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ollieofthebeholder · 3 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Epilogue: Martin Prime

“…see it into a new era. Please join me in welcoming to the podium the Head of the Magnus Institute of London, Dr. Walter…Kos-ki-e-wicz.”

“Fifteen months and he still can’t pronounce it properly,” Jon whispered under the cover of the applause that followed the introduction.

“He’s better than he used to be,” Martin whispered back, squeezing Jon’s hand gently. “Go make nice.”

Jon lifted Martin’s fingers to his lips and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to the knuckles before pushing back from the long table and getting to his feet. Martin turned his head towards where the podium ought to be, thankful they’d been able to come in early and get the layout of the room so he didn’t look like a complete tit staring off into the wrong direction, as the clapping gradually tapered off into an expectant silence.

“Thank you, Mr. Campbell.” Jon popped the normally silent P with a dry, pointed humor Martin knew well. When the laughter had died down, he continued in the deep, rolling affectation he had begun adopting when he needed to act as the face of the Institute. “Friends, colleagues, distinguished guests. I stand before you tonight with the awesome and humbling privilege of thanking you all for coming to celebrate two hundred years of the Magnus Institute.”

Martin, who had listened to Jon practice this speech in the comfort of their living room at least twenty times in the last two weeks, let it fade into the background and settled back into his seat. Not being able to scan the assembled gathering was annoying, but while this might have been the largest event they had attended in the past year, it was by no means the first. He was used to having to fold his hands over his stomach, or the end of his cane, and imagine what everyone’s faces were doing.

A familiar whirring started up from the space Jon had vacated, and Martin smiled and laid his fingers on the tape recorder as it buzzed away. Somehow, it was comforting to know she was still listening, even now.

It hadn’t been easy getting to this point. Martin had never really actually expected killing Jonah Magnus to instantly make everything sunshine and roses again, but he definitely hadn’t expected the attempt to drain Jon so badly that he collapsed in his arms. Nor had he expected that it would take three days for him to open his eyes again. (Melanie had teased Jon a bit about “taking this whole Messiah Complex to extremes”, but even she’d been strained.) And the news from Great Yarmouth hadn’t helped matters. Martin was still kind of thankful that he hadn’t been able to see Sasha’s face when she got off the phone with Basira and reported what little she knew. Or the look on his counterpart’s face when he called and filled in the gaps thirty-six hours later. Martin had hoped they’d get out of the building before blowing it up, but at least they hadn’t gone into the Unknowing itself.

It had still been touch and go, though, and Tim was still adjusting to his new reality, but thankfully he had plenty of support. Martin could hear in their voices when they spoke that they were happy, in a way he was only just learning himself that he could be.

Jon made a surprisingly good Institute Head. It hadn’t necessarily been something he’d planned on, but when they got back from taking Charlie to see Present Jon and Present Martin—who refused to leave the hospital until Tim was awake and ready to come home himself—and Melanie informed him about the new temporary head, Jon had almost literally hit the roof and stormed the Institute himself. It had taken him two days to manage to get an audience with Peter Lukas, but in the end, he’d stood before him and informed him that he had a choice: Vacate his position and leave the Institute alone, or be destroyed utterly.

Peter Lukas, unsurprisingly, had chosen poorly.

For Jon to subsequently take control of the Institute had been Sasha’s idea, and her points—that Jon was bound to the Institute and would need a reason to stay close to it, that he was the only person who knew enough to keep it running and keep it safe, that anyone else would either make things worse or become corrupted by the Beholder—had been valid. She’d crafted an entire identity for both Jon and Martin and somehow managed to have Dr. Walter Koskiewicz declared Elias Bouchard’s sole heir. Publicly, that was who he was and who he remained, but on the day he’d assumed the position of Institute Head, he had called a meeting of all the department heads and bluntly, concisely, and completely told them the entire truth. He had left it up to each head whether or not to tell their staff everything—although he was emphatic that they be told about the Eye, at least to some extent—and had made it clear that anyone who wanted to quit would be more than welcome to do so, with full severance; he wouldn’t hold it against anyone who chose to leave. But, as he had told Martin that night when he got back from the Institute, he didn’t want anyone else feeling trapped, or to not know they were working for, essentially, a fear god. He’d been far more surprised than Martin when, out of eighty-seven employees, only three had chosen to leave and one had asked for their job back a week later.

Getting the rest of Elias’s estate had taken longer. Obviously there was no body, so what they technically had was a missing person. Surprisingly, it was Daisy who’d pushed that forward by manufacturing proof that he’d been killed in the explosion at Great Yarmouth, claiming she’d followed him there as part of her hunt for Gertrude Robinson’s murderer. When Tim, freshly back in the Archives, looked over the assortment of tapes that had previously been in the tunnels and unerringly plucked the one with Gertrude’s death on it, Daisy’s superiors decided that he was responsible for the House of Wax as well, closed both files, and declared him officially dead.

Jon told Martin that Jonah Magnus had terrible taste in interior decorating. Martin told him he would just have to take his word for it.

Martin tuned back into Jon’s speech as he caught the words that meant he was winding down. He’d been reluctant to agree to this event, especially given what today was, but it was expected, so he’d caved, with a few stipulations. The speech, unfortunately for Jon, was non-negotiable, but at least he was able to keep it fairly short.

“And so, as we move into our third century, I leave you with a few carefully chosen words,” Jon said. “To our Institute donors, I give these words: Thank you for your support of the Magnus Institute over the years, and I hope that you will continue to support us throughout the changes to come. To those who come to the Institute to study and learn, I give these words: Your work furthers ours as much as ours furthers yours, and we look forward to working with you and developing that relationship, now and well into the future. And to you, the Institute employees, those who make this Institute what it is, I give these words…” He paused for a moment, letting the suspense build, and Martin licked the corner of his mouth to hide his smirk. It was obvious from Jon’s voice, though, that he wasn’t bothering to hide his own. “Three-day weekend. See you all on Monday.”

The cheers, applause, and laughter nearly drowned out Jon’s “Thank you”, and Martin let his grin escape as he joined in the applause. He heard the rustling of fabric and guessed what was happening a split-second before Wade’s tap to his elbow told him for sure they were giving Jon a standing ovation.

It went on for nearly a minute solid before it started to die down, and as Martin slowly sank back into his seat, he felt Jon’s gloved fingers tangle in his.

“Almost done,” Martin murmured, knowing Jon was close to his breaking point but would never admit it.

There were a few closing remarks, and then footsteps came over to them. “All right, if you’ll just stand over this way and greet a few people…”

“No more than half an hour. I mean it, Harrison,” Jon warned.

“I know, Mr.—I mean Dr.—uh, sir,” Harrison stammered. “I promise.”

“Mister Doctor Sir?” Martin teased Jon as Harrison walked away. “Sounds like something you’d name a character in Spire.”

“That’s Mister Doctor Director Sir to you.”

They shared a laugh before Martin took a half-step back, cane folded up in one hand and his other resting discreetly against the small of Jon’s back. Jon took a deep breath and straightened himself up, but didn’t move away from the point of contact. They’d learned their lesson one of the first times Jon had had to do an official event. Martin did some of the bookkeeping and budgeting for the Institute—God knew he’d picked up enough being Peter Lukas’s assistant, and Jon knew bugger all about the business side of things—but for the most part, he wasn’t an employee and certainly wasn’t who the more important guests at these events wanted to talk to, so he’d stepped back and stayed quietly in the background. Unfortunately, the Lukases were still Institute donors, and even if they avoided Jon beyond the bare minimum that politeness dictated, the presence of even one was still enough for Martin to slip back into old habits. Thank God the bond Annabelle had put on them was still extant and he’d been able to pull himself back, but it had still been a scary few minutes for both of them.

Most of the donors who spoke to Jon—briefly, Harrison was being as good as his word about limiting the official greetings—either ignored Martin or only acknowledged him with a silent nod, which amounted to the same thing. For the most part, Martin didn’t mind, but he could tell it was getting to Jon long before the fifteen-minute mark.

“Last one, sir, I promise,” Harrison whispered at last.

“Harrison, I have told you about the ‘sir’ thing,” Jon muttered. Martin hastily turned his laugh into a cough.

“Dr. Koskiewicz, so good to see you again.” Martin couldn’t place the speaker’s voice except that it was posh, which meant it was an Institute donor, and loud. Probably belonged to a large man, almost certainly an older one.

“It’s an honor to have you here, Sir Henry,” Jon replied, his voice slightly strained. Martin guessed that the man had a very firm handshake; an ordinary hand would be swollen and sore after half an hour of shaking, but the scarring on Jon’s made it far worse. “And you as well, Lady Vane-Tempest.”

“Lovely party, darling, so kind of you to invite us,” Lady Vane-Tempest said. Her voice, at least, Martin couldn’t forget—well-bred, but harsh and grating at the same time. He’d met the Vane-Tempests at the Christmas “party” he’d been forced to run on behalf of Peter Lukas and had not enjoyed the experience. “Congratulations on two hundred years. Obviously you haven’t been here the whole time, of course!” She trilled with laughter.

Martin felt Jon stiffen, and then he said with forced politeness, “Thank whatever gods you believe in that I haven’t, madam.”

“Looking forward to touring the building,” Sir Henry said. “Understand you’ve got some new interesting new acquisitions in your Artifact Storage. Love to see them.”

“We’re not doing tours this evening, I’m afraid,” Jon said. “That was the end of the gala, but it’s good of you to come. If you’ll get in touch with Ms. Zampano, I’m sure we can arrange a suitable time for you to see the building.”

“Oh, come now, darling, surely you can spare some time now,” Lady Vane-Tempest coaxed. If Martin was any judge, she’d been imbibing freely of the champagne, enough to get at least slightly tipsy. “We’re so looking forward to it.”

“I do apologize, but I have another commitment this evening.” Martin was a bit startled when Jon’s arm slid around his waist, but he willingly shifted his own position to return the gesture. The smile in Jon’s voice was obvious; he’d never been very good at hiding his pride and delight in anything to do with their relationship. “It’s our first wedding anniversary, you see.”

The Vane-Tempests mumbled polite congratulations, wished Jon a good night, and moved away. Jon let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his toes and sagged against Martin. “Thank God that’s over with.”

“That’s the last one,” Harrison promised. “I’ll just go say a few words to the press. Have a good weekend and—um—happy anniversary?”

“Thank you,” Jon and Martin said in unison. Martin unfolded his cane, and they walked out of the Institute the same way they had since escaping Peter Lukas in their own time—arm in arm.

Ninety minutes later and Martin, wearing his most comfortable sweater and a soft, threadbare pair of jeans, walked into the room they had designated as the “living room” with two mugs of tea and set them on the heavy, solid coffee table. “How’s the hand?”

“Still a bit sore, but I’ll recover.” Jon’s voice sounded slightly muffled. Martin wasn’t sure why until he heard the soft crackle of burning wood, and then Jon was right next to him and pulling him down for a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Martin murmured, brushing his nose against Jon’s. As he pulled back, he added, “By the way, there was a message from the agency. They’re coming by for another assessment tomorrow, around noon.”

“Good thing I gave everyone the day off, then. Did she say anything about how the application is looking?”

“I don’t know that they’d tell us that on a message. We can ask when she gets here.”

The doorbell rang with the deep, sonorous tones Martin still privately felt belonged in a Gothic soap opera, and Jon sighed and slid out of Martin’s arms. “Bets on who got here first?”

“Not against you,” Martin informed him. Jon’s snickers followed him out of the room.

After more than a year of living in the house, Martin knew his way around by heart, especially after they redid the flooring so that he could tell by the texture beneath his feet which way he was heading. He made it to the front door without bumping into anything, made sure the chain was still secure, and pulled the door open to the length of the chain. “Who goes there?”

“Just the usual suspects,” Tim’s voice said. “We even found a Sasha rattling around in the gutters.”

“Shut up, Tim,” Sasha said, a bit grouchily.

Martin chuckled and closed the door enough that he could undo the chain, then pulled the door open. “Come on in. There’s a fire going.”

Each one of them gave him a hug as they came in, prefaced by a greeting so he’d know who he was hugging. He was pleasantly surprised when, after a fierce hug from Melanie, he heard a higher voice say, “It’s Georgie. Will you accept one from me?”

“Oh, sure, of course.” Martin hadn’t worried about any of Jon’s exes, or anyone who might possibly catch his interest and remind him that he could do better, since—well, actually, since they’d been reunited after traveling back in time, but the weight of the ring on his left hand and the memory of the tremble in Jon’s voice as he’d promised ‘til death comes for us both had finally quieted the last of his doubts. And Georgie did give good hugs. “Glad you could make it, Georgie. Anyone else?”

“No, Basira pulled a night shift tonight, I think. Here, let me get that.” Georgie—or someone, anyway—pulled the heavy door shut and slid the chain into place. “Hope we’re not too early.”

Martin shook his head. “You’re fine. Not like we’re doing anything particularly exciting.”

It took a few minutes of arranging, playful debates, and mostly-joking grumblings about getting those disgusting socks away from the food, Timothy Stoker, but soon everyone was settled down with something to drink and a baked good from the basket the others had brought with them. Jon sighed with obvious pleasure and curled up against Martin’s side; Martin wrapped an arm around him and held him close.

“Where’s Charlie tonight?” he asked.

“Late rehearsal, and Sasha’s uncle offered to pick him up and watch him after,” Present Jon answered. “We’d have brought him along, but he’s got a maths exam tomorrow and I know he’s not ready for it.”

Tim laughed. “Come on, Jon, cut him some slack. He’s doing much better this term than he did in the spring.”

“To be fair,” Melanie pointed out, “there was kind of a lot going on in the spring.”

There was a hum of agreement before Georgie added, “From everything you lot told me, I didn’t expect that grandmother of his to fight you so hard on custody.”

Present Martin sighed heavily. “I did. I mean, the last thing she wanted was for people to think she was a terrible guardian, you know? Even if Children’s Services didn’t get involved and take him away, the very fact that someone else dared ask to take him—and the fact that Charlie wanted to go…”

“And the fact that you kept insisting on referring to him as him, despite the fact that she has consistently and for his entire life refused to accept that he’s a boy,” Sasha put in. “She’s a poisonous old witch and he’s lucky to be shed of her. But yeah, between that and the fact that he got anxious and panicky and afraid to let any of you out of his sight—you know, at the beginning of April—it’s no wonder he came close to failing the spring term.”

There was a short pause before Present Martin asked carefully, “Did he tell you that, or…?”

“Oh, goddammit,” Sasha sighed. “He didn’t say anything to any of you about that, did he?”

“No, but we should have noticed,” Present Jon said quietly.

Melanie snorted. “I’m not sure how you would have, considering how clingy the three of you were being.”

Martin tightened his arms around Jon as the Archives crew began bickering, mostly lightheartedly but with an undercurrent of seriousness. During their first time experiencing…well, everything they had experienced…he and Jon had never really had a chance to stop and consider anniversaries. The one-year anniversary of Jane Prentiss attacking the Institute had fallen while they were trying to get ready for the Unknowing; the one-year anniversary of that had been while Martin was still having to avoid Jon, but he remembered staring at his reflection in the mirror and wondering if he would be better off calling out of work or if he should go in and lurk in the shadows of the Archives to reassure himself that Jon was actually still there. Passing the anniversaries—or, for that matter, the dates themselves—in a timeline where they didn’t technically happen hadn’t made things significantly better, so he could definitely understand why the present crew had been reluctant to be far from each other a year after so nearly losing one another, and more particularly nearly losing Tim.

Jon sank against him, also clinging tightly, and let the banter go on for a bit before he broke in. “Have you told Charlie about the trip?”

“We’re going to surprise him after school tomorrow,” Tim said, and Martin was pretty sure he could hear the relief in it. “Hope he likes the plan. He’s been asking to come with us the next time we go out of town since Jon got back from Jonah’s little hell-quest, and I don’t think he’s ever been out of London.”

“Well…you weren’t conscious at the time, but they did bring him to visit while you were…” Present Jon’s voice trailed off.

Martin was about to say something when something solid and heavy hit his leg on four tiny pressure points and screamed. Only six months of practice enabled him not to jump completely out of his skin. “Hello, Duchess.”

“Oh, damn, I didn’t feed them before the gala.” Jon carefully disentangled himself from Martin and removed the solid iron weight masquerading as a ball of fur from his lap. “Come along, Your Grace. What have you done with your sister?”

Martin couldn’t help the soft smile that touched his lips as he stared off in the direction Jon had gone. Hearing him talk to the cats in that tone of voice always did something funny to his insides.

The smirk in Melanie’s voice was obvious. “I genuinely can’t decide which one of you is going to be the bigger pushover when you get approved to adopt.”

“Have you heard anything yet?” Present Martin asked.

“There’s another visit scheduled tomorrow. We’re almost four months into this part of the process. I’m hoping we’ll have an answer soon.” Martin picked up his mug of tea and took a sip. It had started to cool a bit, but it was still drinkable. “Not that we’re in a hurry or anything, but it’d be nice to know, you know?”

“I could probably poke at your social worker’s mind and see if they have an answer,” Sasha offered. “It’d be easy.”

“Sasha, we’ve talked about this,” Present Jon said with an audible frown.

“Yeah, if I can manage to keep myself under control…” Tim trailed off. “Sorry, Georgie. I know you’d rather we didn’t talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” Georgie said with a sigh. “I’m getting used to it. It’s not like any of you can just…stop being what you are. Did—um—did your Georgie have a problem with it?”

It was the first time she’d asked about her past self since being introduced to Jon and Martin over a year ago, and Martin couldn’t explain why it felt so weird. “She did. At first, anyway. But I think it was less the whole…supernatural fear thing and more the fact that we—and particularly Jon—kept acting like nothing was wrong.”

“Yeah. At least you lot admit this is messed up.”

“Not so much the admitting it’s messed up as trying from the get-go not to play into it,” Jon’s voice said from the direction of the kitchen. The loveseat bounced slightly—very slightly—as he sat down, leaned into Martin’s side, and kissed his cheek. “Your cat is a menace.”

“Why is she only my cat when she’s misbehaving?” Martin teased, turning his head to capture Jon’s lips with his own before they moved away. “What’s Cosmic done now?”

“Just the fact that you know it was Cosmic Creepers—”

“The Duchess has made it very clear that she’s your cat.”

Sasha gave a mock-groan. “You two as actual parents are going to be insufferable.”

Melanie’s snort was practically elephantine. “Like you don’t have the three of these with Charlie as evidence for that.”

Martin sensed the remark calculated to cause maximum chaos coming before Tim opened his mouth, but there was nothing he could do to head him off. “So, Melanie, when are you and Georgie going to add a bundle of joy to your family?”

The resultant storm of profanity and invective directed at Tim sent Jon into paroxysms of laughter, and from the sound of it, Present Jon as well. Martin could imagine Tim’s triumphant, shit-eating grin. Even Sasha was giggling.

“Seriously. I don’t even want more than one cat,” Georgie finally said when the chaos wound down. “Children have never been in my plans. Not even remotely.”

“Have you ever thought about fostering?” Present Martin asked. “Teens, maybe? I bet you’d be good at it.”

A short silence followed the question, and when Melanie answered, there was a note of surprise in her voice. “Maybe. Not right now, though.”

“I guess my question is—and please, none of you take this the wrong way—why would you want to involve a child in the…life you’re all leading?” Georgie asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“No more than being a child is dangerous anyway,” Jon said. “Most of the fears don’t…a child’s fear isn’t fully formed, so it’s not as satisfying, but that doesn’t mean they don’t pay attention. I was marked young. So was Annabelle Cane. Callum Brodie was on the Dark’s radar long before Rayner chose him as a vessel. A-apparently the End was paying attention to all of us before my father died. A child being taken care of by someone who knows what’s out there, and isn’t…enamored with it, I suppose, stands a better chance than a child wholly unprepared.”

Martin rubbed Jon’s arm. “Besides. The more connections you have outside the Archives, the harder it is for the Fears to…use you. I guess. Even besides the Lonely, the more isolated you are, the easier you are to hurt.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Present Jon said, sounding like he was talking half to himself. “But it does make sense why Jonah tried so hard to pit us against one another. A person with no support is far more vulnerable. Far easier to use and manipulate.”

“And that’s what beat him in the end,” Melanie said. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Hear, hear.” Martin raised his mug in salute. Someone clinked a mug or glass against it, and the conversation drifted to other, less volatile topics.

They’d done this a lot over the last year. Ever since Jon, or his alter ego, had officially inherited the estate, they spent more evenings and weekends here than they did in Tim, Present Martin, and Present Jon’s house. First there’d been the intense repainting and redecorating period, during which Martin had offered deadpan commentary on color choices until Jon threatened to paint his mouth shut and Tim had unearthed more than a few artifacts belonging to other entities in various nooks and crannies. Once they were settled in, there had been pizza and pasta-making parties, movie marathons, drinks after hard weeks, and game nights. They’d come over to wrestle the garden into submission in the spring, helped decorate the house for Christmas, and watched fireworks on New Year’s from the widow’s walk on the roof. Jon had even organized an Easter Egg hunt for the neighborhood children, which had been when Martin had finally broached the idea of reaching out to the local authority about beginning the adoption process.

And exactly one year ago tonight, they had stood in the drawing room they never otherwise used and finally, finally made the bond between them a legal one.

“I can’t believe you two are spending your anniversary like this,” Sasha said, and if Martin didn’t know for a fact that she couldn’t read his mind beyond finding a back door into his dreams when Jon’s lay alongside her, he’d have told her off for it. “You’re such hopeless romantics, I expected you to go out for a candlelit dinner somewhere. Moonlit stroll in the park. Kissing under the stars.”

“It’s Thursday,” Martin reminded her.

“We’re going to Scotland for the weekend,” Jon said. “That’s part of the reason I gave everyone a three-day weekend, so we could get an early start and make the most of it.”

“I accuse you of abusing your position for your own gain,” Georgie said, but she was laughing as she did so.

“I’ll confess to that,” Jon replied immediately. Martin couldn’t help but laugh. “But seriously, we—it’s going to be a nice, relaxing weekend, but we thought spending the evening with our family would be a good start.”

Something thumped down on the coffee table. Martin guessed it was Melanie’s glass. “You know what I can’t believe? That you picked the eighteenth of October to get married. I mean, you know literally everything in the world, and certainly everything about the Institute. You had to know that was the day the Institute was founded. And then you had to spend your first anniversary making nice with the donors. Why would you do that?”

Martin looked in Jon’s direction. “You want to tell them, or shall I?”

Jon sighed heavily and dropped his head to Martin’s shoulder. “You go ahead. I’d rather not say it out loud.”

“Uh-oh.” Tim sounded worried. “This is…what happened on the eighteenth of October, 2017 in your timeline?”

“Bugger all,” Martin replied. “It was today. In our original timeline, this was when Jonah slipped his ritual into a statement and fed it to Jon against his will. Eighteenth October, 2018.” He ran his hand through Jon’s hair, which had fallen out of its braid. “We didn’t want to wait until this year to get married, but we’d already agreed that we wanted it to be the eighteenth. We wanted to take back the day Jonah Magnus tried to ruin and make it ours.”

“To replace the memories,” Present Martin said softly.

“Exactly. He’s taken too damn much from us already. We’re not letting him have everything.” Martin pressed a kiss to the top of Jon’s head.

“So where in Scotland are you going?” Present Jon asked.

“John O’Groats. It’s—Daisy used to have a safehouse up there,” Jon explained. “Well, she still has the house, but she’s just renting it out to vacationers these days. She told us we could use it for free a couple times a year as a thank-you for helping her get the Hunt under control.”

“Yeah, Basira says she’s a lot more relaxed than she was when she was a cop,” Sasha said. “If you can believe it. Is that where you two stayed…um, up until the eighteenth of October?”

“Yep.” Martin popped the P in a method that, he hoped, would indicate the subject is closed and you should not push further, Sasha James.

Thankfully, it seemed to work. Georgie was the next to speak up. “What about you three? Do you have plans for your trip to America or is it just more of a ramble?”

“We were planning to visit Boston,” Present Martin answered. “Lots of history, lots of walking trails, lots of potentially haunted stuff. But…well, Jon changed things around a couple weeks ago and he’s been vague about what we’re doing now.”

“Oh.” Present Jon sounded both embarrassed and excited. “I—ah—I’m sorry, I got so…I completely forgot I hadn’t told you. I managed to track down my cousin. You know, the one I stayed with for a bit before starting uni? He moved to a new town about the time I started at the Institute, actually. Apparently he’s married now. His husband sounds…um, interesting. And he wants to meet you two—and Charlie, too. I actually managed to get us tickets out there. I—I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind getting the chance to meet a relative that not only doesn’t hate you, but doesn’t care you’re in a relationship with two other men and is excited about the idea of meeting us? Of course we do, it sounds horrific, why would you do something like that,” Tim said flatly. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jon, we’d love to meet your cousin.”

“It’ll be fun,” Present Martin agreed. “Did you ever…I mean, have you met him?”

It took Martin a second to realize the question was directed at him. “Honestly, until you all started talking about him, I didn’t even know Jon had a cousin.”

“I’d love to see him again,” Jon said, a bit wistfully. “I do miss him. I suppose asking you to pass on my best wishes would be a little much, but…”

“I’m going to tell him,” Present Jon said softly. “About all of this. I think he deserves to know, and…I think he can handle it.”

“Well. Give me a call if you get the chance. I’d love to talk to him.”

“Of course.” Present Jon hesitated. “I—um, I think he might have a couple…statements. Something about the way he said ‘scientifically interesting’ when talking about the town. I’m going to tell him about…this, and us, and what we can do. Let him decide if he wants to share.”

Jon made a slightly pained noise, but Martin rubbed his arm soothingly and said, “You’ll probably need something. At least Tim will. That’s—you’ll be too far from the Institute for too long not to take a statement or two. Better if it’s someone willing, wouldn’t you say?”

Tim took a deep breath. “Does it ever get any easier? Needing to—sensing in your case, or seeing in mine, that someone has a statement, and needing it so badly?”

“Not really,” Jon admitted. “It’s why I don’t go out alone so often. The trouble is that sometimes it helps them and sometimes it…doesn’t, and you can never tell before they tell their stories whether it will or not. The Eye likes it better when it’s…forced, but the Eye can honestly get stuffed. We’re doing this on our terms.”

“Hell yeah,” Tim said with a laugh. Jon leaned forward at Martin’s side, and from the sounds, he guessed they were bumping their fists together.

They spent about another hour together, talking and laughing and generally relaxing. Finally, though, Present Martin asked, “How early were you two planning to head out?”

“Not until early afternoon. The social worker is coming, remember?” Martin shrugged. “But if you lot want to get going…”

“Yes, we—we should probably make sure Charlie’s in bed, and I’m sure Wade is ready to be released,” Present Jon said. There were a number of rustles and creaks as everyone got to their feet, and Martin stood, too, stretching out his spine. “Call us when you get there.”

“We will. Let us know when you get to America,” Jon replied.

“Are you taking the cats, or do you want us to stop by and look after them?” Melanie asked.

Martin paused and looked in Jon’s direction. He could practically feel his thoughts flowing between them, running through the bond Annabelle had put on them like a telegraph wire. “Well, we were going to take them, but…actually, would you mind?”

“Of course not. We’d be delighted,” Georgie said.

Jon squeezed Martin’s waist, then slid away. “Come here, then, let me show you where we keep the food.”

Martin saw the others to the door and handed out another round of hugs. Jon arrived with Georgie just before they pulled away, so was at least able to wave, and he hugged both Georgie and Melanie and thanked them again. And then it was just the two of them, alone in their house, and together.

Jon shut and latched the door, then took Martin’s hand. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?”

“Mm-hmm. Close your eyes and follow me.”

Martin smiled more broadly, but he did as Jon asked. Jon led him through the house and up three flights of stairs. It somehow didn’t surprise Martin when Jon pushed open a final door and he heard the soft sounds of an autumn evening.

“Stargazing?” he teased.

“It is a good night for it,” Jon said, not rising to the bait. “But no, not what I had in mind.” He tugged Martin forward a few feet, then added, “You can open your eyes now.”

Martin didn’t point out that it wouldn’t do any good; he simply opened his eyes. He could smell roses and peonies, he thought—the same flowers they’d decorated the drawing room with for their wedding. There was a soft click, and a tape recorder began playing—which made him smile—and then Jon was there and holding his hands. “Can I have this dance?”

Martin’s smile broadened as he recognized the song. “For the rest of your life.”

Martin let Jon lead him, singing quietly along with the music as he did so. He was still barefoot and it was a bit cold on the widow’s walk for that, but he didn’t care. It was the song they’d chosen as their first dance at their wedding, something of a fast waltz, but the lyrics had struck both of them as being so very them. As soon as Martin realized that, he also realized that this was probably the tape Tim had made for them to play at their wedding. It had been their way of ensuring that Annabelle, if she was still listening, would be able to be a part of things, too.

They still made a point of shooing out spiders and cleaning out cobwebs, but the tapes? Those could stay.

When the first song was over, rather than let Jon go, Martin simply shifted his grip and took the lead for the second song on the tape—the first song they had ever danced to, in Tim and Present Martin and Present Jon’s kitchen the night they’d moved in. He pulled Jon closer, letting their foreheads touch, and sang along to that one as well. He could feel Jon shiver in his arms and knew, knew, it wasn’t the cold that was doing it.

They slowed to a stop just before the song ended. Jon slid his arms around Martin’s neck and simply held him; Martin wrapped his around Jon’s waist and pulled him even closer until their bodies were flush, until they were practically fused into a single person.

“I love you,” he murmured.

“I love you, too,” Jon whispered back. “Happy anniversary, Martin.”

“Happy anniversary.” Martin leaned forward and kissed him thoroughly.

Jon kissed him back, deeply and intensely and with all the emotions they had built up between them over the years: loneliness and desperation and fear, love and tenderness and hope. They had fought their damnedest for a moment they thought would never come, and now that it had, Martin was going to savor it. This and every other moment that ever could be.

At last, the need for air forced them to separate, and Jon laughed quietly. “You know what I didn’t think through about this?”

“We’re still barefoot?” Martin guessed.

“We are still barefoot,” Jon agreed. “And I’m still rather…worn out from the day. What do you say we go inside, shut the cats in their room for the night, and make use of that oversized tub in the downstairs bath?”

“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Martin said. He kissed Jon again, very softly, and then stepped back. “Lead on, Mr. Blackwood-Sims.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Blackwood-Sims,” Jon drawled. He stopped the tape with a gentle click, then laced his fingers through Martin’s, the metal of his wedding band smooth and cool against his fingers as it rolled over the webbing between them. “Come on, my love.”

Hand-in-hand, Martin and Jon, the man he’d loved for years, the man he’d fought for, fought with, the reason he had survived apocalypse after apocalypse, his anchor—his husband—turned away from the world they had somehow managed to save and into their home, into the future they had made.

Together.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #jonmartim #I am glad to be with you here at the end of all things #god I can't believe this is OVER

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janekfan · 4 years

Note

hmm prompt time... jon angst about his humanity or lacktherof? worrying about him not being good enough for+worthy of+safe for martin/general guilt/self hatred? before or after apocolypse idk maybe safe house maybe post change? maybe season 4 after coma? could end up being jmart h/c or just be jon sad time whatever works

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232381

For everyone else it had already been six long months.

And for Jon.

Well. For Jon, it was just yesterday.

Sasha.

Gone.

Tim.

Gone.

Martin.

Gone.

Himself?

And wasn’t that the question of the day Jon thought as he dragged himself up the steps of the Magnus Institute. He didn’t have anything with him. He didn’t have anything left that he knew of. Just the Oyster card and set of clothes the hospital had been kind enough to give him as his own were thoroughly shredded in the explosion. Everything else was gone.

He should be gone.

He’s the only one who should be gone.

But he’s still here.

And they’re just.

Was he even allowed to grieve?

“Jon” Melanie’s sharp, irritated voice raked over his ill-fitting skin like claws and he lifted sore eyes in acknowledgment.

“Hm, y’yes?”

“Been calling your name. You up to your spooky monster shit already?” He winced, wishing the scratchy two-sizes too big tee shirt would swallow him the rest of the way. “Barely through the door and you can’t resist.”

“N’no. Was. Was thinking, s’all.” Rubbing his arm, trying desperately to feel something, Jon didn’t know if he was allowed to leave or not. If he moved would she be upset? If he stayed?

“Least keep to your office. Don’t want you...watchin’ me.” She shoved past him, knocking him against the wall, still unsteady on his feet, the effects from the statement earlier were wearing off, or whatever the supernatural equivalent was and he slipped like a shadow through the halls to his door to hide himself behind it.

Things did not improve. He was always in the wrong, always a menace and he’d caught a glimpse of himself in the restroom mirrors a couple times, surprised at how thin and pathetic he looked. But they were afraid of him. He Knew it. Because the Eye gravitated to these heavenly tastes of fear like a starving man did to food.

So he kept to himself.

I’m sorry.

As days crept in and out, Jon tried to keep stock of what was different and the only thing he could conclude after his careful analysis and study was that he. Jonathan Sims. Was now something less than human.

Less than.

That made sense. That was okay. He’d always been better off alone because when he was alone he couldn’t hurt people and all he seemed to do was hurt people.

Wasn’t that true?

Georgie Sasha Tim Martin Daisy Georgie Sasha Tim Martin DaisyGeorgieSashaTimMartinDaisy

What was the point of learning that hard-won lesson if he had no one left?

I’m sorry.

And there was no way to go back. He’d caused it. Been causing it since he was a child, alienating, precocious, and so unlikable.

And there was no way for him to fix it. Not when he was in so deep. Not when he was addicted to these, these tales of dread and panic and horror and pain and death and terror and loss. Not when he had taken from those that he haunted and hunted through nightmare and dream. Took what they had and made it his, feeding, feeding, feeding like some animal.

But animals didn’t have a choice did they?

I’m sorry.

He’d already been judged and found wanting. Georgie was right. He should have died, or stayed in the coma, or anything other than turning into whatever he was now. Something inhuman, un-human.

Un-made.

Twisted.

I’m sorry.

Pity there was no one left who would accept his worthless apologies. Not from whatever he was now.

Jon was barely in control, not in control. Not really. Exhausted and hungry and lonely, lonely, lonely. He decided to take control back, just a little, whatever he could because to be human was to stay in control.

And he takes it.

In the only way he can think how.

Blood wells up from scratches Jon gouges into his arms, from beneath the blades of dull knives and keen razors, deep and dark and dangerous if he were human. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t harm himself enough physically, healing too fast to really feel it like he wanted to feel it and the marks never stayed long enough. Didn’t, didn’t bleed long enough, fast enough, never enough.

There’s no one left to notice the rust and ruby lining the bin so Jon doesn’t bother putting effort into cleaning up evidence. It’s around him in the florid streaks crossing the blotter, the cardinal fingerprints on old envelopes, the scarlet trails of irregular constellations mapped beneath his chair.

The answer to his problem became clear soon after. The statements. Addicted to them, it wasn’t until Basira pointed out that he should stop that he realized the easiest way to hurt was to deny himself. And they wanted him to stop. They want him to hurt and he should hurt. It’s fine, it’s okay, it’s what he’s been looking for.

Maybe when they thought he’d hurt enough, they would forgive him.

The pain was good. Every time he denied the Eye was good. Better than, it was intoxicating. The smallest act of rebellion and he revelled in it. Knowing he was weak, that he couldn’t be used for whatever purpose he’d been created for while he was like this, filled him with a perverse hope.

Restless, Jon retraced his steps through the Archives, trying to avoid Basira and Melanie where he could though they didn’t do anything more than ignore him unless he had a purpose or interrogate him about leaving, finding a victim. Compelling them against their will.

“You look shite, Jon.” He avoided their eyes, stared at their feet and watched them fade in and out, as he swayed back and forth, and he knew they were sneering because he could hear it in their voice. “Proof enough, I suppose.” Melanie lifted his face with a gentle finger placed under his chin. “Haven’t been galavanting in people’s dreams?” Back bowing under the weight of her scrutinizing stare, Jon did his best to stand straight. Removing the influence of the Slaughter didn’t make her undivided attention any easier to stomach and he put effort into quelling the ever present shiver thrumming through his bones, playing his sinews like strings.

“Uh, n’no. I don’t leave much. Or at all.”

“Mm.”

“Melanie?” Narrowed eyes stared through him, followed the quick rush through the highways of his veins. She knew where to strike to do the most damage.

Jon Knew it wouldn’t stick if she tried.

He was sure he’d seen him come this way. Martin. Whom he missed more than he ever thought one could miss someone. And, really, what did he know of Martin? Other than how best to ridicule him? He’d done this, or at the very least pushed him toward it. A victim for the Lonely. For Peter Lukas to control and manipulate and Martin assured him he was fine. He was fine and Jon shouldn’t look for him anymore because it was making it harder, it was making it worse. And Jon could do that. Could do one thing to make it easier for Martin?

But when he saw him, pale and small and Martin should never seem so small, Jon abandoned all his promises. He’d never been good at keeping them anyway. Why start now? Dizzier than he thought, the first step almost sent him sprawling and he just managed to catch himself on the wall, resting against it long enough to lose him. He pushed off, caught himself again as the hall twisted around him, spiraling like Helen’s eyes when they burrowed into his own and he followed, stumbling, a body ricocheting from surface to surface; floor, window, door, battered and bruised where no one could see. Not like the scars and the timeline they’d scripted silver and hoary on translucent brown vellum.

Martin is not there.

Jon has arrived too late.

He was good at that.

The first sob cleaved him in two, the second carved his chest clean out. Empty. Painfully empty and worse than anything he’d done to himself thus far. There wasn’t room to breathe between, there wasn’t time or space and rather than cower in the open doorway Jon threw himself into the office, crashing to his knees and pressing his face into the wood of his neatly organized desk before he gathered the wherewithal to pull himself into the chair, nicking the jumper folded over the back of it before crumpling again. Soft against his cheek, the well worn wool comforted him enough that he gained tentative control over himself again. He spent the time there dazed between bouts of crying, gradually tugged into the deep and the dark, exhausted and guilty.

He’s visited by dreams instead of nightmares. A cool palm gently coaxing the blazing, feverish heat from his skin. Stroking back tangled curls from his damp face and murmuring gentle things, lovely things, that he had no right to take comfort from. Jon dreamt of being hushed, of tears swept away by mindful fingertips, of clinging to Martin’s cardigan so tightly his hands ached. There was warmth here. Softness here. That he didn’t deserve and stole anyway, greedy and covetous because that’s what monsters did. And he took it, held it close, let it soothe the aches and the agony he carried so deep in him it hurt to let free.

Sasha.

Tim.

Martin.

Jon woke to the smell of sea air and surf.

To the last of a thick fog clinging around his ankles.

To a mug of tea, still hot.

And a statement.

#Tma #the magnus archives #jon sims #martin blackwood #hurt/comfort #self worth issues #self harm #Cutting #Blood #starvation #It's dark times up in here #Be careful #angst

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shuttymcshutfuck · 4 years

Text

“promise me, you’ll live a great life without me”

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker

Type: Angst (just pure angst, I’m so sorry)

Word count: 1,779

TW: character death (canon), grief, dissociation, depression

Ao3 link

"They all agreed that once everything was done, they’d call to say everyone was safe. Martin was using it as a lifeline, waiting to hear Tim’s voice on the other end."

Martin's view of the season 3 finale

“Martin? There you are.” It must be Melanie since there were only the two of them left, everyone else was away or in jail at this point. Martin sat at his desk looking through a box of statements trying to piece together what goes with what. It helped him to stay busy, if he stayed busy he didn’t have to think about anything. He didn’t have to think about what Elias had shown him, he didn't have to think about where the rest of the team were and he especially didn’t have to think about the fact that they might not come back. That Tim might not come back.

“What’s wrong? Are they back?” He knew he was getting ahead of himself but he couldn’t help it. He needed to make sure everyone was safe.

“No, uh, there’s a tape for you. It was on Elias’s desk.” Melanie had been in there cleaning up a bit and also snooping around to see if she could find anything to use against him. She handed Martin the tape and his heart stopped when he read the label.

“It’s… it’s from Tim?” Martin could feel his chest start to tighten.

“I’ll give you some privacy.” Martin barely acknowledged Melanie leaving the room. He practically ran to Jon’s office to get the cassette player and turned it on.

Martin immediately turned it off. There was no way he was listening to that. He couldn't listen to the love of his life say goodbye, especially not when he was probably still alive and on his way back. He wandered through to the break room and flicked on the kettle, barely noticing Melanie sitting at the table in the middle of the room.

Hey Martin,

I felt like I needed to say something in case this whole plan went south. I made sure Elias knew so hopefully you won't have to hear this unless I haven’t made it back to you.

“So, what was all that about?” Martin could tell she was trying to be friendly but they weren’t really that close. He appreciated it anyway.

“Nothing, yet.”

“Well that sounds ominous as fuck. If you don’t want to talk about it that’s okay.” Martin cracked a tiny smile at the gesture but it felt forced and unnatural. They sat there in silence for a while, staring at the phone in the middle of the table. They all agreed that once everything was done, they’d call to say everyone was safe. Martin was using it as a lifeline, waiting to hear Tim’s voice on the other end. He was snapped out of his daze when Melanie put her hand on his shoulder. It felt like barely any time had passed but it must have been a while because he could see the sun start to set outside.

“Martin, it’s time to go home.” He looked up at her and all he saw was [pity].

“They said they would call. Melanie, why haven’t they called?” He could feel tears start to prick at his eyes.

“Maybe they just forgot, I mean you know how forgetful Tim and Jon can be.” Her face was pulled into an awkward smile, Martin thinks it was supposed to be comforting.

“Yeah… maybe.” Martin's eyes drifted back to the phone.

“How about I take you home? We can order some takeout and maybe watch a movie to take your mind off things.” Melanie placed her hand on Martin’s shoulder. The pressure was grounding him but he wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing. He slowly nodded and stood up, feeling his joints protest slightly.

“Okay, good. I’ll go grab our coats and I’ll meet you at the front door.” Martin moved slowly, his mind still sitting at the table. He blinked and he was outside the front door with his coat on, waiting for Melanie to lock up. He blinked again and he was at his front door fumbling to get his keys out of his pocket.

As soon as they were inside his phone started to ring. Martin almost dropped it while he scrambled to get it out of his coat pocket.

“Hello? Tim, is that you?” He almost choked on the desperation in his voice.

“Uh, no. It’s Basira.”

“Oh, Basira. How is everyone? Are you on your way back?” Martin heard her sigh.

“Martin, I uh...I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Just spit it out Basira!”

“They’re gone. Daisy, Tim. They’re both gone. I saw the explosion but they were all still inside. I got out before but I was the only one. Jon’s in critical condition. You should come visit, I’m not sure if he’s… You should come.” Martin couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak. His mind was going a thousand miles a minute and he could pick out a single thought. “Martin?”

“Thank you, Basira. I hope you’re okay.” He hung up before he got an answer. “You need to leave.”

“Martin, I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone like this-”

“I SAID LEAVE!” Martin could feel his whole body shaking. As soon as he heard his door shut he collapsed onto the couch, sobs racking his body. He lay there, crying himself to sleep.

The next morning Martin woke up empty. He ached all over and not just from sleeping on his couch. He dragged himself up and decided to go shower, he had work to do after all. He went through his usual routine but it all felt pointless, hollow, like there was something missing. Someone missing. Getting into the archives was the same. The hours he spent there felt like they dragged on for eternity. That was until he got home again and he realised this was so much worse. He couldn’t bear to stay there any longer so he got back in his car and drove to the hospital. Basira had messaged him earlier that day what hospital Jon was admitted to and it wasn’t too far thankfully.

The silence of the drive was jarring compared to the usual joyful sounds of Tim singing along to the radio and Martin giggling at his dramatics. Martin felt it in his chest, there was something missing and there always would be. He sat by Jon’s bed, just staring at him. There was some awful part of him deep down that wished it was Tim in that bed instead of Jon. He knew that it was bad to think that but he couldn’t help it. He just couldn’t understand why Jon was the only one to survive.

Martin sat there for a few hours before he packed up and went home. He didn’t dare go into his bedroom. He couldn’t look at his bed, the bed he’d shared with Tim. He could barely sit on the couch, his mind being flooded with the fact that he’ll never sit and watch movies with Tim there again, never cuddle him again, never see him again. But the bedroom was worse. He tried to sleep on his couch but he just couldn’t. He ended up cleaning all night until he was supposed to go into work.

Martin went through his work day exhausted and hollow again. He stayed out of the way, avoiding conversation as much as he could and pretending he was fine when he couldn’t. This was easy as barely anyone was in the archives. Because they’re all dead or hurt his mind kindly reminded him. He worked well into the night after everyone had left, waiting for his mind to calm a bit so he could sleep in the cot they had in the storage room. Ever since the Jane Prentiss incident they kept the cot there, mostly because Jon had a habit of staying late which would result in someone forcing him to take a nap because he refused to go home. Martin continued this routine of working late, sleeping in the cot, only going home to shower and get fresh clothes.

About a week later he lay there waiting for sleep to overtake him. But something kept playing on his mind. The tape. He hadn’t listened to the tape yet. He knew it was only a matter of time and he missed Tim’s voice. So he got up and grabbed the cassette player and placed the tape he kept in his bag inside. Martin sat and stared at the player, he couldn’t find it in himself to press play. He took a deep breathe in and pressed play.

Hey Martin,

I felt like I needed to say something in case this whole plan went south. I made sure Elias knew so hopefully you won't have to hear this unless I haven’t made it back to you.

Tears started to blur Martin's vision. He knew that this was the last time he would hear Tim say.

I really hope you don’t have to listen to this but honestly? I don’t know if there would be a better way to go. Of course, I’d much rather stay here with you but, this thing- it took my brother, it took Sasha from us. I have to make it pay, whatever it takes.

Martin felt the familiar burning of tears pouring down his cheeks. He wanted to grab Tim. Go back in time and grab him, tell him not to go.

I know these past two years have been hard but I need you to promise me something. Promise me you’ll live a great life without me. I don’t want you to mope around like I did these past couple months, don’t be angry. I know you Martin, and if you go around blaming yourself then you won’t be able to live. You’ve got to get out there Martin! For me.

Martin felt his chest ache as he tried to quiet his sobs with the sleeve of his jumper. It was one of the extra soft ones Tim had gotten him for christmas. He got Tim to wear them quite a bit so some of them even smelled like him.

God, this is so ironic isn’t it? I hate these fucking things and yet this is how I might be saying goodbye to you. Alright, I guess this is it my love. I’ll see you in the next life. I love you Martin, don’t forget that.

And with that the tape clicked off. He let his tears flow freely, he was so loud he thought that someone was going to call someone. But it was 2am and he was alone. He pressed the rewind button and pressed play to start it again. He fell asleep to the sounds of Tim.

#the magnus archives #martim #martin blackwood #tim stoker #timothy stoker #tma #tma fic #tma angst #my writing

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that-one-girl-behind-you · 4 years

Text

Illicio 9/?

Part 8

"What's up with that?" She asks after so long has gone by that Jon is starting to think he's safe. He lets out an exhalation that hopefully doesn't sound as exhausted as he is with this whole matter.

Jon is, regardless of what Tim -or Georgie, or even Gerry himself- used to say, not completely hopeless at reading people. Only mostly. He's not entirely blind as to how the mood has shifted in his interactions with the man in question.

"Nothing." Jon says, then adds sullenly. "I don't know."

Daisy squeezes his hand. "Martin?"

"I don't know." Jon turns his head away to avoid Daisy's gaze. "I- Daisy, I think there's bigger things to worry about."

"It's good to- I'm trying to think of the little things too." Daisy shrugs. "It feels like having a purpose."

On the days after the Buried, Daisy gets to know the world again. Or more accurately, the Institute, and the people in it. The difference is mind-blowing, now that the Hunt is only a background presence in her mind instead of the driving force behind her thoughts.

"You look... better," she tells Melanie one evening. It's not really a visible change, but she remembers Melanie from before the Unknowing, always bristling with a rage so barely restrained it used to set Daisy on edge too. Back then her thoughts had been mostly focused on how to take Melanie down if it came to a fight, and she has the feeling the same can be said of Melanie. Just two rabid dogs sizing the other up and waiting for the tension to crack.

"I guess I am," Melanie frowns down at the computer screen, and when Daisy leans over she can see she's taking a quiz of some sort. Probably not the approved use of Institute equipment, but she doesn't seem to care. "Did Jon tell you about the bullet?"

"He mentioned it," Daisy shrugs. A lot of things were said in the depths of the coffin, trying to bring the other some measure of comfort.

"Gerry says they got it off me just in time. Apparently I was a bad accident away from becoming a full avatar." Melanie gives her a careful look out the corner of her eye. "I'm guessing that's why you look..."

"Like shit?" Daisy asks with a dry smile, and after a moment Melanie smiles back.

"I was trying to look for a better term."

"Sugar-coating doesn't suit you."

"Can't say I have much practice." Melanie goes back to her quiz, and Daisy goes back to thinking.

Her condition is hardly surprising, considering everything; the Hunt has been pulling at her from the moment she climbed out the coffin after Jon, but she's done her best to ignore the call of the blood. Daisy's very aware that this is abstinence without recovery, and that her reticence to join in with the Hunt's other hounds is her choosing a slow but certain death.

But she's herself again, and finding out who that is feels like a goal worth dying for.

"Why are you an onion?" Daisy frowns at the computer screen showing the results of Melanie's quiz.

"I was always going to be an onion," Melanie shrugs, "I just wanted to know what kind."

Daisy's thinking about the right way to answer to that statement, when Melanie's phone pings in her pocket. She watches her pull it out, and her face softens at whatever it is she just received.

"I have to go. You should- I think he's recording, but you can probably go in if you're quiet." Melanie points at Jon's door. Even the way she refers to him is different, vaguely distasteful apathy instead of the tense hostility Daisy remembers from before the Unknowing, which is a relief.

The irony of the situation doesn't escape Daisy, how she walked into the coffin with half a mind to kill Jonathan Sims, and walked out ready to kill for Jonathan Sims.

"I can be alone for a while. It's alright." The call of the blood is easier to ignore when she's in someone else's company, but Daisy's not- she's noticed how Basira looks at her, the tired tension of her lips when Daisy follows her around the Institute and she has to pretend it doesn't bother her. Daisy's broken, but she will not be a burden. Not to anyone, but most of all not to Basira.

"Okay, then. Want anything from outside?" Melanie asks as she shoves an arm through her jacket's sleeve.

"I- some chips, if you could get them. Or any food that doesn't come packaged, really."

Melanie briefly nods an acknowledgment as she leaves, and she closes the door behind her before Daisy can ask her to leave it open.

It's okay. It's just a room, just a door. There's plenty of space to breathe and to move. If she focuses, she can feel Jon's presence in his office; he's okay too. They're- they made it out.

Daisy opens her eyes, unsure when she closed them, and finds that the walls have started closing in. She tries to ignore them by clicking back on Melanie's onion quiz, surely that will distract her right? The room is unchanged, she's- it's safe out here, safer than outside for sure, where she'd no doubt find a trail and be compelled to chase it, to run until her legs hurt and she can smell the panicked exhaustion her victim's perspiration, until they cannot keep from her any longer and she's forced to claim the prize and move on to the next-

"You alright there?" When the man's voice pulls her away from her mind, Daisy realizes she's closed her eyes again. Her fists are clenched tightly on the desk, and when she forces them open she finds a matching set of angry red crescent moons on her palms. "You're growling."

She looks up; the man is standing before the desk, looking warily down at her and he smells of lavender and Jon, which helps her push away the last traces of the blood.

"I'm okay." She mumbles, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to release her hunch over the desk, leaning back against her chair. She's heard a lot about this man lately; Basira calls him by his surname, like the ones she doesn't trust, but Melanie calls him Gerry with a sort of relaxed companionship, and when Jon does the same there's an undeniable undercurrent of fondness in the tone he gives the name. She has yet to meet him herself, but this seems as good a time as any, now that the room has stopped trying to suffocate her. "You're Gerry Keay?"

The man holds his silent contemplation for another minute, before he shrugs and grabs the chair across the desk. "That would be me. I've never seen an avatar of the Hunt look so famished," he observes. "Your kind doesn't usually deprive themselves."

"Well, I do," Daisy grumbles.

"Yeah. I can see that."

Silence. It's not exactly comfortable, but it's not uncomfortable either, and the company keeps both the Buried and the Hunt at bay.

"Are you here for Jon?" Daisy asks, and Gerry nods.

"Always. But right now I have to see Martin first."

That's... unexpected, to say the least. "Why do you have to see Martin?"

The man gives her an amused, resigned smile and a shrug. "Jon," he says like it's all the reason he needs, and Daisy decides on the spot that she likes Gerry Keay.

"I guess that tracks," she nods. "Why don't you go then?"

"You looked like you needed someone to talk to for a bit."

"That helps." Daisy nods. While she would've sneered at it before, she's now terribly aware that kindness is a virtue sorely lacking in the world they move in. "I'm alright now."

"You sure?" Gerry's eyeing her strangely, and only then does Daisy remember he's aligned with the Beholding as well.

"Yes. I'm- I'll just keep myself busy." Daisy looks at the computer. "I can... figure out what kind of onion I am."

The man blinks rapidly a couple times, probably trying to process what she just said, and Daisy wonders if Melanie felt the same perverse satisfaction when she said it.

"Sounds- yeah. I'll go now," Gerry says, climbing to his feet again. He turns at the door, and gives Daisy another evaluating look. "You're… very strong. Thank you. For helping him back." And he's gone before Daisy can ask what that even means.

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

"You should be careful with that. Could be dangerous." Peter half-turns before he leaves, a hand on the edge of the ajar door and ice-cold eyes heavy on Martin's nape.

"Not any more dangerous than anything else in my life, really." Martin shrugs, eyes fixed on the bright computer screen. Interacting with Peter is only tolerable because it feels only marginally like talking to another human being, but even that is enough to upset his stomach.

"Well, if you look at it like that. But I think you'll find that doing something dangerous out of your own free will is always better than being controlled to do it, even if that will is motivated by your frankly worrying infatuation with a man that does not care about you."

"Hm," is all Martin says. Out the corner of his eye he sees Peter's lips curl into a satisfied smile, but he can't bring himself to care. It's not like he's telling any lies either way.

"Okay! Now I really am running late, so if you don't mind?" Peter says in that cheerful, jovial tone Martin is quickly growing tired of, before he closes the office door behind him.

Martin sighs. This is- it's been harder, lately.

He still remembers why he's doing this, and he still cares, he really does. And everything is going according to plan, Peter really does think Martin believed his 'only you can save the world' spiel, Jon is out of the coffin, Daisy's alive, the Institute is -mostly- safe... but he just got the first actually feasible proof that the Extinction might be a real thing, and all he can think is that he's glad Peter left quickly.

The door flies open, and Martin jumps to his feet so abruptly that the chair he was sitting on tumbles to the floor.

"What- Gerard? What are you doing here?" Martin asks angrily, his heart beating madly in his throat. "Peter could've seen you!"

"I waited until he left, Martin, I'm not an idiot." The man rolls his eyes as he closes and locks the door behind him. Martin isn't sure it would be enough to stop Peter from coming in through the Lonely, but it's something.

"So what, were you eavesdropping?" Now that the shock is starting to pass, Martin is steadily moving towards annoyance in the spectrum of emotion. He told Gerard he didn't want him messing with his business, and yet here he is, just-

"You still look a bit gray," Gerard comments, coming to sit across Martin's desk like they had a freaking appointment. "You know what he said was bullshit, don't you?"

"He said a lot of things," Martin mumbles as he picks his chair back up and sits under Gerard's heavy gaze.

"There we go again." Gerard rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes are a beautiful color, Martin notices -if he still felt anything when writing his poetry, he'd be inclined to find a suitable comparison- and they couldn't be more different from Peter's. Gerard is actually looking at him, instead of through him, like Peter does. "Are you always this stubborn?"

"Excuse me? I'm not- you're the one who broke in here!" Martin sputters indignantly. "After I told you very clearly that I didn't want your help. If anyone is stubborn, that's-"

"The door was unlocked. Next time you want to be alone, check that first." Gerard shrugs, leaning backwards on his chair until the front legs lift off the floor.

Martin rolls his eyes. "Would it have stopped you?"

"For about five minutes." The man gives him a smug smile that fits his face like a glove, a handsome, mischievous troublemaker that takes far too much pride on the admission. "You look better now."

Martin grumbles, shoving the tape towards him across the desk's polished surface. "Here. Dekker's statement."

"What did you make of it?" The chair's legs land heavily against the floor, and Gerard reaches to take the tape and shove it in his jacket's pocket.

"It's... very odd. It feels like the Spiral, the Lonely and the End all rolled into one, with a side of the Stranger to boot." Martin worries at his bottom lip, frowning. His thoughts as he puts them into words are slow like dripping treacle, like waking up on a cold morning, but he can feel with no room for uncertainty that they're his thoughts, not the Lonely's. "I'm- I don't know if it is a new power, but I- the fears don't usually interact like that, do they?"

"Not really. They're more likely to fight over territory than to share it." Gerard's face is thoughtful when Martin lifts his gaze to look for answers there. "Sometimes they get along if their domains overlap. I've seen the Forsaken mix with the Vast and the Buried, but never at the same time because those two are opposites. The more entities that try to get in the mix, the more likely it is to fail."

"Hm. So? New kid in town?"

"I'll have to listen to it. I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea, though." Gerard sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck in a slow, deliberate movement that belies his exhaustion. "But it's not out of the question."

"H-how's Jon?" Martin blurts out. Gerard's mouth twitches, and Martin clears his throat, looking pointedly away.

"He's... better. I don't think anyone's left the coffin before, so it's not like we have much to compare his progress to. Got a nice new mark out of it, of course. We're this close to completing the card."

"The what?"

"It's just something I- " Gerard blinks, a confused frown coming to rest at his face all of a sudden. "...Something I thought of."

"...Yes?" Martin arches an eyebrow, but Gerard's frown only grows more pronounced when he shuts his eyes tight, as if trying to focus on a though- "Oh. Oh, you're bleeding again!"

Martin goes rustling frantically around in his desk, until he finds a box of paper tissues. The black ink dripping down steadily from Gerard's nose still hasn't slowed down by the time he looks back up, offering the box.

"Her- grab one. Jesus, what happened?"

"I-" Gerard opens his eyes again, and one of them has popped a blood vessel, it seems, the black startling against the white and blue as he reaches to pull a tissue free. "The Eye didn't like that too much."

"It didn't like what specifically?"

Gerard gives him a dubious look. "I don't-"

"Oh, no. You have to tell me now." Martin scowls as fiercely as he can, ignoring the heat on his face when Gerard raises an eyebrow.

"Excuse me? I have to?"

"Of course you do! You can't just barge in here and- and expect me to give you all I know and then not tell me anything!"

"You continue to not be what I expected, Martin," Gerard says in a flat, annoyed tone. Good. "It's got something to do with the marks. He's- he has twelve of them already."

"That's- wow. That's a lot of them." Martin blinks. He's aware -oh, he is so aware- of Jon's brushes with the entities, but it never occurred to him to actually sit down and figure which he hasn't encountered yet. It never felt important, for some reason. Peter's voice echoes in his mind. You should be careful with that. Could be dangerous.

"And he's getting them in the weirdest ways too, like-"

"Is there a normal way to be marked by a fear god?" Martin interrupts, only to be pinned down by Gerard's unimpressed stare. He snorts. "Sorry, sorry. You were saying?"

"Well, yes. I was there when he Knew about the bullet in Melanie's leg. It was a tidbit from the Eye. And then- why did that Stranger bloke bring the coffin here?" Gerard frowns, and ink starts running down from his other nostril as well. "Ah, fuck."

"Yes, maybe- we should stop for now." Martin gives the box of tissues another push. "I really don't want to go looking for Jon because you bled out in my office."

"Would be hard to explain, huh?" Gerard tears a handful of tissues out, before climbing to his feet. "We'll listen to the tape. I'll-"

"Wait- we?"

"I'm not going to lie to him," Gerard shrugs. "Besides, it will make him... not happy, but at least he'll have news of you."

"Very considerate," Martin says dryly. It's an abrupt reminder that they might be doing this out of love for the same man, but they're not friends. Still, Jon deserves nice things, even if Martin can't be the one to give them to him. "What?" He asks, when he zones back in and finds Gerard still looking at him thoughtfully.

"He really does care. Lukas knows how to come at you; don't let him." Gerard opens the door, halfway out already before he pokes his head back in. "Don't call the Lonely back in yet, give yourself a break, will you?"

He's gone before Martin can answer, and he sighs. This is getting so much more difficult than he thought it would be.

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

"-statement ends." Jon clicks the recorder off and places it on his improvised desk, before turning to look at Daisy. "The Flesh continues to be... puzzling, to say the least."

"Nasty," Daisy agrees without looking away from her phone. The tape recorder slides a little on his stomach when she shifts to make her head more comfortable on Jon's thigh. "Are vampires from the Flesh?"

Jon leans back, resting his head against the wall as the Knowledge starts pressing against his mind. "Yes. Bit of the Hunt too. And a little Stranger. They're quite a mess." He shifts too, the hardwood floor of his office punishing on his tailbone.

"Want to switch?" Daisy asks, already halfway through sitting up.

"I'm alright." Jon slides down instead. "It's almost time to leave anyways, Gerry will be here soon."

"I met him the other day. He seems nice." Daisy lays back next to him. Jon slides his hand under her forearm, just to have an additional point of contact, and she tangles their fingers together.

"He is," Jon says quietly. Daisy, who is not aligned with the Beholding but whose stare can still make you squirm, looks at him out the corner of her eye.

"What's up with that?" She asks after so long has gone by that Jon is starting to think he's safe. He lets out an exhalation that hopefully doesn't sound as exhausted as he is with this whole matter.

Gerry has ways been generous with his touch, a heavy hand on Jon's shoulder, around his wrist, on top of his head, but recently there's been the slightest moment of hesitation just before making contact, and Jon finds himself dreading it every time, without really knowing what outcome he fears more.

It definitely doesn't help that Jon is far too aware that no matter what Gerry may or may not feel, he did not choose to be here willingly, that even if he for some reason enjoys Jon's company, he's as much a prisoner to him as Jon himself is to the Eye.

"Nothing." Jon says, then adds sullenly. "I don't know."

Daisy squeezes his hand. "Martin?"

"I don't know." Jon turns his head away to avoid Daisy's gaze. "I- Daisy, I think there's bigger things to worry about."

"It's good to- I'm trying to think of the little things too." Daisy shrugs. "It feels like having a purpose."

Jon purses his lips. Sure, having a purpose is good and all until said purposes are self-sacrificing to a fear entity to keep you safe or behaving in an entirely too confusing manner.

"How's Basira?" He hasn't spoken much to her since that day after the statement. Jon gets the feeling she doesn't want to give him another chance to voice those thoughts she doesn't pride herself on.

Daisy sighs. "She's- it's okay. We're together, so it's fine. I just-" her voice falters a little, and Jon turns back to face her, squeezes her hand in reassurance. "I know I'm not what she needed."

Jon doesn't do her the disservice of trying to offer advice; the nuances of their relationship are something he doesn't want to intrude on. Instead, he tugs softly on her hand.

"I think we have time for an episode or two, if you're up for it."

Daisy's chapped lips twitch with humor. "I thought you didn't like it."

Jon snorts; no need for an Eye membership to see that, then. "It's- charmingly simple, I suppose."

"You don't get to back out," she says, lifting Jon's hand in hers to tap at her phone.

"Fine. But I will comment on it." Jon mock-scowls as the opening notes of The Archers' intro start playing.

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

"Want some coffee?" Gerry asks as he locks the door to the flat behind him.

"That sounds nice," Jon mutters. His voice is distracted and somewhat annoyed, and Gerry turns to see him struggling with the very last button of his coat. The burned hand must be aching more than usual, because he's not even trying to use it. "Uh- could you-"

"On it," Gerry nudges Jon's hand away gently, before easily sliding the button through the hole. "You're... good." Jon's large, dark eyes are glued to him when he looks up, awfully closer than he expected.

"Yes, I- thank you." After a moment's hesitation Jon's hands slide under his again to grab at the coat's lapels, and he steps away as he shrugs it off.

Gerry sighs, taking his own jacket off. This tension is ridiculous, he thinks as he watches Jon make a beeline for his bedroom. It's not- Gerry's far too aware of the situation with Martin. The tape he's carried around in his jacket for the past two days can attest to that, so no, he's not planning on making a move on Jon without at least a conversation. But he can't- it's not like he can just pretend he doesn't want Jon. Not after the Buried, not after thinking he lost him, and all the revelations that stemmed from that.

And speaking of the tape...

He hasn't brought himself around to listening to it, the hard corners digging at his ribs where his heart should be. Gerry's not so blind as to not realize this is selfishness on his part, a futile attempt to keep up this false normalcy they have found for themselves.

It's not fair for Jon, after Gerry made him promise to not keep secrets, but most of all it's not fair to Martin, who Gerry has very much decided he misjudged.

"We should- there's something I have for us. That we should listen to," he says once he goes back to the living room. He hands Jon -who has already changed into night clothes and is balled up at one end of the sofa- the two steaming mugs. "Here. I'll be right back."

Jon's eyes narrow in suspicion when Gerry comes back with the tape recorder. "What is that?" Gerry sits next to him on the sofa, stalling for time. "Gerry..."

With the kind of relationship he has with Jon, there's probably not a good way or time of saying 'I really like the way you say my name', but considering the news he's about to give, Gerry's willing to bet this would be one of the worst.

"I spoke to Martin." He says hurriedly, instead.

"You what?" Jon's eyes go wide, and Gerry lifts a hand in an appeasing motion.

"Yes, when- I went to look for him when you went into the Buried."

"I- why would you do that?!" Jon asks, his voice strained.

"Let me see, because I found out you'd fatally misunderstood the concept of anchors, and I thought he might have a better chance at getting you back than a rib." Gerry finds himself growing more agitated as he speaks, the light compulsion bringing forth more than just words. "A rib. Jon what were you think-"

"You said you'd stop bringing that up," Jon cuts him sullenly, his brow furrowed as he straightens up to shove a finger into Gerry's chest. "You said a man used quiche as his anchor!"

"It was not about the quiche, I thought you'd understood that!" Gerry clamps a hand down on Jon's to yank it away from his torso as he leans forward. "How was I supposed to know- a rib!"

"Well-" Jon snaps angrily, inches from Gerry's face. "Next time-"

"Next- there is not going to be a next time, Jon! You're not going into any more entities without me," Gerry blurts out. Jon's face goes carefully blank, and they stay there for a moment, breathing heavily in agitation. "Jon-"

"What- the tape." Jon sits back, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping an arm around them. "What's in it?"

Gerry groans, sitting back as well. Stupid.

"It's... let's just listen to it," he says before pressing the play button.

"Right. Martin Blackwood, archi- assistant to Peter Lukas, head of the Magnus Institute."

Jon grows more and more stiff with each passing second, and Gerry purses his lips in thought. This is probably the most Jon has heard of Martin in months, and the content could hardly be worse.

"Hey, I..." Gerry sighs. Jon doesn't look at him, and Gerry notices with a start that his eyes are starting to glow a faint green. More information to the Archive, then, whether Jon wants the knowledge or not.

He reaches over to lay a comforting arm across Jon's shoulders, pulling him lightly towards him, and Jon -surprisingly, terrifyingly- comes. It doesn't make Martin's words any less dreadful, but it does make it easier to listen to, knowing they're not alone.

"What- what happened after?" Jon asks after the tape clicks to an end. Gerry didn't miss how his posture against him grew stiff again at the subtle abuse Lukas flung to Martin after the statement. He'd known that was a possibility, but he'd also known Jon wouldn't let him stop the tape before it was over.

"I waited until Lukas left, locked us into his office and pissed him off until he was more human." Gerry shrugs. "Then we talked."

"Please don't antagonize Martin," Jon mutters softly, running his pointer finger over the edge of the tape in a gesture that seems almost intimate, and that Gerry very much doubts is meant for the device.

"All interaction helps, when he's like this. Especially if it turns out he wants to engage back, and trust me, he wanted to argue with me."

"That's because you are irritating," Jon huffs, and Gerry snorts a little.

"Beholding hasn't told you where it hid the return receipt?"

Jon's hand slaps softly against Gerry's chest. "What else?"

"Not much. After- I reminded him that you care about him. When he was more himself," Gerry adds, giving Jon's shoulders a light squeeze. "He even listened, I think." Jon frowns, quiet and contemplative for a moment that stretches for entirely too long. "Does it help? To know he's doing this for a reason?" Gerry asks

'Does it help to know you're loved?' he doesn't add.

Jon sighs.

"Somewhat. I just- leaving my personal- what are we going to do about this?" Jon asks. "This new- we have our hands full with the regular ones already, but a new one?"

"Is the Eye telling you something about it?" Gerry watches his face carefully, but his eyes are already back to their usual, comforting dark hue, and Jon shakes his head.

"Suspiciously quiet, if you ask me." Jon looks up at him, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Does it ever tell you anything?"

Gerry thinks of the marks all over Jon's soul, and the screeching static that came from trying to Know about them.

"Sometimes. I try to pay more attention to what it doesn't want to tell me."

"And what is that?"

"There's something about your marks," Gerry says slowly, trying to pinpoint the exact piece of information that the Watcher doesn't want him to focus on. "I think there's a reason you're getting- oh, there we go."

"Wh- Gerry!" Jon springs from the sofa, leaving Gerry's side uncomfortably empty as he darts into the bathroom. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back to keep the ink flowing from his nose from making a bigger mess. Done with Eye business for the night, it seems.

"It doesn't hurt," Gerry shrugs after Jon comes back with a handful of bunched up toilet paper. "You're a cheapskate, Martin had tissues."

"You're ridiculous," Jon huffs, pressing the paper carefully against Gerry's face. "Should I- I'll get something to read, that'll fix it. Hold this."

"Nah." Gerry makes no move to take over holding the toilet paper under his nose, cracking an eye open instead to find Jon hovering over him with concern clear on his face. "Just talk to me. I like it better."

"I-" Jon's cheeks go a few shades darker, and Gerry feels his mouth twitch into a smile. "Uh- alright. What- Gerry, I'm really bad at small talk."

"Then don't do small talk," Gerry shrugs. "Tell me... oh, tell me about when you broke into Getrude's flat."

"W- how did you know about that?!" Jon gapes, his face red with embarrassment. He could get used to this, Gerry thinks.

"Had a lot to listen to when you went to pick up Daisy. Supplemental Jon sounds like a fun fella," Gerry adds with a wink, and Jon sputters like an angry kettle.

He could definitely get used to this.

#jongerrymartin #illicio #vit writes #j/g/m

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centaurianthropology · 5 years

Text

The Magnus Archives Season 4 Binge-a-thon (Contains spoilers through the finale)

I’m back! Life and work have been crazy, but I really wanted to binge the half-season since I last listened in order to get in on the season finale. It’s been quite the experience. The last time I binged TMA was season 1, since I started listening at the beginning of season 2. I had really wondered which way was better listening: twenty minutes every week, having things play out gradually, or in one huge go.

I have to say, things flow really well as one run-through binge. I couldn’t say I hands-down prefer doing it this way, but that the structure really holds up as a binge. Plus, the evolving storyline begins to run at a less gradual pace. The build-up of tension is strong, and I really ended up enjoying my binge.

I think part of the danger of listening to each week is that you get lost in the minutia. It lets you pick over everything, which can be great, but it can also be frustrating. The character choices are that much more maddening when you have to wait a week to see how things turn out (and one character in particular in this latter half of season 4 I found particularly frustrating, so I think that listening week by week to that would have been a challenge).

I figured I’d go through some thoughts on the episodes, starting with where I left off at ‘Decrypted’ and going from there. I’ll be talking about episodes in little chunks as I go, with random comments in each section:

Decrypted, Infectious Doubts, Threshold

It’s interesting how much the Lonely was infecting the whole Institute at this stage in the story, although during these episodes it seemed like everyone hadn’t quite noticed it. Or they’d gotten so used to it during Jon’s coma that they stopped noticing how bad things were getting.

Listening now, it seems like Basira got hit the hardest, and that combines with the fact that she also seems to notice it the least. While in season 3 she was the level-headed one, here she’s trying to take that level-headedness too far. She wants all the answers so she can make the best decisions, but she refuses to wait for answers, and she refuses to acknowledge that those answers might be complicated.

The Lonely may also be the explanation for her detachment. As in the plot as she is, she’s desperate to not engage emotionally with any of it. Even Daisy seems to be held at arms-length, and Jon is labeled a monster without any unpacking of that term or what it would mean. She also seems to refuse to address how close Jon and Daisy’s behaviors have been, at their worst, and that Jon is in the throes of his hunger, while Daisy was starved of hers forcibly. She chooses to remain calm and chooses to work to overcome the Hunt, but her initial detox program was very much not of her own choosing. She has simply chosen to stick to it, to embrace the good thing that came out of her imprisonment in the Buried. Jon is struggling because he’s not being forcibly weaned, and no amount of Basira calling him a monster is going to prompt him to stop.

I think that Basira, at this point, is perhaps the most blinkered of the characters. She’s so focused on results that she refuses to do any sort of self-inventory. She’s so convinced of her own rationality that she misses the places where she’s irrational: Jon has always been a semi-threat to her, so she can much more easily slide into thinking of him as a monster. Daisy, on the other hand, was her partner; someone she trusted and cared about. It’s much harder to look at someone you love and call them a monster. She can see the shades of gray in Daisy, but it’s easier to ignore them in Jon.

As much as I think Basira likes to think of herself as the rational one, I think Melanie and Daisy fit that better at this point. Both have passed through their own marking by one of the powers, and both have had their own time as monsters. And that gives them both an outsider’s perspective on the situation, and an insider’s perspective. And both had to be forcibly wrenched away from their respective powers. As much as Melanie resents being torn away against her will, without any say in how it happened, she now has the perspective to look at Jon’s monstrousness as both something very not good, but something complicated. Her own feelings toward Jon are complicated. He helped her, but he took away her free will to do it. He’s a monster, but so was she.

Daisy is even further along that path of understanding, having been given a LOT of time to think in the Buried about herself and her choices. She understands far more than Melanie, and far far more than Basira how the lines between monster and personal choice blur until there is no hard line between them. She has to own all her choices, because she may have been deep in the hunt, but being chosen by a power often happens because you love it as much as you fear it. With perspective, she knows that her choices were awful. That she was awful. But in that moment, she chose the Hunt every time.

She wants to help Jon and Martin, but also knows that people need to want her help before it can really be given. I think that’s why she left as soon as Martin told her to go. If he wanted to reject her help, she couldn’t stop him.

Melanie is also embracing perspective, choosing to go to therapy. Choosing to make herself better. If she’s doing that, her demand that Jon also do better carries more weight. He’s not yet wrenched free, but he like Daisy still has choices to make. They’re just a lot harder when he’s inside looking out.

Jon, of course, is deep into his own monsterhood, his guilt, and his isolation. The guilt is keeping him at least a little grounded, but the isolation is definitely not helping him not become a monster. People overcoming addiction have to make the choice themselves, yes, but they also need support. They need people to hold them accountable, but also know what they’ve been through so genuinely useful advice can be given. Confronting Jon was necessary to prevent him descending further, but I feel like Daisy’s understanding and Melanie’s therapy probably helped more than Basira’s “You’re a monster; don’t eat people” statement.

Martin wasn’t in any of these episodes, but he continues to reach out in ways that keep him at as much of an emotional arm’s length as Basira, simply without any of the confrontation. He gave the tape to Daisy and the others after he found out about Jon feeding on people, but didn’t confront him himself. He’s avoiding all contact with people, making it ‘easier’. He may have a plan, but he’s also deeply infected by the Lonely. Like Basira, I wonder if he has much perspective on himself. They both think they’re playing things smart, but they both seem to be missing glaring parts of the world closing in around them.

Weaver, Extended Surveillance, Concrete Jungle

Jon’s addiction is tied into desire, and also into terror, and also it’s as much a choice as it is for people addicted to drugs to take their next hit. They do know it’s not good for them, but they make the choice, because it feels good, because they love it as much as they hate it. And that analogy, in spite of never being directly brought up in these episodes, continues to be driven home by the statements he reads. A relationship with an addiction is complicated, and is often used as a substitute for something else initially. How much of Jon’s embracing of the Eye was originally driven by his terror of the Web, deep seated and still child-like? I think he fears Annabel Caine more than any other avatar, because she strikes at his worst fear: to be manipulated, to be pushed back to his childhood helplessness, to be lured and consumed against his will. Isn’t it better, from his perspective, to be consumed by his will, by a power he knows and in many ways loves?

One thing I’ve noticed is that the people who are servants of powers embrace those powers as much as they fear them. It’s not a new revelation to say that Jude Perry loves the Desolation, or that Jane Prentiss both loved and feared the Corruption. But seeing that in Jon is harder, because he has something that they seemed to lack: moral qualms about what he’s doing. He can acknowledge that the Beholding is as bad as any of the others, but how much of that is an intellectual acknowledgement? How much of him revels in the Knowing in a way in the same way Jane reveled in the song of the hive?

But of course, in his isolation, he’s struggling to hold onto those intellectual moral qualms, when the hunger is so strong. He can recognize the justifications for harm in other monsters, and even in himself, but his recognition isn’t the visceral pull that the hunger is. And with a very rickety support system, it feels almost inevitable that he’ll tip over and feed again. His one saving grace right now seems to be that his skill at analysis is just as powerful when turned against himself as it is when it’s turned outside. He knows he’s slipping. He knows that he no longer cares as much about investigation, about the victims of statements, as he does getting his next story, his next hit. And no amount of admonishment is going to stop that craving.

The other thing that seems to keep him anchored is Martin, but that’s an anchor growing more and more distant, closer to his intellectual understanding and further away from the deep-seated emotional attachment that might be enough to overcome the hunger. Jon is continually concerned about Martin, wondering how he is to anyone who will listen. I think of Gertrude being Agnes’ anchor, both holding one another to the world. That was done to them, but I have to wonder if Martin and Jon have started anchoring one another simply through affinity. Martin is trying to cut off all ties, but he keeps looking out for Jon. He can’t help but try to keep Jon good and as human as possible.

The conversation between Georgie and Martin was interesting. Georgie has chosen to help Melanie because Melanie isn’t as deep in it as Jon, and because Melanie is actively seeking therapy and help. Georgie seems firmly in the camp that she’s willing to help, but will only help those actively helping themselves. And I get that. She is an outsider reaching in. And she needs to protect herself as well; she’s right that tying oneself to Jon is probably going to get one killed. She’s not obliged to die for him, or for anyone. And from her perspective, he isn’t even reaching for the ropes being thrown to him.

Contrast that with Martin’s perspective, which is that Jon needs help, and that waiting until he helps himself could be disastrous. This is also right, but the problem is that if Jon is drowning, Martin isn’t really getting in the water any more than Georgie is. He’s avoiding Jon, but is offended that Georgie is doing the same. I can only hope she held up a mirror to his own decisions. He’s choosing to protect himself every bit as much as he’s ‘falling on the grenade’ in order to try and stop the Extinction. And trying to protect Jon from afar is as much a defense of himself as what Georgie is doing. Both are reasonable. Jon is self-destructing. But Martin was also right that he needs help. And for someone to help Jon, they almost certainly have to wade into all the danger that being around him entail. Georgie’s decision not to be that person is frankly the healthier decision. No one owes anyone drowning with them. But that’s a decision each person has to make: how much are they willing to help? How much of a life-line do they throw? Georgie has helped, but also protects herself and respects Melanie for doing the same. Daisy is helping a decent amount because she’s been there, and with a few bad days she could end up right back where Jon is. It’s why people with addictions are often the ones to help others with addiction. You sort of have to understand it from the inside.

Martin doesn’t know he understands it from the inside, because he doesn’t realize how much he’s falling to the Lonely. Disappearing whenever personal confrontation occurs isn’t healthy. He was an open wound of caring and emotion before, so it’s understandable that he’s swinging the pendulum to be less vulnerable, but he’s swung it too hard, and he’s drifting away. And as much as he wants to help Jon, he’s not. If he really wants to be Jon’s anchor, he has to be willing to open up all his emotional wounds again. And he has to make that hard decision knowing how much it could cost him. Or he has to let go entirely. He’s in limbo, Jon anchoring him, but the tie between them is frayed.

‘Cul-de-Sac’ offered up a way to take hold of that tie and make it strong again. The Lonely very nearly claimed the narrator as a victim, but in the moment he was almost totally lost to it, a call from his husband and the words “I love you” brought him back. It gave him a way out, and as much as he believes he has to trust Martin’s decisions regarding his work with the Lonely, he also knows that the Lonely is seductive, that it has you do its work for it, that Martin is plagued with self-doubt and self-esteem issues, and that the Lonely is feeding on that. Jon is trying to trust, but Jon also needs to reach out and help, just as much as Martin needs to do the same, if they both choose to take that route.

Basira has also apparently not made any real choice regarding whether or not she’ll help Jon. She continues to be around Jon, but isn’t helping. She’s very intelligent, but increasingly … black-and-white, which makes her blinkered. And Elias was right: it also is making her predictable. It’s like she’s trying to be more like Daisy as Daisy becomes more like Basira used to be. But her taking a harsh tone with Jon and telling him ‘just don’t do it’ is likely to go exactly as well as everyone who’s ever told a drug addict to just stop. Stopping is usually the hardest thing an addict ever has to do, and increasingly, Basira seems to want things to just happen. If Daisy has learned patience, Basira has lost hers. And that means that she also seems like she’s lost perspective.

And then there’s Melanie. I really like that Melanie is sort of taking the middle-road of Georgie’s approach and Daisy’s. She’s stuck there, and she’s still interacting with Jon. Hell, her reactions to him pulling facts out of the ether are more like frustrated rolling of eyes than genuine anger at this point. But she’s also unapologetic that helping the Eye—whether it be passively or actively—is wrong. For her own good, she’s opting out. She knows she could get sick. She knows she could die. But she is making a choice. And like Georgie, I can respect that choice.

Elias continues to be an evil delight. Seriously, what a fantastic villain. He gloats, he’s gleeful, but also urbane and intelligent. The little moments of vulnerability sometimes feel like manipulation, so it’s hard to tell exactly how much he could be damaged. He, of all people, seems to have taken Annabel’s advice to heart. He is always either under- or overestimated. And that just makes him fun.

Big Picture, A Gravedigger’s Envy, Love Bombing

Simoooon!!! My favorite wacky wizard is just as much a delight as I had expected. He’s a ton of fun. He’s old and he’s full of joy, and he’s horrible. He’s my favorite. I also managed to predict that he was centuries old! So pleased to find that out.

It’s interesting to find out that so much of the rituals are bound up in the feeling and the fear. All the ways the powers manifest or work are based on those feelings. So rituals are made up because they ‘feel’ right, and it seems like they all fail because none of them genuinely generate the fear necessary to bring one power into ascendance over the others. It seems that the balance is not only something most are dedicated to, but that it’s harder to upset on a global scale than people thought. Robert Smirke, for example, seemed to think that the world was balanced on a knife’s edge, one second away from falling to a power. And every fear took a cue from him and generated a ton of rituals. But none of them have worked. Because the truth definitely seems to be that none of them know what they’re doing. They’re groping around for greater meaning, when it’s all really based on feelings and impressions. That may make Simon one of the most effective avatars, as well as one of the most sanguine with the way the world works. He’s not trying too hard to make the Vast win because he’s realized how difficult and potentially pointless that might be.

The end of ‘Big Picture’ has another confrontation between Basira and someone, this time Martin. She’s taking the same tack with him as she did with Jon: telling him she doesn’t trust him, that he’s an idiot for working with Peter, etc. Again, acting as Daisy might once have done, and again, I don’t see that she accomplished much. She let Martin know that Jon’s heard of the Extinction, that he trusts Martin, and that’s about it. Beyond that, they’re much in the same position. Whatever her goals are in this situation, they’re either escaping me, or she has no real goals aside from being angry at everyone around her for not being as useful to her as she wants them to be.

Helen, on the other hand, is as helpful and delightful as Simon, while being just as dangerous and malicious. She’s becoming more and more the Distortion, less an less Helen as she lets go of her guilt and embraces the feeding and the hunger. She’s Jon’s ally, but is also unpredictable and is clearly playing her own game, learning the maze under the Archives, but refusing to let him in on what lies at its heart. Their discussion about Jane Prentiss, about choice, throws more light on Jon’s choices.

And the thing that sets him apart from the other monsters: his guilt, his burning humanity. And his connection to others. She looks at this as temporary. Not the feelings, which may well persist, but the effect those feelings have had on his actions. And I think that’s the hard truth that Basira has failed to impart as an outsider: Helen, as an insider to being a monster, gets that there is no hard line between the one-you-were and the one-you-are. She gets that being a monster is as subjective as the powers or the rituals are. It’s about feeling. And Jon clings to his feelings and his connections. And because of this he’s been finding excuses for his behavior. But he still chooses it. He knows that he shouldn’t want the drugs, but he keeps giving in to the temptation before the guilt spiral starts over again. They all choose, and their choices may be guided by having no good alternatives, but the choice has always been his. Of course he gets to keep what makes him fundamentally Jon, because Jon is the perfect Archivist. He didn’t need personality traits grafted onto him. They came ready made for the Eye. How long had it waited for someone just like him?

But the thing about choice is that it’s yours. Accepting that he makes the choices and that they are his alone means that he can control them. He can take whatever control he can muster, even in the face of danger and death. He can make the choice Melanie did, or a different choice. He can choose to act, knowing that his actions are owned only by himself. There’s power in that, every bit as much as there is responsibility.

And Daisy is the perfect example of that. She doesn’t want to go back to the Hunt. She’d die first, but she also will let that Hunt slip back in just a bit to protect Jon from Trevor and Julia. Hearing her and Jon work through her impulses to listen to the blood, to find her way back to calm with his help, was one of the first indications that he really does get that choice. And I find myself hoping that if he can help Daisy, he can learn to make those same choices, and that she’ll be there to guide him back when he needs it.

Bloody Mary, Cost of Living, Reflection

Jon going looking for knowledge the Eye didn’t want him to know was encouraging, and the revelation of Eric Delano’s page was a hell of a thing. First, of course, there was James Wright (watching everyone through pictures and any eye available) before there was Elias, and Elias ‘changed’ a lot. Another point for the Elias-is-Jonah theory, perhaps.

There was also the confrontation of Gertrude with a former assistant, how emotionally distant she was from him and the others, and how hungry she was for knowledge. She wants explanations, not stories though. More practical and less lyrical than Jon. And less emotional. Jon feels thing deeply and desperately. It might be his salvation, as I’ve mentioned, but also it makes him just as human as her, despite his more outward monstrousness.

Eric was definitely in an abusive relationship with Mary, but after the betrayal and what Gertrude put him through, she seemed preferable. And that’s thing, isn’t it? Betrayal and under-handedness hurt worse than straightforward evil in the TMA world. And so Eric accepted Mary and blinded himself to get out of the Institute, and wasn’t even too hurt that Mary turned right around and killed him for his sacrifice. He found the way out because he had someone he loved: his son. Much as tearing the bullet out of Melanie broke her free of the Slaughter, Eric tearing his eyes out let him free of the Beholding.

Could Jon help but entertain that fantasy? Running away, tearing out the part of himself that is a monster once and for all? No more hunger, no more temptation.

But Martin’s right. He can’t do it. Because Jon is still choosing the Beholding, he still loves to Know. He’s turning away from freedom actively. And for Jon, running away with Martin was just this perfect potential ideal, but would never become reality without some really fundamental commitment that both of them lack right now. As much as Jon is sunk in his love for what he knows, Martin is sunk in denial about how much he might actually mean to Jon. He can reject Jon’s proposal easily, because he can’t believe Jon would ever really give up power just for a chance to run away with Martin.

Martin is sunk deep, and Jon, who could reach him if he tried, isn’t trying. Just as he isn’t tearing his eyes out. He’ll be passive, and he’ll look at Martin like an ideal, but the real issue is that neither of them is reaching out to one another as a PERSON. As more than the ideal that they’ve both seen one another as. Being an anchor is all well and good, but eventually you need to dig in and get to know one another to have a true reason to stay human. And they’re both lacking that right now.

Martin is drifting hard. Realizing that he might only think he misses Jon’s voice, that he cares about Jon, that even his love is getting lost to the Lonely is very hard to hear. Because Martin threw himself into all this to save Jon, and he’s not even horrified that he’s losing the original motivation for giving himself to the Lonely. He seems to be going through the motions, letting everything happen, taking the easiest and least ‘noisy’ way out. And that’s the draw of the Lonely right there, isn’t it? There’s no real pain to lose yourself, because by the time you’re lost, you just don’t care. Martin is being eaten by apathy, and that’s the hardest thing to shake. He just doesn’t care enough to do it.

I really appreciate Jon finally confronting Basira about her hypocrisy. The fact that she’s willing to give Daisy over to the Hunt to keep her alive, but is demanding that Jon starve himself to death if he has to is the height of hypocrisy. It’s also deeply disrespectful of Daisy’s very difficult choice. I appreciate that Jon stood up for Daisy’s stand, and I hope that it causes Basira to reflect about how she’s gone about her approach to Jon and Daisy.

Because honestly, they’re both questioning their natures. Daisy understands better, but Jon is actively exploring his nature, and the nature of monstrousness. ‘Cost of Living’ is the perfect example of the entitled nature of a monster’s survival. Each time she was confronted with their death, she found someone to exchange a life with. And what was at first a one-off quickly became a continuous vampirism, one ‘unworthy’ life after another. At each step she blamed the victim, explained her actions by the good she was doing. Jon feels the same pull, but also a revulsion for her self-justification.

And some people would rather do anything other than serve that sort of monstrousness. Melanie gouged her own eyes out, leaving the Archives as definitively as possible. I’ll miss the hell out of her character, but I am so glad that she found a way out. I’m glad that, of all of them, she was the one who seized Eric’s solution. Jon would never do it. Basira won’t do it. Martin won’t. But Melanie still could. She tried so hard to leave for so long that it’s fantastic she gets to go on her own terms. And I’m so glad Jon respected her decision; that she left as bravely and calmly as possible for leaving by ambulance.

Rotten Core, Panopticon

So Martin or someone else left his final tape to Jon. Peter might have left it, Annabel could have done, so many others could have. But the simple question is, what will Jon do with the information that Martin is walking off to oblivion?

Dekker’s final statement was something I wasn’t expecting. It makes sense with the Extinction storyline gearing up, but it’s still strange to hear the end of this remarkable and remarkably eventful life. And to go out in such a horrific way is tragic. He searched for the Extinction so long, only to get taken down by the Corruption. Just accidentally stumbled on John Amhurst, and though it’s good to know that Dekker properly contained Amhurst, it leaves his work unfinished. But then, I think the work of people like Dekker or Gertrude always have unfinished business when they’re finally killed.

Jon is not nearly so sanguine with death. Hearing that the Extinction may be slow or strange or not real at all, he can’t not follow Martin down into the tunnels. He tried to get a second opinion from Melanie, who is with Georgie—in all senses of the word—but she’s out. He tried to go to Helen, who is not interested in helping because it entertains her more if he finds out what’s in the tunnels on his own. She may think he’d just go home and give into his hunger, but the one thing that anchors him is in those tunnels. So Jon is definitely going in.

At least he waited for Daisy and Basira, as much as it must have killed him not to go charging in. And he’s lucky he did. Peter Lukas set the Not-Them loose again, and Trevor and Julia are also back to finish Jon off. And of course, Elias has also made a jail break to be there for the final show of whatever it was that Peter planned.

And it directly affects him, of course, because we finally got that confirmation: Elias Bouchard and Jonah Magnus are one in the same. Jonah left his body behind in the Panopticon that lies at the heart of the labyrinth, permanently jacked into the All-Seeing Eye. That was the Watcher’s Crown, attempted first as himself, and again in other bodies. Peter wants to overthrow Elias, to replace him with a willing puppet in Martin. The temptation of having that sort of power must have been undeniable.

But it all still hinged on Martin choosing to serve the Lonely, to give himself freely to the Panipticon and to Peter’s power. And Martin has been playing this game well. Telling Peter what he wants to hear, all to see what his end-game was. Listening to Peter and Elias duke it out verbally over him, Martin clearly knew that this was never about the Extinction. This was just a stupid bet about whether or not Peter could steal Martin away.

So Martin refuses. As much as he wanted to kill Jonah, he refused the game (but in so doing handed the victory to Jonah).

The reason he knew that Peter wasn’t being straight with him about the Extinction was more than a little heart-breaking, but very in keeping with why he couldn’t believe Jon would really run away with him: Martin cannot believe that he’s important enough to be made a priority, let alone to be made a hero. And so, even though Elias won the round, Peter had one more game to play: he threw Martin into the Lonely, and both he and Elias waited for Jon to arrive. Because consuming the Archivist would certainly wrench the ultimate victory from Elias’ hands.

But Elias is far too calm, and far too pleased with this turn for it not to be just as much set up in his favor as Peter’s. He might have verbally warned Jon against going into the Lonely, but he was all too eager to show him the way. This is just more of his game, and I’ll be interested to see how it plays out.

The Last

Which leads us to the penultimate episode of the season, Jon plunging into the Lonely after Martin. The end-game of whatever bet or game Peter and Elias have been playing with one another turns out to have hinged on first Martin giving into the Lonely, and then Jon following him down. Elias’ biggest pawn is on the line, and Peter has put himself on the line, letting something like the Archivist into his world.

At first, Peter clearly has the home advantage over Jon. He confronts Jon with the fact that he and Martin have been chasing the ideal of one another for so long, but they don’t really know one another. But Jon is pissed, and Jon is hungry, and when faced with dying for Martin, he didn’t even hesitate. Peter doesn’t understand love, or any connection. And so he can’t understand how deeply tied Jon and Martin are to one another. Hell, I don’t know if they quite understand it, except that they’d walk through hell to find one another.

So instead of giving in, Jon fakes his own drift into the Lonely to draw Peter in close, and then goes after him hardHearing Peter’s story was interesting, but not particularly sympathetic. He was created to be a Lukas, certainly, but he also relished it and wallowed in the upper-class life he was given. He wallowed in his loneliness, and hated everyone around him. Sure, his family messed him up, but he embraced it while other siblings didn’t.

So hearing that Gertrude took down his ritual with a call to a newspaper? Amazing. Wonderful. Perhaps my favorite takedown of hers ever. I laughed out loud at Peter Lukas drowning in community outreach.

And hearing Jon tear him apart? Also amazing. Potentially terrible, because once you open that door, it’s hard to close it, and Jon’s “Stubborn fool” is as close to truly being lost to the monster as we’ve heard Jon on tape. But if Jon had to feed, tearing Peter apart wasn’t a bad way to do it. But of course, that means Jon doesn’t get an answer as to how Elias gets him.

But Jon does get Martin. And that reunion? The “I see you”? So beautiful. They’ve built to that moment for so long that the quiet conversation, walking out of the Lonely hand-in-hand and so gentle, was utter perfection.

Which is why having this be the second-to-last episode of the season is so ominous.

The Eye Opens

Here we come to the end, and we begin with domesticity and a continuation of the gentle quietness started last episode. It seems, from the date of the statement, that Martin and Jon did get at least some time together before this episode to settle in and be together, and it shows. There’s a comfort and a familiarity between them I’ve never heard. Whatever time they’ve spent getting to know one another, they clearly fit together exactly as well as they’d hoped.

They may be on the run, uncertain if Trevor or Julia or the Not-Them are still alive, but it has an almost honeymoon feel to it. They’re in contact with Basira, but seem distant from all that, here in their coccoon in the woods with its crackling fire and poetic cows.

And it’s really lovely. Hearing them together, quiet and gentle and happy, was wrenching if only because it came so early in the episode. And then it hits. Jonah, smuggled in as a disguised statement, slipping in and taking over Jon’s body and forcing him to read against his will. You can hear Jon struggling not to read at first, perhaps knowing what was coming, but Jonah’s will was too strong. He’s too good at control to let Jon slip his noose here at the end.

And the end, as it turns out, is the end of the world. It’s discarding the Watcher’s Crown as a botched job, and instead embracing a new ritual: the Magnus Archives. The transformation of Jonathan Sims not into the Archivist, but into the Archive.

And Jonah will become king of the ashes of a ruined world.

Jonah, Rayner, Lukas, and likely Fairchild all came together to become not only the first to realize that the world was almost guaranteed to end, but to figure out how to handle it. Only Smirke kept to his guns and refused to embrace the end. He tried to use balance to prevent it, to keep it from ever tipping over, but one by one the others embraced one power and decided that if the world was going to end, then it should end to their benefit.

Jonah tried the Watcher’s Crown, sitting in the Panopticon, but failed except to become a mind freed of his body. He built the Institute to help himself with the race, trying the Watcher’s Crown again and again, each new body dying and giving rise to another.

And then he realized that the Watcher’s Crown was a flawed ritual from the off. All the rituals were flawed. All the rituals were doomed to failure, because every ritual only involved a single fear. And so there wasn’t enough fear to keep it going. Every one, even the ones not stopped, failed under its own weight.

The true ritual was the Archive itself. Turning a person into an Archive, and through him, with every other power burned into him, tearing open reality. Because the true ritual HAD to have all the fears involved, because all fears are one fear, each blending into each, each reliant on another. And so all powers had to come through at the same time, with the Eye watching over all.

And Jon has been marked by every single fear, chosen by Magnus after he survived Mr. Spider. Stabbed by Michael, burned by Jude, thrown into freefall by Mike Crewe, cut by the Slaughter when he tried to save Melanie, went into the Buried bodily to rescue Daisy … more and more and more until he went into the Lonely to save Martin and took the final step. He consumed stories, consumed lives. He embraced his own power in destroying Peter. He chose to be the Archive at every turn, built himself as a record, wove a tapestry of every fear to create something greater than each alone.

And so Magnus used his Archive. He used Jon’s body and his power, and then left Jonathan Sims, both tied to and gutted by the world he created, behind as the world cracked open. We finish the season with Jon and Martin, clutched together in their cabin, Jon knowing that the whole world has been consumed by the powers and by his own embrace of the Archive.

“Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky! It’s looking back.”

The Future

And so we head toward the final season of ‘The Magnus Archives’. Daisy and Basira may both be alive, or Basira isn’t sharing the fact that she’s already killed Daisy as she promised. Melanie and Georgie got out, but there’s not a lot of getting out of an apocalyptic world.

And the world is apocalyptic. Jonah intends to sit the throne of this world, but I’ll be interested to hear if things go to his plan, of if the powers are so much larger than him that he is swept aside as every other living being will be. This seems like the sort of plan born of hubris, from a man so desperate not to die that he’ll burn the whole world to survive it. And I just don’t see fully manifested fears giving much of a shit about Jonah Magnus.

And that leaves Jon and Martin. Jon is having a well-deserved breakdown over his part in this, but I don’t think he’ll get to do so for long. If the Archive was needed to rip the world open, it may be the only way to repair it. Whether that requires Jon to die, or Jon to lose every bit of Archivist in himself to do it, or something else entirely remains to be seen. But he at least has Martin this time, and I genuinely hope that whatever path they walk in the final season, they walk it together. That they fall together or rise together. One or the other being alone at the end would be the worst possible outcome for them at this point. They anchored one another in the Lonely, and they might well be the thing that pulls one another through to saving the world. Going down together might be a sort of bittersweet happy ending for an Archive and the man that keeps him human. What will the world be like now that all the powers are here? Would people like Simon and the other avatar glory in this new world, or does a complete manifestation of all the powers make moot all the appeal of their gods? I’m interested to find out who might be interested in a return to a normal world, and who love their new reality.

40 more episodes until the end. It’s been a hell of a binge, and honestly? I’m very interested to see how thing play out come April.

#The Magnus Archives #analysis #I'm back!#whoo!

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somuchbetterthanthat · 5 years

Text

Martin hadn’t imagined it would be easy, coming back; he hadn’t imagined it would be... hard either; in fact, it was only once everything was done and settled for, once they were all in hi - in Elias’ office that he realized he just hadn’t really considered the thought of coming back a possibility at all. To stand there now with everybody, only a few meters away from Jon, It was... It was almost suffocating, really.

Of course, if he’d had imagined it - if he’d had, he wouldn’t have thought it would go like this; Melanie gone through a door that shouldn’t have been there, enraged and betrayed; Basira, holding herself too straight, her face not letting through a hint of emotions, and Daisy standing in between Jon and her, arms crossed in a protective manner. He certaintly wouldn’t have expected Jon to be unable to look away from Elias.

“Well then,” said Elias. “I think that settles everything - or almost. Martin, I’d like to officially promote you. You’ll work as my direct assistant now.”

“...What?” asked Martin, his ears popping like he was finally back in reality at last (and reality made no sense). Elias gave him a peculiar, appraising look.

“You’ve done an excellent job under Peter’s... questionable handling of the Institute,” he told him after a careful beat. “I don’t see any point in not acknowledging that. I’m sure you’ll find I’m much less... demanding of your time than Peter, even.”

“I -”

“Absolutely not,” said Jon. “Martin’s not working for you, he’s coming back to the Archives, he’s not -” he was still staring at Elias; Martin wanted to grab his head, and make him look at him. His heart was flustured at Jon’s possessive tone; his stomach was irritated by his protective voice.

“Jon -” he began.

“I don’t intend to deprive you of Martin, Jon,” Elias said, ignoring Martin entirely. His tone was softer; courteous to the point of deference. It was - odd. Elias said Jon’s name like Jon was a prince, or some sort of prized, cherished thing. “After all, you’ll both still be in the same Institute; I don’t see why you would not see each other. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of... catching up to do; Martin hasn’t been talking to you as much as us all if I recall.”

Martin winced; for the first time, Jon’s eyes flickered to him; dark and beautiful and hurt. Martin felt sick. That, he thought, catching Elias’ smooth expression barely hiding the arrogant, amused line of his lips, he would have had imagined easily; Elias spreading his poison as always.

“Enough of that,” Daisy said abruptly. “You’re back, you’re proud of it, we get it. Doesn’t mean we get to listen to you play your games longer than we need to. Let’s go.”

“I’ll expect you in my office on Monday, Martin,” Elias merely said.

Jon didn’t protest again; neither did Martin.

After everything, it felt as if they should have known how to speak to each other. It was natural, to follow Jon down to his office, as natural as breathing; but once he was there, Martin desperately tried to think of something to say, and nothing came; he didn’t want to say he was sorry. He wasn’t, not really. He’d done what he needed to do, for Jon’s sake. He wanted to say that, as well, but Jon stared at him with such a soft, tentative expression, like he didn’t know what to say either, but plenty in his heart and that - that was too much.

“Right,” he said, trying for a smile; “Right, well, it’s late and I should, probably - I mean, I don’t even know why I -”

“Don’t go,” Jon said hurriedly.

“I - I’m not, not really,” Martin said awkwardly. “I mean, not if you... Need me? For anything?”

“I... I just thought we could... talk,” Jon muttered stiffly. “About - about whatever you want.”

“Oh. Oh well, I don’t - It’s not like I’ve got big... news or anything.”

“Right - of course, I only... We could -” Jon looked around the room, as if anything in there could give him any sort of inspiration at all as to how to finish that sentence. Eventually though, his shoulders hunched on themselves. “I’d just like to be with you,” he said at last. “For - for a while. We can even sit in silence, if you’d prefer I don’t I just - I need to see you.”

There was a lump in Martin’s throat when his eyes met Jon’s; it was almost too much, the way he stared; like he knew every single bit of Martin’s thoughts, the good and the bad, and god, Martin wanted to run, and did Jon know that? Did Jon realize that running away from him had become a defense mechanism over the past few months, that the prickling sensation of his gaze burnt, that he wanted Jon to never look away while hoping that he’d never thought of staring in the first place?

“I can make us tea,” he said. It was Jon. He’d fought so hard for Jon. He was not going to - to ruin this now. Jon’s lips twitched into a relieved, happy smile.

“Yes,” he said. “That’d be - or, or I can make some. I’ve - gotten quite good at it, according to Daisy.”

Martin didn’t wince, though Jon’s awkward light tone did very little to soften the blow (you weren’t there, he heard. You weren’t there, so I had to do it on my own.)

“Okay,” he said weakly. “Or we could - I mean, we’re... together already. We could. do it together.”

It was stupid, and unpractical; still. Jon said, softly: “I’d like that” and Martin’s lips finally managed to stretch into something ressembling an honest, proper grin.

When Jon knocked at the door of Martin’s new office, a week later, Martin’s first instinct was still to tell him to leave; the words were already on his lips when he saw Jon’s eyes; Jon knew. Somehow it was all the more bitter and icy to swallow back the words.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” said Jon. There was a silence. It was horrid. “I was wondering,” Jon started again haltingly. “I suppose you’re... still... busy, but - would you... like to have lunch with me?”

“Oh.” (No, Martin’s stomach screamed; No, this is an horrible idea. Stay there, it’s better, don’t. It’s Jon.) (Yes, his heart protested. Of course yes. It’s Jon.) “Sure.”

“Oh.” Again, that happy, relieved smile, like Martin was granting Jon’s the greatest of favour - “Good. I, er - There’s the, er. The place we used to -”

“Good, yeah, that’s. Yeah.”

“Good.”

There was another silence. Martin grabbed his jacket, avoiding Jon’s eye. “Right, let’s go then -” he said

They walked outside without words, until Jon said softly: “I haven’t seen you all week.” There was no accusation in his voice; merely gentle resignation, and Martin’s heart squeezed in his chest.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t... realize?” (that was awful, wasn’t it? It was worst than -)

“Yes, I - I gathered, actually.” Jon sighed. “Look, Martin I understand - things are... Things changed. I’m... Well, I only want to say that if you’d rather I - I keep away from you I -”

“No,” Martin snapped and then flushed a bit. “God, Jon we’ve been - I want to see you. I do! I just - I just got used to... not seeing you. And, and I want - I want, but I’m not sure I even... remember how to... be... around you? We couldn’t even say three words to each other last time, and, and even now we’re still - doing the same thing I’m -”

“Right.” Jon stopped walking, and looked at him for a moment; there was something comforting in it. “Right, well - to be fair, Martin, I’m not sure we knew much on how to be with each other before.”

Martin opened his mouth; closed it. “I... What does that mean?” he asked, almost offended.

“I mean I’ve never been good at making friends,” Jon muttered, cheeks flushing a bit. “And it wasn’t easier when I was drowning in paranoia, and then running off every corner of the world being kidnapped.”

“Or in a coma,” Martin said. Jon snorted.

“Or that.”

“I - I’m not actually good at friends either,” Martin said at last. “Didn’t - didn’t really have... friends, in fact. Apart from you. Y’know, half my life being a lie and, and well, being me -”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Jon said categorically. “If people don’t appreciate you, it’s their own fault.”

“...Says the guy who regularly yelled at my incompetence for the first four years of our acquaintance.”

“I - well -” Jon’s face made a complicated series of expressions. “I’m sorry. About - about that. Like I said. My fault.” he licked his lips. “I know you now.”

“...Do you, though?” Jon winced, and Martin looked down. “I just - we haven’t really -”

“Well I want to know you.” Martin’s eyes flickered back at him. Jon tried a smile. “And not even in a creepy, archivist way. Or, well, I don’t think so.”

“Well that’s a comfort,” Martin said. “I, I mean not that I - You know I don’t mind, Jon, right? About the whole - I don’t care.”

A shadow crossed Jon’s face. “You probably should,” he said more softly.

It was impulsive, to take Jon’s hand; it was something he’d dreamt of doing a billion times; he’d never imagined the startled, tender, hopeful look Jon might offer him in return. (Too unrealistic). “Come on,” he said, firmly. “Let’s go for lunch. Let’s - get to know each other.”

Jon’s eyes fluttered; again, he looked almost relieved. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, let’s.”

#the magnus archives #okay i'm going to stop there because it's going to get way way too long for tumblr #i just wanted to start it because i want to write it so badly but then if i put it on ao3 i need someone to betaread it and #i don't want to bother people into betareading things for me as fast as i crave them too all the time so #here have the beginning of /something/ i guess. i think it works somewhat as ending there?#the whole rest is just them falling in love with each other and elias lightly putting martin on the 'good' path in controlling #beloved jon archivist when he gets a .. craving #also they'd kiss #bref #tma stories

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edelwoodsouls · 5 years

Text

the light behind your eyes

The Magnus Archives, JonMartin, pre-relationship

You'll never go through with it, he said. Watching the blood drip, maybe he doesn't know Jon as well as he thought.

Word Count: 2464

Ao3

inspiration

(this art and this show apparently single-handedly cured my months-long writers block, i only started the show like a month ago, holy shit im in love)

The Institute's halls are darker than they used to be.

He's not sure when it happened, really. Just a few short years ago, he could have called this basement home. It didn't matter that he was sleeping there, that his real home was writhing with worms - that wasn't what gave it that comfort, that warmth. But the knowledge that someone was always there, the camaredie of close-quarters living and near death experience...

He misses it. He misses Tim, with his awful sense of humour. Sasha's laugh. Even Melanie's angry tirades about whatever was pissing her off that week.

He misses keeping Jon company over slowly cooling cups of tea late into the night - not talking, not acknowledging each other, simply existing quietly in the same space, an assurance that he wasn't alone-

He laughs out loud at the thought, the sound echoing like a gunshot down the hollow corridor, because isn't that the point? He's miserable, he's lonely, so it must be working. It'll all be worth it.

But still. The corridors feel cold and empty. Even though he knows Melanie is around somewhere, probably using the pages of some ancient research tome as cigarette paper, and Daisy has been haunting the spaces between the stacks for the last few weeks. And Jon, of course, most likely recording another statement and pretending it satisfies that primal itch in his soul that screams for fresh trauma.

It feels more like a haunted, ghostly archive than the home of several nearly-human disasters who should really be banding together for emotional support.

In these moments, with the others sequestered away in their own problems, Martin likes to wander the halls himself. It's so hard to leave the office without making human contact usually, but over the last few months he's come to sense the pathways of the others, how best to avoid their company. Almost like a sixth sense, or - ironically- a third eye. He takes the chances when he can, stretching his legs, letting himself get lost in the ghosts of better memories.

He's not sure if it's voluntary, or a method of making himself feel more Lonely.

It's the early hours of the morning now, not that he can tell without windows. He hasn't seen sunlight in so long, he's sure his skin must be paler than the pages of a Leitner - even turning on the overhead lights makes him squint.

His footsteps echo off the brick. It must be raining outside, he thinks, because there's an odd, sharp smell in the air, damp and cloying. He almost wants to run outside, feel it on his skin. Maybe it could wash away his - his Loneliness? His attachments? Which would he prefer to lose more at this point?

He can't deny the power that slipping through the cracks, going unnoticed but noticing everything, makes him feel.

His feet guide him thoughtlessly, in tracks he's paced a hundred thousand times before. Through the stacks of old statements, still barely organised from Gertrude's original mess - fifty years is a hell of a lot of statements to manage, after all, especially when the mess is deliberate. Past Tim's old desk - it's Daisy's now, technically, but Martin's never really been one for change.

Of course, his feet always lead him to Jon's door.

He hates to admit how many times he's sneaked up to the small porthole window in the door, peeking in to check in on the archivist. He's seen Jon recording statement after statement, seen him staring absently into stone-cold coffee for hours, seen the absent-minded scratching of burn scars, the many times he's been straight up passed out on top of a mound of files. Only sheer will-power has kept the door firmly between them.

He'll only sneak a quick look, Martin tells himself now, tugging absently at his shirt sleeve. Just to check that the archivist is still alive and breathing - not that anything else is possible now, he supposes.

His thoughts are interrupted by the unmistakeable sound of Jon groaning, a low, agonised noise that sounds forced out involuntarily, through gritted teeth. Martin's heart stutters. For a moment, his feet still. Then he's speeding the rest of the way down the hall and, before he can think better of it, throwing open the door.

Martin freezes. Hand gripped white-knuckled around the door handle, to keep himself standing upright, to keep himself grounded so he doesn't throw up at the sight before him.

That scent is thicker in the air the moment he opens the door, and he realises with a plunging horror that it isn't raining outside, that the stench now shoving its way down his nostrils is metallic and all-too familiar.

Jon is sat at his desk, as he always is, slumped over it, head held in his hands like he's about to fall asleep on the pile of blood-soaked papers below. But it isn't fatigue dragging at him now. It's the steady stream, the waterfall of crimson forcing its way past his palms, curling past his fingers in almost mesmorising, intricate patterns, dripping audibly onto the statements below.

Spread before him among the papers are an assortment of tools. A kitchen knife, a letter opener, a screwdriver - is that a blowtorch? With a sick sense of humour, Martin notices the corkscrew he had kept so closely for protection during the Filth's first attack, now sticky with blood, clutched limply in between Jon's fingers.

His voice cracks as a strangled noise emerges froom his throat in place of words. He swallows down the bile, resisting the urge to clamp a hand over his nose. "Jon?"

Silence stretches deafeningly across the table. Jon doesn't even react to the sound, though his limbs are shaking with a brittle tension.

The corkscrew slips slickly from between the archivist's fingers, clattering on the table like a gun going off, and yet the silence rings louder still. There's an awful static in the air, like when Jon uses his abilities, except now it doesn't seem to stop, doesn't seem to end, just reverberates in his head to the point of pain. Like the very air is crying out silently in pain.

A small sound emerges from behind Jon's hand. He still hasn't moved, hasn't looked up, but Martin would recognise that dry chuckle, tinged with disbelief, any day. It's a sound that's brought him no small amount of delight to hear over the years, even when that disbelief was more indignant and exasperated at Martin's incompetence, because it meant that he had Jon's attention - had, in some way, broken through that stiff upper lip that Jon had once been adamant on presenting.

Now it sends a horrified shiver down his spine. There's no pain in that laugh, just a resignation.

"Martin." The word is spoken so softly he almost doesn't hear it - a whisper, a prayer; a drowning man accepting his fate.

Panic rears, finally, inside Martin's chest like a suddenly startled animal. "Jon, Jon are you okay-" Stupid, stupid, of course he's not bloody okay, but what else can he say, with Jon sitting so calmly as he bleeds out onto his desk? "I'll- uh- hang on a sec, I don't have my phone with me, I'll call the ambulance, oh god-"

You won't go through with it, Martin had said, in a voice as cold as he could make it, as detached and unwelcoming as he could bear. You're a coward, looking for an excuse.

Hit Jon where it hurts the most, cut off any emotional connection keeping them tethered. It's the only way, he told himself, ignoring the sick satisfaction he got from finally scaring Jon the way Jon had often scared him.

He'd really thought he was right, but apparently he doesn't know Jon as much as he thought he did. Or maybe it's his fault, he drove him to this. Who and what has Jon got left, without Martin? Abandoned by those he loves, treated as expendable by Basira, blamed for things he can hardly control by Melanie and Tim, left alone to face that wide, unrelenting eye that pulled their strings.

Jon is far more Lonely than Martin has ever managed to be, and he isn't even trying.

The words continue to fall from his mouth in a panicked babble. "Do you have your phone with you, Jon? Jon? Or did we reconnect the landline after the last attack? I know the hospital ignores calls from the Magnus Institute when possible, but surely they can do something, it's gonna be okay-"

"Martin." Jon lets one of his hands shift slightly, and a trickle of red bursts forth onto the pages. "I guess-" there's that endearing, terrifying laugh again- "I suppose its for the best, that you didn't agree to come with me."

"What?"

"Would've made this a bit awkward, if you'd said yes."

And finally Jon raises his head, and Martin is horrifyingly unsurprised when deep brown irises meet his own. Blood still drips from the nearly-healed whites of his eyes, spilling over like tears. He can see the tissue knitting back together before his eyes, until the only evidence that anything awful ever happened is the drained pallor of Jon's skin, and the sticky wash of half dried blood spread around him like a pool. He's clearly been at this for a while, judging by the dry patches, and the variety of tools at his disposal.

Martin can't take his eyes off the sight. "I..." The words vanish on his tongue like so much smoke.

It's almost worse, he thinks, that Jon is healing so quickly. That the one avenue of escape offered to the rest of them is closed to him forever by the very thing he's attempting to flee. He hadn't regret saying no to Jon, shutting him down, not with the very existence of the human race hanging in the balance - and he still doesn't. It's the mental image of him hidden away in his office, unnoticed, hacking away at his own face for hours without anyone so much as wondering where he was, noticing his cries of pain, that makes him sick with guilt.

"No need for an ambulance, Martin," Jon's face tugs into an awful almost-smile. "I'll be right as rain any second now. But if you happen to have some painkillers, I wouldn't be opposed. Bit of a headache, you see."

Despite himself, Martin lets out a disbelieving laugh of his own. How the hell did they get here? He even misses the long hours of investigation, the haunting paranoia. Even that was better than this resigned certainty of tragedy. None of them are planning to survive this, and if they do? Where the hell can they even go from here?

His feet carry him over the threshold into the office, and he can almost feel the Lonely loosening its clutches, just a little. He offers a hand out, surprised at how steady it remains in front of him. "Come on, Jon."

Oh, how that soft, shocked expression on Jon's face makes his heart break. The fingers that clasp around his feel like burning, an electricity leaping across his skin. When was the last time he touched another person, skin to skin?

It takes a long time to clean up the blood. Martin wishes it could take just a little longer, every touch rekindling an unnameable something in his heart. Sat in the bathroom, Jon is quiet, retreating into himself. His newly healed eyes are vacant. Martin sponges away the crust from Jon's sickly skin, brushes it from his hair, and Jon simply yields to his touch like a doll.

They find a fresh change of clothes in his locker, but judging by the stale air released from the compartment Martin is pretty sure Jon hasn't changed clothes in a long time. When was the last time he took a shower? Brushed his hair? Hell, Martin can't remember the last time he saw Jon eat. Does he even need to eat anymore?

He throws the bloodstained clothes away, and leads Jon back to his office. The statements on the desk are barely legible beneath the crimson, but as he goes to throw them away, too, Jon's hand catches his wrist, the first voluntary movement in almost an hour.

"Jon?"

"I...need those."

"They're unreadable."

"Not to me."

Worrying his lip, Martin silently hands them back, watching as Jon smooths them out carefully on one of the only clean patches of desk. As if he can feel the gaze on him, Jon looks up, finally meeting his eyes once again. God, that softness in his stare is an arrow in Martin's heart. He's painfully aware that he's viewing Jon without any of his walls up, stripped bare, at his lowest. Once he might've considered it an honour that Jon trusted him this much - wanted nothing more, really - but now he just wishes Jon would get angry at him again. It would make this so much easier.

Martin swallows, throat suddenly a desert. "I have to go."

Jon doesn't look surprised, or even hurt, just nods, gaze never leaving his. It occurs to him that the last time they spoke, Jon probably thought it was the last time he would be able to lay eyes on him.

Silence yawns across the room.

"Talk to someone?" It comes out more of a desperate plea than he would've liked. "Daisy, or Basira, or Melanie-" he knows even as he lists them that only Daisy would be willing to bear Jon's company at this point, and she's hardly in any better a place mentally.

"Okay, well..." Words can hardly be adequate enough in this sort of situation. "Don't, uh, don't get too Lonely, Jon?" The archivist's expression sharpens at that. "Before you can't come back from it."

A second of hesitation. Jon nods slightly, jerkily, as if he hadn't even considered the possibilty. "As long as you remember, I'm always here, Martin. I- I trust you, but if you need an anchor... I can be your rib."

"How romantic," Martin snorts drily, before he can think better of it. A flutter of panic ignites in his chest, but Jon just nods, and the flutter becomes something more like hope.

It's not an assurance that everything will be okay. They both know the impending disaster rushing towards them at full speed as they themselves hurtle towards it.

But it's a promise. A thin, invisible cord, anchoring the two of them together.

Today, whatever fresh hell this is, they can take the punches and commit the sacrifices until they're bled dry.

But tomorrow - what if. If there is a tomorrow, any semblance of future? They can take on the world, together.

He leaves the door ajar when he slips back into the corridor.

#the magnus archives #jonmartin #fanfiction #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #own work

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soveryanon · 5 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG132 /o/

- I can believe that we finally got the explanation of Daisy’s comments about her dreams and about Jon showing off a new shirt, but I can’t believe that it was something so logical RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES ALL ALONG, arceusdamnit………………… I had wondered for so long! Was it that Daisy was developing dark vision? Was it that Daisy was able to smell blood from somewhere (Jon) and assumed it was because of the shirt? Was it Daisy’s attempt at small talk? But damnit! Damnit!!

(MAG132) DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no. One night, you turn up in a new shirt. Didn’t fit you. Not your style. I didn’t think much of it, it was just a d–, a dream. Then you come back from the States and… guess what you’re wearing. ARCHIVIST: Oh… DAISY: Realised what was happening then.

(MAG112) BASIRA: I’m sorry, I just… I worry. DAISY: Worry about yourself. I’m fine. BASIRA: Are you sure? ‘Cause you look… [PAUSE] Are you sleeping? DAISY: Yeah. [PAUSE] Do you still have the dreams? BASIRA: Um, no? Not really. Not since we joined up here, I don’t think. You? DAISY: Yeah. BASIRA: They’re getting worse? DAISY: No, not, it’s just– … Doesn’t matter.

^That scene took place after she had gone to get Jon at the airport, come to get Basira because Jon wanted to talk to everyone (but Basira wasn’t done with her recording), and come back a second time to announce that Jon had left. So… Jon was probably wearing that shirt when she picked him up, hence her question to Basira about the dreams and the fact she interrupted herself – since Basira wasn’t having hers anymore, she couldn’t confirm or infirm?

(MAG114) DAISY: How long have you had that shirt? BASIRA: Um… ARCHIVIST: What? DAISY: That shirt. You get it in China? ARCHIVIST: Uh, A–America, I–I had to… borrow it, there was… there was blood. DAISY: Sure. BASIRA: Why? DAISY: Hmm.

… and as much as MAG112 and (at least the beginning of) MAG113 explicitly take place in a very short timeframe (Daisy explaining that the group is going to Gertrude’s storage unit / the group being in Gertrude’s storage unit), MAG114 is veryyyy unlikely to have taken place during the same day (since Jon had had the time to notice evidence of Tim’s comings-and-goings in the Archives from one day to another) and… Jon was wearing the shirt in MAG114. Likely “again”. Meaning: either he hadn’t changed since he came back from America (but other characters would have commented on that, I think), either he… consciously chose to wear a shirt that didn’t fit him, that wasn’t his style, multiple times afterwards, when he had choices about what to wear. Jon. J o n. (Given that Jon mentioned blood on his other clothes, that means that YEP, it probably was Max Mustermann’s blood, meaning it was when he was with Trevor&Julia. I don’t know which option is funnier: that he borrowed it from Julia, or from Trevor. Both are Excellent. Also, it’s not “borrow” if you’re not planning to give it back so were/are you planning to give it back, Jon. (He thought that Julia&Trevor were going to kill him if they noticed that he had removed Gerry’s page from the book before he managed to fly the heck out of America, and Jonathan “God, do I– Do I miss being chased?” Sims was planning to GIVE THE SHIRT BACK ANYWAY……))

- A bit like the end of MAG078, Jon displayed… various uses of the tapes? I always found interesting how tapes and tapes recorders have slowly and gradually been used in more elaborated settings, recordings getting concatenated or framing another one; here, we got a varied display of that:

(MAG132) [CLICK–] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHES] [WHISPERS:] … Alright. [TURNS ON ANOTHER TAPE PLAYER] DAISY’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG061: “It was a coffin. An old wooden coffin. Rough, unvarnished. I could see splinters where the nails had been hammered in badly. Wrapped all around it was a thick metal chain, ending in a heavy padlock. That weird moaning was coming from inside it. It was the only sound that cut through pounding rain.” [STOPS TAPE, EJECTS IT AND BOXES IT] [LOADS A SECOND TAPE] [CLICKS ON] ARCHIVIST: [INHALES] Hello, Melanie. […] I have her voice. I think that should be enough to find her, and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. […] I’m not risking anyone else. And I know– … I–I think… I can get her out. [CLICK OFF THE SECOND TAPE RECORDER.] Right. You’re coming with me! [SHORT CHUCKLE] Let’s do this one properly.

Jon had his usual tape recorder (acknowledged, though he might not have been the one to activate it), and he used another one to replay Daisy’s statement from MAG061 describing the coffin, ejected it to keep it with him; then put in another tape to record himself in order to give a message to Melanie (and potentially Basira) to leave that tape behind him with his rib; and he took Daisy’s tape and his first tape recorder with him into the coffin.

- Which raises the obvious question: did Jon’s rib (MAG131: “Something I won’t miss.” J O N…) work as an anchor? He was feeling the rib less and less as he walked deeper in, he explicitly said that he was leaving it ~with a tape~, and the tape recorders were acting out at the end:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: […] and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. […] I won’t… die of anything… down here… Not ever. Not if I… can’t find my way out. When I first came down, I could feel it, the, the part of myself I left outside, but… but it’s been getting… fainter, and now… I’m trying not to think about it. Don’t… don’t want to stretch my mind to try and see… in case it’s not there at all. I can’t afford to think about it. Not now. […] ARCHIVIST: It’s fine, I just… I just need to… to find it. DAISY: What? ARCHIVIST: Come on… Come on, where I… DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: … Come on… [STATIC] [SHAKY BREATHING] […] [CLICK–] [STATIC RISING] ARCHIVIST: D–Daisy… DAISY: Uh, I’m, I’m here. ARCHIVIST: I can… I–It… it’s closer. DAISY: What is? ARCHIVIST: M–my, my… my anchor? My… A–a rib, I can f–, I can fee– … I know the way! [DIGGING SOUNDS] DAISY: Wh–what? H–how– ARCHIVIST: I don’t… It’s like… My mindlink is… it’s stronger…

So what was his anchor in the end? Was it still the rib, but the tape recorders made the connection stronger and acted a bit like a sonar or an amplifier? Was it the concept of statements? Recordings Jon did himself? Tape recorders in themselves? And who willed them there: was it Beholding’s doing (not wanting to lose its current Archivist forever now that he had Experienced The Buried like a good boy)? Was it Basira’s doing? (But she wasn’t in the office when Jon came out and was already screaming at him, so I got the impression that she might have just come back and Melanie had told her about Jon’s decision and/or had made her listen to Jon’s tape?) Was it Peter’s, Martin’s, someone else? Since it had sent MAG130’s tape for Jon: was it The Web’s?

(On this, personal mental picture/synaesthesia time, and I could be off, right? But when we have statements framing other statements, or voices from different statements overlapping… I can’t help but represent it to myself as a “web of voice(s)”? A transposition in audio format of what would visually be a cobweb, with threads stretching, reaching, intertwining to form a net?)

I have no idea what happened at the end, with all the recorders welcoming Jon back: it was a “WHAT” moment and, at the same time, almost felt like a logical escalation after what Jon did at the beginning of the episode. I’m 99% sure that I hear this sentence in the brouhaha:

(MAG071) KAROLINA GÓRKA: I kept my eyes shut and tried to relax, as the sound of twisting metal filled my ears.

(I’m way less confident about it, but I thiiink I might have recognized Jon’s and Gertrude’s voices in the mix?)

So: were they random tapes? Were they statements related to The Buried? Were they live-statements? … is there a chance that Jon could get a hold of the tapes he (afawk for now) still hasn’t accessed, from when he was out for The Unknowing/in his coma – MAG118, MAG120, MAG121? It could be a good time for MAG120’s since… since Jon finally acknowledged to someone that he is aware of his dreams, aware that he has been watching people who gave their statements to him in them. MAG120 wouldn’t add a lot except learning that Elias knows about them. And… it also contains the Martin-Peter exchange, though I wonder whether Peter actually gets recorded on tape? Jon, who listens “to all the tapes”, never commented about Peter’s visits to the Institute in MAG100 and MAG108. I wonder if Peter might be able to escape the recordings (and unless we hear him “live”… yeah, no, someone listening to a tape afterwards would only hear static and a blank void when he supposedly talks.)

- Congraaaatulaaaationnnns on getting your Buried scar, Jon!!

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Feels like every inch costs me another scrape, or bruise. I’d hoped I was beyond that, but apparently not. [STRAINED WHIMPERS]

Looks like he can only get injuries from Spooks, and not “standard” ones (or just not injure himself)? … though now, I wonder if I wasn’t wrong to focus on the actual scars/injuries (they’re so shiny! they’re leaving souvenirs on Jon’s body!) when they might actually be… just collateral damage, and not the point. I hate how I always end up having to refer to Elias, but:

(MAG092) ELIAS: It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…

Experiencing and getting injured seem to often go hand-in-hand in Jon’s case but, with the coffin expedition, the moment where Jon… learned something wasn’t actually through the scars, at all. It was when he understood what it meant to be inside the coffin, what it meant to be trapped by The Buried:

(MAG132) 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…

There was this moment of sudden understanding where he sounded… distant and lost in himself? A bit more than during regular drop-of-water-sipping-through-the-door, I felt. It put me in mind of his sudden moment of Understanding Nikola’s true nature in MAG119:

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: … I see you. NIKOLA: Do you, now? ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you.

And before Breekon, Jon had never received the statement of a Stranger-related avatar, and he had never received one from a Buried avatar either (though Karolina Górka… might have been a weird case). So, tl;dr maybe the scars weren’t the point all along, but it was really… the Experience of the Fear through an avatar giving him their own perception of their relationship to their god, or Jon himself having to understand the true nature of a Fear. Cataloguing it, as Jane had denounced:

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? 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.”

So, actualizing the list… Jon is still missing The Lonely (sob) and The Dark – and didn’t get a statement from a Web avatar either, though he… experienced that one a bit when he was a kid and is currently experiencing it with The Web pulling strings (MAG121, Oliver Banks: “But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head.”)

… ;; I wonder, when The Web will reveal itself… how many of Jon’s actions/~decisions~ will turn out to have been nudges and threads pulled to get him where The Web needed him to be? Because… Jon had sounded very uncomfortable and vulnerable when he brushed over the notion (MAG123: “Perhaps a coincidence, just… people… shopping their traumatic event around… but I have to wonder… how much their actions were their own.”); how deeply would you fear that every new action is actually due to someone puppeteering you, if you learned that so many of the previous ones had not been of your own independent volition…?

(Gratuitous tangent, since Jon ~completing the set of Fears~ is also… a reminder that we’re assuming that the repartition into Fourteen Fear is carved into stone, when it isn’t? (Well. It is. In the tunnels. But that’s not the point.) It’s an arbitrary division suggested by Smirke; it could be changed objectively, since in the same way that The Flesh emerged recently, there might be a New Emergence which Adelard Dekker was investigating as reported in MAG113, but in the first place… we know that the division is arbitrary and that lines can get blurry here and there? Meaning, the number of injuries/experiences that Jon is getting doesn’t have to be… completing the list of Fourteen to be valid, since there is an infinity of shades in the first place? Though curiously, we’ve seen Avatars mostly following this division; sometimes collaborating, sometimes rejecting, but mostly having their own things, their own rituals, etc., as if the division was… objectively accurate. But then: the Avatars we met are humans who got powers. They probably decided where they belong on the spectrum? I do wonder if Smirke’s division mightn’t have been a way to ensure that the Fears would be competing against each other for a long while, kind of creating an “us vs. them” dynamic in order to prevent big collaborations. There are a few canonical opposites (Gerry mentioned the Vast vs. Buried, Elias presented The Stranger as antithetical to The Eye), but I once again wonder about the diagram and whether Jon getting injuries/experiences from here and there really is filling in a stamps collection with clear spots for each, or just… well. The more diversity, the more experiences, the better?)

- I feel incredibly stupid: I had not realized that ~that song~ in the background was… The Coffin’s Song. We could hear it distinctly in MAG101 (when Jon was held captive) and I had assumed it was a Stranger thing (generic spooky atmosphere in the Wax Museum). Nop! It was indeed the coffin’s song mentioned since MAG002, answering to the rain!

… Which means it was raining outside of the Institute in this episode? So if Basira is coming back just now, she’s probably drenched, and Daisy and Jon are coming out covered in dust and mud and dirt, and who will clean the Archives now, you hooligans!!

- I’M ALSO SO MAD… The fact that The Hunt couldn’t reach Daisy inside of the coffin should have been expected!!! I was fearing so much that she had gone worse, even more feral than how we had left her in MAG119, but!!

(MAG128, Breekon) “And so we took the casket, a hungry thing of the Earth, a crushing, choking tomb that will not let you die because it is too much what it is for Death to find you there, within its mocking shape – buried alive. […] No face to Change in the cold, dark earth, and no Eye to fool, where it is now.”

No End (which Jon also confirmed in MAG132: “I am… very thirsty. But I know I won’t die of it. I won’t… die of anything… down here… Not ever. Not if I… can’t find my way out.”), no Stranger, no Eye; the other powers can’t reach anyone inside! And *buries face into hand* I LOVE DAISY… I LOVE DAISY SO MUCH, GDI

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Sorry. Obviously. No, I just meant… Y–you sound… okay. DAISY: … Do I? ARCHIVIST: I thought you might have… been… taken over. By The Hunt. DAISY: What? ARCHIVIST: Th–the Hunt. You’re a Hunter. DAISY: Yeah… Uh, guess I was, but… not here… ARCHIVIST: No? DAISY: No. I, I can’t… feel my… blood. I could always feel it, but it can’t… can’t reach me, here… […] I don’t know what I’ll be ou–outside. The… The Hunt, it c–, it can’t reach me here. I’m sc–scared, but… Mm–mm… But I… I feel more, feel more m–me than I have for years. Maybe all my life… The, The Hunt was me, b–but I don’t, I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me… need… it… I hurt… a l–lot of people… and some who… who I shouldn’t have. Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life. Telling me who to chase, how to hurt them. I never needed to think… who I was outside of that. But down here, where I… I can’t hear the… blood anymore, I d–, I don’t… I don’t know who I am without, without the chase… I just know… that I… I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want… to be… better…

Fay Roberts was f a n t a s t i c, they brought me heartbreak and love at each sentence with that… rawness? Openness? Vulnerability without falling into sheer despair? Once again, I’m ;; having so many feelings over the way The Magnus Archives manages to remind you that yes, x and y characters are their own persons, with their own stories, their own agendas, their own struggles, their own points of views, their own fears. For a while, the discordance between cordial, expected reactions and Daisy being so straightforward in her violence was funny, but I hoped that we could get her own words at some point, and we did, and we got so much more than that!! It was so intense? I really wasn’t expecting to hear so much self-awareness from Daisy? To hear what might be one of the Messages of the series coming from her mouth – “I want to be better”: WHO, amongst our characters, had specifically enunciated something so simple yet so powerful? And it’s DAISY who diiiiiid T_____T

I was horrified that she was stuck in the coffin, and she indeed had a terrible time inside of it, and at the same time… it allowed her to find herself again, outside of the spooky influences? It forced her to take a step back and think about who she was? She said that The Hunt had been most of her life – is that how she survived Calvin Benchley’s attack, back when she was a kid? I love that, in the same way that Melanie told Jon that the bullet had stayed in her leg because she wanted it, it sounds a bit like… Daisy staying trapped in the coffin was a bit of her own doing, too, since she was fearing who she would be outside of it? Who she could become again, while she finally had clarity inside the coffin? And it seems like finding the way out was totally on Jon, but I get the feeling that his telling her that she could still make a choice… mattered a bit, and allowed her to indeed follow him?

I’m curious about how Daisy will handle being back on the surface and possibly hearing the call of The Hunt again. I do hope that, yes, even if she struggles, she’ll be able to make something out of the experience… Basira had hinted that there was more to Daisy than the impression people got from her:

(MAG106) BASIRA: I always used to put on podcasts when I was driving around. You know, when I wasn’t on duty. I mean, when Daisy didn’t need the radio. MELANIE: I literally cannot picture Daisy listening to the radio. BASIRA: The Archers. MELANIE: No?! BASIRA: Hand of God. MELANIE: I, I actually do not believe you. BASIRA: She never missed an episode.

And I’m curious about this Daisy, too! The “Daisy” who chose this nickname because she was told that her scar looked like one and “because it sounds so gentle”, the Daisy who listened to the radio and appealed to Basira, the Daisy who thought that she was deserving of this hell after what she had done, the Daisy who stuttered to Jon, over and over again when they were getting crushed, that she was “sorry”…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: And if we get out… DAISY: But we can’t “get out”. ARCHIVIST: [CRIES OF PAIN] DAISY: [CRIES OF PAIN] I’m, I’m sorry… I’m sorry Jon… I’m sorry… [CLICK.]

;____; I’m not even able to tell why she was apologizing there? For confessing that she had wanted to kill Jon after The Unknowing? Because she felt responsible that Jon had gone into the coffin to retrieve her, and was now stuck with her and discovering this perpetual torture too? ;___; Daisy…

- “I thought, thought I’d… I’d ne–never see the s-sky again, never… never s–see Basira…” Hi, hello, I just got brutally murdered by a pipe of Daisy->Basira feelings all over again.

(BASIRA IS HER SKY!!! In the domain of The Buried, Basira was her sky!)

- Relatedly: gODS the voicework this episode!! The stuttering, the words getting stuck in Jon’s and Daisy’s throats, having trouble making their way out!! The pain they seemed to cause? It was so good!!!

- And count on Jon to accidentally lighten up the mood with self-aware comments/mood whiplash/jokes in the wrong situation:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: […] But I know what I’m doing; this time, I do. Huh, I hope. […] I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. […] ARCHIVIST: Are you… Are you okay? DAISY: No. ARCHIVIST: Sorry. Obviously. No, I just meant… Y–you sound… okay. […] DAISY: […] Where are we? ARCHIVIST: The coffin. We’re in the coffin. I–It leads to… Well, it’s got a lot of names. Choke. The Buried. Too-close-I-cannot-breathe. DAISY: [CHUCKLES] Yeah, yeah… sounds, sounds right. […] ARCHIVIST: Come on. Let’s get you out of here. DAISY: Can’t… can’t move… Even if I, if I could… there is no… way out… ARCHIVIST: It’s okay… I’ve… I’ve got a plan. DAISY: I–is this like all your other plans? […] ARCHIVIST: Okay, hum… What do you want to talk about? DAISY: Don’t, I–I don’t care, I… I… I just, I just want someone to hear me. ARCHIVIST: I’m not going anywhere! DAISY: [NERVOUS BROKEN CHUCKLE]

He even managed to make Daisy chuckle multiple times!! I was so fond of their weird little friendship in MAG096 (Daisy snorting when the “Archivist who can’t read” got roasted; Jon singsonging his “Whatever you say~” at the end), I’m so glad to find this aspect of their dynamic already back!!

- Jon sounded… a bit sad? To learn that Daisy still planned to kill him?

(MAG132) DAISY: … I was gonna kill you. You know that, right? ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] I mean, I definitely got that impression when you… dragged me into the woods for an execution. DAISY: N–no, no. No. After the mission. I was planning to kill you. ARCHIVIST: I… I did not know that.

Jon probably thought that they were already past that, uh. (He thought he was on good terms with Daisy by that point or, at the very least, that they were on the same side? I think he really regarded her as part of his team even though she didn’t have the “assistant” status? So yeah, must hurt a bit to learn that, no, she was planning to get rid of him right after The Unknowing ;;)

- Alright: there have not been a lot of talks involving Jon in which I found that a balanced, mutually beneficial exchange was happening, and that weren’t about tearing each other to pieces? It’s the case with most of his exchanges with Georgie, and there was a bit of that with Gerry; but otherwise… it often feels like the discussion tips in one direction, either Jon opening up and the other not managing to share something of themselves, either the other person opening up and Jon having to shut up (Melanie in MAG131, Basira’s overall stance).

There was something really significant in the fact that Daisy wanted to talk and even agreed and welcomed Jon’s compulsion, when… it had previously squicked her so, so much and been lived as an extortion:

(MAG061) ARCHIVIST: If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been sectioned…? DAISY: I do mind. … Fourteen years. […] ARCHIVIST: Right! Thank you! Are you quite alright? DAISY: No. I never told that story to anyone except my old Sergeant. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I, uh… DAISY: I should go.

(MAG091) BASIRA: Just let him go. DAISY: You don’t know what he is. You don’t know what it’s like to have your secrets pulled out like teeth, just because he asked?

(MAG132) DAISY: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Still here. DAISY: Good, I… Good. I, I, I, I–I want to talk. ARCHIVIST: Okay, hum… What do you want to talk about? DAISY: Don’t, I–I don’t care, I… I… I just, I just want someone to hear me. […] I–I want to, but it’s… difficult. ARCHIVIST: Would it help if I… ask? DAISY: … Y–yeah, yes, alright. Do your… thing. ARCHIVIST: Right, hum… [CLEARS THROAT] Uh… [STATIC:] H–how are you feeling? DAISY: Uh… Scared. I–I’m, I’m, I’m scared. I’ve been scared the whole time here.

Jon getting good at consent when it’s about compelling people he treasures é_è (… He did not treasure Jared very much, though.)

The simple fact that Jon was so adamant about getting Daisy back, and the fact that Daisy highlighted so much that thanks to him… she wasn’t alone anymore!!

(MAG132) DAISY: [LABOURED] Just… alone, I, I think… I think… I hear this, sometimes, s–singing, when it’s, uh, when it’s wet, or, or scratching, trying to get out… but I don’t… I don’t th… don’t think there is anyone… there; it’s… it’s just, just me… ‘till now. […] ARCHIVIST: Come on. Let’s get you out of here. DAISY: Can’t… can’t move… Even if I, if I could… there is no… way out… ARCHIVIST: It’s okay… I’ve… I’ve got a plan. […] 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… DAISY: N–not alone, though… ARCHIVIST: [SOFT] No… No, not alone. […] ARCHIVIST: I don’t… It’s like… My mindlink is… it’s stronger… [PANTS AND STRUGGLING NOISES] DAISY: Slow down! I–I can’t… ARCHIVIST: Don’t let go! Come on, we’re close. This way. Here. Here! Come on, push!

(Yes, hello, guess who got GIGANTIC platonic Orpheus and Eurydice vibes in this episode!!)

- I feel that there was something extremely precious, precisely because both Jon and Daisy gave something to the other? It wasn’t only about hearing Daisy, it was about… helping her, emotionally, by sharing his experience and his own struggle, and explaining right away where he stood. Jon didn’t hide from her? She uncovered herself, and he showed his weakness in return, and it was just so satisfying and soft?

(MAG132) DAISY: […] L–leaves you terrified for when it s–starts a–again and, wh–when it does, you, you’re s–scared that it’ll… n–never–never stop… I thought, thought I’d… I’d ne–never see the s-sky again, never… never s–see Basira… B–but, but now… You, you’ve got out o–of o–other s–stuff like this, maybe… maybe you’ll get out of this and, and take me wi–with you… […] Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it… I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one. […] Daisy… you should know I’m… If I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh… I’m even less now. DAISY: Yeah. Well. At the moment, I don’t care…

Re: the mention of choices… So, are we meant to deduce that Jon was indeed conscious (and remembers) Oliver’s words from MAG121?

(MAG121) OLIVER: […] The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off for a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You’re not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him. I made a choice. We all made choices; now you have to– […] Make your choice, Jon.

I wonder if we’ll get Jon’s retelling of how he lived MAG121, how he came back from his coma. I like that, however, he is aware that he had limited options due to circumstances and that it… doesn’t really feel like an empowering choice when you’re forced to pick between two unsatisfactory options, neither of which you really want? But at the same time, I HATE THAT, ONCE AGAIN:

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: I never chose this! ELIAS: You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to see. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean, but we make them nonetheless.

… we’re falling back into “Elias might have been right about this” territory :||||||| (… he had also told Daisy that Calvin Benchley was “the first human being” she had murdered – although we knew he had probably been deeply messed up by a power, probably The Slaughter? And Daisy explicitly said that she felt that Elias had been right about her. He had also told Jon to not dwell too much on a distinction between human/“monsters”… And he’s being proven right lately, with Helen and Melanie and now Daisy herself… So gODSDAMNIT, stop that trend of Elias being apparently right-except-it-might-not-be-exactly-what-he-meant/him-still-being-wrong-about-the-consequences, it causes me pain.)

- ;; I wonder if Jon will have another discussion with Georgie soon-ish, because… it feels like he’s learning a lot, and forced to acknowledge and to accept that a lot of his original distinctions and categorizations weren’t really standing, in the end. Jon won’t do what Georgie was encouraging him to do (to stop getting involved, to… go back to normalcy? Like she did?), but I think they could still have a satisfying discussion about… their own choices in the matter. The thing with Jon, when he was living with her, was that he was afraid of turning into a “monster”, feeling dispossessed, and constantly thrown under a bus, and trapped in schemes and organizations he couldn’t really understand. He’s been more in control during season 4 and seems… to have found a drive, somehow? To know, a bit more often (even if it’s punctual) where he wants to head and what he has to do to accomplish it. I don’t know, but I feel like it could be very interesting to have Georgie and Jon interact again now that Jon knows a bit more where he stands?

- This was the first time that Jon acknowledged to someone, although implicitly, that he’s aware of what happens with his dreams é_è

(MAG132) DAISY: I realized you were in my dreams. Reliving t… this. The coffin. You were there. ARCHIVIST: … Yes. DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no. One night, you turn up in a new shirt. Didn’t fit you. Not your style. I didn’t think much of it, it was just a d–, a dream. Then you come back from the States and… guess what you’re wearing. ARCHIVIST: Oh… DAISY: Realised what was happening then. Realised you weren’t human. Needed to die, as soon as it was safe. Never mind Elias and his… insurance. ARCHIVIST: And now? DAISY: Don’t know. I miss dreaming. Y–you don’t sleep… down here.

;__; So Jon had indeed understood what the deal was with that (MAG113: “I’m not too concerned, to be honest, my dreams are, uh... well, let’s just say I don’t think they’re going be letting anyone else in any time soon.”)… and still agreed to take Jared’s statement. Kinda hoping for Jon that Jared will either die soon-ish, or that he will push Jon away from his dreams like Jude did (MAG120, Elias: “he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason. But she was beyond his reach the moment she knew he was there.”) I wonder what allowed Jude to do this, by the way? Julia and Trevor were also distant from Jon (they couldn’t pick up his scent), but Daisy hadn’t been able to do that to Jon, since she was still stuck with the dreams? Could she be able to do that, if she learned it was a possibility? Or is it a Desolation thing, or something you’re only able to do when quite powerful yourself?

- Re: Daisy’s “Elias and his… insurance.” comment: I wonder what she was referring to? Was it about the evidence he had against her?

(MAG082) ELIAS: A genuine threat, I’m sure, but right now what you’re really trying to figure out is, if I have any evidence that could make it back your people.

(MAG092) ELIAS: Allow me. She rightly suspected that I held evidence of various murders she had committed, and that I sent this to her superiors. DAISY: … ELIAS: She’s quite the killer, your partner. All in the public good, of course. And she was correct, I spent some time acquiring that evidence. Or creating it. And while your superiors don’t much care about the killings, the fact there is proof... They’re not happy. And they want you brought in.

(Meaning that if she had killed Jon, Elias would probably have thrown her under a bus/at the nearest police officers… Elias had already leaked his “evidence” to the police so there were already people searching for her. Then again, Elias would have been able to tip them whenever to tell them where she was ;;) Oorrrrrrrrrrr… was it… about Basira…………………..

(MAG092) DAISY: What do you want? ELIAS: Collateral. [PAPER IS PUSHED ACROSS THE DESK] DAISY: That… What? ELIAS: A contract of employment. For Basira.

Meaning that at this point, Daisy was ready to kill Jon right after The Unknowing, even if it meant putting Basira in more danger: true, according to what Elias told them, it’s only if he dies that the assistants(+Jon?) die, but ahahaha, if she had killed Jon, we can’t really expect that Basira’s situation would have improved, uh… (……. Terriblest thing that Elias could have then done to Daisy would have been to appoint Basira as next Archivist, probably, in fact.)

Anyway, if Basira finally tells Jon & the others that Elias had requested her presence (MAG127), that she talked to him, and what he said… I would really like for Daisy to now be The One in charge of the prison visits and dealing with Bouchard’s bullshit? Sadly, Daisy’s relationship with the police hierarchy fell out due to Elias sending the tapes and, if they learn that she’s actually still alive, they would want to remedy to that.

(But picture this: 40-ish episodes after Elias got Daisy & Basira stuck with the Institute, and taunted Daisy over the prospect of either killing him either getting him sent to jail… Daisy, visiting Elias who is finally in prison. P L E A S U R E D I N H A L A T I O N.)

- *cries* And Jon tried anyway…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I… heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. Said he couldn’t breathe. … I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him. But I am… n–not here for him. I don’t even know him. I can’t… I can’t see… anything here… for all this… this place closes around me, I… I feel adrift. Like nothing can get through the dirt, and the muck, and– … I still have Daisy’s tape… And I still think I’m going the right way. When I move at all.

;; Yeah, reminder that there are… other people trapped there. I wonder if it could have been specifically Isaac Masters, Daisy’s colleague who had disappeared (MAG061)? But the coffin probably took many people (it had taken “John” in MAG002)… I wonder what the group will do with it, now? I doubt that Jon will try to go inside again to save the other people trapped in there but ;; Urrkkk, it hurts a bit to think that yes, there are still random victims just… there…

- Jon has been… so SOFT in season 4… So many “Sorry”s, so many moments when he explains himself? I’m remembering the end of season 2, when he had just understood about the Not!Them taking Sasha’s place, and had decided to try to get rid of it, and had… steered Martin and Tim out of its way? He had apologized but he had not explained nor left a trace of what he was doing. But now, he left a tape behind for Melanie and Basira, explaining his intentions and his reasonings:

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, and I’m… I’m sorry. About everything. MARTIN: J–Jon… look, are you– TIM: Ok. Right you are, Jon. We’ll be going.

(MAG079) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] I’m sorry. Martin, Tim… Sasha. I’m so sorry. I should have… I didn’t… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. NOT!SASHA: I wonder, if I wear you, will I really become the Archivist? Rob The Eye of its pupil? Probably not. Better to just kill you, I think. Yes… I think that would be best. ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] Please forgive me. If you’re still alive… if–if you hear this. Get as far away from the Magnus Institute–

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: [CLICK] [INHALES] Hello, Melanie. I… know I said we’d wait until Basira was back. B–but I–I don’t… I–I’m sorry. I, I–I know she won’t– She’d want to do it a different way. But I know what I’m doing; this time, I do. […] Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…? A–anyway, I–I’m sorry. You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. I know you’d… stop me. You’d be right to, but… But if this goes wrong, all you lose is– … I’m not risking anyone else. And I know– … I–I think… I can get her out.

(No mention of Martin nor Georgie in this one ;; Once again, Jon has trouble staying aware of more than his immediate surroundings, and is not really thinking about the consequences or people that could be impacted when they’re not right under his nose, uh.)

And yes, Jon is going back to this old habit of his that he was fighting so far (-> going behind people’s backs when he felt that someone had to take on a burden)… But the reasons he’s doing this are very sad and beautiful at the same time? He is being absolutely self-deprecative? It’s because he doesn’t feel like he’s as valuable as them? And despite the fact that it costs him so much, that he’s still afraid? I had been wondering, when Jon woke up from his coma, what would change with him – would his fear get cauterized? Would he be more casual about the concept of hurting people to feed his god? But no, indeed: so far, it’s really… Jon evolving and becoming more and more open about his feelings, and what and whom he cares for, and getting actively protective of them even if it means getting harmed himself. And that “I’m not risking anyone else” once again reminded me of:

(MAG118) TIM: No! You knew I might not be coming back! ARCHIVIST: I knew none of us might be coming back, and I’m not gonna let anyone get killed for nothing! TIM: Oh, except for those people in there! ARCHIVIST: They’re already dead! TIM: Not all of them! ARCHIVIST: I am not losing you as well!!

(T____T)

Jon lost Sasha and Tim already, of course he wouldn’t want someone else to put themselves in danger, even if it’s to rescue Daisy…

And meanwhile: we know that Martin is… doing the same thing to protect the others. And meanwhile: Basira might have been doing the same thing in her own way. They’ll really need to get all together in a room and to talk out their respective self-sacrificing decisions at some point, huh…

(- I’m a simple person and since Jon is being a softie, I want: * Daisy and Jon just spending time together (whenever Daisy is not glued to Basira), OKAY. * Daisy deciding that alright, you think Blackwood is involved in something dangerous and you would like him back? Okay, let’s go. I always dreamed to destroy Elias’s office a bit, should get a reaction out of that Lukas guy. * GET MARTIN BACK AND HAVE THAT VERY QUEER SLUMBER PARTY IN THE TUNNELS GDI!!! THERE ARE SIX OF THEM WITH HELEN – JONNY AND ALEX, DON’T YOU WANT TO MAKE A WHOLE EPISODE OF THEM PLAYING GAMES TOGETHER?? * Dunno how to justify this in this post but my pretext is “Jon is being so good at communication/giving Daisy what she needed at the point she was” and so: alright, you know what Martin needs, Jon? A present of a fancy blank notebook, to go back to his poetry, because encouraging is caring (and notebooks are love) :||||)

- efzjdisncefd Basira just got the Best Entrance Ever, I don’t know which one was the winner until now but she supplanted it right away:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Tape recorders. Must, must be… dozens of them…? [JON’S OFFICE DOOR OPENS] BASIRA: Jon, you stupid idiot! What did you think?! DAISY: … Hi. BASIRA: [FAINT]… Oh my god… [CLICK.]

Barging into Jon’s office, not even looking at who is there, screaming at Jon right away. Glorious.

Did she know he had just come out (/done something to ensure he’d come out), or was it a coincidence and she would have been screaming at an empty office if Jon hadn’t come out just now? The timing was a bit too perfect, so I’d be leaning on “Basira did something”, but… were the tape recorders going wild only located into Jon’s office, or were they having a fit in the entire Archives / in every part of the Institute, actually? (Because mm, we know there was an incident involving a leak of statements in 1999 and right, we never learned more about that… I’ve been assuming that it was Gertrude’s doing, to mess with Freshly Appointed Head Director Elias, but we still don’t know if there is a Story behind it.)

;; There is still the question of what Basira was doing, and what Elias’s suggestion from MAG127 was. Did he tell Basira to leave Jon to his own devices and that he would find something? (I doubt the series would go that way since it would nnnnot be flattering for Basira… but then it could also make her even more prone to close off her own agenda and to Do Her Things without sharing.) Did she go to find someone or something that would pull people out of the coffin? Jon couldn’t feel his anchor anymore, then felt it again, so something happened; the question is mostly… who did it.

The Eye shouldn’t have access to the inside of the coffin, so even if Elias knew that Breekon was about to deliver it… I wonder if he could have guessed Daisy’s current state? Because uh. Regarding The Archives’ Defender: Melanie is not an option anymore since she’s not Slaughter-fuelled. Daisy explicitly told Jon that she was wary of The Hunt, didn’t like who she used to be when under its influence, and will probably consciously try to slow down on the violence – she could still help in defending the Archives a bit, but… she probably won’t be as effective against Spooks as before if the the point is to avoid losing herself again. Which means that they indeed got her back but that she probably won’t be a viable option anymore as a ~defender~. Which means they’re back at the same point.

(EXCEPT THERE IS HELEN!! And I insist, reliability aside, sounds like the best Protecting option. But well. Reliability aside.)

So. What did Basira do, where did she go, what did she bring back with her? Mike-if-turns-out-he-wasn’t-dead would be the right time, since Daisy had been the one to ensure that he (or his corpse) would eat dirt; Trevor&Julia would be hilarious and fitting thematically (relationship to The Hunt + Jon’s shirt was presumably “borrowed” from them); Jude would be another case of Jon’s Life Being Like This; someone who’d turn out to be Actually The Real Peter Lukas oh-shit-what-is-the-thing-running-the-Institute-then would be hilarious for the ensuing panic (I’m still ??? that Elias never ever acknowledged that Peter Lukas… exists…? is running his Institute…? it still feels so fishy?); but at the same time, they all feel a bit like… done deals? People we’ve already explored a bit through meeting them and getting their statements, and are now finished with?

Amongst the characters introduced and recurring across statements but never met, we have Mikaele Salesa (has he died, is he hiding from officials because of tax fraud?); Adelard Dekker (… if he isn’t dead already); Annabelle Cane (but The Web, accepting to be straightforward instead of sneaky and cryptic? In MY Magnus Institute? Ha!). Cosmic Irony would dictate Simon Fairchild since Jon explicitly expressed reluctance to meet him, and now I’m hit with the mental picture of Simon peacefully giving his statement to Jon while sipping tea before going to yeet himself in the coffin because he was trying to find a way to Make His Grand Exit after a long and fulfilling life of wrecking other lives, right in front of Jon; you’re welcome.

One question is whether or not there were two agendas at work for Jon’s next move? On the one hand, Elias tipped Basira towards… something that we don’t know about yet. On the other hand, The Web seemed supportive of leading Jon a bit and, unless Jon tragically misunderstood its message (but then, The Web would have intervened again?), the point in MAG130’s tape was indeed to make Jon focus on The Flesh, its avatars, the idea of his own body as an anchor for him to get inside the coffin and get Daisy back. AND ON THAT NOTE, I’m now entertaining the notion that Breekon might have been sent by The Web itself, since the way he described why he came was… a bit reminiscent of your typical person doing something/going somewhere because of the Spider (and specifically sounds a lot like Oliver’s self-introduction)?

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [STATIC:] Why are you here? BREEKON: Dunno. ‘t’s not right… on my own… not right… No point in doing it on my own. Don’t know what happens now… Thought I might kill you. Missed my chance. Thought I might just… deliver something. So here’s a coffin. [RATTLING SOUND] In case you want… to join your friend.

[…] (STATEMENT) “I am without him, now. I. am. I can feel myself fading. Weak. No reason to move. Nothing to deliver. But I am no longer tied to the casket; so you can have it.”

Not being able to give a clear reason, then rationalizing about it while doing it anyway? So I guess The Web could also have put the coffin in Jon’s path, since it wasn’t against (/was actively supportive of) the idea of him getting Daisy back? Or, at least, of Jon going down into the coffin and experiencing The Buried, but being able to get back out. I don’t know! Basira, what were you doing and how much will everyone regret that you had a talk with Elias ;;

- We heard that Basira wasn’t… pleased about Jon doing his Things behind her back (“Jon, you stupid idiot!”: Jon can’t only be an “idiot”, can’t only be “stupid”, he has to be a “stupid idiot”), but objectively:

(MAG128) BASIRA: I’ll try and be back in a week or two. Don’t think about me. ARCHIVIST: Right. BASIRA: And don’t open the coffin.

From 3rd March (MAG128) to 24th March 2018 (MAG132 – though unclear whether it’s the date he went inside the coffin or came out of it, or if it’s on the same day anyway), it’s been three weeks of Basira being gone and not giving any news. She didn’t promise to come back soon, but still – that was… way more than what she had told Jon to expect, and he held on during that time. And he did respect the other half of what she had asked of him (to not Know about what she was doing). So overall: she will probably be mad, and will have reasons to be since Jon went back to doing things on his own while deliberately going against other people’s wishes (doubly: both hers, and Melanie’s, who had been a bit more aware of Jon’s plan, and whom Jon had told that he would wait for Basira), but there were also… circumstances.

(Since Basira has been gone for three weeks: I wonder if she got sick, too? We don’t know how long Tim’s trip to Malaysia lasted before he had to come back to the Institute, so… How did Basira feel during this time? Did she bring statements or research along to tide herself over? Or was Tim’s case a bit special, and was Elias responsible for Tim feeling like a wreck because he wanted Tim back for Jon’s return?)

- I DON’T KNOW HOW BASIRA WILL REACT TO DAISY’S RETURN, GDI!!! Jon was expecting Basira to not hold too much of a grudge if he managed to bring Daisy back, and he did! But I’m… not sure it will work to pacify Basira? ;; Because technically, it adds another piece on the chessboard, and we don’t really know what to expect of Daisy out of the coffin, nor if she’ll manage to be stable for long… And that means having to make sure that the police doesn’t pay attention to the Institute (while Elias, who was keeping them mostly at bay, is gone), since they were after Daisy…

But at the same time, maybe it could lead to finally getting a Team Archive back to try and all survive together…? ;;

- Relatedly: whether or not Basira is ready to work with Jon again, since Daisy is back… What will be the next focus? (Sometimes, I feel like Jon is acting a bit like in a Dating Game without romance: took the Melanie route, unlocked the Less Dramatic ending; took the Daisy route, unlocked the Happy Ending somehow?!; maybe needed to clear out Daisy’s path in order to unlock Basira’s own route… and then, there is Martin. Hidden route, True Ending?? Jon said “I am very thirsty” and like, yeah, we know, we heard you going after Martin, Jon. Where is Martin.)

There will be the… well, whatever the HECK happened with the tape recorders at the end of MAG132, and Daisy will probably need some rest, and we’ll need a debriefing/argument with Basira. But then, what’s next, what will the next goal consist of? There are still a bunch of Mysteries that should become relevant again at some point soon (what is Agnes’s story? What is Hill Top Road’s deal? What happened to Adelard Dekker? How can they proceed to ensure The Watcher’s Crown doesn’t happen? What are The Web’s intentions and how much is Jon tied to that? What is the New Emergence?); we could get some answers if Jon continues to read statements about rituals that Gertrude had stopped, or if he keeps getting information through His Inner Door, though. We might be a bit done with Buried and Flesh statements for some time, since both were a bit more represented in season 4 so far and they have now served their purpose.

- Okay, so, Patreon experience: here is what we initially got when the episode was posted:

… and yes, it was 6 seconds of David7 crashing on the floor and complaining that he was covered in goo. Picture this: you’ve been tensing up for the last hour on your commute back from work with nothing to distract you, you’re fidgeting for the new episode, knowing thanks to the title listed on Monday that It Is Coming, We Should Be Going Inside The Coffin, How Awful Will It Turn Out… and you’re welcomed by David7 observing that he’s covered in goo. I personally lost it, hurt myself in my confusion (I still had some mascara on, it doesn’t do great with hilarity tears.) So yeah. Now, we Know that apparently, David7 is their placeholder for new posts! =D

(The case file was incomplete, too, so! Extra dread! How much time passed while Jon was in the coffin?! Didn’t even have the satisfaction to think that the end of 2018 and the Institute’s 200th anniversary had passed! But that was corrected too, and it’s… probably fine. Unless March 24th is only the date Jon entered the coffin, not when he got out.)

MAG133’s title is… ominous and uuuuuuuh, hard to draw any prediction from apart from “… I don’t like this”. Not-risky bet would be The End? Would probably be awful if it happens to be a Corruption one? ………… As for second meaning: I just really hope it’s not Peter&Martin again ;;

#the magnus archives #mag132 #tma liveblog #tma spoilers/#long post/#tma season 4

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supernaturalinguist · 5 years

Text

OC Meme Part 1

Personal

* 1) Age?

Soren is 28. They’re a Gemini, born on May 25.

* 2) Gender?

Nonbinary

* 3) Romantic/Sexual Orientation?

Bisexual

* 4) Height?

5”0

* 5) Race?

White, ethnically Jewish

* 6) What do they look like? (i.e, hair color, eye color, etc).

Dark brown hair cut short, that sticks up a bit messily. Honey-brown eyes. They have a mostly slender frame with a bit of “squish” to their stomach and thighs, which they are not fond of.

* 7) Any disabilities?

Minor hyper mobility especially in their knees. Occasionally they wear knee braces. They also have some mental illnesses (anxiety, depression, PTSD.)

* 8) Is there a meaning to their name?

They chose their first name themself! Paying homage to the Scandinavian roots on their father’s side of the family.

* 9) What makes them, them?

They’re a kind and gentle person with a constant hunger for knowledge and an eagerness to help others.

* 10) What do they want to be when they grow up/what do they want to do with their lives?

They want to be a linguist or translator, but they’re comfortable with the job they’re doing as a researcher and communications specialist at the Magnus Archives.

Family

* 11) Do they have parents? What are they like and how do they act with their child(ren)?

They have a mother and father, and are on better terms with their father than their mother. Soren was forced into a caretaker position of their mother at a young age, due to her mother’s disabilities and mental illnesses, and was the subject to a lot of parentification, gaslighting and mental/emotional abuse. Though their father has made strides to become a better person and has apologized for his past actions, Soren’s mother is still unstable and not mentally healthy, putting a strain on Soren’s relationship with her.

* 12) Do they have siblings? How do they interact with them? If not, do they wish they had siblings?

Soren is an only child and was raised with cats as their siblings.

* 13) Extended family? Do they see them often?

They have grandparents on both sides who love them dearly, and who Soren loves to spend time with.

* 14) Do they like where they live? (Is it a safe place?)

Soren currently enjoys living in London but definitely misses aspects of Japan.

* 15) Where do they live? Are they wealthy? Poor? Middle-Class?

Soren lives in a flat in metropolitan London and is pretty well off as a single person who works full time.

* 16) Do they have a lot of expectations/pressure on them from family to do great?

They used to when they lived with their parents, but now that they’ve limited their interactions and now lives a world away from them, most of the expectations come from inside themself.

* 17) Do they have pets?

They have a cat in their flat. (Persian, very cuddly. Named Shiratama?)

* 18) Who do they look up to the most/are the closest to in their family?

They respect their father a lot, and are very close to him. They are close to their mother as well, but in an enmeshed way that is not terribly healthy.

* 19) Is there anything special about their family?

Only the massive amounts of mental health and physical health problems they’ve had to deal with, regarding their parents.

* 20) Do they wish they lived in a different family/household?

Yes, frequently. Which is why they left as soon as they could.

Friends

* 21) Best Friend(s)?

They like hanging out with the Archives staff; Jon, Martin, Tim and Sasha in season 1, and then added to this, Basira, Daisy and Melanie. When they eventually meet Georgie, it’s awkward at first but they end up getting along very well. Going out for drinks and coffee with everyone is a somewhat regular occurrence. The person they currently trust the most would probably be Jon, though.

* 22) Who was their first friend?

Probably an elementary school pal who enjoyed the same music and books.

* 23) What is their friend group like?

Mostly coworkers.

* 24) Do they have a love/hate relationship with any of them?

Not particularly, they’re fond of everyone. However, Tim finds Soren to be an easy target to tease. This isn’t terrible but it can really fluster them.

* 25) Do they consider any of their friends to be like siblings?

Not quite so far.

* 26) Have they ever hurt a friend or lost one?

Yes, they have lost several in the past, mostly because of drifting apart. However a few separations were under traumatic circumstances, due to abuse.

* 27) Do they have a crush on any of their friends?

Yep. (It’s Jon.)

* 28) Do they share classes with good friends?

No but if there was a community center that everyone took classes at, they would definitely end up in classes with Martin in a bunch.

* 29) Whom do they go to the most when they need a shoulder to cry on?

Probably Jon, but Martin is also a close second and probably a better option.

* 30) What would this person do without their friends in their lives?

Be very sad and have no life outside of knitting scarves and jumpers in their apartment.

School

* 31) What grade are they in? If they aren’t in school, how come?

They are an adult and graduated from college, as well as received two masters degrees.

* 32) Do/Did they like their teachers? Was there a good one? Bad one?

Generally, they enjoyed their teachers but there were always a few bad apples in the bunch.

* 33) Do/Did they listen to their teachers or are/were they goofing off a lot?

Mostly listened to their teachers, but would often some off in class and doodle or write.

* 34) Are/Were they a good student grade wise?

For the most part they made good grades.

* 35) Do/Did they need extra help?

Yes, in Maths and Science they were not as skilled. (Dyscalculia from being autistic made it difficult to work with a lot of numbers.)

* 36) What is/was their school like?

They switched schools a lot in their youth, but they went to college in a small liberal arts college in the USA, before pursuing higher education in Japan.

* 37) Do/Did they have bullies in school?

Yes, from elementary to high school.

* 38) Have they ever gotten into a fight at school?

Never.

* 39) Have they ever done something stupid/embarrassing at school?

Yes, but not anything really of note. Usual mishaps.

* 40) How far do they plan to go with school? If they dropped out, do they want to go back?

They definitely are considering getting a doctorate.

Other

* 41) Are they dating anyone? Do they want to date? Are they married? Divorced?

Soren definitely wants to date but they’re worried about putting themselves in the dating pool. Eventually they begin dating a coworker at their place of work, and are very satisfied with the relationship.

* 42) What is their favorite hobby? Do they keep it a secret?

They don’t have a lot of secrets, and are proud of the multitude of hobbies they have! Recently they enjoy knitting, crochet, and embroidery.

* 43) If they could have one thing in life, what would it be?

A comfortable life with someone who loves and cares about them.

* 44) Do they work? If so, what is it? If not, are they looking for one or even want one?

Soren is employed at the Magnus Institute in London.

* 45) Do they use social media?

Yes; Facebook mostly. They deleted their Twitter because it was too fast and distracting. They have a Pinterest also. However, they don’t have a tumblr.

* 46) Have they ever been in the hospital?

Yes, mostly for minor surgeries.

* 47) Do they believe in the supernatural, that there is more than the eye can see?

Haha. Most definitely.

* 48) What do they do when they get angry, stressed, or upset?

Cry and self isolate.

* 49) Would they consider themselves as a good person, bad person, or morally grey?

They try to be the best person they can be but acknowledge they’ve made bad or questionable decisions in their past.

* 50) Does this OC have any part of you in them? (I.e, personality traits, similar background, etc)

They’re basically fictional self-insert version of me, but with more money. And a cool job and a date. Basically they’re living my dreams.

#soren #oc meme

0 notes

stilitana · 4 years

Text

stop me if you’ve heard this one before | 5k | complete

Jon returns from his kidnapping to find that his assistants need some training in the proper art of recording statements.

(I thought it would be fun to hear Jon's reaction to MAG 100 and hence, this fic was born.)

Jon slinks through the institute doors looking ragged and threadbare and with such a scorched intensity in his eyes that the receptionist, Rosie, merely nods slowly when he pauses in the lobby to blink at her and then presses a finger to his lips. He slips on by, still the same awkward hunching in his shoulders and swift, jerky step but a new rigid cast to his body, as though during his long absence he has somehow become wound impossibly tighter. Rosie’s finger hovers over the intercom button on her desk phone, ready to dial Elias’ extension. Then she lets it go. She has a feeling that if the boss doesn’t already know his favorite employee has returned, he will very soon. She makes it a point not to become too closely involved in whatever goes on with the archival staff. They all do.

Jon hurries through the institute’s drab, winding halls, resolutely avoiding eye contact with any other workers he passes, pressing himself to the walls when they go by. He ignores any odd looks cast his way. In the back of his mind, he is dimly aware that he must be quite a sight, but can’t find it within himself to care. He never cared what they thought before he started turning into a – whatever it is he’s turning into. Why start now?

Michael, or the thing Michael became, or that became Michael, or the thing Michael wasn’t – its statement played back in his mind over and over. How Gertrude had burned through her own assistants like they were nothing more than fodder. How they had trusted her, how she had taken their trust and twisted it until they gave themselves over for her designs gladly. Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature? Michael had asked. Although Jon had gotten the sense it wasn’t really a question. It was so very much like the sentiment expressed by several statement givers ( But you can’t fight what you are. Or even what you aren’t. ) that it took his breath away. His thoughts were starting to loop. Nothing like a full picture was coming together, but his mind was picking up the threads of inconsistent repetition – names, places, turns of phrase. He’d said such words himself, once, before he even knew how deep he was in – How many of these monsters were once people? Unable to resist their new natures. They don’t even think like people anymore.

Did he think like people? Did people think like this – with the stitched together fragments of a hundred stranger’s voices describing their darkest secrets and the worst moments of their lives?

Before going into Elias’ office, he steels himself for confrontation. He needs to be relentless. He needs to be strong, have a little backbone, not give in. It is vital that he not bend. Like he always bends. Permitting more and more inhumanity until the bar has shifted so far he can’t see it anymore, and then how will he ever find his way back?

Elias is a murderer. Jon has never killed anyone. That, surely, must count for something?

He gives a dry, humorless laugh and barges into the office where Elias is waiting and smiling at him as though he beheld the return of the prodigal son. And he feels his resolve begin to droop and wither.

Were the stakes not so high, the unknowns so vast, then he knows the only good and sane thing to do would be to turn Elias over to the police, no matter the personal cost. But the stakes just might be the world as they know it, or at least their own lives, and he would very much like to stay alive and never have another person hurt because of him. And the unknowns gnaw on him, a literal feeling of hollow appetite in his gut. So when Daisy barges in to kill Elias, Jon does what Elias says. He stops her.

In the aftermath, the archives go strangely quiet as everyone drifts away from the commotion, retreating to their separate corners. Jon feels them watching him as he walks from Elias’ office across the floor to his own, eyes fixed on the ground.

“That it, then?” Melanie says. “You fuck off god knows where for a month, leave us here with that vicious freak, and now we’re just supposed to carry on as though we aren’t prisoners here, as though this place is normal?”

“I did try to warn you,” Tim says, his voice so dry and brittle it makes Jon wince as he remembers how warm and rich Tim’s laugh had once sounded.

Jon keeps walking. His whole body aches, his mind feels fuzzy and disorganized, thoughts scattering like beads of oil on water. The odd dissociative see-through feeling that had settled into him while speaking to Michael has yet to fully abate, and he rubs his hands up and down his arms as though to dispel the numb tingling. The pins and needles go deeper than the skin though, and he wonders idly if this is just going to be another new scar to deal with. He feels nothing more than disinterested curiosity at the thought. As though it’s all happening to someone else, someone who doesn’t matter much. He feels unmoored, adrift. Unsure where he ends and thin air begins. Can they see his thoughts, bleeding out into the air? How much do they know?

The familiar ugly nausea of paranoia makes his breath hitch. No. No, he’s not going to do that again. That time is over. His hand hurts. God, his hand hurts badly. He hasn’t unwrapped the bandages to look at it in a while. He should have gone to a doctor but it’s too late for that now. There was so much physical therapy even after Jane and her infestation, and that had been when he still half bothered taking basic care of his body. It’s never going to be the same. Maybe if he just never unwrapped it, he could go on pretending it was still just burns keeping his hand curled and aching and painful, and not scar tissue. Not the result of his own negligence.

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” Melanie says. “Don’t you turn your back on me, Jonathan Sims. It’s your fault we’re all in this, the least you could do would be to – but what did I expect? Fine. Go hide in your office.”

“J-Jon,” Martin says. “What happened to your hand?”

Jon gets one hand on the doorknob to his office. He can all but hear the statements on his desk singing their wretched siren’s call. His head throbs. He wants nothing more than to get this door shut behind him, a physical barrier between himself and these people who hurt too much to look at, to lose himself for a few minutes in someone else’s story. He stops and says, “You’re right.” He clears his throat when his voice comes out quiet and hoarse, and turns around. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should – say something, try to explain. I wish I could, Melanie. I wish I had something – anything reassuring to say to you, to all of you.”

He glances at them each in turn, unable to look at them for long before darting his gaze back to the ground, to the walls. He winces when he looks at Basira, thinks of her signing her name while Elias watches her with that knowing smile. It was a look he’d become acquainted with when he first began working for the institute, and Elias took an odd interest in him. He hadn’t known why, then. He’d done his best to hide it, but the truth was that it – it had flattered him. Having his boss notice him, acknowledge his work. It just makes him feel sick now, to think of it. How easily he’d been played for a fool.

He clears his throat again and makes an effort at affecting the tone he used to take, in the early days, when reading statements. Safe, protected, reserved. Messy emotions hidden neatly away behind crisp enunciation and academic dispassion. “I would have been here – or at least in touch – if I could have. I didn’t mean to be gone so long, but there were – something came up. I was being held hostage, actually. Rest assured I am no happier with our current... situation than any of you are, but at the moment I think that all we can do is...our jobs. For now. We can talk, but – just give me a moment to – just give me a moment, please,” he says, and then yanks open the door to his office and shuts it behind him, his heart pounding wildly.

He leans against the door and breathes in the familiar smell. Old paper, the musty close smell of the air in the archives, leather. This office felt like safe haven once. Now it is as discomfiting as it is comforting. He fiddles with the tape recorder in his pocket, runs the pad of his thumb along its grooved side, and ventures to examine the stacks and boxes on his desk.

He doesn’t have long before Martin comes in, looking hesitant and with such a small, fragile flicker of hope that it's all Jon can do to swallow a lump in his throat and look away, fingers clenching around the tape recorder in his pocket, the one that stops and starts of its own accord these days, just like all the others. And then they talk. Martin is, predictably, worried, but doing his best not to be overbearing, and Jon appreciates the effort. He couldn’t take much fussing right now and doesn’t want to snap at Martin, who is looking at him with such genuine concern. Concern for Jon, not about him. He is beginning to treasure the difference. Martin’s worry is entirely about his well being and not at all about his humanity, as though the latter could still be taken for granted. Jon is so, so grateful he could just – he doesn’t know. Maybe in other times, before Prentiss...but things are different now. He is different.

And so is Martin. When Jon hears the others have been reading statements, it takes him a moment to parse what exactly his reaction is. Surprise, certainly. And then concern.

“Are the others helping you?”

“Oh, well, yeah, you know, when they can.”

“Make sure they do. Martin, please don’t -- take it easy, with the statements, all right? I don’t care what Elias tells you. They can be...a lot.”

“Oh.” Martin stares at him for a moment, his look too complicated to read. Or maybe Jon is just too much of a coward to read it. And then Martin gives that nervous, self-deprecating little laugh that used to make Jon grit his teeth but now just makes him sad while simultaneously loosening the knot of tension in his chest. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed hearing it. Or that he’d missed it at all. He blinks, blindsided by some great gulf of feeling he doesn’t dare look at head-on. “I know. I mean, I knew, before, what they were about and all, but I didn’t really – I don’t know how you do it.”

“Someone has to.”

“Do they, though?”

Jon just stares at him and Martin laughs again, fidgeting with his sleeves. “Right. No, I – yeah. For now. I get it. But Jon, are you – really, are you all right?”

“Yes. I will be.”

“Your hand–”

“It’s nothing. Just a burn.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m – don’t worry about me, Martin. Are – are you all right?”

Martin looks flustered and Jon feels a pang at how surprised and taken aback the other man is, watching Martin look down and wet his lips and huff out another breathy little laugh. Has he really been so callous that Martin thinks he wouldn’t care about his wellbeing?

“Oh, I’m – you know me,” Martin says. “I just – steady as she goes, and all that. No worries here.”

“Really, Martin, I–”

“I’m fine, Jon,” Martin says. His tone shuts Jon up at once. It’s firm and there’s a warning edge to it that he decides to heed, at least for now. If Martin doesn’t want to be fussed over – well, there’s a certain irony there, but he can understand. Martin’s voice is softer as he goes on. “Just -- just tired, is all, like everyone.” He nods at a box on Jon’s desk. “I gathered some of the stuff we’ve been working on there, for if you – for when you came back. Some research and a few statements and such I thought you’d want. Not that the statements are...well. You know. It’s not the same if it isn’t you taking them.”

The phrase is somewhat odd, but Jon might have let it slide without comment had Martin’s tone not aroused suspicion. It was purposefully light, as though Martin were treading carefully around an exposed nerve he didn’t want to hit. But why? Why did he think Jon would take offense to them recording statements? He knew he could be...perhaps intense about the statements, sometimes, but that didn’t warrant this sensitivity on Martin’s part. “What do you mean, it’s not the same?”

“Well, I don’t – you know, Jon.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“It’s just – I don’t know what it is, it’s just a thing, okay? We don’t have to talk about it right now. Do you want tea? I’m going to have some,” Martin says, and then retreats from the office, closing the door behind him. He – well, he fled, really. Jon blinks at the closed door for a moment before letting out a heavy breath.

“Okay,” he says, and picks up the first cassette and begins to listen.

Melanie and Basira are flicking pellets of rolled up notebook paper at each other across a long desk while Tim watches with dull, glazed over eyes and Martin struggles valiantly to focus on his research when Jon’s office door bursts open and they all look up with wary anticipation.

Jon clutches a tape recorder, looking flushed and flustered. “Excuse me,” he says, his voice comically thin and distraught before he clears his throat and lowers it. He holds up a cassette, schooling his expression into something prim and stern. “What is this?”

“Something awful, I’m sure,” says Tim.

Jon takes a breath and lets it out through his nose. “Listen. I know things have been – less than ideal around here, lately.”

“Is that really how you’d put it?” Basira says.

“Okay, things have been bad. But I would have still thought that while I was away, you’d have continued to take this seriously. Take – the statements seriously, at least.”

“You weren’t even here, and you’re going to critique our work performance? Seriously?” Melanie says.

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d – listen, I know Elias asked you to record, or so I’ve been told, but I’d rather you just – leave the statements alone. Don’t read them, don’t look at them, don’t even think about them if you aren’t going to – just don’t.”

“You warned us he’d get jealous,” Melanie mutters, looking at Martin, who blushes and shoots her a glare.

“Fine by me,” Tim says.

“But, Jon – Elias did ask, and – and well, there are a lot of statements, don’t you think you could – use the help, a little bit?” Martin says.

Jon licks his lips, looks cornered. “I – I just – one moment, please.”

He hurries across the floor with quick, jerky steps, knocks primly on Elias’ office door before letting himself in. Melanie walks over to the door and leans close.

“What are you doing?” Martin hisses.

Melanie just presses a finger to her lips. In a moment, Basira joins her. Martin looks around, bites his lip, and then goes to hover beside them.

“–don’t appreciate you delegating work to my assistants without asking me first, Elias.”

“Well, Jon, you weren’t exactly making yourself available. What would you have them do, just sit there gathering dust?”

“No, but I – there's other work to be done.”

“Other than what?”

“You know what.” Jon’s voice goes high and distressed, and Martin can imagine him wringing his hands. “They’re – the statements, they have to be done a certain way, the right way, understand? I don’t like them – they just don’t – they aren’t right, and it’s just not necessary to have other people touching – I mean, recording them, or doing anything with them, I have a – there's a certain way they’re supposed to be – not anybody can just – and it’s like those ones are used up now, and it won’t be the same when I re-record them, which I have to do, but it won’t feel the same, because I already listened to them, they’re – just less now. And it isn’t -- I don’t think it’s safe, either. They – get into your head. I would feel better if on just this one thing at least you would listen to me.”

“This sounds like a management issue, Jon. If you haven’t trained your staff properly, well, that’s really your own shortsightedness, isn’t it? I suggest you speak with your assistants and address these concerns yourself.”

The smug mockery in Elias’ tone turns Martin’s stomach. It’s almost as nauseating as the desperate, helpless confusion in Jon’s voice as he stammered and raved about the statements. Martin feels sick. He wishes he’d never touched those damn papers. But he knows it’s not his fault, Jon’s distress. He doesn’t know who or what’s fault it is, exactly, but he is beginning to suspect that it is the same force which makes him feel the uncomfortable sensation of a heavy gaze prickling the back of his neck nowadays every moment he is in the institute.

He shouldn’t have told Jon they’d recorded. Should have filed the damn recordings away, never mentioned them. Only it wouldn’t have felt right, somehow. And although it goes against everything in his nature, his need to be of use, he doesn’t think there’s anything he can do to protect Jon from this. To protect any of them from this.

“Get back,” Melanie hisses, and they all scramble away from the door and try to look busy when it creaks open and Jon steps out. He stands there regarding them for an awkward moment, straightening his shirt and fiddling with the tape recorder. He sniffs and holds up the cassette stiffly.

“Right,” Jon says. “So. It seems I’ve been somewhat neglectful of my duties in regards to properly training you all.”

“It’s the best thing about your management style,” Tim says. “Feel free to go on as if we aren’t here.”

“No. No, let’s – let’s talk about this. I was maybe a little harsh earlier, I was just – surprised. So. Statements. Let’s go over how we record statements.”

“Not much to it really, is there?” Basira says. “You find one, you read it, done.”

“Well, that’s – the general idea,” Jon says. “But there’s a little more to it than that if you’re to get it right.”

“Ah. You mean the voices? Let me just stop you right there, boss, keep you from wasting your time – never going to happen,” Tim says.

Jon falters, taken aback. “Excuse me? What – what voices?”

Melanie snorts. “God, is that what this is about? We aren’t being theatrical enough for you, seriously?”

“I don’t – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” Tim says. “Listen. What you have to do to keep work interesting is your own business, but personally, if I’d wanted to move into the entertainment field, I’d have stuck with publishing. They’re statements, not a radio drama. I’m not going to read them like one.”

Jon glowers at him, his voice tight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Since there seems to be some confusion, let’s have a listen to one of the statements in question, shall we?”

Jon presses the playback on his recorder and Tim’s long-suffering sigh comes from the machine along with an undercurrent of static. “Statement of, ah...Benjamen Hatendi. Hateendi...ugh...regarding, uh...ah...blanket, a dead friend, monster... Regarding his unavoidable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide – he couldn’t. Statement is from...ugh. 1983, March 2nd , and I guess...ugh...I guess I’m doing this one. Tim Stoker. Archival assistant. Archival prisoner...at the Magnus Institute. Statement. My parents never let me have a night light, I was always afraid but they would just – ugh. Wh – this is stupid. This is stupid. Look, look, if anyone’s listening to this useless tape, it was stupid when Jon was doing it, and it’s stupid now. I mean just – what's the point? We might as well be engraving them on wax cylinders, wh – whoever's listening to this, right now, you’re wasting your time. And if you work for the Magnus Institute, get out. If you can. I mean, that’s what really pisses me–”

Jon clicks the recorder off and crosses his arms, eyes narrowed. “Well?”

Tim heaves a rattling sigh. “Are we really doing this? You’re going to take offense at that? Listen, I never made any secret about what a waste of time I thought it was to digitize documents we already have on file. This is petty, even for you.”

“I don’t care about that,” Jon says, frowning and waving the recorder. “I care that you – that you spoiled the integrity of the statement with your personal grievances.”

Tim splutters. “Spoiled the integrity of – Jon, seriously, listen to yourself. Who gives a shit? And not to mention, it’s not as though you don’t bitch and whine into those recordings plenty – don’t lie, I’ve heard you doing it.”

Jon flushes and raises his chin, summoning all the haughtiness he can, however hollow it might be. “I’d appreciate it if you’d watch your language, Tim. This is still our workplace, and I am still technically your boss. You are free to add personal reflections at the beginning or the ending of a recording, if you feel compelled to. That’s not the issue.”

“Then what, oh almighty archivist, is the issue?”

“You have to introduce the statement properly, and once you start, you need to set yourself aside. No – no cross contamination. There’s a certain – order, to the words, and you have to – you have to do it right, and the same way, each time, or else – it's not whole, it’s not right.”

Tim stands, takes a step towards Jon with his hands clenched at his sides. He stops when Jon mirrors him by taking a step backwards, something like fear flashing in his dark eyes. Tim swallows down his sympathy. There was no space for it any more. “Get a grip, Jon,” he says. “Seriously, listen to yourself. You’ve always been particular, but for god’s sake, you’re – you sound possessed , or something. Don’t you see what he’s doing to you, to all of us?” Tim says, gesturing behind Jon at Elias’ office. “This isn’t you. Or at least, it wasn’t always. This is – something else, and I don’t want any part of it. But I guess I don’t have much of a choice,” Tim says, trailing off in defeat as the fight drains out of him. He sighs, running a hand through his hair.

Jon clutches the recorder, staring down at the ugly carpet in silence for a moment. His voice is small and carefully neutral when he says, “I just need them done a certain way, is all.” He gathers his wits and looks up, his gaze sharp and his voice stronger. “Melanie did an all right job, though I have some pointers for her as well. Martin, you too, you did, ah, well. Well enough.”

Melanie presses one hand dramatically to her chest. “Oh god, what a gift – backhanded praise from our illustrious leader who can do no wrong. I will treasure this moment always, Jonathan.”

Jon frowns and clears his throat. “Well. I did say it could use a little work.”

“By all means, oh mighty one, please enlighten us poor ignorant inferiors.”

Jon sniffs and glares at her. “Please stop that, Melanie. You’re making me uncomfortable. But fine, I will show you how I would introduce this statement. You don’t have to do it the exact same way, obviously, but you should – should have your own way of doing so, that’s consistent, and uninterrupted by personal thoughts. All right.” Jon clears his throat and begins, and the tape recorder in his hand clicks on. He doesn’t seem to notice and the rest of them don’t bother pointing it out. “Statement of Benjamin Hatendi, regarding a reckoning with a childhood fear of the dark. Original statement given March 2nd, 1983. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

The moment Jon began introducing the statement, his voice shifted. The strain and uncertainty left it to be replaced by brisk self-assuredness, unhurried and controlled. Once he was finished, he paused for a moment, finger twitching on the recorder as if to switch it off and move on with lecturing them, and then a sort of slight spasm went through him and his eyes glazed over and he continued to speak, his voice altering as he did so. Not to the extent that it was a stranger’s voice coming from his mouth, but close enough to be uncanny, and Martin suppressed a shudder at the sudden impression of Jon as an extension of the recorder in his hand, playing back, mechanical and puppet-like, a ventriloquist’s dummy with a cassette sitting at the back of his throat speaking through him.

“My parents never let me have a night light. I was always afraid, but they were just that sort of stubborn which doubled down when I screamed or cried about something, instead of actually listening. So no matter how terrified I might have been, I would always end up sleeping in the dark.”

“Is he really going to read the whole thing to us?” Basira muttered. “Because if so, I’ve got some filing to do.”

“I already read that one, and I did a fine job,” Melanie said. “You’ve made your point, okay, now stop.”

“He’s – he’s not reading,” Martin said.

“I wish he wasn’t,” Tim said, glaring at Jon, who was still speaking the statement.

“No, he – he doesn't have the statement with him,” Martin said. “He’s just – saying it.”

“Oh. Oh ,” Melanie said. “That is – freaky. Jon, stop. We get it. We suck at reading statements, you’re the master of amateur voice acting, lesson learned.”

“This is sick,” Tim muttered.

“Jon,” Martin said, stepping forward tentatively. “Would you – can you stop?”

Jon’s hazy eyes focused on him and he faltered, then went quiet, blinking at Martin in irritation. It reminded Martin of the look of someone woken abruptly from a deep sleep. “What?” Jon snapped.

“It’s just – you don’t have to re-record the whole thing. Melanie already did it.”

“I’m not – of course I don’t, I wasn’t going to – oh. I see,” Jon said, looking down at the tape recorder in his hand. He looked up at Martin with an uncharacteristic hint of vulnerable uncertainty in his gaze, and gave a sheepish, self-conscious laugh. “I guess I – got carried away. That – can happen, sometimes. One of the hazards of, of statement reading, as I’m sure you’ve all – all realized, having done it yourselves.”

“Nope. Can’t say I have,” Tim said.

“Well – it happens sometimes,” Jon finished lamely, casting a lost look down at the recorder.

“How’d you know what it said?” Melanie asked.

Jon looked up at her, brow wrinkled. “What?”

“The statement. How’d you know the lines?”

“I don’t – what?”

“You weren’t reading off the paper.”

“Of course I was reading off the – oh. I – well, you already recorded it once, that must be – that must be why. That hasn’t happened before, I mean not with a, a fresh one. I guess I just – just remembered, since I listened to your recording.

“Hell of a memory you’ve got,” Basira said. “Must be convenient.”

Jon smiled tightly. “Yes. Yes. Good memory. That’s all.”

“Oh, definitely,” said Tim. “Not that this place is turning you into some kind of abomination with a tape recorder for a brain and statements coming out your ears. Couldn’t be that.”

Jon flinched. “D-don’t say that.”

Tim’s gaze narrowed. “Why? Does that bother you?”

“Of course that bothers me,” Jon hissed, his voice sharp with undisguised fear. “Don’t you think – don't you know I–”

“What? It was just a little joke, Jon, about your workaholism, but by all means, please tell us why it’s struck a chord. You don’t have any reason to think this place might be turning us all into monsters, do you? Not like Sa – ugh.”

“Stop,” Jon says, his voice strained and tremulous.

He needn’t have bothered. Tim had lost all momentum at his own mention of Sasha and now sat still, looking tired and drained. He sighed. “It...doesn’t really matter, does it? Not like there’s anything we can do about it, I guess.”

“That’s not happening, Tim,” Jon said. “I won’t let it happen.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, boss. But I don’t really think you have much of a say in what goes on around here. I think it has a say in you.”

Jon clutched his recorder and looked down. His voice was restrained and stuffy when he said, “I was going to also address your abysmal recordings of statements taken direct from subjects. They were – alarming, to say the least. Alarmingly incompetent, that is. But I think – I think that’s enough for today, I need to...you’ll all just have to work on your interviewing skills, or else leave taking direct statements to me.”

“My interviewing skills are just fine, thanks very much,” Melanie said. “It was the strangest thing – the statement givers were just incoherent. And then I realized, no, this is normal – what isn’t normal is how eloquent they normally are. When they’re talking to you. What...why is that, Jon?”

Jon wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I-I – I don’t – I’m a good listener?”

“Daisy and Elias, weren’t they just saying something about you – compelling people to tell you–”

“No,” Jon said, cutting Basira off. “No, that’s – I don’t know what that’s all about yet, it’s not – I don’t make people tell me the statements, they want to talk. It’s – it’s completely voluntary. That’s how it’s always been. I don’t have – I can’t – the simplest explanation is the correct explanation. Is it not much simpler to believe that all of you just have poor bedside manner when it comes to statement givers than it is to think that I have some kind of – of power, or something?”

“No. Not really,” said Tim.

“It is,” Jon snapped. “This conversation is over. We’ll – continue training later, I have – I have work to do.”

He crossed the room and went back into his office before any of them could stop him. Not that they would. Why would they? They were all probably glad to have him away.

He sank into his chair and slumped against his desk, idly playing with the tape recorder. There was an itch at the back of his skull. He bit his lip. He could do some filing to take his mind off the steady compulsion building behind his teeth, beneath his tongue, inside his head. He could organize his paperclips by size and color. He could alphabetize the filing cabinet, he could...but who was he kidding?

The tape recorder clicked on of its own will and he sank further down in his chair and gave in, released a shaky breath. He clutched the recorder close to his face and murmured, “statement resumes,” and then he finished Benjamin Hatendi’s account through to the end.

By the end of it he only felt worse – the statement was stale, used, had failed to scratch the itch in his brain. Jon rubbed his eyes, ignored the burning ache behind them, and switched the recorder off, holding his finger on the button for fear that it would click back on and fill the air with its hateful monotonous whirring. He sat very still. If he could be very quiet and very still, then maybe the danger would pass them by overhead without taking notice, and they would all be spared from further harm. If he could only stay very still.

#links to ao3 but apparently read mores work again so i'll just slap it up here for the record #tma #the magnus archives #this was supposed to be light-hearted if you can believe that...it still kind of is all things considered

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somuchbetterthanthat · 5 years

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"Because - one relationship is bound to go wrong, and the other to get better, and I may have written Daisy and Basira working it out here but.... But well. i have thoughts about that ." I would really love to read your thoughts if you want to expand on this! The parallels between Dasira and JonMartin are just too interesting. (Also I agree and am actually more worried about Basira than Martin at the moment.)

Ha. Okay. This may turn long? As literally everybody must have noticed by now, I have a tendency to ramble. But here goes nothing:

The parallels between Daisy/Basira and Jon/Martin ARE so interesting.

First off, Basira and Martin have both been implied to be/said to be the most Important Relationship for Daisy and Jon.

At least for Daisy, it’s explicit: she only agrees to work for Elias because Basira signs the contract, Basira is said to be “her last anchor to humanity”. Basira is the only person Daisy talks about when she’s in the coffin as well, so we can assume that apart from Basira, she doesn’t have anybody else in her life that matters as much as Basira does. And there is, most definitely, a real reciprocity here: Basira says “she’s the best partner I ever have”. Basira loves Daisy. More importantly, she relies on Daisy.

For Jon and Martin, it’s more complicated, more implied, and there is definitely the element of Georgie. Georgie IS important to Jon, and I’d argue she is the one he is closest to (you don’t just protect your ex-boyfriend from uni from the cops and let him stay at your place for months after not having seen him for years just. Like that. That’s fucking deep. And the fact that Jon thought of her first - that’s deep, too.)

But Georgie has explicitely told Jon she couldn’t be part of this, and I don’t see Jon going against that. And so, in a way, Martin de facto becomes once more the person whose Jon is closest to. And I say “once more” because, obviously, I’m never ever going to get over this quote: “People say you two are close” “... closer than the others I guess.” Which! doesn’t mean much when you know Jon, but also means a hell lot when you know Jon, whose closest bond otherwise is his ex-girlfriend from uni he hasn’t seen in years. And again, it IS important to remember that when Georgie said “you need anchors jon” in season 3, a few episodes later this has turned into “I promised Georgie I would speak to Martin.”

And of course, we know that Martin is in love with him, so, there’s that, that’s pretty deep as well (especially since Martin doesn’t seem to have much more connections outside of the institute) (why are all those people so lonely)

ANYWAY. With that in mind, here we go in season 4, and Jon and Daisy are both “monsters”: one trying to deal with the fact that he chose “monsterhood”, and what it means for his humanity as he gains more and more unnatural abilities, the other cut off from “her monsterhood” violently, and having to relearn what it means to be “human” and how to deal with the latent “monsterhood” still poking at her ribs now that she’s out. Both of those people try to connect with the people who had always been there for them before, Martin and Basira; but both Martin and Basira are “busy” and don’t have time to be emotional support anymore.

Now, here are my actual proper thoughts. Under the cut because. well. [THIS IS SO LONG I AM SO SO SO SORRY. I WROTE A RAMBLY ESSAY. I’m sorry.]

Like I told you in my answer to your lovely comment: Basira and Daisy are starting this with an advantage: they’re partners. They’re equal partners, who’s been relying on each other for years. They know and care for each other, and are aware that the other cares for and knows them in return. IF Daisy (like in my fic) could manage to spot what is wrong with Basira, acknowledges what Basira can and cannot give to her right now, what Basira needs, then I think, genuinely, that they could talk about it and solve (at least) some of the problems between them. Because they’re a familiar team.

Jon and Martin have tried, multiple times, to talk to each other, and failed miserably, generally because of Jon; in season 2 because he couldn’t trust him, in season 3 because he was trying to protect him, and didn’t know how to mend the gap he’d created the season before. They have worked together, as a team, at the end of season 3 - but, the fact is, their relationship still suffers from a severe imbalance: not just “jon is martin’s boss” but really: Jon didn’t like Martin at first, and to everybody’s eyes, I suppose - most importantly martin - Martin cares for Jon way more than Jon cares for him. Which, inevitably, makes Jon reaching out now seem “too late”. And they still have to find their language, really, I think.

So, in all appearances…. It should go like I’ve written it? Daisy and Basira find common ground; they manage to go through this together. Whereas Jon and Martin have missed their chance, and with everything going on now, they’re just going to part more and more.

EXCEPT. No? I really don’t think it’s going to go like that.

Here’s the thing. Jon is unafraid to show his caring anymore. In fact, so scared he’s been of “losing his humanity” he seems adamant and fiercely determined to be soft, to be kind, to look for anchors and connections everywhere he can. He is learning to listen, and he is learning to express himself. He wants to save people, and he has. Sort of. He ‘saved’ Melanie. He definitely saved Daisy. And I am absolutely sure that, one way or another, he’s going to try and save Martin as well. He’s using his powers to be proactive. He was lost last season, terrified, but he said it himself at the beginning of season 4: his mind is clear now. focused. He’s reaching out. Willingly. Time and time again, even when rejected. But he’s also used on doing this on his own.

Daisy… Admitedly, we haven’t had much of Daisy yet, so I could be wrong, but Daisy is going to have to very much to an introspective work that may not allow her to reach out like Jon does. She is lost, she is scared, and she doesn’t know herself anymore, not entirely. Can she really help Basira the way Basira needs her to in those conditions? And would someone else’s help (like Jon) be enough that she doesn’t need Basira as much anymore? Because, Basira relied on Daisy, but Daisy relied on her even… more. She grew used to it, probably. And – a fact that I remembered not long ago… Daisy was already losing Basira to the Eye, even before the coffin. Daisy asked Basira to come with her on Elias’ missions, and Basira said she couldn’t. And Daisy was rattled by this. Daisy had difficulties being without Basira. What if it turns out that Daisy’s lesson now turns out to learn how to be without Basira?

Now as for Basira - well, Basira is. So, so well-suited for the distant, detached part of the Eye we’ve grown used to with Elias and Gertrude. And I think at this point it’s canon that she looks up to Gertrude, and finds her way to be the most efficient; Basira is practical; she has to. Basira relied on Daisy and herself, and then Daisy was gone, which left her mind. It’s important to say, I think, that she TRIED the emotional connections thing, in season 3? She became friends with Melanie. She invited Martin for drinks as well. But eight months being the one person protecting the institute rationnally, without seemingly nobody else to talk to - well. And I don’t think she’s going to back off from this. Basira wishes she could rely on Daisy, but she doesn’t need Daisy. She could keep moving without her. She did.

Here’s the thing, really, because I’m just going way way too long about this. Basira and Martin both made a choice to go on a path alone - Martin drastically so, let’s say. They both did this out of necessity, thinking they had no choices. Now Basira has all the cards in hands to change her mind: she’s got Daisy back. Different, but she’s got her. She could work with Jon, she could learn to trust Jon. But is she? Or is she going to keep thinking pratically about this? Logically? Because feeling hurts too much? Basira CARES. She cares a lot. She’s still mindful of people. Only she’s chosing mind over heart, because she tried heart over mind, and it led nowhere.

Martin though? Martin doesn’t have all the cards in hands yet. He doesn’t know about Jon’s changes, because he hasn’t let Jon show him, one way or another. Martin’s stubborn as hell, but he’s also soft, and he loves Jon, and against the lonely, that’s the best possible thing.

So WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY (god i’m sorry this is so long i’m sorry) is:

- It’s not emotions that may sway Basira right now, not yet. It’s rationnality. It’s all she’s got to offer. But Daisy is all emotions right now. Can she meet Basira’s back on the rational train? Because Basira’s “she’s dead weight” comment leads to imply that Basira absolutely cannot go back the emotional way.

- Jon and Martin though, are BOTH on the emotional wagon. Jon’s new emotional strengh may very well be what they need to actually meet half-way through.

Hence: both relationships’ stance are going to shift; Jon and Martin have the potential to form a new, stronger bond, where they will meet as equal emotionally. But Basira and Daisy are at risk of seeing their relationship grow extremely unbalanced, with Daisy needing Basira much more than Basira needs her.

Also, from a pure storytelling point of view: Martin’s role has always been important. He’s grown significally over last season, and his building relationship with Jon (platonic or romantic however you want to see it) has been ‘a red string’ leading the emotional journey of both character since day 1. But Jon and him HAVEN’T YET reached their Peak Equal Partnership, and I think it’s bound to happen.

Basira is also growing to be Jon’s rational mirror, and I think so far the show has not, like - let’s say the most rational, logical people are not the ones who end up “in the right” from like, the story’s point of view. Gertrude died; Sasha, who was the most rational of the original team, died first. Tim, who at the end applauded Gertrude’s ways and cut his ties to any of the other characters emotionally, died as well.

In my opinion —- Daisy and Basira’s relationship is not going to end well. For now, I think that: either Daisy will die trying to help Jon, or she’ll die trying to help Basira, trying to prove to her she can still help. OR, worst(?), she’ll go back to the Hunt for Basira. Because that’s what Basira needs, and Daisy needs her.

In any case, no matter how much I love and adore Daisy with my whole heart right now, this podcast is not made for nice things, and i’m really not sure she’s going to survive the season. (and now i had the terrible thought of her dying just as they get Martin back) (proving to jon that emotions work, proving to basira that rationality is the only thing that makes you keep going).

#i don't know how to express my thoughts in any way that doesn't end in a eight pages commentary #the magnus archives #tma chatting

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