Work Text:
Prologue
There’s blood starting to pool on Jon’s tongue.
He feels Martin’s trembling hands grip too tightly at his back, no doubt rupturing blood vessels, and had he more time alive it would probably bruise.
Maybe, after the dust settles and the ominous rumbling of the crumbling tower collapsing on them is defeated by the quiet stillness of the aftermath, maybe they’ll find them. One pulpy mass of flesh, two carcasses embracing in death as they should have done more often in life, never to be parted, never to be distinguished from each other again.
There’s blood on Martin’s face too, spattered on his cheek and chin where it spilled from Jon’s chest as he received his last kiss.
Jon is glad Martin decided to let him die while staring into his eyes - not for the grim irony of it, no – but because this way the man he loves won’t have to taste the blood overflowing from Jon’s insides to all inappropriate places, as well as feel it soak his hands.
Much better for the last kiss of their lives to be tinged with tears of pain and love and forgiveness, than the harsh metallic tang of blood.
He’s losing so much of it, Jon feels his strength and warmth abandoning him with it.
With one last impulse of energy he clutches the man he loves closer to himself, and lets that large, familiar body warm him with characteristic devotion one last time.
Then, he lets go.
There’s blood starting to pool on Jon’s tongue in this other place too, twenty-two years and an unknowable amount of time prior.
It isn’t from the perforation of heart and lung by the plunge of a loving blade anymore. Jon has simply bitten the inside of his cheek so hard the skin has ruptured, and pain covers his teeth in red.
He understands why that happened as soon as his senses register something more than the blood still in his mouth, as the texture and inexplicable heaviness of the blocky, cardboard book laying closed in his (small, he couldn’t quite remember ever being this small) hands comes into focus.
His eyes are clear when he looks down on it, the jagged lines of black and red racing across the sickly white cover, Mr Spider’s depiction seeming quite smug and content (though not for long, never for long).
Sated, like Jon had been after eating Helen’s life.
His gaze snaps back up, and he’s half an inch from a firmly closed door, anonymous and unimportant, so much so that when he casts his Gaze beyond it he sees a man watching tv with his wife on their lumpy couch in their decent but messy living room.
Jon is eight and too many years old, the door is shut, the book is closed, and even after unexpectedly arriving to see the light of day after an uncaring apocalypse and a loving knife to the chest, he still doesn’t remember the name of the awful boy that saved him.
Jon forces himself to contain his panic and dread more than he remembers doing the last time this happened, shrugs off his jacket and wraps the book with it, blocking that bulging, abominable spider’s vision of the world, denying sight to its satisfied, sinister drawn eyes.
He takes a moment to relish the pain of the cold winter air suddenly slamming into his frail child’s body, that doesn’t know scars yet and has even lost the reminder of his love’s last act of kindness towards him.
Jon, though, will not forget. The Beholding won’t let him.
Jonathan Sims, the first time 1995 came around, was scared and helpless, and never quite managed to regain control of his life until he knew the full weight of knowledge as it rewrote his DNA and all reality around him.
Jon, the second time 1995 comes around, is still scared - he always is and always will be - but the pressure of the ocean in his mind finally grants him agency. He’s danced to the rhythm and songs the Spider wished him to dance for years and years, without missing a step; but now he’s spent as a puppet, and if he doesn’t let this book ruin his life again he knows there will be no more threads of sticky web hiding in plain sight in his hair. Now his strings are cut, and Jon has never been much of a dancer anyway.
He takes a fortifying breath against the sweet punishment of the cold, swallows the grief that surged with the tears that wouldn’t come, and then he heads home.
There, Jon starts to plan.
________
It’s still 1995 (for him, the only time around, but after two hundred years they’ve all started to blur together; now he counts the passage of time in hosts and Archivists, and it suits him well enough) when Jonah Magnus, walking in young Elias Bouchard’s body, takes notice of a strange discrepancy in his Institute.
From his preferred perch for Watching, the comfort of his chair in his office, he notices, as he idly scans the Archives for anything to pique his interest, a foreign figure exit nonchalantly from the trapdoor to Smirke’s tunnels.
It’s a strange experience, really: he can barely make out the physical edges of it, diminutive against the imposing stacks of files looming over it, but somehow he cannot fully See it.
He tries harder, because that is quite strange indeed, and if it’s caused by its being properly Strange he will have to take precautions.
Static clouds his vision as he tries, just as much as if he were intently Looking into Smirke’s tunnels, and suddenly he Knows it isn’t Strange, it cannot be.
Elias scrambles out of his chair and hurries down the stairs to investigate what this Beholding-touched (more than touched, if he’s honest with himself, but Elias rather rarely is) figure is, secretly a little anxious his Patron has taken matters into Its own metaphorical hands and decided It would rather get rid of him after all this time.
He keeps his metaphysical eyes on it and thanks his luck - or maybe the Spider, it’s always so difficult to discern one from the other - that it’s hours past closing and he’s the only person remaining in the Institute other than the janitorial staff.
That little figure picks up a box of statements and ambles into the breakroom, shaking a bit under the weight of packed paper.
When Elias arrives he’s quite surprised to find it’s a child, small enough they had to step on the box they carried from the stacks - Elias is glad there is not a single true statement in that box, or he’d have to forcibly remove the little brat - to reach the stove, where they seem to be making tea with the saddest face Elias has ever seen on a child (not that his experience with children is extensive enough to even guess their precise age and, frankly, he does not even care to).
He watches them in silence, taking stock of their scraggly appearance.
They look on the wrong side of underfed, their baggy jeans and t-shirt dusty and smeared with grime that makes Elias cringe in his crisp suit. They’re wearing a jacket that has clearly seen extensive use, and the general weirdness is accentuated by the trainers with pink accents and hair choppily sheared and definitely a few days into needing a wash.
Elias honestly can’t figure out if it’s a male or a female brat, but he supposes it doesn’t make much of a difference when those big, wide eyes he sees fixed forward shine eerily with Beholding’s presence.
He’s startled from his reverie when the teapot whistles suddenly, prompting the child to stop gently swaying; they methodically pour water in a cup and, without turning around, ask in a high yet surprisingly firm voice, “Jonah, do you want a cuppa?”
Elias squints down at them, repressing a startled flinch at the name, and desperately tries to understand how this small concentration of the Eye could even come into being.
“Sure.”
He sits down and tries to Look at them again, but he’s once again met with fierce static, buzzing angrily as if annoyed by his repeated onslaughts.
Elias is pretty sure the little thing is purposefully keeping him out.
His eyes refocus on the physical plane when a cup gets pushed in front of him, and the child sits down to daintily sip at their own tea.
When a few moments pass and still there’s only a tense silence, Elias loses some of his patience.
“Well? Who and what are you?”
They shoot him what is surely supposed to be a dark look - honestly, did they think Elias would just quietly sit there and wait for them to get going? - but the effect is ruined by some awfully cut bangs getting into their face as they do it.
Not to mention the top of their head barely reaches Elias’s waist.
“I’m an avatar of the Eye.”
“I would think,” he interjects, annoyed, “that much was obvious -“
“I have a warning for you, Jonah Magnus.”
Elias looks at them skeptically.
They look skeptically back.
Before it becomes a thing Elias tries to get the conversation back on track.
“Well, here I am.”
When he’s only met with silence he can’t help but idly wonder whether all children are this tedious - and if they are, how the planet’s population keeps multiplying without a hitch.
“I’m from the future,” they finally begin, and Elias can’t suppress a slight twitch of his eyes, widening in surprise “I’ve seen more than you could ever imagine. I am here to stop you from ever trying the Watcher’s Crown again.”
As soon as those choppy, almost disjointed sentences seep into his mind, Elias is suddenly awash with trepidation, and he starts wildly conjecturing as to whether that means his ritual will work out, trying it again now that he knows and Knows more, or if it will only have side effects, like the last time.
If this child is the side-effect, it might just be worth it.
“Is that so?”
He affects nonchalance, and to fully display his disinterest he rises his mug to take a dainty sip of tea.
“Or maybe you’d rather die.”
Elias puts the tea down without having touched it and calmly looks at the child, suppressing the urge to grit his teeth.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If only…” they sigh, weary, and gulp down their tea like a desperate, hardened grown man does whiskey.
Elias can’t deny the deep intrigue he feels surging inside his brain like a fire-alarm, only deepened by the exasperation and bafflement at being so thoroughly denied access to his opponent’s mind.
Distracted, he mirrors the child’s gesture.
And is immediately helpless to stop himself from spitting out the sludge he’d just drunk.
He sees the little hellion smile behind their own cup, the cat that got the cream and successfully offered tea with salt in it.
“So why are you here?” he barks out, trying to regain his composure but only half succeeding.
“To watch you. I’ll keep an eye on you, Jonah Magnus.”
“I see.”
Elias ignores the continued threats, and tries to keep an open mind. It’s not that he doesn’t believe them - he does - but he’s rather sure they can be worked around, especially if the entity in front of him is truly a child.
What remains is an intensely peculiar being infused and brimming with his Patron’s presence, who claims to know about the future. Even if their intentions are currently falling into the more… confrontational side of things - the thing is actively antagonising him, and seemingly deriving great pleasure from it, but Elias won’t let them have the satisfaction of succeeding in getting under his skin - he doesn’t doubt that it will be useful to have them near. This way, he rationalises, he’ll keep an eye on them in turn, and who knows? They may yet be swayed to land a hand for this potential reenactment of the Watcher’s Crown, after being properly… guided .
(The Spider hovers all over them. Elias only has to pluck those strings hanging loosely around them and puppeteer them the right way. How difficult could it be with a child, even one so deeply touched?).
All things considered, sacrificing a measure of his own comfort is hardly anything, when the prospects are so rosy.
“And you plan to do that while… lodging in the tunnels, I presume?”
The child does not reply.
“Do you have anywhere to go?”
They squint at him, and abruptly rise from the chair they’re perched on, marching towards the counter.
“I’m alone.” They answer, which is not really what Elias asked, and therefore makes it all the more interesting.
Elias files it for closer inspection at a later date.
(It doesn’t take much inspection to spot the wisps of Loneliness wafting off them.
Elias hasn’t been this intrigued in years.)
“And with that much static clouding your little head I suppose you need statements.”
He’s glared at rather pettily, before the scrawny thing haughtily huffs out, “I do.”
“Then if it’s alright by you I’ll keep you with me. To check there isn’t a rabid servant of the Eye stalking London.”
“If you think I’ll fall into your schemes,” they point a thin finger menacingly at him, and Elias is surprised to find this utterly childish mannerism in a servant (what did they call it? Avatar ? Now that’s an interesting description-) of his Patron, “you have another thing coming.”
“Sure, I do.” he deadpans “Well, I don’t want to stay here all evening, if it’s the same to you I would like to head home.”
“I need statements first.”
“Then you’re taking them with you,” Elias concludes, suddenly impatient to reflect on this new discovery after a good night’s sleep. After all, he will have plenty of time to study this anomaly that so fortuitously fell into his lap. “If you’re anything like an Archivist then I won’t stay here another hour for you to finish them.”
“Fine.”
So Elias heads into the main area of the Archives and gets out the first two files that call to him as true.
Obviously it isn’t that simple.
The child looks at them and scrunches their nose.
“I’m not in the mood for Flesh statements, I just ate.”
Elias adds to the ever growing list of things he knows about this spooky brat: knows about Smirke’s taxonomy, infuriatingly picky and immensely annoying.
“Which do you want?”
Their eyes seem to glow greener for a moment, before they point to a top shelf.
“Statement 9560802 and 9871105.”
Elias looks blankly at them.
The maddening little thing strides forward - they always seem to be moving with purpose, as though they had a perpetual voice in their head bellowing lay on, Macduff, and who knows, maybe they do - and looks, seemingly annoyed at the universe, at the aforementioned top shelf, definitely far out of reach for them. Then they look around, seemingly lost.
“Where does Gertrude keep that rickety ladder nowadays?”
The child mumbles as they scan the room, but Elias, who doesn’t think Gertrude would necessarily react well to the news of the new presence of an Eye avatar under ten years old roaming her Archives and moving things around, suppresses his distaste for the little thing’s filthy clothes and simply picks them up and elevates them in the vicinity of that shelf.
Their eyes go wide with panic for a second and their arms flail before winding around his neck, gripping him in a stiff hold.
Then they glare down at him.
“This was majorly unprofessional of you, Jonah.”
Elias doesn’t deign it with a response, beyond pointing out, “It’s Elias.”
The child huffs, and turns to the shelves he’s now in reach of, hands going sure as they take two folders, one distinctly older than the other.
Then they look back at Elias.
“Accepting your help doesn’t mean I won’t be watching you.”
“Of course.”
“You’re never going to win, Elias.”
He raises an eyebrow at that.
“Two can play at that game.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” they answer, spiteful like a child can never be (or can they?)
“Do your best, pipsqueak.”
The brat huffs in indignation - they seem to do that a lot - and wriggles with purpose, signaling their request to be put down.
Elias complies, and heads for the stairs and out of the Archives, asking himself if he should already be regretting his earlier firm decision to bear all discomfiture to study and possibly manipulate this weirdly-wrapped well of Knowledge and power.
One look at the child trailing after him, with his hands clutched on the statement files, eyes glowing that unnatural neon green of theirs, before they refocus on him and their owner proceeds in blowing a rather pathetic raspberry at him, tells him that yes, he probably will.
Still, he’s determined to see this through, at least until he wrings every secret he can out of them.
They’re halfway out of the Institute when he suddenly realises he’s forgotten to inquire after potentially crucial information.
“If you’re going to be living at my pleasure could I at least ask for your name?”
The child studies him for a moment, and again they’re enveloped by that pregnant silence which seems to follow this creature as a permanent fixture.
“Jonathan Sims,” he answers after a minute, with the same conviction Elias used to introduce himself when his second body was still new and strange, when he had to establish to himself his own sense of identity. “You can call me Jon.”
