taking this as permission to tell their friends.

He wasn’t too annoyed with Damian as Jon had already suspected there was something different about the family (he was too much like his mother) and he mostly excused Stephanie and Bette seeing as Cassie already knew, which meant they were more likely to mess up in the group chat. He didn’t say anything to Barbara, partly because she wasn’t really his (no matter how much he cared for her) and partly because she’d somehow managed to convince Hank and Dawn she was still a demon.

He did have talks with Dick, Jason, and Carrie though. Kory might have been a friend of the family for longer than Jason had been a member (as Dick had been quick to point out in his defense), but they hadn’t been as close since the breakup. Artemis Grace tended to be a wild card in regards to her loyalties and her team had a looser grasp on the law then most others in their business (Jason took offense to this, of course, even if he didn’t object). As for Traci, they simply didn’t know her (No, Carrie, a two day round trip does not give you plenty of time to know a person. No, I don’t care if you managed to convince her you were a demon. Barbara’s situation is different!).

There was a bright side to this, though. The mix of information that the heroes had ended up causing a few amusing situations.

One such situation came up a few months later when Tim, Stephanie, and Bette were hanging out with their friends at Mount Justice. Bette offhandedly mentioned to Cissie that Damian’s mother was part of “the League” right before the three Gothamites got called away. This resulted in Cissie, who thought the Robins were human, gossiping with Roy, who thought Robin was a demon, about how “Batman totally knocked up someone in the JL and Robin’s the result.” This resulted in Oliver, who’d been eavesdropping, ending a League meeting by asking if anyone knew who’d spawned the Bloody Robin. The information reached anyone even remotely connected to the League within twenty-four hours.

The Colony just sat back and watched the accidental chaos, obviously.

The most common theory was Wonder Woman, though no one was willing to suggest it anywhere she might hear. One of Hawkgirl’s past lives was also a popular theory, and she was horrified when she realized she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t true.

It came to a head when the Titans decided to have a get together of current and former Titans and Teen Titans. Guests were allowed, so Kory and Roy invited Artemis Grace and Bizarro. Assuming the event would be boring and wanting to either have someone who would lighten it up or be bored with her, Artemis only agreed to come if Red Hood came too. To the horror of everyone not in the know, Kory not only agreed, but decided to extend the invite to all the younger members of the Colony.

Nightwing and Robin arrived first with Tigress and Flash, the older bird arm in arm with Tigress while the younger was sitting on Flash’s shoulders. Both gave too wide grins as they waved at the Titans and Teen Titans who were already gathered. Robin dropped limply off Flash’s shoulders and hit the ground in a roll before running off to drape herself over Thirteen.

Batgirl, Hawkfire, and Lark arrived next with Cassie and Donna, to the latter’s obvious discomfort. They were quickly joined by Cissie and Kara as Donna went off to greet her friends. Batgirl took great joy in disappearing and reappearing around the room, while Lark took great joy in selling her out every chance he got since he could always see where she was. Hawkfire was equally thrilled to use the voices of anyone who got near, having made sure to study up on as many people who’d be at the party as possible so she could mimic their voices.

The rest of Young Justice arrived shortly later with Superboy, Corvid, and Robin. The last surprised most of the people who’d already been there, until they realized Robin was no longer at Thirteen’s side despite many being sure she’d been there only a second before. Throughout the party Robin seemed to disappear from Thirteen’s side, only to reappear across the room at Superboy’s within a second. Some even swore they’d seen Robin in two places at once, but no one was ever sure. Meanwhile Corvid’s speech pattern had him sticking close to a member of the Colony or Kory so they could translate for him.

No one was exactly sure when Black Bat and Bluebird arrived. They were simply there, hovering around some of the others or hidden off in a corner. No one ever seemed to notice Black Bat come or go between groups either. She always seemed to just be there.

Pythia had been there from the beginning, but she mostly just kept to herself, watching and listening through the cameras, until Hawk and Dove arrived. Then she whispered at them through the nearest speaker. This meant the two mostly stayed off to the side on their own, but neither felt any need to complain.

Roy, Artemis, Bizarro, and Red Hood arrived after the party was already in full swing with no reason for being late other than a joke from Roy about being fashionable. Red Hood had a similar experience to Corvid, though Kory could not translate for him while Artemis and Bizarro could. Artemis had placed a comm into her ear for the occasion, but not even the Colony could explain how Bizarro managed to always know what Red Hood was saying.

Despite the Colony’s eccentricities, the party went smoothly.

Until someone brought up Robin’s heritage, at least.

The Robin with Thirteen snickered when she heard and disappeared into the shadows. Corvid, who had also been near, shook his head and let her slip under his cape as he headed towards where Kon and Lark were talking.

The debate began to spread until Beast Boy huffed and turned to Bluebird. “So who popped out the demon spawn?”

The room fell silent and a few people gave him terrified expressions before glancing at the Colony. The shapeshifter squirmed, not having meant for his voice to be as loud as it was.

The thing was, every Robin had been referred to as a demon spawn at multiple points in their lives, and Black Bat had had the title thrown at her a few times too. As such the group couldn’t help themselves.

With eerie synchrony, Dick, Stephanie, Bette, Duke, Damian, and Carrie all answered, “My mom.”

Most noticed that Jason, Tim, and Cass had all answered as well in growls, trills, and sign language respectively, which only added to the confusion or horror everyone in the room was feeling.

Those who knew the group to be the Wayne family and associates were confused about why they had all answered, and why answer like that as they had thought their friends had separate mothers. Didn’t they? Those who knew they were not actually demons were also thrown by how the group had managed to speak as one.

Meanwhile those who knew nothing were terrified as they came to the incorrect conclusion that a member of the Justice League had somehow managed to spawn most of the Colony without anyone finding out.

The Colony refused to say any names, but otherwise most of them were happy to answer questions about their mother. This really only managed to confuse people more, however. Especially when people would get conflicting answers. That was near always, really, as Nightwing was describing his mother; Red Hood was describing Catherine Todd; Corvid was switching between his mother and Selina; Batgirl was switching between her mother, Kate, Selina, and Talia (the middle two purely for the amusement and the last for the looks she’d get from Robin whenever he caught her at it); Hawkfire was describing her mother; Black Bat was just gesturing for Bluebird to describe her own mother; Lark was describing his mother; and both Robins were describing Selina (though Damian would later state it was purely for the consistency with his fellow Robin).

It was only after the party when the Colony, Young Justice, Tigress, Flash, Starfire, Artemis, Arrowette, Supergirl, Superboy, and Thirteen retreated to the cave that anyone got a real answer.

“Oh, Dami’s mother is from the League of Assassins, not the Justice League. There must have been a mix up somewhere.”

Surprisingly, this did not bring relief to anyone. Especially when they found out his mother was none other than Talia al Ghul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One calm day, Artemis dragged her partners down to the cave’s sparring mats so she could see what Dick could do firsthand. He did not disappoint as he quickly pinned Wally.

“Well, this explains why Jade seems to like him so much,” the speedster muttered from his place facedown on the mat.

Artemis frowned as Dick sat next to their boyfriend, patting his back. “Wait… Oh my God, Dick! You sa-Is tea code for getting your butt kicked by my sister?”

Dick looked up with a sheepish grin. “No, tea is code for kicking your sister's butt.”

“You…”

He shrugged. “In her defense, she wasn’t expecting someone with my level of training. The fight would have been much closer if she had been.”

Wally looked up with wide eyes. “Hold on, she actually tried to kill you then?”

Dick gave Artemis a look. “You probably should have told her we were together. She thought Wally had cheated on or dumped you. I thought it was actually kind of sweet, really, but Bruce was ticked when he found out and I think Jason was considering hunting her down.”

Artemis threw her hands in the air and marched off. She dug her phone out of her pocket.

“‘Ello?” Jade’s sleepy voice answered.

“You tried to kill my boyfriend!”

“Oh, you found out about that?”

“Why didn't you tell me he could fight? And well enough to defeat you.”

“You didn’t know? Why did you think I approved? I don’t approve of the speedster and he has powers. He really needs to learn how to fight without relying on them.”

Artemis could admit she had a point on both fronts, but wouldn’t admit it. “Dick’s sweet and charming. I swear if he had a superpower it would be making friends. I just thought he’d made you like him.”

“Yes. By being a competent fighter. Although if he’s going around bragging about defeating me I might need to teach him a lesson, being brothers with an al Ghul or not.”

“Wait, you knew about his brother being Ra’s al Ghul’s grandson too?” Artemis choked.

“You really need to pay more attention to who you’re dating.”

“Who’s dating the brother of an al Ghul?”

Artemis blushed. “Is that Roy? Are you two still together?”

“It’s complicated. And before you freak out, we were just sleeping when you called. Actually sleeping.” Quieter, likely from holding the phone away, she heard Jade say, “Artemis is. Her little Gotham squeeze has league connections.”

“Jade,” Artemis hissed.

“League. You mean Damian? Of course he’s… Hold on!” There was some static and then Roy was talking directly into the phone. “I’m coming to Gotham.”

“No.”

He came to Gotham. He showed up right on the porch of Wayne Manor hours later looking more excited than she’d seen him in years.

“Please tell me Damian Wayne is who I think he is,” he said as soon as she marched up to where he was waiting outside. “Please tell me he is because I need to know if everyone has been freaking out thinking Robin’s the kid of Wonder Woman when he’s actually Talia al Ghul’s spawn.”

“Please tell me you didn’t ditch my sister to come here,” she shot back, glancing around to be sure her sister wasn’t hiding in any shadows.

“She took off after we had morn-”

“Nope. Shut up.”

“So is he?”

Artemis glanced over her shoulder to see Wally and Dick watching. Dick shrugged and she sighed. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m not ruining it. So Jason is Hood.”

“Yes.”

“And Dick is -”

“Yes.”

“This is amazing.”

“If you get yourself shot don’t come crying to me.”

“I’d die happy. You haven’t heard the things Ollie and Dinah have been saying. This is the best inside joke I’ve ever heard and I hate you for keeping it from me.”

“I only found out after the Titan party last week.”

“That’s an entire week where you kept me out of the loop.”

“You want to come in for food or are you going to go track down my brother?” Dick called.

Roy shrugged and they started for the door before his eyes widened and he glanced between the three. “So that stuff about Flamebird?”

“He was just messing around to tease Wally and freak out the League. Just like everything he and his family have done since Zatanna dragged them into the spotlight. That’s how I realized he was Nightwing. They are exactly the same level of troll.”

“I love everything about this.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure?” Dick asked.

“Absolutely not,” Wally said, but grabbed the blood bar Dick was holding out anyway.

“If you don-

“We’re fine,” Artemis said, grabbing her own bar. “Wally’s just whining like usual.”

“I’m just saying, we have no idea how this will affect me.”

“Duke’s a meta and he was fine.”

“He’s not connected to the Speed Force.”

Dick reached forward to grab Wally’s bar. “You don’t have to -

“I want to,” Wally said, jerking the bar away, grabbing Dick’s hand with his free one. “I do. I’m just nervous.”

“As per usual,” Artemis teased and kissed the speedster's cheek. Dick stepped closer and she kissed him as well before pulling the wrapper off her bar. She met their eyes, then took a bite.

She began to sway as she finished it so Dick helped her over to the bed. All the while Wally tossed his bar between his hands. He pulled it open and frowned down at it.

Dick pulled him to the bed once Artemis was settled. “It’s alright if you want to back out. Neither of us would blame you.”

Wally shook his head and sat down. “I want this, I do. I just can’t stop thinking about what could go wrong. Like, what if my body already burned through whatever it is that’s supposed to turn me.”

Dick cocked his head and slipped into his lap. He leaned down to nuzzle Wally’s neck, earning a sharp intake. “I can bite you while you eat it. Then your body won’t have time.”

The speedster shivered and swallowed. His free hand came up to card through Dick’s hair as he gave a quick nod.

Smiling, Dick peppered a few teasing kisses across his jugular before biting down.

Wally shivered again and melted into Dick for a moment before bringing the bar up and taking a bite. He finished it off quickly as Dick pulled away.

“It doesn’t taste like blood,” he said with a frown, tossing aside the wrapper as he licked his lips. “I don’t know what it tastes like, but it isn’t blood.”

“That means it’s working,” Dick said.

“Really?”

“You think Stephanie would have downed an entire bottle of blood by accident if she could taste it the same way a human does?” Dick pressed a kiss to the corner of Wally’s mouth. “Blood has a special flavor to us unlike anything else.”

Wally hummed and kissed Dick until his mind started to fog up. Dick helped him lay back then covered him up when the fever took him.

The bird took a moment to just stare down at the two, his thumb brushing the band on his left ring finger.

It was made from strips of black and gold titanium twisted together with rubies peaking through the cracks. It matched the one on Artemis’s hand, gifts from their wonderful fiancé.

Dick gave both a quick peck then left them to rest.

Things were sure to get crazy soon enough, especially once the announcements went out, but for now, Dick would revel in the calm and the feeling of family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vampires’ animal forms:

Artemis: North American cougar

Wally: Vizsla dog

[overdramatic-queer-antagonist]

Stop The Apocalypse Out of Spite

Woah I actually made a part two. And left it on a cliffhanger. Whoops

***

Ao3    Last   Next

***

fic under cut

Jon was tired. Exhausted, even. He had just been chased around in tunnels by evil worms, quarantined, and then found out that his predecessor had been murdered. Suffice to say that he wasn't in the best mood. Yet here he was, taking statements from his friends and coworkers. Tim didn't have much to say that he didn't already know. They were together for most of it, after all. Sasha stepped into the office next. "Hey, Jon. How are you doing?" Sasha asked, seemingly as tired as he felt. He just fixed her with a look that was meant to be sympathetic but probably came off as rude. "Let's just get this over with. Then you can go home," Sasha nodded, "Statement of Sasha James, regarding Jane Prentiss's Attack on The Magnus Institute, Londen. Statement pulled directly from the subject." Jon sighed, setting up his tape recorder. "Okay, well. You already know the beginning. Worms broke into the Archives, you, me, and Martin hid in the storage closet. Tim was being a dipshit, I went to save him, and we got separated. I ended up pulling the fire alarm to get everyone out of the building and grabbed Elias on his way out. We went back into the Institute to deploy the CO2, but we got separated. I ended up getting chased into Artifact Storage and... Something was there, and it wasn't human. Martin ended up pulling me into this weird fog plane to save me from it and-" "What?" What the fuck did he just hear. Martin- How? Sasha's eyes widened as he interrupted her, "Wait- fuck. I didn't mean to say that. Martin asked me not to. He wanted to be the one to tell you. Let's just move on, okay?" Jon nodded reluctantly, and Sasha continued on with her statement, "We went down to the tunnels. We were trying to find you and Tim, but..." "You found something else." Sasha nodded, "Martin said he was sure it was her. He also said-" Jon put his hand up to stop her, "He can tell me himself. Send him in, please." Sasha nodded and walked quickly out of the room. Jon put his head in his hands.  Sasha was rational. She wouldn't have just jumped to a conclusion like that, but- He knew Martin. Martin brought him tea and laughed when Jon forgot who his dad was. He wasn't some- thing? Monster? - he was Martin. Even so, He Knew Sasha was telling the truth. The door opened, and he looked up to see Martin smiling sweetly at him. At some point, Jon had turned the recorder off. This was ridiculous. It was Martin, for christ's sake. Jon would just ask him, politely. "What are you?" Or he could say that. He expected to see a look of confusion or hurt on Martin's face. Instead, Martin laughed and sat down. "Second time I've been asked that today," He said, still smiling. Jon tried to sound more disconnected than he was, but his voice still came out hurt, "so what's the answer?" Martin frowned, "Huh. Too bad. I was really hoping you'd be able to have that answer. God knows I don't," He saw Jon getting agitated and reached over the table to comfort him, " I can still die, I still eat and sleep. I'm just- there's more than just that. Does it really matter? I'm still Martin." Looking back, Jon didn't actually suspect Martin. He was just angry, hurt for whatever reason. But he still had to ask, "Did you kill Gertrude Robinson?" This got a reaction out of Martin, but still not hurt. His eyebrows shot up, and his eyes glowed with pride. Like he had been pleasantly surprised and not accused of murder, "No. I didn't like her. But you know what they say, 'the enemy of my enemy.'" "And what enemy would that be?" "Now you're asking the real questions. That would be her killer, Elias Bouchard." The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. At some point, Jon had stood up and was leaning over the table, looking so intently at him that their noses were almost touching. For some reason, that got more of a reaction out of Martin. "Martin," Jon began. "Yes?" "D-did you just accuse your own father of murder?" Martin scoffed at him and responded with dry sarcasm that really didn't fit him, "Yes. I did. Keep up. Why is that so hard to believe? Elias is a capitalist. I'd be more surprised if he hadn't murdered anyone." "Yes, but he's your father." "That doesn't mean as much as you think, Jon. And before you ask, no. He was pretty alright at parenting. He just also was a monster." "But aren't you-" Martin cut him off, looking actually upset for the first time in this horrifying conversation, "Now that actually hurts, Jon. There is a difference between being an avatar and being evil. If you don't want to take me as an example, take Gertrude- Or. Yourself." "What the fuck are you talking about?" "Lot's," Martin said quietly. Dammit, he was upset. "But now isn't the time," Martin stood up and walked to the door. As he was opening the door, he looked back at Jon, "Don't bother with Elias's statement. It's all lies," Martin softened, "And Jon? Get some rest." *** Jon tried to listen to Martin. The moment he got to his flat, he flopped down onto his bed. But he couldn't sleep. His mind was racing. Gertrude was murdered, by Elias if he was to believe Martin -and he did for some reason-, Monsters were real, and more than just Mr. Spider, Sasha had nearly been killed by one and... Saved by one. He knew it was true -To an extent. Martin had called himself an avatar, which made Jon feel a lot better, actually- but he still couldn't believe it. Come on. It was Martin. Martin was human. He breathed, and ate, and drank tea, and laughed. Did he actually have to do any of those things, or was it a conscious act? Jon didn't particularly like this train of thought, but it was better than dwelling on his boss being a murder, so he continued. Was Martin really as incompetent as he seemed? Was that even an act, or was that just what Jon was expecting from his boss's son? The more he thought about Martin, the guiltier he felt. Martin was actually pretty nice now that he thought about it, and he clearly knew more than him. He wasn't even actually an archival assistant. He just hung out there and, out of kindness, helped the clearly understaffed team. And Jon was so mean to him and- and. He'll just apologize to Martin tomorrow. He was going to anyway, for the whole monster thing. There was no point dwelling on it. He still did, of course, but the resolve to apologize made him feel a bit better. He had almost actually fallen asleep when the doorbell rang. Checking his clock, he could tell it was 4:00 in the morning. He hoped it wasn't that Michael thing. Sasha had said something about him and doors. When he had opened the door, though -after extensive checking that it was, in fact, his door- He found Tim, looking more solemn than Jon had ever seen him. Under his arm, Tim held what looked like statements, and a lot of them. Tim fixed Jon with a heavy glare and said, "Sasha told me. We need to talk."

[savrenim]

okay so looking at tma fic in general and tma time-travel fic and the various ways they decide to resolve things has given me an idea for a time travel fix-it fic premise that, like, I almost certainly will never write because way too many writing projects but it is Haunting me so I need to blab about it somewhere 

so clearly the way that the ‘time travel’ / ‘knowledge of the future’ bit works is that Jon stumbles across a book that he assumes is a Leitner but then there’s no name in the front cover so he opens it proper and oooh this is weird but it’s too late the compulsion has set hold and and reads it, oops

the experience of reading it is the experience of fuck-it-feels-like living the entire timeline of the show up through the end of episode 160

(actually all the way through When Jon Finally Dies if he ever does but the important bit is he gets that knowledge of the timeline)

(the book is channeling the power of the Ceaseless Watcher, it’s all about knowledge, although very specifically in my brain this book is something that future!Jon and future!Martin constructed and sent back, which still tracks because hey Archivist is an Avatar of the Watcher. it’s just important to me that this is active action as an attempt to prevent the apocalypse and not dumb luck)

so Jonathan Sims now knows his future and because I have strong opinions about memory/ personality/ what makes a person, has arguably just been replaced with his future self.

‘oh fuck’ Jon says 

‘I ended the world so I gotta fix this’

but how does he fix this, because oops Elias is still stupidly powerful and is going to notice if anything is up so he can’t act weird 

but he can’t bring anyone else in on this because he doesn’t want to Curse Them with such Angsty Knowledge 

he is acting a little bit weird, Martin notices that he’s acting weird because he is now being nice to Martin 

‘this cannot be how the universe exists, Jon is always mean to me,’ Martin goes. ‘like I want the universe to exist this way but Something Is Up With Jon and it would be selfish of me not to investigate just because Jon is actually being nice to me’

Martin stumbles across the book and reads it too

‘oh fuck’ Martin says and immediately goes and talks to Jon and Jon has terrible selfish mixed feelings because he missed his Martin but also didn’t want Martin to have to go through everything he went through but also now Jon is not alone in trying to figure out how to alter this timeline without Elias noticing 

(’wait what gave me away,’ Jon goes)

(’you were being nice to me,’ Martin goes)

(’fuck I really do need to be meaner to everyone don’t I,’ Jon goes. ‘it’s just really hard I’ve had Character Growth and I don’t want to be an asshole again’)

(’well suck it up you’re going to blow our cover,’ Martin goes. ‘maybe you should have thought of that before Being An Asshole.’ he immediately feels bad at Jon’s Very Sad Face. ‘you weren’t actually that much of an asshole you were just under stress and prickly and didn’t realize that the people you weren’t appreciating could be people that you would lose and now you do and that’s fine but you gotta still treat them like you’re an Asshole.’)

(’fine,’ Jon goes.)

so now they’re trying to figure out how to stop Elias 

but also their main priority is to stop Tim and Sasha from dying at this point and they kind of figure that Elias doesn’t know the timeline and as long as he’s getting what he wants which is naive Jon stumbling through interactions with Entities and getting marked but not killed, he won’t suspect anything, and he doesn’t know Tim and Sasha are going to die so that at least is something immediate they can fix 

‘I want to murder Jonah,’ goes Martin 

‘you are super valid but also Gertrude tried that and was 1000% more badass than any of us and she ended up dead so maybe we should concentrate on saving our friends like we’ve got a few years to figure out how to do that,’ goes Jon 

‘fine,’ goes Martin 

Tim and Sasha notice that something is up, OBVIOUSLY, because Jon was weird-nice for like a week and a half then is weird-mean like he’s actually trying to be mean and hates it, and has gone from brushing off Martin all the time to pretending to brush Martin off but obviously secretly pining 

he also gives off feral apocalypse energy

Martin meanwhile is pulling this all off perfectly 

he fooled Elias and Peter and everyone else back when he was faking out the Lonely, he can handle this

Elias does notice Jon acting weird and thinks this is a soap opera workplace romance gone wrong but because he hasn’t seen all of it as Jon and Martin have been very careful to be using Martin’s Lonely powers when they want to Actually Talk and make it look like they’ve just casually wandered off when Elias isn’t paying attention to them so Elias doesn’t actually look like anything is up, he calls Jon in for a ‘performance review’ to make sure 

(Martin has Lonely powers and Jon has Archivist powers from the future and they can both feed off of the long terrible fears that they remember from the horrible horrible lives and deaths they and the entire world had in their own timeline, just give me this I need a plot device that can explain why they can Actually Talk to each other while not being able to use the tunnels) 

anyways Elias starts his performance review and pokes about Martin

‘um yeah,’ Jon confesses. ‘I um had a very awkward conversation with Martin because it seemed like he was being nice to me and I asked him about his feelings and he Confessed to me that he Liked me and I was caught by surprise and was thinking about it for a few days because idk nobody ever Likes me but then came to my senses and um but also it’s totally inappropriate because I’m his boss and I told him and we’re trying to forget that the conversation ever happened and just go back to concentrating on the statements’

‘you seem very nervous right now,’ Elias goes 

‘please do not report me to HR,’ Jon goes looking appropriately mortified and trying to remember everything Martin has been coaching him about lying by telling people what they want to hear. ‘I know I should have rejected him immediately it just caught my by surprise that he would actually Say It To My Face people have been saying a lot of honest things to my face it’s very weird and I know that I shouldn’t have run away from that conversation and acted Weird for a few days but I did come to the Correct Conclusion I am very devoted to this job and don’t want to do anything but this job and didn’t do anything with Martin we just had a conversation and I’m really trying to do a good job here and please don’t fire me’

‘nope you’re good that’s fine concentrate on your job,’ Elias says, quite satisfied that his Archivist is developing truth powers very quickly 

Tim and Sasha are not so easy to fool

Tim and Sasha find the book

Sasha, who worked in Artifact Storage, is Actually Smart and goes ‘dON’T READ THAT’

Tim reads it anyways

‘oh fuck I die stopping the apocalypse’ 

Tim doesn’t seem to die from reading the book and doesn’t seem to change except for being given this foreknowledge but Sasha is Smart so she doesn’t read it. Tim does fill her in on her future.

‘oh fuck I die when a weird worm-lady attacks? and don’t even get to help with the apocalypse? that’s bullshit.’

they start their own little huddle conspiracy 

which Martin immediately finds

‘nO YOU GUYS YOU GOTTA BE MORE CAREFUL TALKING ABOUT THIS STUFF’ Martin explains the future and methods of communicating without Elias watching, which is mostly him subtly hiding them in the Lonely

(’why do you and Jon have secret special powers that’s not fair,’ Tim goes)

(’because we went through literal hell??? and also didn’t die??? idk maybe if we keep you from dying you will also get special powers but seriously Tim they are very evil these are Evil Powers we don’t want them they just kind of happened to us in the process of trying to survive,’ Martin goes.)

‘so what is the plan,’ Sasha goes. ‘like besides us not dying how are you actually going to deal with the real apocalypse’ 

‘well we want to kill Elias but we haven’t figured that out yet because he’s watching our every move perfectly and if we’re not acting like he think we should act he’ll dispose of us and start again with a new Archivist,’ Martin goes. 

‘okay but like in your story there is a part where Peter Lukas personally escorts you to the panopticon and tells you to kill Elias/Jonas and you go no and Elias wins the bet,’ Sasha says. ‘what if you just murder him then, he says he wasn’t going to stop you and if he tries you’ve got another Avatar backing you up’

‘huh we didn’t think of that,’ Martin goes. ‘why didn’t we think of that. I swear there is a Very Good Reason we didn’t think of that. um. uh. there’s also the problem anyone working in the Archives will die if he dies unless they are powerfully enough connected the Ceaseless Watcher which is like. MAYBE Jon.’

‘W H Y did you not lead with that,’ Tim goes

‘yeah I really agree you should have led with that,’ Sasha goes 

‘this has been a very stressful time and we have been doing our best and right also everyone can quit they just need to blind themselves to do it,’ Martin goes. ‘or I guess pledge allegiance to a different evil god but that is really unpleasant you have to sacrifice fear to it or you starve’

(’okay why did you not lead with--’ Sasha goes. ‘I’m starting to really see some benefits for being an evil fear-monster,’ Tim goes. ‘Like we could be ethical evil fear-monsters. like ethical vampires. only scare really shitty terrible people who deserve it and, like, scare but not kill.’)

(Martin looks like he is about to cry.)

(’okay maybe not p l e a s e stop making that face I cannot stand your puppy-dog-but-also-on-the-verge-of-tears eyes,’ Tim goes)

(Sasha stops death-glaring at him as Martin looks slightly less like he is about to cry.)

‘so everyone loves rituals what if we, like. construct a secret ritual. that you’re saying Jon is dumb powerful chosen one Avatar right so let’s just, like. switch over being the ‘Heart of the Institute’ from Jonah to him. big proper paperwork ritual passing on of ownership claiming his position as Jonah’s heir or something,’ Sasha says 

‘that seems like just the sort of bullshit that might actually work. Sasha you are the smartest person in the world and I’m pretty sure the apocalypse wouldn’t have happened if you had survived the Prentiss attack,’ Martin says 

‘actually honestly Gertrude wanted you as her replacement that sounds very true and is probably why Elias didn’t choose you,’ Jon says. he has entered the room at this point as he was curious where literally all of his assistants had wandered off to. he does actually have work to get done the Archives are A Mess and Martin has been gone at this point for far longer than it takes to Make Tea so he figured something might be up and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s finding Martin in the Lonely

‘real rude to not let us in on this,’ Tim goes. ‘also are you SURE this is not a weird Leitner fucking with you’

‘we’ve obsessively kept track of the things that are supposed to be happening and they’re all happening on the right days and stuff,’ Jon goes. 

‘okay so let’s stop like two apocalypses and not die,’ Sasha goes. 

the rest of the fic is everyone subtly not-so-subtly trying to recreate the exact timeline while also making events Less Terrible while also trying to seem Not Too Competent 

because this is a fic there’s gotta be adorable ridiculous fluff so everyone decides that the Cover Story in case Elias thinks people are acting weird has got to be Jon and Martin starting to secretly date 

(Jon and Martin are in absolute h e l l over this and it is a hilarious comedy of errors because they didn’t tell everyone else that they got together they both decided that was too private so everyone else is aggressively trying to actually matchmake them through this all and they’re now too embarrassed to drop the act because Sasha has been giving them hell every time they have accidentally withheld information from her so it’s like. three layers of fake dating.) 

(Elias decides all this drama is simultaneously the funniest thing he’s ever seen but also kind of a Bad Distraction and is subtly trying to break them up but doesn’t want to mess with things too much because he is Very Impressed with all the ‘progress’ Jon is making)

(Jon who is a complete badass and is mostly desperately attempting not to reveal all his powers)

(there are also a lot of different things that can go various ways. like do Basira and Melaine still join the Institute? I think they all read the book and make Informed Decisions about their futures but I have not decided yet what those Informed Decisions are. Daisy learns how to control Hunt powers without it overwhelming her, because Tim is totally right about it being possible to be an ethical fear-monster although as Jon and Martin can draw from the fear of the apocalypse-world they don’t really need it so it’s just a question of whether or not I want to give everyone else cool powers. we’re in a fix-it fic everyone gets cool powers without terrible consequences Because I Say So)

(Elias doesn’t give them trouble over this because he is delighted that he’s kind of collecting avatars of other Entities because it makes it really easy to make sure Jon has marks and he thinks this is his genius plan going even better than expected) 

we get to episode 158 

Martin really wants to dramatically kill Elias i m m e d i a t e l y but is waiting for a walkie-talkie signal that the ritual above is going as planned so he stumbles through all of the dialogue the same 

“Then do it. Kill him and help me save the world.” Peter goes 

Martin pauses in silence because oops there’s really not that much more Avoiding he can do

“No” Martin says.

Elias starts to laugh. 

The Signal Comes Through

‘fUCK YEAH,’ Martin says. ‘F I N A L L Y. I am murdering him and I’m saving the world but this isn’t for you, asshole, and Imma deal with you next.’

stabbity stab 

it’s very satisfying 

‘okay but what do you mean it’s not for me, you’re supposed to sit in the chair and help me look for the Extinction?’ Peter goes 

‘nah fuck that I’m from the future and I do what I want that was me stopping the Jonah Magnus’s final ritual,’ Martin goes. ‘you really think I fell for that Extinction bullshit you aren’t nearly as good a liar as you think you are, you stay right there and we’ll decide what to do with you when everyone gets down here it’s Jon’s Institute now and we’re both very pissed at you’

Peter tries to escape into the Lonely 

it Does Not Work as Martin has More Angst than Peter to draw from so is Way More Powerful 

everyone gets down there 

ritual worked nobody died!

‘okay but why DON’T we try to look for the Extinction.’ Sasha says. ‘that seems to be a pretty important thing to stop.’

at this point everyone agrees Sasha has the best ideas 

have I mentioned that every single female character is very gay for Sasha

quite frankly maybe Tim too

Sasha is a Badass and this fic portrays her as Gertrude Robinson’s Rightful Heir 

she Deserves Good Things

and she is Gonna Stop All Future Apocalypses so actually going through with Peter’s plan is maybe not a terrible idea 

they do the thing but in a careful way that traps no one in the chair and get the info

the Extinction is still very stoppable 

there are lots of ways but honestly the best way to do it is to manipulate humanity into actually Being Better and not being on the brink of extinction 

‘this is my Institute now let’s use it to fucking save the world,’ Jon goes 

and they use all their knowledge and power to go from being a massive conspiracy about causing the apocalypse to being a massive conspiracy about bringing kindness and preventing wars and stopping the rise of fascism in politics and poking humanity from behind the scenes into something Better that can Rise Above its fears 

and everyone lives happily ever after 

but yeah this entire fic is around the premise of ‘what if the actual fix-it isn’t Change Everything To Stop Bad Things From Happening it’s Keep Everything The Same Until We’re Handed The Opportunity To Stab Jonah On A Silver Platter And Then Take It’ which I have yet to see a fic do and oops that kind of grew away from me there but anyways that’s it that’s the fic

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG162!

- I was feeling The Lack Of Tim (And Sasha) in season 4, the lack of mourning and/or plain… things making me feel that these characters had been in the series before? And I am spoiled rotten by this season so far <3

More duos, more… dead people. MAG161 had the birthday party, which, at least, featured Elias (who is still (?) sadly around somewhere, alive and kicking) and Jon&Martin, but overall, so many dead people: Tim&Sasha amongst the group of MAG161 and starring for themselves in MAG162, Gertrude&Leitner in MAG161, Gertrude&Gerry in MAG162. Gertrude was the only character to die-die before the start of the show, Gerry being an intermediary case – we’ve lost so many people? Sasha, Leitner, Gerry-as-the-memory-in-the-book, Tim… I don’t know if we’ll get many more tapes with glimpses from the past, under-Jon’s-radar moments, but I really appreciated what we got to begin the season with? It’s indeed anchoring, a reminder of what has been lost, what led to this?

(Jon mentioned “a few of them” tapes in MAG161, so there could be more, or no, and I’d be fine with it! But if more: Agnes? Gertrude&og!Elias? Gertrude&James Wright? Gertrude&Elias just after Jonah had taken over his body, since Gertrude mentioned this is when she understood what was up? Gertrude&Adelard, if they’ve found the right VA since the Q&A? Gertrude&Jan Kilbride about The Vast and The Buried, since she had apparently interrupted his written statement? Gertrude&Emma? Gertrude&Jon, since we know that Jon had met her? Elias&Jon, when Jon was hired at the Institute or offered the Head Archivist position? Elias&Martin for roughly the same? Sasha&Melanie’s discussion about haunted pubs? Melanie&Tim, since Elias had mentioned that they had been talking in season 3?)

- It… was only the second time we were hearing Gerry, but it was the first time we were hearing him caught on tape while he was… still alive. There was no reverse-echo to his sppech. He was there! The real Gerry when he was alive… ;_;

We more or less know when Gertrude&Gerry’s scene happened given that their collaboration was short-lived (ha): Mary gave Gertrude Eric’s page on the 3rd of July 2008 (MAG062); Gertrude used the page on the 21st of July 2008 (MAG154), promising that she would look after Gerry… which she proceeded to not do. Mary bound herself to the book in late September 2008 (MAG004), then proceeded to haunt Gerry for five years before Gertrude made contact and freed him from Mary (MAG111), marking the beginning of their collaboration. Gerry was still alive by the 9th of October 2014 (MAG137), but would die soon after during their trip in America.

(MAG062) GERTRUDE: And do you have any proof of this? Your… “magic book”. MARY: Yeah. [PAPER RUSTLING] You can keep this page. I made sure it was in English. GERTRUDE: Go– Who… who is it? MARY: A surprise, dear. Just make sure you’re alone when you read it.

(MAG154) ERIC: Fine! I… I want two things. GERTRUDE: I’m listening. ERIC: I want you to find my son. If Mary is… if she’s gone, or worse… I want you to make sure he’s alright. GERTRUDE: [HUFF] I’m not exactly a mother figure. ERIC: You could hardly do worse than her. GERTRUDE: Fine. But I don’t know what growing up with Mary has done to him. If he’s… gone rotten, I can’t promise anything. ERIC: I understand. GERTRUDE: I suppose he might be useful. ERIC: Oh, sentimental as ever.

(MAG004, Dominic Swain) “Typing in their names I don’t know what sort of thing it was that I expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t a news article from 2008 about Mary Keay’s murder. Police had broken in late September […].”

(MAG111) GERRY: For the next five years she haunted my life. I did what she asked, but whenever her form faded for a few days, I would take what little revenge I could: I burned books, I covered leads. I occasionally fled to somewhere I thought it’d be hard for her to follow. In the end it was Gertrude who saved me. She came to me when I was desperate, nowhere to go, and she offered to help. […] I think you know the rest. I joined Gertrude’s work for a few years. Didn’t realise how ill I was until it finally caught up with me. Then I died.

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: We still have Dekker’s back-up plan, of course, but… it’s very risky. To be sure, I–I think the detonation would need to happen from within The Unknowing, while it was going on. Gerard may have a connection to The Eye, but I’m not convinced it will be enough. And I will admit I’ve grown… fond of the boy. I wonder, if I told him about Eric – whether he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. Still, that’s not like it kept Eric safe in The End.

Which means this scene happened in 2013–2014.

It’s so weird to think that… since he had been working at the Institute since at least 2012 (maybe 2011), Jon was inside of the building around the time of Gertrude&Gerry’s discussion? He was so close to that world, so close to Gerry?

(Sadly:

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: Eh! [INHALE] You can probably burn it in the back courtyard, if you’re careful. GERRY: Yeah, will do! GERTRUDE: And for goodness’s sake, make sure no one sees you. The last thing we need is a letter to Elias about book-burnings. GERRY: Look, if you have somewhere better to burn these books, then–

… no meet-cute possible in the courtyard while Gerry was burning a book and Jon was there on a smoke break, since Jon had stopped smoking roughly at the time his grandmother died and he joined the Institute. Unless Jon bullshitted about that and kept telling himself and everyone that he had been quit for those five years, while he was actually still smoking a pack or two every week.

But gosh, Jon was probably sneaking his cigarettes in that same courtyard during season 2? It’s probably where he went while Leitner was being pipe-murdered? And Gertrude’s comment… implies that the Institute has neighbours, who could complain about shady things to Elias, I’m love it. They probably saw Jon at his worst in the same courtyard Gerry was regularly burning stuff. Am Emotions.)

- I think just hearing Gerry is doomed to make you feel hopeful about things, because, YES, he died, no, he wasn’t perfect, but he was also one of the most positive characters we encountered in the series, saving a few random people in early statements or begrudgingly giving them tips? So hearing him alive and inquiring and still kicking is Pure Serotonin.

He was hilarious in MAG111 (“I’m a BOOK.” “Dead serious.”), I’m having Feelings again with:

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: They might even stop death entirely, deny us the one last escape; keeping us… alive and afraid – forever. [SILENCE] GERRY: [DEFLATING SIGH] … And taxes? GERTRUDE: Eh! Taxes, I imagine, will continue.

Press F to pay respect to Elias Bouchard, who might still have to pay taxes during the apocalypse.

- I’m crying a bit about Gertrude&Gerry’s exchange because:

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: Wait. Surely, you didn’t bring it here?! GERRY: Well, yeah – I, uh… GERTRUDE: Gerard! We’ve talked about this. Bringing unvetted artefacts or books into the Archive is incredibly dangerous…! GERRY: It’s locked away! GERTRUDE: And I’m sure the lock is very sturdy. But that doesn’t stop it being an unnecessary risk. GERRY: … Yeah, I’m sorry… GERTRUDE: This is exactly the sort of thing that will get you killed. GERRY: I said I was sorry! [SILENCE] GERTRUDE: [SIGH] Then, we’ll say no more about it. [FLIPPING OF PAPERS] I don’t enjoy being hard on you, but I really would rather you stayed broadly intact.

1°) … Gerry shrinking when scolded is a remnant of Mary, uh……………………

2°) Yeaaaaah, Gertrude had mentioned not being a “mother figure” to Eric (MAG154: “I’m not exactly a mother figure.” “You could hardly do worse than her.”)… And Gertrude isn’t, indeed, but it was nearly impossible for Gerry to not feel that she was a bit like Mary, uh? Gerry had acknowledged it to Jon:

(MAG111) ARCHIVIST: Kind of sounds like you didn’t… trust her. GERRY: Yeah, I didn’t. I wanted to, I really did, but it was always the work. Sometimes she just reminded me of my mum. … Did you ever meet her, my mum?

3°) Gerry’s casual mix of respect and irreverence to Gertrude was… reminiscent of Eric’s snark towards her ;_; Gosh, Gerry!!! You took after your dad…

(MAG154) GERTRUDE: Fine. But I don’t know what growing up with Mary has done to him. If he’s… gone rotten, I can’t promise anything. ERIC: I understand. GERTRUDE: I suppose he might be useful. ERIC: Oh, sentimental as ever.

(MAG162) GERRY: I’m touched! You’re going soft in your old age. GERTRUDE: Hm! You are, occasionally, useful. Despite your foolishness. GERRY: Flatterer.

Down to the little bit of reminding Gertrude of her age…

(MAG154) GERTRUDE: Well, it’s… good to see you, I suppose. ERIC: You too. … You got old. GERTRUDE: Better than being dead. ERIC: [HUFF] Fair enough.

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: I rather hope I would have found them by now. I like to think I’m not a complete incompetent. GERRY: Until dementia hits~ GERTRUDE: Given my choice to confide in you, I rather suspect it already has. [FLIPPING OF PAPER] Go burn your book.

I love that small domesticity/casualness? Gertrude had admitted that she had grown “rather fond” of “Gerard” in MAG137 (and she called him “Gerard” still in MAG162: so no, Gerry never regarded her as a friend like he did with Jon), and we could feel it? She was firm and scolding, yet allowing them to talk, explaining how she was proceeding to him, what she thought would happen with a successful apocalypse, warning him against tying himself to the Institute – and yet, not being entirely honest with him, hiding the tunnels&Leitner from him, and… not even telling him about Eric’s page (Gerry had mentioned in MAG111 that he had hoped to find his father’s page in the book, but that there wasn’t any… so he didn’t know that there used to be one but that it had been given to Gertrude, uh?).

It also breaks me a bit how… youthful Gerry sounded? Bantering and impertinent, bold and daring (taking a look into Gertrude’s stuff behind her back!), a bit laid-back, a bit insecure (“What happens if we fail?”), and asking Gertrude for answers that he couldn’t provide, couldn’t fathom, as if she had the infinite knowledge… By this time, Gerry was almost or around 30, I think? And yet he still sounds like an adolescent, and it makes so much sense given how he grew up…

4°) The awkward offer of burning more stuff for Gertrude…

(MAG162) GERRY: You, uh… need anything else burning? GERTRUDE: No, no…! Not right now. [INHALE] I think I’m alright, thank you for the offer.

You polite kid…

5°) I wonder if:

(MAG162) GERRY: What happens if we fail? [FLIPPING OF PAPER] [WOOD CREAKS] GERTRUDE: In… what sense? GERRY: If we miss a ritual, you know. If one of them works. GERTRUDE: Been losing sleep, have you? GERRY: Mh, something like that.

The possible lack of sleep/tiredness/concerns might have been partially linked to Gerry’s cancer developing without him noticing – but his body beginning to let him down a bit…

- I’m laughing hard that the possibility of Gerry getting tied to the Institute was raised:

(MAG162) GERRY: So, do I get to hear them? GERTRUDE: Perhaps. If you live long enough. But somehow I doubt Elias would look favourably on your application. And if I’m being quite honest… GERRY: Yeah – I know, I know. A–and I don’t want your job. GERTRUDE: Believe me, the perks aren’t worth the shackles.

Since… oh boy, Elias really didn’t like this effing family, uh.

(MAG062) GERTRUDE: Why are you here? MARY: To make my statement, of course. I know the Institute and me haven’t always seen eye to eye, as it were, but I thought it was the least I could do. […] Well, they don’t understand up there. They don’t know what this place is. You do, though, don’t you? We’re on the same side, really, even if Elias disagrees. GERTRUDE: If you say so.

(MAG158) ELIAS: And how exactly were you planning on achieving that while you’re still bound to the… ha. Oh, I see. Very clever. [CHUCKLE] I thought Eric was the only one to figure that little morsel out.

Gerry was the son of Friggin’ Mary Keay, and of Eric-The-One-That-Got-Away. No wonder that Elias would not “look favourably” on his application.

… And it’s getting even more hysterical when remembering that Gerry is descended from the VON CLOSEN, ALBRECHT’S FAMILY. ALBRECHT WHOM JONAH HAD SCREWED OVER.

(With the suspicious things about the genealogy: Mary didn’t descend from Albrecht, but from Wilhelm, Albrecht’s nephew… officially. Because there is still the matter that Carla&Albrecht couldn’t have any children in 1816 (MAG023), but Albrecht had two sons by 1831 (MAG127), of age to go to boarding school. Which means they were roughly conceived after MAG023’s events, when Jonah visited to get the books. While Carla hadn’t been able to have any children until then. What I mean is, there is still a little small possibility that Albrecht’s children were adopted by Wilhelm’s branch after his death, and that Gerry is a direct descendant of Albrecht…………… or of Jonah. Because the “can’t have children with my wife, but she got pregnant around the time you visited” is incredibly suspicious. And because it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh to think that Gerry could be Jonah’s biological descendant, the AWKWARDNESS.)

- What Leitner was it about, and what powers?

(MAG162) GERRY: Yeah, yeah. [FLIPPING OF PAPERS] … So, what’s the verdict? GERTRUDE: Hm? GERRY: On The Travels! GERTRUDE: Oh. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] Burn it, I think. You said Mr Hampton was dead? GERRY: Yup! And not peacefully. GERTRUDE: But you hadn’t seen its powers? GERRY: Not directly. GERTRUDE: Well… Given the themes of the original, I doubt it has anything that would be worth the danger.

Gulliver’s? Marco Polo’s? Spiral, Lonely, Vast things?

- Given that Gertrude raised the danger of bringing items to the Archives:

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: Gerard! We’ve talked about this. Bringing unvetted artefacts or books into the Archive is incredibly dangerous…! GERRY: It’s locked away! GERTRUDE: And I’m sure the lock is very sturdy. But that doesn’t stop it being an unnecessary risk.

I still wonder about how they proceed in Artefact Storage? Sasha said it was bad, we know that the original Elias started there, the calliope was stored there (until it was stolen), Jon gave them the Coffin during season 4… what means of protection do they use?

(Accidents still happen, if Salesa’s letter from MAG115 is any indication, but it’s impressive that the Institute is still standing while containing so many dangerous things?)

- Gotta love how Gertrude’s arson streak has been put to the foreground this season:

(MAG161) GERTRUDE: Paper burns well. [GURGLING LIQUID] Petrol burns… better. LEITNER: Aha! I always forget about your pyromaniac streak. GERTRUDE: Mm. Remind me to tell you about Agnes, sometime…!

(MAG162) GERRY: And when in doubt… GERTRUDE: Well, quite. [FLIPPING OF PAPER] GERRY: Can I use your wastepaper bin? […] GERTRUDE: You can probably burn it in the back courtyard, if you’re careful. GERRY: Yeah, will do! GERTRUDE: And for goodness’s sake, make sure no one sees you. The last thing we need is a letter to Elias about book-burnings. […] GERRY: You, uh… need anything else burning?

And Gerry didn’t know what she had in store for The Stranger (the plastic explosive) but had described how she had looked while thinking about it and:

(MAG111) ARCHIVIST: But you don’t know what it is? GERRY: No. When I asked her she said she’d show me when we got back to London. Mind you, she had this weird look in her eyes, like it was some kind of a joke. ARCHIVIST: I mean… it wasn’t, w–was it? A–A joke. GERRY: I don’t think so. Gertrude didn’t make jokes.

Gerry is the same as Martin when it comes to Just Little Archivist Jokes, uh.

- Regarding how Gerry was planning to burn his book, would it involve the lighter with the Eye that was described in MAG012?

(MAG012, Lesere Saraki) “the younger man had only a Zippo lighter with an eye design on it similar to the one tattooed all over him and an old passport that identified him as Gerard Keay.”

We still don’t know what happened to that one… Plus, Gerry had lost a few items around that time too, and we never learned if they had been destroyed in his fight against Diego Molina nor what they were supposed to do:

(MAG012, Lesere Saraki) “After a few seconds of awkward silence, Gerard spoke. He asked me if the paramedics had brought any items in with them. Specifically, he was after a small book bound in red leather and a brass pendant he had been wearing. He didn’t say what design had been on the pendant but I guessed it had been an eye. I told him that neither of those things had been brought in with him, and he was quiet for a long time.”

(The book was Diego’s, we know from Basira. Regarding the pendant, I’m still wondering if it was a gift from Eric, but it was never mentioned again…)

- NO WONDER that Jon starts rewinding the tape to listen again and again to Gertrude saying that she didn’t think there was a way to revert an apocalypse…

(MAG162) GERRY: Could it be undone? [SILENCE] [WOOD CREAKS] GERTRUDE: [SIGH] … No. I don’t think so. Once an entity… fully manifested, I doubt it would be keen to relinquish its grip on realit– [CLICK.] [APOCALYPSE SOUNDSCAPING] [FIREPLACE CRACKLING IN THE BACKGROUND] [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] [TAPE IS REWOUND] [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: … No. I don’t think so. Once an– [CLICK.] [APOCALYPSE SOUNDSCAPING] [FIREPLACE CRACKLING IN THE BACKGROUND] [TAPE IS REWOUND] [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: No. I don’t think so. [CLICK.] [APOCALYPSE SOUNDSCAPING] [FIREPLACE CRACKLING IN THE BACKGROUND] [TAPE IS REWOUND] [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: I don’t think so. [CLICK.] [APOCALYPSE SOUNDSCAPING] [FIREPLACE CRACKLING IN THE BACKGROUND] [LONG WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: Once an entity… fully manifested, I doubt it would be keen to relinquish its grip on reality. And as for those unlucky enough to survive its rule… I don’t think they would be in a state to do anything about it.

[…] MARTIN: Do you think it’ll do anything? Confronting Elias? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I… [SIGH] Maybe? MARTIN: No, I’m serious. Do we… [PAUSE IN THE PACKING SOUNDS] Is there a chance that we can undo this? ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE] Gertrude didn’t think so. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: … Right. ARCHIVIST: [SOFT] But she’s dead. [FIRMER] Let’s find out for ourselves.

… Since she had just lied through her teeth to Gerry about the tunnels.

(MAG162) GERRY: Look, if you have somewhere better to burn these books, then– GERTRUDE: Of course, Gerard…! I just happened not to mention the network of sinister tunnels that snake beneath the Archive, where I keep all my darkest secrets…! GERRY: I mean, you joke, but there could be. It’s that kind of place! GERTRUDE: I rather hope I would have found them by now. I like to think I’m not a complete incompetent. GERRY: Until dementia hits~ GERTRUDE: Given my choice to confide in you, I rather suspect it already has.

The scene happened in 2013-2014. However, she was already collaborating with Leitner (who had been using the tunnels following the destruction of his library) since around 2011, and we know that she did burn books down there at some point:

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: And why was Gertrude helping you? LEITNER: Aside from my knowledge about the books? I think she was lonely. I didn’t meet her until about six years ago, after she’d lost the last of her own assistants. She would mention them sometimes. I believe she missed having someone to talk to on occasion.

(MAG004, Dominic Swain) “The only thing I found that looked even remotely relevant was a listing on eBay from 2007. The auction was titled “Key of Solomon 1863 owned by MacGregor Mathers and Jurgen Leitner” and had been won for just over £1200 by a deactivated user – grbookworm1818.”

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: Like The Key of Solomon? LEITNER: That one was a mistake. I thought that, in the tunnels, there might be the stability to examine it properly, learn something of the forces arrayed against us. But it went wrong. We had to destroy it. I should have known, really. It was one of the few volumes that contained elements of several different powers.

(MAG070) ARCHIVIST: But, shortly after I started exploring the second level, I found something. It was a room, empty except for three wooden chairs. It looked like there had previously been more, but they had been smashed. Based on the scorch marks in the corner, I think I know what they were used for. The ashes were old, impossible to tell what they might have been before they were burned, except for the small scraps of old paper dotted around the floor. I think someone tore up a book and then burned it. There was only one scrap large enough to decipher anything legible: “They have for adversaries the Satariel, or concealers, the Demons of absurdity, of intellectual inertia, and of Mystery.” That answers the question of what happened to the copy of The Key of Solomon that Gertrude bought. But if she only bought it to destroy it, why down there? There seemed no especial significance to the room, except that it contained some old wooden furniture.

(We don’t know if she had burned books down there before Gerry’s suggestion… but eh, it’s Gertrude, she just LIED TO HIS FACE about the tunnels under the Institute, it was probably a habit already.)

It makes sense for Gerry to think tunnels sound reasonable, since he had experience with them (he knew things about Smirke, he had been there during the rediscovery of the tunnels under Pall Mall in MAG035); it makes sense for Gertrude to prevent Leitner and Gerry from interacting, since Gerry had a Grudge (and beat him up without being convinced that it was him)… I’m just laughing so hard again that GERTRUDE did Gertrude things and just lied so blatantly and fiercely.

It sounds, after the rewinding, like Jon thinks that she was being truthful about her opinions on the impossibility of reversing the apocalypse, given what he told Martin afterwards – was he trying to use his powers to detect a lie? Personally, I’m not convinced that Gertrude thought that it couldn’t be undone, or that she didn’t have any idea for a back-up plan if necessary, since… anyway, she was shown lying. And even Elias seemed to think that she might have an idea against The Dark:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realised she was putting into practice a theory – and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain, as mine had all those years ago. Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated; but she had not. The ritual failed.”

(MAG161) GERTRUDE: If my guess is right, the Church’s ritual should be collapsing at any time now, so… immediately. LEITNER: And if you’re wrong? GERTRUDE: Then a bit of gas will be the least of our worries.

So they could still find something left shortly before her death, about the seed of an idea. Maybe not! I’d be fully satisfied if the tonality of the end of MAG162 is to be taken this way: that no, Gertrude didn’t think there was a way, but that Jon&Martin are leaving her shadow and pushing further, and will find something, since they are still alive and can still discover and invent things. It might not be what they expect, it might make things worse; it will still be them trying and doing something that Gertrude couldn’t have done.

- … Gertrude made excellent guesses as to how the apocalypse would probably unravel, since it’s… what Jon&Martin seem to be experiencing:

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: … If we are lucky, then that failure will also mean our deaths. GERRY: You don’t think they can reach us after death? GERTRUDE: I suppose that depends on your religious beliefs. [WOOD CREAKS] Personally, I suspect death puts us beyond their power; either because we find ourselves in… some kind of afterlife, or because we simply… “cease to be”. GERRY: … Yeah, I guess. GERTRUDE: And I am certain that either scenario is preferable to lingering in a world they control. [INHALE] They’re… already able to circumvent physics, and suspend natural laws. If one were to – genuinely – press through, I suspect they would rewrite them wholesale; most likely making them… utterly incomprehensible to any survivors. They, they might still need us human enough to be afraid, but beyond that… Let’s just surmise that petty rules like space or time would be unlikely to factor into the proceedings. They might even stop death entirely, deny us the one last escape; keeping us… alive and afraid – forever. […] Once an entity… fully manifested, I doubt it would be keen to relinquish its grip on reality. And as for those unlucky enough to survive its rule… I don’t think they would be in a state to do anything about it.

1°) Time and space have indeed been affected (the statement number cases are still a succession of #, the cabin stopped being neutral, Martin’s impression of Jon about the maps highlighted that space isn’t objective anymore either); humans are indeed kept alive without needing to eat, people outside seem to not be dying:

(Season 5 trailer) MARTIN: How are you feeling today? ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE] Define… “today”. [CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: “How are you feeling in general”, then? ARCHIVIST: … Unchanged. [PAUSE] I don’t know if it’ll ever change again…! [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE]

(MAG161) MARTIN: You should get some sleep. [CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] can’t. I–I–I can’t, I–I don’t think I do anymore… “Sleep”. [EXHALE] How long’s it been, now? MARTIN: I don’t know. It’s not like there are days to count anymore. All the clocks have stopped, and… [DISTANT HOWL] ARCHIVIST: Well, I haven’t yet. I get… tired, but it doesn’t feel the same. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] Probably for the best. Sleep doesn’t look… pleasant. MARTIN: Nnno, it’s… it’s not. […] What about food? ARCHIVIST: What about it? When’s the last time you thought to eat, o–or even felt hungry? MARTIN: [FAINT] What…? Wha… Uh… I don’t know. ARCHIVIST: No. Whatever is sustaining us now doesn’t need us to eat. MARTIN: That… that can’t be possible– ARCHIVIST: It’s a new world, Martin, the natural laws are whatever they want them to be. And I suspect they don’t much care to keep humanity fed and watered.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “The land outside is warped and twisted by the touch of those things that feed on your suffering, and behind those rough wooden planks, [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] it seems they cannot reach you. […] If you had need to eat, no doubt there would be food; if you had need to sleep, no doubt the beds would be welcoming. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] But you have need of neither […] Heavy drops fall, ice-cold and laced with salt; tears of voyeuristic delight from The Eyes that see and drink in all – it sinks into the dry cracked ground, and from the mud faces struggle to push themselves free and breathe. They cannot breach the surface, as the slick soil flows down their throats. […] Throw another log on the fire and curl up close. There are always more logs for the fire here.” […] MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] Uh, Martin, I… MARTIN: No, no; I, I know what you’re going to say. [RUMMAGING] “What good are maps when the very Earth has…” and blah blah blah… ARCHIVIST: W– Uh, yes– MARTIN: But I’ve, I’ve packed them anyway because you never know. ARCHIVIST: Martin, I… MARTIN: I, I actually, eh! I actually found a stash of tea under the kitchen sink– ARCHIVIST: [FOND CHUCKLE] MARTIN: I–I realise, we don’t need to eat or – whatever, but, you know, that doesn’t mean that we won’t… ARCHIVIST: Yes – yes, yes…! It’s… alright. Alright.

The only thing Gertrude doesn’t seem to have factored in is about the Archivist themselves (“making [the law of physics]… utterly incomprehensible to any survivors. […] as for those unlucky enough to survive its rule… I don’t think they would be in a state to do anything about it.”): Jon was able to see through the thing-that-wasn’t-tea’s deceit in the trailer, and through the cabin’s in this episode – deconstructing the way the cabin was functioning… to free himself from its influence. That was a very Beholding thing, matching Jane Prentiss’s rant about The Eye (MAG032: “I see now why the hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”). There is at least one person who has the potential “to do [something] about it”, and probably more (what about Georgie? What about plain mundane non-main characters?).

- OUFFTTT, once again, that Gertrude was very conscious that the Powers subject people to a fate worse than death… and would still make the choice of binding Gerry to the book, even though she also knew from Eric that it was an awful state of (not-)being.

(MAG154) GERTRUDE: … What’s it like? Being… bound to the book. ERIC: I don’t know how to describe it…! Never was great with words. Bad. It feels… bad. All the time. I know that I’m not really “Eric”, I’m just a… memory someone wrote down. It hurts, most of the time. I don’t like it.

(MAG111) GERRY: It hurts. Being like this. And it’s not like any pain you can feel when you’re alive. It’s… it hurts to exist. To be dead and still here.

The big irony that Gerry should have died “naturally”, and was ready to cease to exist… and that Gertrude, of all people, forbade him to do so. Technically, there is still the mystery of why… Gertrude did it and left him behind in America, as Gerry pointed out:

(MAG111) GERRY: I think… I think I finally understand why she brought me back. I just don’t understand why she left me behind.

Was it to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for her successor? Was she fearing that, if she were to die (by Elias’s hand or someone else’s), Elias would get his hands on the page and destroy it if it was kept at the Institute? (And why did Gertrude allow Gerry so close to her while he was covered in eyes? She knew about Jonah’s trick already (Eric knew about it from when they were working together), and Elias knew that Gerry&Gertrude had worked together (as he was keeping MAG102’s statement and gave it to Jon only when Jon revealed that he now “knew” about their collaboration). Gertrude accused Gerry of taking risks, yet she took… so many, with him…)

- With the description of the people buried alive outside of the cabin, and Gerry&Gertrude’s talk about death being denied in the world of fear… that puts The End on the foreground again, too. Does that aspect of the blob of terrors get its fill with the agony of not dying, and with the fear of living without being able to die? Or did it draw the shorter straw in the new world?

- YYYYYYYYAAAYYYY, I was suspecting it but! Finally, confirmation about Gertrude’s use of the tape recorders, when she was and wasn’t using them! Jon had wondered for so long!

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: Even when the police finally found Gertrude’s body, they took it, chair and all, as well as all the tapes. “Evidence”, they said, and they might be right, though I don’t envy them the task of going through all of them. There must have been hundreds. … No. I suppose in some way I do envy them. They are an insight into my predecessor’s time here; something I desperately want to know more about. Whatever’s on them, it must be important, because… either she chose to hide them down here or… whoever killed her did.

(MAG044) ARCHIVIST: I will admit to some disappointment it doesn’t address any of my more… pressing questions about Gertrude’s tapes. Why did she begin recording them, and why stop? If she’d been doing so right up until her death, she would have likely gotten through much of the archive […].

(MAG087) ARCHIVIST: I had assumed Gertrude had recorded to tape for a while and then stopped, but it seems she was recording them right up until the end. But if they did span decades of working at the Institute, why aren’t there more? And what decided which statements she transferred?

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLES] Well. You’re not going to find many dark secrets in the stationery cupboard. [DRAWER OR DOOR CLOSES] GERRY: Just the recorded confession of your evil plans, then. [WOOD CREAKS] GERTRUDE: I’d be something of a fool to leave that one in the recorder. GERRY: I’ve never really seen you use it. GERTRUDE: Hm! It’s generally only for those statements I think might be useful to my successor. Or, the occasional interview. GERRY: So, do I get to hear them? GERTRUDE: Perhaps. If you live long enough.

That’s why there were technically so few, and so many of them seemed related to the rituals! It was supposed to be practical, useful information in case she were to die, she was actually much more prepared than Jon had assumed, they were supposed to be heard by her successor! (MAG137: “Anyway. Point is, you can probably discount The Slaughter. It had its chance.”)

- … Squint because, with how Gertrude had lied re:Leitner…

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLES] Well. You’re not going to find many dark secrets in the stationery cupboard. […] Oh, and… Gerard. GERRY: Hm? [WOOD CREAKING] GERTRUDE: Don’t go rifling through my things in future. It could end… badly, for you.

… It definitely sounds like there was/is something in the stationery cupboard.

- First time we’re hearing Gerry alive, and first time hearing him while discussing with Gertrude… and almost the first time we hear Tim&Sasha together. Technically, they had already been heard together, although for a very brief moment, in MAG039 (when Sasha tackled him to save him), and last episode was the first time we heard them in the same room for more than a few seconds… AND I WOULD HAVE NEVER EXPECTED THEM TO BE HEARD TOGETHER, TALKING TOGETHER, TALKING ABOUT THEMSELVES AND EACH OTHER… ;___;

(Sasha/Tim was already one of my fav ships as a “potential” and “I like pain apparently??” since the end of season 1 and the fact that hey! last time Tim had seen Sasha before she got Not!Them’d, it was because she had saved his life! I’m fine!, I’ve been screaming for a week.)

- Context was apparently when Jon had very recently been promoted to Head Archivist, so second half of 2015 (since MAG123’s statement was handed on August 1st 2015 and Jon had mentioned that it was shortly after Gertrude’s disappearance, without any mention of his own tenure, so��� he wasn’t in place by then), apparently shortly before MAG001 and his recordings since… Tim was apparently searching for a tape recorder?

(MAG162) [CLICK–] [RUMMAGING SOUNDS] TIM: [SIGH] SASHA: This it? TIM: Oh, thank God! I thought I was seeing things. SASHA: Glad I could help. TIM: I didn’t know he was actually gonna ask me to get it for him, I just… mentioned it ‘cause he was talking about recording. SASHA: Well, I’m sure he’s waiting…! TIM: Hm, he can wait a bit longer.

Which would put the scene in the storage room, given that Jon had already mentioned a few things about his very first tape recorder:

(MAG044) ARCHIVIST: I will admit to some disappointment it doesn’t address any of my more… pressing questions about Gertrude’s tapes. Why did she begin recording them, and why stop? If she’d been doing so right up until her death, she would have likely gotten through much of the archive and, moreover, I wouldn’t have had to find this tape player tucked away in the storage room, covered in dust and cobwebs.

(SPIDERRRRSSSS.) So psssh, Jon, it wasn’t YOU who found it, but Tim, with Sasha’s help!

(And I’m SOBBING??? That Tim had spotted it first??? And had wanted to record Jon’s birthday party with one??? Although he would grow to hate the tape recorders so much by season 3???)

- I’m sobbing over the fact that there can only be ONE qualified Archives Team member per generation.

(MAG154) ERIC: So when I finished my Master’s in Library Science and saw a vacancy at the Magnus Institute, of all places, I jumped at the chance. The chance to pursue my passion and my career at the same time seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up! It was only an “assistant archivist” position, of course, but that was fine. A good entry position, I’d, “I’d soon move on,” I told myself. [HUFF] Yeah…

(MAG162) TIM: If only there had been someone more qualified…! [STAPLING] SASHA: Tim. TIM: Sasha. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: It’s Elias’s decision. […] Mm, Tim… I’ve been in academia for what, ten years now? TIM: Mm. SASHA: I know how this goes! I didn’t get the job. If I kick up a stink, I’ll just get blackballed.

And at the same time, ezusdjezds. Sasha was a Disaster like Jon archiving-wise, uh.

(MAG162) SASHA: Fantastic! [RUSTLING OF PAPER] Good of you to volunteer to help me. TIM: Uh! I, er, didn’t actually… SASHA: Grab a stapler. TIM: [SIGH] … Fine. [STAPLING] What are we doing? [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: Jon’s been getting frustrated with all the loose statement sheets around. [STAPLING] I’m going box by box, collating and stapling them. And now? So are you.

Sasha STAPLING UNIQUE, ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS, INTRODUCING A NEW MATTER SUBJECTING THEM TO POTENTIAL RUST, and Jon “Put a Post-It on the tapes or something” were the Same Kind Of People.

- If Sasha has been in academia for ten years, it means she is at the very least 28 at this point (if she’s counting her studies as “academia” — even older if not). Tim had worked for five years after his own diploma, before joining the Institute around 2013, so… not canon-canon, but more tiny bits of proof leaning towards the idea that Old Millenial Jon was actually the Archives’ youngest <3

- I randomly love the little detail that Tim would blame Elias’s choice on sexism, because it does make a lot of sense given what he knew, because to his eyes (and Sasha’s), Elias had chosen an underqualified man over a qualified woman?

(MAG162) SASHA: It’s Elias’s decision. TIM: [SIGH] It’s some sexist bullshit, is what it is…! [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: I mean… probably.

And yet, no, it wasn’t sexism (or not only sexism), since Jonah had previously chosen Gertrude, as James Wright or as his predecessor. But Tim couldn’t know!

- I! Love! That Tim was the one to point out and insist that the situation is unfair to Sasha…

(MAG162) TIM: Look, it should have been you, and you just know if you had called him out, the little weasel would start talking about “traditions” and “the values of our esteemed founder, Jimmy Magma.” […] Ah! I’m serious though. You should say something.

Because it matches with what we saw of him, as someone who was very conscious of what is and isn’t a healthy workplace environment? (Like, yeah, he does make jokes, and there is the Infamous April Fool’s 2016, and Jon’s surprise birthday party! But when things are truly messed up, he points it out.)

(MAG048) ELIAS: Martin and Tim have both approached me. Apparently, you’ve been spying on them. ARCHIVIST: Spying on them…?! Of course not! No, it’s just… I– I’ve been… worried about their mental health following Prentiss’s attack, so I’ve been… keeping a closer eye on them than usual. ELIAS: Tim says you were watching his house. ARCHIVIST: Ah, it, w– that’s just not true. ELIAS: Well, what matters is your team thinks that it could be.

(MAG058) TIM: Look, I tried talking to Elias about it, but it doesn’t seem to do any good! MARTIN: He’s just under a lot of pressure. You know how messed up he’s been since Prentiss. TIM: How messed up he’s been?!

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: Well, Elias clearly thought that– TIM: Elias should have fired you weeks ago. ARCHIVIST: What?! TIM: After everything you’ve pulled, you should be gone. But no. Instead, we all get to talk about how you’re feeling, because we’re worried about our stalker boss!

It showed that he worked for long (five years) in another company before The Magnus Institute?

- I really really hope that Elias was Watching and grinding his teeth because:

(MAG162) TIM: Look, it should have been you, and you just know if you had called him out, the little weasel would start talking about “traditions” and “the values of our esteemed founder, Jimmy Magma.” SASHA: [LAUGHS] [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: Johnny… Magnum? SASHA: Closer. TIM: Jack Magnet. SASHA: That’s the one!

The lack of respect… Tim, I love you so much…

1°) The way Tim parodied Elias, it sounds like Elias was quite often raving about “traditions” and “the values of our esteemed founder”??? ELIAS………. (“I heard that Jonah Magnus had an eight pack.”)

2°) So, “little weasel” according to Tim and “weird little freak” according to Daisy in MAG082: is Elias… not very tall. (While Peter big–)

3°) I love that TMI Tim from The Magnus Institute (pretended that he?) couldn’t remember the name of the founder. Hey, at least, he didn’t suggest “Jonathan Magnus”.

4°) I LOVE HOW SASHA LAUGHED AND WAS HAVING FUN, TOO!!! Gods, Tim&Sasha were too damn cute together…

- Things that really, really didn’t age well: Tim mentioning murder.

(MAG162) TIM: Ah… yeah. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] … What if we kill him? SASHA: [CHUCKLING] What, Elias? [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: No. Big Boss Sims! Cut the brakes on his office chair, no one would ever know! SASHA: [LAUGHS] TIM: Swap in a poisoned teabag, pin it on Martin – the perfect crime.

(MAG058) TIM: Look, I tried talking to Elias about it, but it doesn’t seem to do any good! MARTIN: He’s just under a lot of pressure. You know how messed up he’s been since Prentiss. TIM: How messed up he’s been?! MARTIN: Of course, I’m sorry – sorry, I didn’t mean that you weren’t, just– TIM: No! Because I didn’t start stalking my co-workers! MARTIN: Maybe try talking to him. TIM: Sure. Like he doesn’t already look at me like I’m a murderer.

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: I said there’s no need for the attitude; I know things have been difficult, but– TIM: Oh? They have, have they? “Things” have been difficult. You spent a month staring at that footage, double-checking every moment, timing every tea break, looking at me like I somehow staged it – but no, you’re right! Things have been difficult. […] Shut up! Just stop talking. I’m sick of this, I’m sick of you! We didn’t kill Gertrude, and no one wants to kill you, you pompous idiot!

Lucky that this tape didn’t end up in Jon’s hands during season 2, uh… (But at the same time, it had the original Sasha’s voice on it… so same question as in MAG161: who had kept the tapes for so long, and had managed to avoid that Jon would listen to them before he understood what was happening with the Not!Them?)

- Something doesn’t work in Tim’s “Cut the brakes on his office chair”: Jon’s chair scrapes on the floor, we’ve heard it plenty! It doesn’t have wheels! So maybe it was the case back when they were in research? (Or Tim broke it between this recording and MAG001.)

- TIM IS A MAN OF CULTURE!

(MAG162) SASHA: [CHUCKLES] And how do you know that you won’t be the one that gets it? That boy makes a lot of tea. TIM: Oh, it’s okay, I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder. SASHA: Urgh! TIM: [PROUD SNORT]

And given Sasha’s reaction, she understood the Princess Bride reference!! (… And now that I think about it, their exchange had a bit of the Buttercup-Westley dynamic…)

- I’m not okay I’m very okay, Tim&Sasha… had canonically fucked…

(MAG162) TIM: I can’t believe you’d just abandon our intense [STAPLING] “Will-They-Won’t-They” storyline like that! [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: Hum… I’m pretty sure we established it’s very much “Won’t-They”. TIM: No-no-no-no. See, we had the ill-advised hook-up; the awkward aftermath; and the gradually rebuilt friendship. [STAPLING] But… that’s all season two stuff. We’ve got like five more seasons before we get the heart-warming epilogue that makes it canon~ [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: I know it’s hard to hear, mate! But you’re not the love interest. [STAPLING] I think you might be the character they drop after the pilot! TIM: Uh– W–Wow! [RUSTLING OF PAPER] You are vicious today! SASHA: Sorry, Tim! I can’t hear you over all this stapling.

And I LOVE what we’re seeing of their relationship? With Tim joking around and Sasha able to be savage but not cruel either – we could feel that they had that kind of relationship where they can be a bit pushy and mean as part of their inside jokes?

I was shipping them already!! I love what we’re hearing of their actual relationship, how comfortable they were around each other as friends-who-have-slept-together-in-the-past!! I totally get why Tim seemed to love Sasha gdi.

I love how we had tiny glimpses that Tim had lost someone precious with her, and now… we can feel how much it was the case:

(MAG026) ARCHIVIST: Are you sure you’re all right to do this now? You can take a few days off to recover if you need. SASHA: No, it’s fine. Tim’s getting me a coffee, and I’d rather get this down while it’s still fresh in my mind.

(MAG161) TIM: What, does someone need to change their password again! ARCHIVIST: I… what? TIM: [LAUGHS] ARCHIVIST: Sasha, have you been going through my computer– SASHA: Definitely not! No idea what he’s talking about. TIM: ‘Course not! SASHA & TIM: [LAUGHS]

(MAG039) SASHA: What is he doing? No, Tim, just run! Leave it alone! MARTIN: Oh no, no, no, no… SASHA: Turn around. Just turn around. MARTIN: Oh god. There she is, there she is. ARCHIVIST: [MUTTERING] There’s nothing we can do. SASHA: Ah, screw this. ARCHIVIST: What, Sasha, NO! [DOOR OPENS] SASHA: Tim, look out! […] ARCHIVIST: I need you to describe what’s going on. For the record. MARTIN: Ah, yeah. Sure. So, um, Sasha tackled Tim and there was kind of a struggle, but she made it out of the Archives. That, that was about two minutes ago and she’s gone to get help. P–probably. I mean, she, she couldn’t… she wouldn’t just run so…

(MAG065) TIM: And the worst thing? The actual worst thing is that no one here has my back. With any of it! Elias doesn’t care; Martin just wants a tea party; and Sasha… god, and you!

(MAG079) TIM: What the hell was that? MARTIN: It… er... It looked… It kinda looked… TIM: Oh don’t say it. MARTIN: It did, though, didn’t it? TIM: That wasn’t Sasha. MARTIN: No. No, no, it wasn’t. You don’t… you don’t think– TIM: He told her to go home. Like us! MARTIN: Yeah. TIM: And she did. […] MARTIN: I didn’t hear anything. Why, do you think it was the Sasha-thing? TIM: Will you shut up about that. It wasn’t anything like her.

(MAG082) MARTIN: Maybe they said something about Sasha, y’know? TIM: She’s dead, Martin. Come on! Even you’re not that blind. He got her too. MARTIN: Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that! […] I don’t know who that old man was, but Jon would never hurt Sasha. TIM: Fine. If it wasn’t him, it must have been that thing we saw. MARTIN: It was only for a second. And what with that weird finger guy, and the door… I mean, it d–didn’t look like her. TIM: It did. You know it did. Maybe it ate her. Maybe it was her. Maybe she was always some messed up mutant and we just never noticed. Could have been “Michael”. I mean, it basically told us it was working with Jon. When you disappear and there are more than three different ways you might be dea– … Look, I’m sorry. It’s just this place. [SIGH] Bad things happen and eventually you don’t come back. MARTIN: T–Tim… TIM: I’m going to go lie down.

(MAG086) TIM: Wait. Tell me about the two Sashas. […] What did she look like? MELANIE: What? Sorry? TIM: The first Sasha. What… What was she like? MELANIE: Uh, she was… um… I don’t, er… maybe I’m… I’m getting it wrong. I just… okay, I can’t, er– TIM: No. I… think I understand. MELANIE: Well, can you explain? TIM: … Who am I even sad for? MELANIE: I… I’m, I’m sorry… I don’t, er… TIM: Um… I’m, I’m going to lie down…

(MAG114) TIM: You know how long that thing pretended to be Sasha? ARCHIVIST: Oh god… TIM: And I had no idea? I knew Sasha for years, we… I don’t know Martin as well as I knew her; I barely know what Melanie and Basira look like, or that weird murder-cop.

When The Unknowing came, Tim only mentioned Danny and avenging him – he probably didn’t remember anything about the real Sasha, only that someone had been there and wasn’t anymore?

- Kudos to the soundscaping this ep, because the timing of when the stapling sounds happened was just On Point (hammering words in/adding a bit of a playfully threatening feeling).

- ………….. Sasha had considered leaving…………… even before MAG001…

(MAG162) TIM: So, what are you gonna do? SASHA: … I don’t know, really. Might just get another job. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: What…? Seriously, just jump ship? SASHA: Yeah, I guess so! I mean… [STAPLING] There’s not much out there at the moment, but I’ve got a few alerts set up. […] I guess it’s just… I just don’t have anything keeping me here. You’ve got your brother… TIM: … yeah… SASHA: … Sorry. And, Martin can’t go anywhere that’ll look too hard at his CV. […] Don’t worry, I just– I mean… I kind of just… ended up here. And I like it! Li–liked it. But if I’m bashing my head against the glass ceiling, it’s time to go. TIM: Well… [RUSTLING OF PAPER] I’ll miss you. SASHA: Yeah. [STAPLING] You will.

1°) In canon, Sasha had been the first one to mention the option of quitting:

(MAG026) SASHA: I should really quit, you know. We, we all should. I don’t think this a normal job. I, I don’t think this is a safe job. ARCHIVIST: You’re probably right. Do you want to quit? SASHA: No. I’m just… I’m just too damned curious, I suppose. You? ARCHIVIST: No. Whatever’s going on, I… need to know.

… and rejected it for the same reasons as Jon. But it’s interesting that with Tim, she identified that she didn’t have anything to make her stay back then, while we know of Tim’s and Martin’s reasons. Jon said that Sasha had always had an interest in the paranormal:

(MAG048) ARCHIVIST: Of course, it is becoming rapidly apparent in my investigation that I can trust nobody. But of all of them, Sasha seemed the least suspicious. I can’t find any evidence she ever even met Gertrude, and her working here seems the natural progression of her lifelong interest in the paranormal. She’s been doing her work with the same diligence as before the Prentiss incident and, indeed, of all of them, seems to have been the least affected.

… So was that part the Not!Them rewriting her history to “make sense” of Sasha working at the Institute, or something genuinely pre-existent?

2°) When it comes to Tim: he had pointed out that he had grown “comfortable” in research and that Danny had stopped being so much of a priority (MAG104), I… wonder if Sasha had anything to do with that. Did Tim accept Jon’s offer to transfer to the Archives because he knew that Sasha would go there…?

3°) I’m sad again for Martin, since Sasha pointed out that leaving the Institute wasn’t really an option for him. And remembering Martin’s wording at the end of season 1:

(MAG039) ARCHIVIST: Why are you here Martin? MARTIN: Well, well, Prentiss is out there and you can’t run so– ARCHIVIST: I mean at the Archive in general. Why haven’t you quit? MARTIN: Are you giving me my review now? ARCHIVIST: No… We’re clearly doing a whole heart-to-heart thing and, truth be told, the question’s been bothering me. You’ve been living in the Archives for four months, constant threat of… this. Sleeping with a fire extinguisher and a corkscrew. Even you must be aware that that’s not normal for an archiving job? Why are you still here? MARTIN: [CONSIDERING] Don’t really know. I just am. It didn’t feel right to just leave. I’ve typed up a few resignation letters, but I just couldn’t bring myself to hand them in. I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t… move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck.

It feels like, technically, Martin constructed his own trap through his lies. (Though, at this point he could have left the Institute and changed his CV, claiming an experience he now indeed had and scraping the fake diplomas. But then, the Institute isn’t seen favourably, so…)

- I REALLY WOULD HAVE NEVER EXPECTED TO LEARN that Sasha knew about Danny, oh GODS…

(MAG162) SASHA: [SIGH] … I guess it’s just… I just don’t have anything keeping me here. You’ve got your brother… TIM: … yeah… SASHA: … Sorry.

Tim’s small broken voice when she reminded him of it ;_;

And in the same way, I! Can’t! Believe! That! Martin! Had! Told! Tim! About! His! CV!

(MAG162) SASHA: … Sorry. And, Martin can’t go anywhere that’ll look too hard at his CV. TIM: … Wait. How do you know about that? SASHA: It’s all on the system. Our digital security is shocking, by the way. Besides, it’s not even a good lie. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: Okay, but seriously, you cannot let Martin know. He’ll think I told you, and I swore to keep schtum. SASHA: Hey. Don’t worry, I just– I mean… I kind of just… ended up here.

1°) It’s absolutely hilarious that disaster!paranoid!stalker!season2!Jon… turned out to have been the last one of the original team to find out about Martin’s secret.

(MAG042) ARCHIVIST: There are a few pieces I feel could almost have been affecting if his style wasn’t so obviously enamoured with Keats, but there is an unfinished letter, addressed to his mother in Devon, in which he mentions that he is worried about “the others finding out I’ve been lying”. It may be nothing, some… inconsequential deception or other – after all, it is ostensibly written to his mother – but if it was actually to be sent to someone else… I will keep my eye on Martin.

(MAG056) MARTIN: I… … I lied on my CV. ARCHIVIST: … What? MARTIN: I don’t have a Master’s in parapsychology, I don’t even have a degree. When I was 17, my mom, she… had… she had some problems, and I ended up dropping out of school, t– trying to support us. I tried everything, but no one was hiring. So I… I just kinda started to lie on my applications, sending them out to just about anywhere. For some reason, my lie about parapsychology got me an interview with Elias and, and then a job here. M– most of my employment details are made up, I’m only 29! ARCHIVIST: Right, I… uh… I believe you! MARTIN: Why are you smiling…? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I just… hum… I won’t mention it to Elias. Just between us. MARTIN: So you… don’t… mind? ARCHIVIST: To be quite honest, Martin, I’m… I’m really rather relieved.

Sasha made her own research by hacking through the Institute system (pfTTR, take that Elias), and probably crosschecked Martin’s claims?, while Tim… knew because Martin had confided in him. Meanwhile, Jon spiralled around a misunderstanding, until he confronted Martin quite violently.

2°) I’m ;; emotional over the fact that Tim & Sasha didn’t know that the other knew, but kept Martin’s secret, even from Jon. Sasha had been a bit savage towards Martin in season 1:

(MAG026) SASHA: Right. Well, I’m sure you know I was sceptical about how dangerous this Jane Prentiss was when you first suggested Martin stay in the archive. I mean, it’s not that I didn’t believe him about what happened, it just seemed… Well, Martin is a great researcher, but his self-preservation instincts are not the strongest, and to be frank I thought that if this Prentiss were a danger everyone seemed to think, then he’d almost certainly be dead.

… Or at least condescending, but the fact that she knew about his CV is adding another dimension to these words: she knew he didn’t have the qualifications, and had still avoided to put the blame on his lack of competency (“Martin is a great researcher”). Tim and Sasha were casually protecting Martin in their own way, uh…

3°) Ouffftttt, it’s highlighting something mean about Martin&Tim’s dynamic… Tim had acknowledged that he was closer to Sasha than Martin:

(MAG114) TIM: You know how long that thing pretended to be Sasha? ARCHIVIST: Oh god… TIM: And I had no idea? I knew Sasha for years, we… I don’t know Martin as well as I knew her; I barely know what Melanie and Basira look like, or that weird murder-cop.

Martin had told Tim about his secret (the lies on his CV)… yet Tim hadn’t told him about Danny, which Martin would learn about in MAG104, while Sasha… knew. Had she discovered it by herself (police reports regarding the disappearance of Tim’s brother), or did Tim tell her? At least, they shared that secret.

- Tim was incredibly SAVAGE about Jon in this episode, but technically… he had still accepted Jon’s offer to go to the Archives – you wouldn’t do that for someone you truly despise and hate? But ;; that there was such heavy resentment towards the fact that Sasha had been robbed of the position… It’s fair, and he identified the genuine culprit (Elias), but wooooft, those were very harsh words towards Jon, still. (And at the same time: fair, when we remember what Jon was like in season 1.)

- I… love how that tape contributed both to Sasha and Tim as characters? It was a nice move to have them pointing out people’s misconceptions or “flattening” of their personalities, in a moment that was “outside” of the show’s formula (season 1, until the climax, was solely statements, work-related discussions being overall accidental):

(MAG162) TIM: Oh, for god’s sake! [RUSTLING OF PAPER] “Oh, Tim’s so hard to talk to, seriously, he won’t stop making jokes and references, not like Sasha!” They’ve got no idea. SASHA: And they never will. TIM: Seriously, though. [STAPLING] Everyone thinks you’re just this “reliable down-to-earth nerd”… [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: And what makes you think they’re wrong? TIM: So what? Actually I’m the one who doesn’t get to see the real you? [STAPLING] SASHA: No such thing. TIM: As what? SASHA: [SCOFF] A “real you”. TIM: [GROAN] SASHA: I don’t think so, at least. It’s all just masks. TIM: Alright, Stanislavski. SASHA: You know what I mean. TIM: You really believe that? [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: Kind of! I mean… TIM: [CHUCKLE] SASHA: … Who knows why we do what we do? TIM: I do. SASHA: No. [STAPLING] All you know is what your brain does to justify what you do. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] It’s no more “reason” than the face you put on for Jon. [STAPLING] The only real you is the actions you take. TIM: Hey! I’ll have you know, I have a rich inner life. SASHA: How nice for you. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] But hurry up with your outer one: you’re falling behind, and I’m not saving you any staples.

(And it was! So appropriate, to have Sasha point out that Gertrude was faking the old senile woman persona in the same exchange.)

1°) I love that Tim was aware that he was perceived as the One Making Jokes (and self-conscious about it? Or aware that some people were finding it off-putting and an obstacle to forming a meaningful bond with him?), while Sasha showed that she was a bit meaner than we had been led to assume (and indeed, “reliable” was the perfect way to describe her in season 1… through Jon’s eyes).

2°) Tim is a theatre kid confirmed, he knows his classics. (Stanislavski)

3°) Okay, so obviously, Sasha’s speech about how people appear/who they are, and the jokes about being forgotten are AOUCH considering what happened with the Not!Them:

(MAG162) TIM: What possible reason could she have for being criminally incompetent in a manky old archive? SASHA: No idea. And honestly, it kind of worries me. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: Well… Tell you what. If you get eaten alive [STAPLING] by improperly filed statements? Me and Martin will avenge you. SASHA: Myeah, aren’t you sweet. TIM: I mean it! We’ll burn this place to the ground, it’ll be all like, “Sashaaa! Saaashaaaa!” SASHA: And what about Jon? [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: Well! “Given the incoherence of this statement, I find it hard to believe it ever occurred!” SASHA: [LAUGHS] TIM: “In fact, based on the evidence, I find it highly unlikely this Sasha ever even existed at all.” SASHA: No! You took it too far. I’m unforgettable!

But the first part of her argument reminded me mostly of The Web: how actions and intentions often don’t match, what is the essence of oneself amongst what is influencing you. The idea that intentions are posterior to action was very reminiscent of how Trevor had described The Web’s effects on him (MAG056), so… Mm.

I wonder if there is something about the fact that… all this irony about Sasha getting Stranger’d and forgotten, about Jon wishing for “quiet” and that the others would “go away”, is not… fabricated somehow? I don’t think the tapes could have been tampered with; it’s mainly that there was so much dramatic irony that it feels like Sasha’s fate had been engineered, somehow, to transform her words from the past into a sort of dramatic self-fulfilling prediction…? I mean, The Web was interested in story-telling (MAG123), and Sasha got attacked when coming near a Web artefact…

- I!! Love!! That Sasha!! Had been able to see through Gertrude!

(MAG162) TIM: Yeah, yeah! … I still can’t believe Gertrude was allowed to let this place get into such a state! SASHA: Mm. [STAPLING] I just want to know why. TIM: What do you mean, “why”? [RUSTLING OF PAPER] You saw her, she’s like a hundred years old and more cardigan than woman! She just started to lose it. Sad, but it happens. SASHA: You never talked to her, did you? [STAPLING] TIM: Well, I mean… I must’ve, at some point. SASHA: Eh! You’d remember. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] TIM: Why? What was she like? SASHA: Stone. Cold. Bitch. TIM: Sasha! SASHA: And sharper than you. [STAPLING] No way this is accidental. TIM: [CHUCKLING] Oh, yeah, this is all a big geriatric conspiracy…! [SILENCE] Wait, seriously? SASHA: Mm–hmm.

(“Stone cold bitch” is… indeed the best way to describe Gertrude.)

Sasha had also been the first one to point out how shady Elias could be:

(MAG039) SASHA: … Did I ever tell you I first joined the Institute as a practical researcher? I had to analyse and investigate all the stuff in here. Take notes after sleeping in the rusted chair, write in the memory book, all that sort of thing. I transferred after three months. Would’ve quit, but couldn’t afford to back then. Never understood why they keep this stuff secret. I mean, we’ve, we’ve enough here to send any sceptic packing, but it’s just locked away. I… I asked Elias about it once, but he just muttered something about funding and mission statements. He’s good at changing the subject, isn’t he?

She was clever! Elias presented her death as a (useful) accident in MAG160, but it still feels like he casually did his best to make sure she wouldn’t stay around for long during the worms attack – how fast would she have understood about The Eye…?

- CURIOUSLY, Sasha told Tim that he would have remembered if he had spoken with Gertrude… but Jon did, and didn’t seem to feel much about it:

(MAG043) ARCHIVIST: I only ever spoke to Gertrude once or twice during her time as archivist. I… I was very new. I don’t remember what her voice sounded like.

… is there something that made Jon forget a few things, or already not pay attention to some things back before he become the Archivist…? (Since we already had the thing about Jon forgetting the ice cream outing last episode…)

- Tim blamed Sasha being passed over for a promotion on sexism, Elias mentioned that the fact Jon had been marked by The Web made him pick him… but technically, why not Tim, who had already encountered The Stranger?

(MAG104) TIM: You were watching then? ELIAS: Most of it. TIM: Surprised you didn’t know it already. That’s your thing, isn’t it? ELIAS: I knew there was some trauma that drew you to us, but I can’t say I ever thought to look much deeper. An oversight, perhaps, but I’m looking now.

… Was it because, unlike Jon who had nobody by the beginning of season 1, Tim&Sasha… were at least close to each other?

- More pressing concerns: did Tim&Sasha ever bang in the Archives.

(MAG162) TIM: [CHUCKLES] Alright. He fires you because of all the drugs and the wild orgies on Archive property. [RUSTLING OF PAPER] SASHA: Yeah, that’s fair! Now: get back to work.

Did orgies happen in the Archives.

- … That’s a LOT of references to fire in only two episodes, and four tapes which had been sent to Jon pre-apocalypse by someone/something who isn’t necessarily Elias.

(MAG161) TIM: … Oh, goodness! [SHAKES A BOX OF MATCHES] A source of ignition? In the Archives? […] Oh? Woops! [A MATCH IS LIT] Sorry; my hand slipped. And again. [CRACKLE OF A BIRTHDAY CANDLE WICK] And again. And… a couple more times, here – I’m so clumsy today; that is a lot of fire! ARCHIVIST: I’m really not comfortable with– SASHA: So blow them out, then. ARCHIVIST: Oh. [FIRE CRACKLING] … Right, yeah–

(MAG161) GERTRUDE: Paper burns well. [GURGLING LIQUID] Petrol burns… better. LEITNER: Aha! I always forget about your pyromaniac streak. GERTRUDE: Mm. Remind me to tell you about Agnes, sometime…!

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: Eh! [INHALE] You can probably burn it in the back courtyard, if you’re careful. GERRY: Yeah, will do! GERTRUDE: And for goodness’s sake, make sure no one sees you. The last thing we need is a letter to Elias about book-burnings. GERRY: Look, if you have somewhere better to burn these books, then– […] You, uh… need anything else burning?

(MAG162) TIM: Well… Tell you what. If you get eaten alive [STAPLING] by improperly filed statements? Me and Martin will avenge you. SASHA: Myeah, aren’t you sweet. TIM: I mean it! We’ll burn this place to the ground, it’ll be all like, “Sashaaa! Saaashaaaa!”

So. Really really unlikely that it was Elias sending them to “gloat”, as Martin assumed, since it feels too pointed. I’m still banking on The Web, but not necessarily as an indication of what Martin&Jon should do – more like a rubbing-in-your-face that they had all the keys back then, that Jon had been given the lighter, that the spiders had showed him in season 2 the gas main that Leitner had moved… and that they didn’t do anything. Or, burning the Archives is a necessarily step in The Web’s plan, The Web is trying to push into that direction by using Jon&Martin’s resentment towards Elias, and burning the Archives (if it doesn’t end up burning Jon-the-Archive himself) will make things worse somehow.

(Given how burning Gerry’s page had been so difficult (because knowledge and because the things Gerry could still tell him) and painful (he was sobbing in pain when he finally did it) for Jon in MAG117, I wonder how much worse it would be to burn The Eye’s Archives?)

And now, confirmation that Jon still has the lighter on him, it had been a while! And we might be getting closer to an answer about it, since… it was Martin mentioning it – Martin had been the one to receive that delivery.

(MAG035) MARTIN: I’m sorry, are you two meant– BREEKON: Won’t take up your time. HOPE: Just got a delivery. MARTIN: Look, you really can’t actually– BREEKON: Package for Jonathan Sims. HOPE: Says right here. MARTIN: Well, I don’t really know where he– HOPE: We’ll just leave it with you. BREEKON: Be sure he gets it.

(MAG036) TIM: Oh, ah, nothing urgent, um, it’s just Elias was asking a couple questions about the delivery. […] Um, apparently Martin, uh, took delivery of a couple of items last week addressed to you. Did he not mention it? ARCHIVIST: No, he… Oh, yes, actually. I completely forgot. He said he put it in my desk draw, hold on. [SOUND OF PACKAGE BEING RETRIEVED AND OPENED] TIM: Er, what is it? ARCHIVIST: A lighter. An old Zippo. TIM: You smoke? ARCHIVIST: No. And I don’t allow ignition sources in my archive! TIM: Okay. Is there anything unusual about it? ARCHIVIST: Not really. Just a sort of spider web design on the front. Doesn’t mean anything to me. You?

(MAG037) ARCHIVIST: I just want a record. To make sure I have something I can check. MARTIN: Okay, fine. There were two delivery men. They were big, and they spoke with cockney accents that might have been fake, and they delivered a package for you. I don’t remember anything else about what they looked like. ARCHIVIST: Nothing at all? MARTIN: [EXASPERATED] They looked normal. Like you’d expect. They looked like two, huge, cockney delivery men. I don’t know what else you want? ARCHIVIST: What about the table? MARTIN: I didn’t see the table. I guess Rosie must have signed for it. I mean, it’s her office on the way to Artefact Storage, that makes sense.

(MAG039) ELIAS: Because there isn’t an actual fire. SASHA: Right, right. Can we set it off manually? I think Jon’s got a lighter somewhere. ELIAS: He’s not smoking again, is he?

(MAG091) DAISY: One wallet, brown leather, no cash. One packet cigarettes, Silk Cut. One lighter, gold, spiderweb design.

(MAG111) GERRY: Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then? ARCHIVIST: What? Oh! Er, no. I–I never really, uh… I never really thought of it. I–I’m Jon. I’m with the Magnus Institute.

(MAG136) DAISY: Spider’s sneaky like that. [PAUSE] Like that lighter you’re always using. Where’d you get that? ARCHIVIST: Mm. [STATIC] Good point. We should keep our eyes open. Anyway, how’s Basira doing?

(MAG162) MARTIN: [INHALE] Okay… [SIGH] You said this place, the–the cabin was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It, it’s feeding on us, right? ARCHIVIST: Yes… MARTIN: … So should we… destroy it, before we go? [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND, BUT LOUDER AND CONFRONTATIONAL] [DISTANT RUMBLE OF THUNDER] ARCHIVIST: I honestly don’t know if we can. MARTIN: Hm. ARCHIVIST: Besides, there’s… far worse out there. Better to try and avoid it, I think. MARTIN: We’re not even gonna try? We, we’ve got your lighter, maybe we could just– ARCHIVIST: We can’t fight the world, Martin. MARTIN: [AMUSED DEFIANT HUFF] Says you.

(This is how Web-Desolation!Martin can still win. ARSOOOOOOOON.)

Re: Jon’s lighter, and Jon constantly forgetting about it, I… am now also considering another option about what is making him forget that it has a spider design on it, that he got it in dubious circumstances (Breekon&Hope delivering it), and that it had stuck with him without Jon ever investigating about it.

What if it’s not The Web making him forget that he has it, but Beholding?

Making Jon not pay attention to it could absolutely be a Spider thing, we had a prime example with Gregory Cox (MAG123: “I haven’t given the name of this mystery client because to be honest, Greg’s never told me. I’ve asked him plenty of times, but whenever I do, he gives me this… surprised look, insists he’s told me before, and then immediately forgets and changes the subject.”), and that was my only supposition until now… but technically, we’ve already seen Beholding trying to prevent Jon from accessing information that he could use against it, too?

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: I went back to Eli– er, Peter’s office. To that box of tapes; started rifling through. And I started to try and pay attention to the ones I… wasn’t drawn to. The tapes I instinctively wanted to discard. [SIGH] There was one, this one, that my hand… pulled back from. I–I dropped it, twice, when I went to pick it up. Even now, I’m… [AUDIBLE FORCED SMILE] struggling to press play…! I am the avatar of Awful Knowledge And Revealed Secrets… so what does it not want me to know…?

The lighter could have been The Web keeping tabs on Jon and sometimes influencing him when it needed to by making itself forgotten… But it could also be that The Web sent the lighter, that it was there, that it stuck with Jon, that it was supposed to help him burn the Archives, that Beholding couldn’t get Jon to separate from it, but could still make sure that baby!Beholdingavatar!Jon was unable to pay attention to it and making his attention slip over it like water…? (Am still banking on Web-Web doing Web stuff but. Beholding is technically an option as well.)

- Other thing that these recordings all share: a tape recorder being around and acknowledged / alluded to. In MAG161, both the birthday party and Gertrude&Leitner’s exchange had been conscious, willing recording: Tim was recording the scene as a memory, Gertrude had been recording a message to her successor in case things went badly.

In MAG162, recorders were there and acknowledged… but it’s a bit less clear whether they were supposed to be turned on or not.

(MAG162) [CLICK–] [RUMMAGING SOUNDS] [BOTTLES CLINKING] [PLASTIC RATTLING] GERRY: Hm? GERTRUDE: Find anything [ITEM FALLING ON THE GROUND] interesting– GERRY: Oh…! GERTRUDE: –back there? [DOOR CLOSES] GERRY: Yeah, sorry, I was just, hum… yeah. GERTRUDE: Curiosity is a very dangerous trait in our line of work, Gerard. GERRY: So is ignorance. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLES] Well. You’re not going to find many dark secrets in the stationery cupboard. [DRAWER OR DOOR CLOSES] GERRY: Just the recorded confession of your evil plans, then. [WOOD CREAKS] GERTRUDE: I’d be something of a fool to leave that one in the recorder. GERRY: I’ve never really seen you use it. GERTRUDE: Hm! It’s generally only for those statements I think might be useful to my successor. Or, the occasional interview.

(MAG162) [CLICK–] [RUMMAGING SOUNDS] TIM: [SIGH] SASHA: This it? TIM: Oh, thank God! I thought I was seeing things. SASHA: Glad I could help. TIM: I didn’t know he was actually gonna ask me to get it for him, I just… mentioned it ‘cause he was talking about recording. SASHA: Well, I’m sure he’s waiting…! TIM: Hm, he can wait a bit longer.

In both cases: the recorder was there. Gerry found it while inspecting Gertrude’s private things (and it was already recording before we heard him manipulating something plastic, most likely tape boxes); Sasha helped Tim to find (again) the tape recorder he was searching for for Jon. But in both cases, nobody mentioned they were being recorded, or that they had accidentally clicked it on. Were they turned on by accident, or were they already “autonomous” (/controlled by something else), leading to the recording? Tim had trouble finding the tape recorder again – had it… disappeared for a while? It’s still unclear whether or not they were already acting up on their own at the time…

(Something else these four tapes have in common is that the Archives were hosting… “unprofessional” activities putting a risk to documents? Jon’s birthday party (Tim even had matches), Gertrude ready to pour petrol in the Archives, and here: Gerry riffling through Gertrude’s possessions, Sasha stapling documents.)

- Overall, I loved loved loved the “statement”: it was so eerie, cruel and poetic? So insidiously cutting under the soft voice? And redfiojr I’m so happy and so mad about the fact that the cabin wasn’t neutral anymore and was feeding on Jon&Martin, because it was so obvious in retrospect! Jon spitting that there was no “comfort” anymore in the new world, but very adamant that they were “safe” and should stay there!

(MAG161) MARTIN: O–kay, we’ll just file that under… ominous, for now. … We seem safe enough in here, at least. ARCHIVIST: I suppose so. MARTIN: Bit of a hideaway? ARCHIVIST: Or a prison. MARTIN: Uh, yes. Still: better than outside. […] ARCHIVIST: It hurts. MARTIN: I know. ARCHIVIST: … I need time. MARTIN: I know. But we can’t stay in this cabin forever…! [DISTANT HOWL] ARCHIVIST: Why not? It, it’s quiet here, an–and I have you…! […] MARTIN: Well, that as may be, we can’t just stay here forever. ARCHIVIST: What could possibly be out there that you want to see? MARTIN: A way to stop this, a way to turn the world back! ARCHIVIST: [HINT OF A DISHEARTENED SMILE] … Do you really think there is one? [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: Well, if there is, it’s not in here, is it? ARCHIVIST: It’s so… It’s so loud, out there? The agony, the–the terror, I can see it all so much more clearly…! MARTIN: I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: No, it’s– [SIGH] I love you, I just… I need more time. [SILENCE] MARTIN: It’s alright. [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] [CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: [SOFT EXHALE] MARTIN: It’s alright, I’m good at waiting.

The creaking sounds were overly present – it was because the house was a character by itself! And indeed, it was curious that Martin felt like he was “visiting” Jon, and not like… they were living in the same tiny space?

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: … Wha…? [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] … “There is a place, deep in the heart of Fear, where you trap yourself and claim that it is safety. [STATIC DECREASES] It was once a cabin, and professes still to be such, but as with all in this new world that promises respite… it is a trap. […] If you had need to eat, no doubt there would be food; if you had need to sleep, no doubt the beds would be welcoming. […] Look closer at the rough planks that make this cabin, and see that they are warmer, softer and more yielding than the hard timber they present. Are the dimensions of this place quite what they were when you stayed here before The Change…? [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] Or are the walls thicker, the doors heavier when they close. [LONG WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] Where the curtains always stained that dull maroon? Or has the dust of the horrific world they keep at bay dyed them so. The one you love is always near, [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] so close that refuge sometimes feels a prison. And yet your voice does not echo when you call to them; and they find they sometimes cannot hear it.”

[…] MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps. […] I, I actually, eh! I actually found a stash of tea under the kitchen sink–

I have questions about that cabin, though, because it now feels like it was supposed to be a full house even before the Change, given the bedS (we all know that Jon&Martin used to only use one anyway during the three weeks honeymoon, uh.) and the mention of the attic. Daisy, what the heck was your safehouse, it wasn’t a tiny thing.

- Personally, cabin felt like a mix of Corruption, Buried, Lonely to me /o/

- I wasn’t expecting so much Jon&Martin, AND YET, I’m delighted:

(MAG161) ARCHIVIST: No, it’s– [SIGH] I love you, I just… I need more time. [SILENCE] MARTIN: It’s alright.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: The screams may linger on the distant breeze, and your eye may wander beyond the curtains from time to time, but you and the one you love are, it seems… safe. […] There within the thing that pretends to be a cabin is the one you love. You hold each other, whisper words of reassurance, but the place knows this comfort to be a lie, and laces upon it instead the awful fear of losing what you have. […] It will not let you feel the warmth of joy that this love may claim to gift – it is only a mouldy treasure to be clung to; something to fear the loss of as you hold it so tight that it withers, and warps. […] The one you love is always near, [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] so close that refuge sometimes feels a prison. And yet your voice does not echo when you call to them; and they find they sometimes cannot hear it. […] “Stay!” the cabin says. [THUNDER CLAPPING] “Stay within my false defences; cling so close to what you desperately wish to save, and live in shaking fear of the things beyond that may take it from you. Throw another log on the fire and curl up close. There are always more logs for the fire here.””

The Eye and the cabin, sharing a bag of popcorn while Jon&Martin were being pda for an undetermined infinite amount of time.

(Yessss that one of Jon’s fears, used against him, was his fear of losing Martin… ;_;)

- SUPER GLAD that alright, they’re leaving the cabin already, Jon was in such a state partially because of supernatural influence, and snapped out of it already. It… wasn’t making me super comfortable re:Martin, because it was putting him back in the position of the caretaker of a moody, depressed person, trying to please/assuage Jon while doomed to fail, without leaving much space to Martin as a character for himself. While he was already beaming again at the end of this episode, and showing his competences for himself, so yay!

I’m surprised that they’re already going on the move – there are still 38 episodes in the season, they already have a goal (going back to the Institute, finding Elias), what will happen after they do?

- … So, I’m guessing those were the people that lived in the village:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “Outside, it is raining. Heavy drops fall, ice-cold and laced with salt; tears of voyeuristic delight from The Eyes that see and drink in all – it sinks into the dry cracked ground, and from the mud faces struggle to push themselves free and breathe. [EVIL MOO / BÂÂ IN THE DISTANCE] [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] They cannot breach the surface, as the slick soil flows down their throats.”

;; Kinda hope that we’re not heading towards “everyone is dead(/worse) or nerfed except for avatars and the MCs, and it will be like that until the end”…

(See, the themes of isolation don’t hit me badly with the current events? But the idea that Everyone Can Suffer And (Not!)Die Except A Selected Few, Mainly These Able-Bodied Male Main Characters Who Have The Tools To Suffer Less is a bit heavier for me.)

- … This bit:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “Something moves outside, struggling to crawl upon a hundred reaching grasping hands. It shudders, and grips the earth, pulling itself along as nails rip free and skin scrapes loose. It is afraid of what it has become, and where it might be going.”

Reminded me of Daisy? It might have been an evil cow, but “it is afraid of what is had become” really reminds me of Daisy…

- Sound-setting wise, I wondered at some point if we weren’t precisely witnessing a reverse-engineering of the apocalypse, since… Jon was “saying” a statement talking to himself in second person (like Jonah’s in MAG160), and we began to hear the thunder in the background (just like in MAG160). Very eerie, very “oh no, something big is happening” moment.

I… am not sure re:what happened with Jon and the “statement”, but it reminded me of the Coffin and his understanding of The Lonely:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Come on… Come on, where I… DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: … Come on… [STATIC] [SHAKY BREATHING] DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: I know… DAISY: Th–the way out? ARCHIVIST: No… I know where we are! There isn’t no out, not here. This is… this is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down… This is The Buried, and we are alive… There isn’t even an up. … Oh god… What have I done! What have I done…

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED] Just go. ARCHIVIST: Make me. … Unless you can’t. The Lonely and The Eye aren’t too far apart, are they? Not really. What good’s being alone if you don’t know how alone you truly are. Which means… well, I think you’re worried. You know I’ll find him eventually, and you know I can find you. […] [STATIC] … Or perhaps you could answer some questions. PETER: [DISTORTED] … What? ARCHIVIST: [STATIC INCREASES] I wouldn’t try to leave if I were you. I can See you now. I can find you wherever you go. PETER: Fine! It was just a thought. [STATIC DECREASES] So leave.

Being overwhelmed by a power, until his Beholding-alignment shines through and leads to an understanding of what is happening, how the Fear is operating. So I would assume that the same happened: Jon was subjected to the cabin’s influence, and finally understood what it was doing, which allowed him to gain the upper hand against it, like it had with Peter.

Interesting that the tape recorder which invited itself… chose that moment to record him, although we had mentions that Jon had listened to the tapes we hear many times before. As if the tape recorder knew that Something More would happen this time – or it caused it? (Jon had been able to feel his anchor in the Coffin once Martin had left the tape recorders around, as if they were amplifying his powers…)

- … I’m mostly concerned about why The Eye wanted Jon to come out of it because uh, Jon transforming is… not a good sign, and The Eye seems plenty satisfied with the new world… but also, has been characterised by a constant craving for more:

(MAG120) ELIAS: The Ceaseless Watcher of all that is, and all that was; the voracious, infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever. It stares into him, and it stares out of him, and he is falling into the devouring eternity of its pupil. He wants to cry out in horror, but he cannot. He. is. whole.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “Outside, it is raining. Heavy drops fall, ice-cold and laced with salt; tears of voyeuristic delight from The Eyes that see and drink in all – it sinks into the dry cracked ground, and from the mud faces struggle to push themselves free and breathe. […] This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC RISES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It is time that I emerge…” [STATIC REACHING A PEAK]

So. What just happened / what is meant to happen to Jon? Is there a distinction between the “you”, “us”, “I”, is this Jon “becoming” in the same vein that Elias was pushing for back in the days:

(MAG116) ELIAS: I have been doing my best to prepare you, Jon, to See. You should hopefully have it a bit easier than the others. ARCHIVIST: Another of my… powers? ELIAS: More… an aspect of your becoming. DAISY: You don’t say. ARCHIVIST: Er… right.

(Lucky that “chrysalis” means “butterfly”, because, hum, if it had been about a moth… We already had Jack Barnabas’s “I just couldn’t avoid being drawn in, like a moth to the flame.” in MAG067…)

- Also surprised by Jon’s sudden burst of “hatred” because? It would be absolutely understandable given what he did to them (+ Elias was the last human to see Sasha, in MAG039…), but it still sounded a bit uncharacteristic from Jon, and very sudden:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: No, no, lo–look… I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…!

And I’m reminded of The Web pulling someone in a direction, and letting them rationalise why they would want to do this?

(Also, sob about Jon going back to instinctive “Elias” here. His complains about Martin using “Elias” really was the outlier in MAG161, because he was being overall insufferable, uh.)

- BIG new thing is what Jon described with the tape recorder:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: This cabin. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It’s not right. And, when I thought that, I–I felt… It, it all poured out of me down… into the tape. MARTIN: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: A–a–an–and it… felt good. It–it felt… right. MARTIN: Okay. [BREATHES IN] So you’re recording again? ARCHIVIST: I might need to. If we’re going to make it…! […] MARTIN: You’re… taking the recorder? ARCHIVIST: Uh, just in case I need to… vent. Again, it… [INHALE] it helps. MARTIN: [INHALE] Okay… [SIGH]

… So it feels like Jon just fed the recorder with an excess. What are they and what is Jon feeding, exactly…? (Interesting that unlike Beholding, who used to suck out energy from him in season 3 when he was reading or taking too many statements… “pouring” himself to the tape recorder made him active and functioning.)

(Also, “to vent”: Jon, you’ve been using the tape recorders as your personal therapists for three full seasons, by now.)

- Martin…

(MAG162) MARTIN: What happened? The tapes, were you– [STATIC DECREASES] ARCHIVIST: I–I was listening, and it… it was the one with… Tim an–and Sasha, uh, where they… MARTIN: Yeah, yeah. … Yeah.

… has listened to these tapes too, uh ;_;

- This was the “Characters Don’t Have Any Respect For Posh!Jon” episode, while! Technically, Tim&Martin had each already done impressions before:

(MAG162) TIM: Well! “Given the incoherence of this statement, I find it hard to believe it ever occurred!” SASHA: [LAUGHS] TIM: “In fact, based on the evidence, I find it highly unlikely this Sasha ever even existed at all.”

(MAG039) TIM: … still working? Ah, okay. Test, test. What are you doing on the floor? Huh. [IMITATES ARCHIVIST VOICE] “Statement of Joe Spooky, regarding sinister happenings in the downtown old–”

(MAG117) MARTIN: I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but… it felt good, weaving my own little web. OH, oh Christ, I hope Jon doesn’t actually listen to these. “Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?” No, Jon, it’s an expression, chill out.

(MAG162) MARTIN: No, no; I, I know what you’re going to say. [RUMMAGING] “What good are maps when the very Earth has…” and blah blah blah…

Gods, I love these idiots.

- Surprised that “tea” is making its comeback! Is it linked to Jon’s state of mind or Martin’s? Is there a trick or… is it plain, mundane tea, which will remain actual tea because Martin isn’t clinging to it as comfort but just as a nice thing that he is allowed to enjoy – and Jon doing the same by extension?

(MAG162) TIM: Swap in a poisoned teabag, pin it on Martin – the perfect crime. SASHA: [CHUCKLES] And how do you know that you won’t be the one that gets it? That boy makes a lot of tea.

(MAG045) MARTIN: Hey, I-just-wanted-to-check-if-you-wanted-a-cup-of-tea? ARCHIVIST: Aaah… […] MARTIN: Right, right… D– did you want that tea? ARCHIVIST: Nnno. Thank you, Martin.

(MAG065) TIM: And the worst thing? The actual worst thing is that no one here has my back. With any of it! Elias doesn’t care; Martin just wants a tea party; and Sasha… god, and you!

(MAG069) MARTIN: … Look. Jon… when was the last time we all just… talked? Just talked, without all of this– ARCHIVIST: Thank you for the tea, Martin. MARTIN: … Oookay. Fine. [DOOR OPENS] He’s not wrong, you know. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] [WEAKLY] I know. Statement of… Darren Harlow… [SIGH] [FIRMER] Statement of Darren Harlow regarding a failed psychology experiment at the University of Surrey.

(MAG110) BASIRA: Look, Martin. I know you care. I know you do. But caring isn’t enough. You can’t just stand next to someone with a cup of tea and hope everything’s gonna be alright. MARTIN: That's. not. fair. You don’t even know me. BASIRA: Prove it. We need to do something. Because if we just let him– MARTIN: Oh, h–hi, hey, hey Melanie! I, I, c–can I get you – a – cup – of – tea?

(MAG116) MARTIN: What, I’ll sit around drinking tea until the world ends?! Or– you, you know, it doesn’t. BASIRA: We hope.

(MAG117) MARTIN: Anyway. I guess I’m just… sick of sitting on my hands, drinking tea and hoping everyone’s okay. This way I finally get to do something. It’s gonna hurt, but… I’m ready. And I want to. Also, I get to burn some stuff, so that cool!

(MAG118) MARTIN: So what? I don’t get to be angry? I don’t get to burn things? Just, just run around, making tea, when everyone else gets to actually– have– feelings? ELIAS: Please get to the point, Martin.

(MAG122) BASIRA: Anything else? ARCHIVIST: … Water, please. BASIRA: Sure thing. [DOOR OPENS] ARCHIVIST: … Oh, or a–a cup of t– [CLOSES DOOR] ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] [VERY QUIETLY] Okay…

(MAG137) ARCHIVIST: Everyone else is… running towards something, or running away, and I… [SIGH] I don’t know what I’m doing. [PAUSE] [SIGH] I’m just tired. Think I might go lie down for a while. Get a cup of tea [HUFF]

(Season 5 trailer) MARTIN: I brought you some tea…! ARCHIVIST: No you didn’t. MARTIN: Uh… What? Uh, y–yes I did! [NERVOUS CHUCKLE] ARCHIVIST: We ran out of tea the day before the Change, you… said the little shop in the village didn’t have any more. Ergo… that isn’t tea. MARTIN: What? No, of course it’s tea, I– [SOMETHING THAT IS NOT TEA SCUTTLES AWAY] AH, AH! AH! [THE MUG SHATTERS OF THE FLOOR] MARTIN: OH! Woah…! Oh… Wha… [HIGH-PITCHED] What, but I–, I–I made that, if– I… Wh… I thought it was– ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, Martin. MARTIN: [PANTS] ARCHIVIST: [WITH AN EDGE] Things don’t work like that anymore…! MARTIN: Like what?! ARCHIVIST: Like normal. This is no longer a world where you can trust…! MARTIN: What, t–tea?! ARCHIVIST: … Comfort.

(MAG162) MARTIN: I, I actually, eh! I actually found a stash of tea under the kitchen sink– ARCHIVIST: [FOND CHUCKLE] MARTIN: I–I realise, we don’t need to eat or – whatever, but, you know, that doesn’t mean that we won’t… ARCHIVIST: Yes – yes, yes…! It’s… alright. Alright.

(Because if the idea is that, okay yeah, things are terrible, and drinking tea won’t help but EH, they can still have nice things if they decide to, yesss.) (If it’s not: serve it to Elias.)

- I still can’t believe how IN LOVE Jon and Martin sounded in their complicity/marvel of each other:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: No, no, lo–look… I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…! MARTIN: W–wow, okay… […] ARCHIVIST: Martin… It’s going to be a hard journey. MARTIN: [RELIEVED EXHALE] ARCHIVIST: One– MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah– ARCHIVIST: –in which we… MARTIN: –so, I’ve actually had a couple of bags packed for a while, now! [HEAVY ITEM DROPPED] ARCHIVIST: Oh! MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] Uh, Martin, I… MARTIN: No, no; I, I know what you’re going to say. [RUMMAGING] “What good are maps when the very Earth has…” and blah blah blah… ARCHIVIST: W– Uh, yes– MARTIN: But I’ve, I’ve packed them anyway because you never know. ARCHIVIST: Martin, I… MARTIN: I, I actually, eh! I actually found a stash of tea under the kitchen sink– ARCHIVIST: [FOND CHUCKLE] MARTIN: I–I realise, we don’t need to eat or – whatever, but, you know, that doesn’t mean that we won’t… ARCHIVIST: Yes – yes, yes…! It’s… alright. Alright. [MOVEMENT] MARTIN: … We’ve got this. [SOUNDS OF PACKING UP AND RUMMAGING] ARCHIVIST: [FOND] Apparently so…! […] We can’t fight the world, Martin. MARTIN: [AMUSED DEFIANT HUFF] Says you. ARCHIVIST: [WITH A SMILE] Let’s go.

Jon wants to murder Elias, and Martin finds it HOT. Martin is competent, was only waiting for Jon as he said, and ready to fight the world, and Jon finds it HOT.

Bonus for arsonist!Martin on the loose:

(MAG162) MARTIN: [INHALE] Okay… [SIGH] You said this place, the–the cabin was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It, it’s feeding on us, right? ARCHIVIST: Yes… MARTIN: … So should we… destroy it, before we go? [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND, BUT LOUDER AND CONFRONTATIONAL] [DISTANT RUMBLE OF THUNDER] ARCHIVIST: I honestly don’t know if we can. MARTIN: Hm. ARCHIVIST: Besides, there’s… far worse out there. Better to try and avoid it, I think. MARTIN: We’re not even gonna try? We, we’ve got your lighter, maybe we could just–

Martin was quick to understand that the cabin was “feeding” on them, although Jon hadn’t mentioned it (just that it wasn’t right and didn’t want them to leave). So… some of Martin’s studies from season 4 showing off, uh? He’s grown to understand the Fears a bit, I’m really curious about how it will help him/them this season.

  MAG163’s title makes me think of Buried, naturally, but mmMMm. Got also reminded of MAG007, which reminded me of “Joseph Rayner” and the fact that Jon mentioned that he wasn’t sure that it had been the Usual Dark!Rayner, in MAG140? Anyway, still expecting to follow Jon&Martin but the title could also work really well if we were to get a peek of how Basira and/or Georgie&Melanie are faring…

[she-wolf-of-highgarden]

All the times Catelyn mentions Arya

*It another long one folks*

“He would always ask her that. "In the kitchen, arguing about names for the wolf pups." She spread her cloak on the forest floor and sat beside the pool, her back to the weirwood. She could feel the eyes watching her, but she did her best to ignore them. "Arya is already in love, and Sansa is charmed and gracious, but Rickon is not quite sure.” - Catelyn I, AGoT

“You must," he said. "Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too."Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement. Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. But not Bran. Never Bran. "Yes," she said, "but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven.” - Catelyn II, AGoT

“There's no mention of Arya," Robb pointed out, miserable.” - Catelyn VIII, AGot

“Also, if your sister Arya is returned to us safely, it is agreed that she will marry Lord Walder's youngest son, Elmar, when the two of them come of age."Robb looked nonplussed. "Arya won't like that one bit.” - Catelyn IX, AGoT

“She had not thought of that in years. How young they all had been—she no older than Sansa, Lysa younger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager. The girls had traded him between them, serious and giggling by turns. It came back to her so vividly she could almost feel his sweaty fingers on her shoulders and taste the mint on his breath. There was always mint growing in the godswood, and Petyr had liked to chew it. He had been such a bold little boy, always in trouble. "He tried to put his tongue in my mouth," Catelyn had confessed to her sister afterward, when they were alone. "He did with me too," Lysa had whispered, shy and breathless. "I liked it.” - Catelyn XI, AGoT

“If your crown is the price we must pay to have Arya and Sansa returned safe, we should pay it willingly. Half your lords would like to murder Lannister in his cell. If he should die while he's your prisoner, men will say—” - Catelyn I, ACoK

“Lannister won't die," Robb said. "No one so much as speaks to him without my warrant. He has food, water, clean straw, more comfort than he has any right to. But I won't free him, not even for Arya and Sansa.” -  Catelyn I, ACoK

“As she slept amidst the rolling grasslands, Catelyn dreamt that Bran was whole again, that Arya and Sansa held hands, that Rickon was still a babe at her breast. Robb, crownless, played with a wooden sword, and when all were safe asleep, she found Ned in her bed, smiling.” - Catelyn II, ACoK

“How they loved to promise heads, these men who would be king. "Your brother promised me the same. But if truth be told, I would sooner have my daughters back, and leave justice to the gods. Cersei still holds my Sansa, and of Arya there has been no word since the day of Robert's death.” - Catelyn III, ACoK

“Flickering torchlight danced across the walls, making the faces seem half-alive, twisting them, changing them. The statues in the great septs of the cities wore the faces the stonemasons had given them, but these charcoal scratchings were so crude they might be anyone. The Father's face made her think of her own father, dying in his bed at Riverrun. The Warrior was Renly and Stannis, Robb and Robert, Jaime Lannister and Jon Snow. She even glimpsed Arya in those lines, just for an instant. Then a gust of wind through the door made the torch sputter, and the semblance was gone, washed away in orange glare.” - Catelyn IV, ACoK

“Lost and weary, Catelyn Stark gave herself over to her gods. She knelt before the Smith, who fixed things that were broken, and asked that he give her sweet Bran his protection. She went to the Maid and beseeched her to lend her courage to Arya and Sansa, to guard them in their innocence. To the Father, she prayed for justice, the strength to seek it and the wisdom to know it, and she asked the Warrior to keep Robb strong and shield him in his battles. Lastly she turned to the Crone, whose statues often showed her with a lamp in one hand. "Guide me, wise lady," she prayed. "Show me the path I must walk, and do not let me stumble in the dark places that lie ahead.” - Catelyn IV, ACoK

“Those who favor Stannis will call it proof. Those who support Joffrey will say it means nothing." Her own children had more Tully about them than Stark. Arya was the only one to show much of Ned in her features. And Jon Snow, but he was never mine. She found herself thinking of Jon's mother, that shadowy secret love her husband would never speak of. Does she grieve for Ned as I do? Or did she hate him for leaving her bed for mine? Does she pray for her son as I have prayed for mine?” - Catelyn VI, ACoK 

“When he was done, Catelyn sat frowning. Edmure had been right, these were no terms at all, except . . . "Lannister will exchange Arya and Sansa for his brother?” - Catelyn VI, ACoK

“He told you true." She could not even say that Robb was wrong. Arya and Sansa were children. The Kingslayer, alive and free, was as dangerous as any man in the realm. That road led nowhere. "Did you see my girls? Are they treated well?” - Catelyn VI, ACoK

“Sansa, but not Arya. That might mean anything. Arya had always been harder to tame. Perhaps Cersei was reluctant to parade her in open court for fear of what she might say or do. They might have her locked safely out of sight. Or they might have killed her. Catelyn shoved the thought away. "His terms, you said . . . yet Cersei is Queen Regent.” - Catelyn VI, ACoK

“And Arya, well . . . Ned's visitors would oft mistake her for a stableboy if they rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was a trial, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire. She had Ned's long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. I think she must be dead too." When she said that, it felt as though a giant hand were squeezing her chest. "I want them all dead, Brienne. Theon Greyjoy first, then Jaime Lannister and Cersei and the Imp, every one, every one. But my girls . . . my girls will . . .” - Catelyn VII, ACoK

“She will deliver Jaime to King's Landing, and bring Arya and Sansa back to us safely.” - Catelyn I, ASoS

“But now Robb was returned from the west, returned in triumph. He will forgive me, Catelyn told herself. He must forgive me, he is my own son, and Arya and Sansa are as much his blood as mine. He will free me from these rooms and then I will know what has happened.” - Catelyn II, ASoS

“Enough." For just an instant Robb sounded more like Brandon than his father. "No man calls my lady of Winterfell a traitor in my hearing, Lord Rickard." When he turned to Catelyn, his voice softened. "If I could wish the Kingslayer back in chains I would. You freed him without my knowledge or consent . . . but what you did, I know you did for love. For Arya and Sansa, and out of grief for Bran and Rickon. Love's not always wise, I've learned. It can lead us to great folly, but we follow our hearts . . . wherever they take us. Don't we, Mother?” - Catelyn II, ASoS

“Battles," muttered Robb as he led her out beneath the trees. "I have won every battle, yet somehow I'm losing the war." He looked up, as if the answer might be written on the sky. "The ironmen hold Winterfell, and Moat Cailin too. Father's dead, and Bran and Rickon, maybe Arya. And now your father too.” - Catelyn IV, ASoS

“He swore to trade her for his brother," she said numbly. "Sansa and Arya both. We would have them back if we returned his precious Jaime, he swore it before the whole court. How could he marry her, after saying that in sight of gods and men?” - Catelyn IV, ASoS

“She clutched tight at his hand. "Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. I could not stand it. They took Ned, and your sweet brothers. Sansa is married, Arya is lost, my father's dead . . . if anything befell you, I would go mad, Robb. You are all I have left. You are all the north has left.” - Catelyn IV, ASoS

“So you pray. Have you considered your sisters? What of their rights? I agree that the north must not be permitted to pass to the Imp, but what of Arya? By law, she comes after Sansa . . . your own sister, trueborn . . ."". . . and dead. No one has seen or heard of Arya since they cut Father's head off. Why do you lie to yourself? Arya's gone, the same as Bran and Rickon, and they'll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had hoped you would support my choice.” - Catelyn V, ASoS

“All lost now, she reflected. Winterfell and Ned, Bran and Rickon, Sansa, Arya, all gone. Only Robb remains. Had there been too much of Lynesse Hightower in her after all, and too little of the Starks? Would that I had known how to wield an axe, perhaps I might have been able to protect them better.” - Catelyn V, ASoS

“It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb . . . Robb . . . please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting . . . The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved. Catelyn Stark raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown. Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed. "Mad," someone said, "she's lost her wits," and someone else said, "Make an end," and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she'd done with Jinglebell, and she thought, No, don't, don't cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.” - Catelyn VII, ASoS