Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Oh my god!” Martin shrieked, voice jumping up an octave and threatening to break.

The office door slammed into the wall as Melanie charged in with a battle cry and a fire extinguisher raised threateningly. Her eyes went first to Martin, stood just a few paces into the office, who whirled around to greet her with wild eyes.

“Jon shot someone!”

And indeed he had. Smoke still wept from the barrel of his pistol - a rather old fashioned piece, but obviously well taken care of. The hand that held it was steady, betraying no hesitation nor remorse. Jon himself stood in front of his desk, one arm braced on the solid wood while the other, outstretched, bore the offending weapon. The manner in which he held it was almost careless, and entirely too comfortable.

“Oh my god! What the hell have you done?!” Melanie yelled, eyes wide at the rapidly growing pool of inky darkness spreading from the misshapen body.

Jon looked at her sharply - and there was an unfamiliar edge to his expression that made Melanie distinctly uncomfortable, though she couldn’t place why. “I fucking shot it, what does it look like?”

Both assistants were rather taken aback at that.

There was resounding silence as they both paused to assess their boss. A concerning volume of blood was steadily trickling from the side of his head, down his neck, and proceeding to soak into his severely rumpled button down, flowing from a nasty wound at his temple. Despite this, his expression seemed more alert than they’d seen of him in months; since the Prentiss incident, he had become steadily more drawn and tired, developing deep shadows under his eyes and a perpetually haunted look. Now his eyes gleamed bright and present, and even the darkness beneath them couldn’t diminish the energy he seemed to have.

“Are there any more of them? Wouldn’t want them getting away,” Jon declared, sweeping past Melanie and out into the archives proper. His tone was entirely too bright, bordering on...excited. His assistants shared a heavy glance behind his back, a silent but loaded exchange that was swiftly interrupted by another alarming flurry of gunshots, voices, and…

Laughter?

This was officially far too much. Even Martin, in all the time he’d worked here, had rarely heard so much as an amused huff from Jon, and yet here he was cackling as another shot rang out. Worst still, he sounded disturbingly cheerful for a man currently fighting for his life against enemies they didn’t understand.

There was a brief reprieve from the scuffle, and Melanie took the opportunity to go marching out the door after him.

“Come to join in? I’ve got this well in hand, but I suppose we can share the fun. I do hope you know how to use that?” Jon called from the far end of the room where he was reloading. He snapped shut the cylinder of his revolver and gestured with it towards the bright red canister still gripped in Melanie’s hands.

Melanie, to her credit, stood her ground with resolve at the sight of her boss standing covered in blood, surrounded by inhuman corpses, and brandishing a loaded gun in her direction as carelessly as if it were a toy. “I’m not so sure they’re the ones I need to be worried about right now. What the hell happened to you?”

“Well you see, now that’s quite a tale, and one I frankly don’t feel I could properly tell in the moments we have before the rest of them come running.”

“To hell with them, I’m more concerned about you!” Melanie raised her extinguisher again, this time squarely facing off with the man who looked very much like Jonathan Sims, but was acting less and less like him by the minute. “How do I know you’re even Jon? You’re certainly not acting anything like him, and it wouldn’t be the first monster to impersonate one of us.”

At this point, Martin had emerged from the office behind her. Tentatively, he stepped around her, hands half-extended in a placating gesture. “How about we all just calm down. Jon, it looks like you took a rough hit in there, maybe you should sit down for a moment. We’ve got first aid kits in the back, I can patch up that-”

“First aid? Don’t make me laugh! It’s gonna take a lot more than a measly blow to the head to take me down. Now I know you lot aren’t exactly up to date here, I only just got caught up myself, but I can assure you-”

Melanie cut him off with a menacing step forward and a flourish of her weapon. “Then update us.”

Jon opened his mouth to answer, but a cascading, mechanical whine was heard from somewhere far above them, muted through the floors of the building. It carried on for several seconds before tapering off. All eyes turned to the doorway behind Jon, the only passage from upstairs into the archives. Jon looked grim and hoisted his gun, taking miniscule steps back to place himself squarely in the center of the room, between his assistants and the door.

“Wha-what was that? Are there more of them coming? None of the others sounded like tha-”

Melanie shushed Martin, shoving him behind her. Neither of them could see Jon’s mouth press into a firm line, nor the tightening of his grip on his weapon, but they did hear his rough whisper a few seconds later as it broke through the tense silence.

“Worse.”

Without dropping his gaze nor his gun, Jon reached one hand down to his pocket and fetched a pocket knife, tossing it over his shoulder. Martin, after a brief and harrowing fumble, managed to catch it. Wordlessly, Melanie snatched it from him and handed him the fire extinguisher instead.

Earlier that day…

Jon sighed and clicked the recorder off. He took a moment to breathe and relax and dismiss the ever-present weight of being Watched; it was always strongest when he read statements, and it would be several seconds before the residual terror eased enough for him to continue working.

Once he felt more or less settled back into his own body, Jon leaned back in his chair and ran a weary hand down his face. Recording statements was exhausting as ever, but the past few days it had seemed even worse. There was a strange pressure in his skull, right behind his eyes, from the moment he sat down at his desk to record. He was no stranger to headaches even on a good day - he’d been plagued with them most of his life - but this pressure didn’t have the same flavour as his usual pains. Regardless, he had work to do, and a measly headache wasn’t going to stop him. He’d suffered far worse in this job.

“With my luck, it’s probably just a migraine…” he muttered bitterly, dropping his hand with a huff and returning his attention to the documents in front of him. Migraines were no stranger either, although they did present a more serious interference. Absently, he reached down and pulled open a desk drawer, distractedly searching for something to ease the pain; he usually kept a bottle of paracetamol on hand. In his experience, it was a toss up whether medication actually helped, but it was worth a try if only to feel like he was doing something to make it go away.

His fingers brushed against something cold and hard and metallic. Jon flinched back and turned to look, but there was nothing notable in the drawer beyond assorted office paraphernalia: a handful of files, several pens, a lint roller, spare tapes, and the bottle he’d been searching for. Nothing remotely resembling...whatever he’d touched. He could have sworn he'd felt something too large and heavy to be one of the tapes. He might have guessed a stapler, but his stapler was clearly sat on the far corner of his desk.

Jon pulled the drawer open as far as it would go, mentally cataloguing its contents as if he’d somehow missed something big and metallic and obvious. Files, pens, lint roller, spare tapes, paracetamol. A few stray bobby pins and loose paper clips. And...no, that was all. Wasn’t it?

Except it wasn’t. There was something else there. Right?

He adjusted his glasses and squinted through the pressure that was rapidly building behind his eyes, but he could see nothing else. Files, pens, lint roller, tapes, paracetamol. Bobby pins and paper clips. He looked at each item, eyes sliding from one to the next, barely registering the spaces between. He blinked and leaned back and assessed all the contents of the drawer at once, and from there he could almost make out the shape of…! But his vision grew unfocused and he found himself staring at the floor under the drawer. He counted the individual items again, running through the same list. Files, pens, rollers, tapes, bottle.

He could see nothing else.

He was on the brink of reaching into the drawer and searching with his hands, but he dismissed the notion. It wasn't important. At this point, the pain was growing sharper - a dull ache settling in to the base of his skull and creeping upwards. Grumbling aimless curses at the universe, he grabbed the paracetamol and slammed the drawer shut.

The tension in the room eased as he did, as if something present - some unknowable audience - had let out a deep sigh.

Slightly less earlier that day...

Three hours later and Jon remained in his office. The painkillers had not, in fact, been of any use, despite all the effort of locating them. The dull ache in his skull had met the sharp pain behind his eyes, and now the two were performing an incomprehensible, intermittently agonising tango through his brain. Two hours ago he had taken a quick break to snap at his assistants to “keep it down out there, would you? Some of us are actually trying to get work done!” Forty-three minutes ago he had shut off the lights in his office and was doing his level best to read and organise documents by the dimmed light of his laptop screen, and occasionally the torch function on his mobile. It was almost helping too.

In the darkened room, he could no longer see the drawer. No more pausing to look at it when his mind wandered. No more glimpses from his periphery. It was out of sight, hidden in shadow, out of reach of the feeble screen light.

It was, however, far from out of mind.

Despite his best efforts, Jon could not stop his thoughts from straying back to that strange incident earlier in the day. He had been so sure, for just a moment, that there had been something else sat in his drawer, something that should have been obvious - and something that, as he grasped to recall it, felt increasingly familiar. Like he should know it. More than once he had become lost in thought contemplating it, only to rouse himself a moment later and find his hand resting on the drawer handle, poised to open it. Each time, he found it harder and harder to look away, yet more and more nauseating to keep looking.

The weight of being watched was also growing more insistent, keeping pace with the feeling the he himself was looking for something. The latter was a persistent tugging at his awareness, like he’d lost something significant but he couldn’t recall what it was or where he’d left it; like someone was knocking on his office door to tell him something urgent, but he couldn’t hear them; like there was somewhere he needed to be, an important appointment he was late for, but he’d lost his watch and didn’t have the time. It was...

It was distracting, that’s what it was. Halfway through the statement he was recording, Jon found himself losing focus and again noticed his hand had crept toward the drawer.

“Oh this is ridiculous. It’s just a drawer, I don’t…”

He trailed off, eyes locked on the handle now firmly in his grip. The feeling of watching became heavier, scrutinising and critical, almost disapproving. Jon released his pent up breath in a frustrated huff.

“No, I am not going to continue sitting here in the dark, mulling over this mystery when there’s a perfectly reasonable solution,” he muttered irritably to the darkened room.

The drawer hissed with the friction of wood as he yanked it open. Its contents clattered and slid around, and among the noise he definitely heard the dull thunk of something hard and heavy. Much harder and much heavier than any of the supplies he kept in there. Everything remained shrouded in shadow, barely silhouetted by the dim brightness of his computer, but he didn’t reach to turn on any more lights. Earlier his eyes had failed him even with all the lights on, but here in the dark he felt closer to the answer. He felt like he could almost see…

A shape. Glinting dully with reflected light. Long, hard, and cold.

There was something else in his drawer.

Slowly, not with any hesitance but with anticipation, he reached in to grasp it.

Chapter Text

An ominous, shuddering boom rattled the foundations of the building. The three of them stood rigid amid the stacks, scarcely daring to breathe as the bones of the Institute settled and dust filled the air with a dry haze. Tension ran thick, almost tangibly so, keeping them restrained in their ready positions, eyes scarcely blinking and trained on the door.

They carried on like this for a while - so long it was almost comical. Martin shifted nervously, casting a glance at Melanie, but she just shook her head minutely. Her eyes flickered to him, then Jon, then back to the door. Martin quelled his anxiety and tried to take reassurance from the still form of the Archivist several paces ahead. He had just about managed to steady his nerves when the precarious silence was broken abruptly.

“Fuck’s sake - come on out, stop wasting my time. Haven’t you done enough of that by now?” Jon yelled, dropping his stance and gesticulating wildly with the gun. His tone was impatient and rough, but betrayed none of the apprehension he’d demonstrated previously. He just sounded...annoyed?

A chuckle was heard from within the stacks next to Melanie. Startled, she lashed out with the knife, plunging it deep in the chest of a figure that certainly had not been there before.

“That’s one way to make a first impression,” said the impaled man with a sharp grin. His hair was long and dark and held off his face by a pair of - were those aviator goggles? Oh, and a steady stream of blood now pulsed down his front from where Melanie’s knife was buried to the hilt in his chest.

“Shit! Where the hell did-”

Melanie’s horrified exclamation was cut off by the abrupt ring of a gunshot, and the stranger staggered back a pace, into one of the shelves behind him. The knife, still lodged in his chest even as Martin dragged Melanie back with a wordless cry of alarm, was now joined in its crimson work by a neat hole in his throat. Between the both of them, there was by this point a viscerally upsetting amount of blood claiming the floor at his feet.

“Gunpowder Tim, why am I not surprised. I suppose the rest of the crew are not too far behind?” Jon lowered his smoking gun, letting it flop to his side, and scowled at the newcomer. With that dour expression, Martin could almost believe it was actually his Jon, the Jon he’d worked with for years, casting his disapproval at an unsatisfactory file or glaring at his laptop when another statement failed to record. However, the illusion was shattered all too quickly by the blood and the loaded weapon still very much present, held loosely in his hand, and Martin hadn’t the energy to summon it back.

The newcomer - was he really called Gunpowder Tim? - opened his mouth to reply, but all that came from his throat was a choked, unpleasantly wet sound, and a fresh pulse of blood. He rolled his eyes and vaguely flapped his hands, readjusting his posture to lean more purposefully against the shelf with his arms crossed. Jon’s scowl deepened, such that Martin itched to go fetch him a new cup of tea. He squashed the impulse; this problem was possibly beyond the power of tea.

“Fine, take your goddamn time,” Jon said bitterly, although without much severity. It was almost casual; exasperated, but in the way one might be irritated with a friend who’d played a particularly inconvenient prank. “I’ve already been stuck here for years, what’s a couple more hours?”

Gunpowder Tim quirked an eyebrow at him, pointing to his throat meaningfully as if to remind Jon that this was his own fault. Jon responded with a finger of his own and dragged a nearby chair around to sit in. He seemed to be settling in to wait for something, although it was not clear what. Melanie took this as an opportune time to abandon what remained of her patience.

“Is this the part where I get to ask questions now? Because if not, I’d really like to fast forward to that bit,” she demanded, empty fingers curling loosely as if missing the knife still buried in Tim. “For starters, who the hell is this? And what the hell happened to Jon? Why do you have a gun, and why the fuck aren’t you dead?!” Her questions vacillated between the two men before her, punctuated by a fiercely determined glare - the fire in her eyes was almost enough to drown out the fear.

Jon sighed and lounged back in his chair. “I suppose you will be wanting some exposition. Almost a shame the rest of the band isn’t here yet, this one might make a tale worth telling properly. I assume they’re back on the ship still, or maybe upstairs taking care of the rest of whatever this lot are,” at this he indicated the bodies around the room, still oozing a menacing dark fluid, “although we’ll have to wait for Tim to find his voice again before we’ll get any straight answers about that.”

“At this point I’ll take a straight answer about literally anything.”

Slightly earlier than slightly less earlier that day…

Martin settled his bag on his desk and shrugged off his jacket. He’d just returned from a rather disappointing trip to track down some leads. A couple of statements he was researching referenced a particular old bookshop in Soho, and he’d hoped to chat with the owner to verify a few details, but every time he tried to visit the shop it was closed.

He glanced over at the only other occupied desk as he settled back in. “Afternoon, Melanie,” he greeted.

Melanie waved vacantly without looking up from her computer. She had her elbow propped up on her desk, chin resting on her hand as her eyes trailed across the screen. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth set in a frown. It was an expression caught between a scowl and a grimace, but only vacantly, like she was being forced to watch something moderately unpleasant but hadn’t anywhere better to be. It was a very common expression in this job.

“I was thinking I might make some tea. D’you want any?”

Melanie hummed noncommittally, still intent on her screen. He took that as a no, and also an indication that conversation was probably not a thing that would be happening today. Wordlessly, he grabbed his mobile from his jacket pocket and proceeded toward the break room.

“Watch out for Jon today, he seems to be in a mood,” Melanie said as he passed her desk, voice dull with either boredom or frustration. “Came out not long ago to snap at me.”

“Right,” said Martin, and nothing further. That was not altogether unheard of, though he did feel an all too familiar pang of concern. Almost involuntarily, his eyes flitted toward the closed door of Jon’s office.

The lights under the door were off. If he didn’t know any better - and if he couldn’t hear the faint murmur of Jon’s voice, likely recording a statement - Martin might take that as a sign that the Head Archivist wasn’t in. But he did know better. Jon was always in. It was sometimes hard to believe he didn’t actually live here in the Archives, what with the hours he kept. It was anyone’s guess why he was working in the dark, but regardless, Martin made a note to be as unobtrusive as possible when he returned with Jon’s tea.

Slightly later than slightly less earlier that day….

It can’t have been too long before Martin was back, stood in front of the closed office door, a mug of tea in each hand. Sure, maybe he’d gotten distracted scrolling through various social media on his mobile while the kettle boiled, and perhaps he’d had to set the kettle boiling all over again when a particularly interesting article captured his attention long enough for the water to cool beyond acceptable steeping temperature. And perhaps the kettle they had was old and not particularly efficient.

But even with all that, it was still quite a surprise to open the door - after knocking quietly, of course - to find Jon fast asleep at his desk.

The lights were still off, and Martin remembered what Melanie had said about Jon’s earlier mood. Closing the door most of the way behind him to keep the light out, he crept in as silently as he could and placed one of the two mugs on the corner of the desk. Then he quickly turned back round and exited the office, careful to shut the door as quietly as possible behind him. He definitely did not stumble and nearly trip on a box of tapes on his way out. And even if he did, Jon didn’t so much as stir from his sleep. So no harm done.

He returned to his desk, still making a point to be quiet, to dig back in to the bookshop statement. He had an idea based on some old photos of the shop he had managed to track down, if he could only find where he’d put them....

Melanie finally looked up from her screen to watch him bemusedly as he struggled to re-arrange his laptop and files as silently as possible. After several seconds of Martin shuffling everything around in an exaggeratedly slow and cautious fashion, she opened her mouth to comment, but he cut her off with a whispered “Shh! Jon’s asleep!”

Melanie’s mouth clicked shut and she looked over at the closed office door with surprise. “Asleep?” she echoed, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t think he even bothered sleeping anymore. Too spooky or something.”

“He’s still human, of course he needs to sleep! And you’ve seen how exhausted he is these days. It’s probably best if we try not to disturb him. He could use the rest.”

His attention was then captured by the corner of an old photo sticking out from under a stack of other notes, and so he missed the way Melanie rolled her eyes as she returned to her laptop.

For about three minutes there was no sound save the gentle shifting of papers and the clicking of Melanie’s mouse. Then:

“If he’s really asleep in there, he won’t be needing us for anything any time soon.”

Martin looked up to see Melanie tapping her fingers on her desk and looking meaningfully toward the doorway out of the Archives.

“Lunch?” she prompted.

Martin sighed, glanced over the mess he’d managed to make of his desk, and nodded. “Yep. Lunch.”

They departed soon after, and thus were not around to hear the first tell-tale scratching at the trapdoor.

Chapter Text

Jon barked out a laugh and kicked his chair back to balance precariously on two legs, steadying himself by propping his feet up on nearby stacked boxes of statements. Oblivious to the borderline scandalous look being shot his way by Martin, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and his web-patterned lighter. A deafening silence fell as all occupants of the room watched him click it on - Jon, of all people, so brazenly flaunting an open ignition source in his archive! - and light his cigarette. He finally looked up after a deep inhale, puffing out a smooth stream of smoke and meeting the hard gazes of his assistants with an unapologetic stare.

Martin’s mouth worked open and closed for a moment as he struggled to figure out where to even begin. “Jon, I think- I think you better explain what all….this,” he waved broadly at the room and its occupants, “is all about.” There was forced calm in his voice, though he looked about ready to keel over.

“To start with,” Jon began, smoke spilling from his lips as he shaped the words, “my name isn’t Jon, it’s Jonny. Jonny d’Ville. I’d say pleased to meet you, but, well.” He laughed darkly. “For the past, oh I don’t recall, several years? Longer? I’ve been stranded here among you mortals because my crew decided to fucking mutiny and put me in time out. Hardly fair, all things considered, but I’ll deal with that when I get back to my ship.”

“Your….ship?” Martin echoed faintly.

Jon - no, Jonny - grinned rakishly at him. Martin may have often fantasised about making Jon smile, but he decided he didn’t quite like this one. It was too alien, too out of place - it warped the familiar features of Jonathan Sims into…someone else.

“Oh yes! My ship, the starship Aurora. Home to the most disreputable and duplicitous band of immortal space pirates you could ever have the misfortune of meeting. And of course, most importantly, myself - your humble captain.” At this he bowed his head and gave a flourish of his arm to mimic a proper bow. His chair wobbled hazardously.

Gunpowder Tim coughed out something that sounded suspiciously like “first mate.” Jonny flipped him off again.

“Oh god - you’ve finally snapped haven’t you?” Melanie cried, running her hands through her hair and beginning to pace. “Do you even hear yourself? I mean really, spaceships? Immortal pirates? You’ve gone completely mad! You’re not some- some space captain, you’re our boss! You’re a stuffy old archivist with no social life! You do nothing but shut yourself in your office and record statements because you're too paranoid to have a proper conversation - you hardly even speak to anyone these days except to follow up on those bloody cases, and now you expect us to believe you have some secret past leading a lunatic crew of aliens? How hard did you hit your head??”

Martin broke in before she could continue her tirade. “Jon, you can’t seriousl - listen, just stop playing around and tell us what’s really going on. This isn’t funny.”

“Well now, that’s a matter of perspective. I’m sure the crew think it’s right hilarious.” At that, he shot a half-heated glare at Tim, who was still stood propped up against the shelf, grinning and bleeding profusely. “If it’s proof you’ll be needing, though, that can be easily arranged.”

And he shot himself clean through the head.

A while later than the earlier captions but not much earlier than the later events…

It was dark.

He felt...heavy. Or all too light? Somewhere behind his eyes a throbbing pressure was slowly dissipating - drifting away like smoke from a barrel, bleeding out of him like blood from a mortal wound, and leaving behind a dense, disorienting ache. He felt off-balance, like he'd been...re-arranged somehow. Shuffled around. Like everything had been pulled out from inside him, tossed in a salad, and shoved back with no consideration for fit or placement or proper food handling practices.

There was something uncomfortable wedged between him and the firm surface upon which he was sprawled. It was small and hard and had enough stubborn edges to be a proper nuisance.

Groaning at the waves of discomfort brought on by moving, he slowly lifted his head off the desk and blinked open weary eyes. Immediately he was hit with a strong bout of dizziness and the creeping realisation that it was still dark, even with his eyes open. And it was quiet - disquietingly so. No humming of the engines, no shouted arguments through the halls, no singing or tuning of instruments. The silence was deafening and oppressive and unsettling.

As his vision properly adjusted he found himself confused by the dim silhouette of...his office? That wasn’t right - no, hang on. Yes. He was here, in his office, in the Archives. The Magnus Institute. London, UK. Earth.

Why was he here again? Shouldn’t he be...somewhere else? Where else would he be?

As if to answer his question, images jumped to mind then - vivid and eager and utterly foreign but all too familiar. Rounded corridors and control panels and creeping through air ducts stalking…octokittens? Lounging on the bridge playing another round of cards with Ashes O’Reilly and Drumbot Brian. Disagreements with Gunpowder Tim spiralling into duels to the death - or as close as any of them could get, anyway. He remembered when they found the Toy Soldier propped up in an antique shop. He remembered watching Nastya depart through the airlock, hauling that old piece of junk hull plating. He remembered Ivy, and Marius, and Raphaella. He even remembered Dr. Carmilla, unfortunately.

He remembered the Aurora.

But more than that. Hundreds of planets and hundreds of years and hundreds of people - most of them dead. Hundreds of wars and deaths and bloody vacations. Depopulating the lower levels of the City, overtaking King Cole’s forces on the desert moon of Briar, fighting with the Starborne Infantry against the Moon Kaiser’s forces….

As he sifted through the pain and disorientation from centuries of memories all clamouring for his attention, he felt another weight pushing them back.

The weight of Watching.

Visions of his escapades throughout all the known galaxies - and a few unknown, for good measure - were forced back and overlaid with the memory of Corruption pouring into the Archives, of burning in his palm as he shook hands with Desolation, of the choked breathlessness of falling through the Vast. But more than that - dreams, nightmares of a man in a pristine white coat in a cold, clean lab, tables lined with beating hearts; of a woman huddled on a warped and twisted train, the taste of mud on her lips and down her throat; of a swarming, twitching mass of insects engulfing the screaming body of a pleading exterminator.

Barely suppressing a frantic, pained noise he clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his own hair and pulling, as if he could grasp the two sets of memories, the two lives tangled within his head, and pull them out to be properly examined, to be ordered and observed. They wrestled desperately for his attention, competing for space within his aching head, and it was all too much.

The pain of it crawled out through his voice and he cried out wordlessly as the tide of information washed over and through him. He curled his limbs tightly inwards, retreating in the only way he could, and waited with the despair of a man sure he was drowning.

Meanwhile....

Beyond that closed office door, the Archives were still. With Martin and Melanie off at lunch and the Archivist consumed by a rather severe identity crisis, there was no one to hear the tapping beneath the floor, nor the creak of hinges and scraping of wood on stone as the trapdoor was guided upwards. No one to witness the hissing and the shuffling of misshapen limbs guiding misshapen bodies through the maze of shelves and boxes and files.

At first there was one. Soon there would be many. But there was no one around to know that - not yet.

There was a sound.

A choked sound, a strangled cry of pain, of panic, of fear. The one who was there first turned toward a darkened, closed door. It shuffled and hissed forward on mismatched legs, grasping the door knob with mismatched fingers, and entered.

There was a man.

He sat tense, stooped over the surface of a sturdy desk, white knuckled hands clutching his head. His breathing ragged, his muscles tense. He did not move save the distraught shuddering of his shoulders. He did not look up to see the door open, nor the creature that dragged itself through it.

There was the crackling of bones as joints popped and bent in ways they should not. The creature slunk into the office and reached for him. It sputtered an awful, horrid, hacking sound of victory - and beneath its feet, a loose floorboard shifted and protested its advance.

There was a sharp inhale, and the man looked up.

The Archivist looked up through blurred, red-rimmed eyes, and in an instant was on his feet. The abrupt force of the motion sent his chair flying back into the wall behind him as he rushed to -

Do what?

His mind supplied him with two reactions simultaneously, with the reflexes born from two different lives; would he fight - yes fight let him fight he hadn’t done a proper violence for so fucking long - or retreat - no he was unarmed and alone and vulnerable he wasn’t a fighter like Melanie like Daisy like Basira he was just an Archivist - or would he be paralysed by the indecision, caught at the crossroads of two different men, for the crucial fraction of time he had to act before the creature struck?

The latter, apparently. The blow sent him flying backwards. There was a sharp and brutal thud as his skull collided with the wood of the desktop, and a wordless shout of pain as he went sprawling across the cluttered work surface.

He reached out blindly for something - anything - and his fingers curled around that cold, hard, heavy object - the very object that had landed him here in this state.

He raised his sixgun and fired.

The trigger clicked and the bullet flew, and the simple satisfaction of it cut through the clamour in his head, piercing through the noise like - well, a gunshot. Newer memories - recollections of terror, of dread, of powers and creatures beyond simple understanding - finally quieted down and filed into place as the most recent chapter in a long and bloody history. The life and identity of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, had put up a good fight - particularly with the support of an incomprehensible Patron - but ultimately, even with the weight of the Watching pressing visions of fear and pain and statements to the forefront of his mind, coaxing him back into its domain and under its control, it was meager competition for the centuries of stories and bloodshed and Jonny fucking d’Ville.

The creature across from him recoiled, shrieking, and poised to strike again, but at that same moment a commotion arose out in the Archives; the sound of hurried footsteps, of shouting and worry, of the sudden horrified recognition of danger. Its attention was diverted by the shrieking of its kin, and Jonny emptied the other five shots into its chest.

He heard it drop to the floor in an unpleasantly wet heap and grinned.

Chapter Text

Martin screamed, horrified and looking very much like someone had reached into his chest and scrambled some important organs.

Melanie shouted an alarmed “bloody hell!” but honestly her capacity for surprise was running low at this point and she mostly sounded annoyed.

Gunpowder Time scoffed and rolled his eyes. Had he regained his voice at this point, he might have offered a comment of his own; something deriding Jonny’s tendency toward the dramatic, perhaps - because honestly, what a fucking drama queen. As it was, the eye-roll would have to suffice for now. Shame neither of the others were paying attention to see it.

In all fairness, they did have other, more pressing matters to worry about. Like the corpse of their boss lying on the floor, soaking it in a fresh tide of red. Or the flurry of muted explosions suddenly heard from upstairs. Or the responding cacophony of shrieking that arose from both above and below them. For a brief moment they could almost hear...music? from one of the upper levels - but surely that was nonsense. Who would be playing violin at a time like this?

A rough bout of coughing pulled their attention back to the first matter. On the floor, Jonny dragged in a heavy lungful of air that shook and sputtered as he released it. This happened several times before the others realised he was laughing.

“Goddamn, but that never gets less painful,” gasped Jonny, laughing still as he reached up for the nearest surface - a side table - with a hand dyed scarlet. He untangled his limbs from the overturned chair, and hauled himself up onto his knees. A fresh font of blood gushed from the new wound at his temple, joining the rather ghastly pool on the floor. It was unfortunate that the Institute housekeeping staff refused to work in the Archives anymore - there was one hell of a crimson mess to contend with once this was all over.

Martin stumbled into a nearby desk chair, shaking, eyes wide. Melanie seemed to be on the brink of hyperventilating, but it was difficult to tell if she was horrified or simply furious. Her hands curled into fists and she fixed Jonny with a murderous stare. She opened her mouth to begin what promised to be a scathing tirade, but Martin cut her off before she could get going.

His voice shook, but he steeled himself and said “Jon, or...whoever you are. I don’t know what the hell is going on, or what’s happened to you, and I really don’t know what exactly you think that--that stunt just accomplished. But by the sounds of whatever is happening upstairs, or--or down in the tunnels, or wherever they’re coming from - I think we’re probably running out of time. So if you’re actually going to stop all...” he gestured vaguely with trembling hands “this! and explain, you should probably do that right now.”

Melanie glanced at him with mild surprise, but nodded her assent. “Yeah, no more theatrics. Either explain properly or we’re going to have a bigger problem on our hands.” From the fire in her tone, it was unclear whether she was referring to the commotion elsewhere in the building, or threatening to be the bigger problem.

Jonny looked at them both, assessing. He seemed to be, for the first time tonight, taking things a little more seriously, but he remained unsympathetic. He finished getting to his feet and sighed. “Yes, alright, I get it - you’re upset. What is it, exactly, that you still aren’t grasping about this? Immortal space pirate” - he gestured to himself - “with the worst crew in history. I don’t really fancy blowing my own fucking brains out again, if you’ll be needing another demonstration. Although, I suppose I could always volunteer Tim instead.”

“No!” cried Martin. “Uhm, no, that definitely won’t be necessary. It’s just--it’s a lot to take in, alright? Just earlier today, you were--you were just Jon! When I found you asleep in your office I actually thought you might be, I don’t know, not doing better but at least you were sleeping for once. Melanie said you were having a rough day, I figured getting some rest would do you good so we left you to it and cleared out so we wouldn’t accidentally wake you up. How in hell were we to know that when you did wake up you’d be….like this! What even happened to you while we were gone?!”

“That’s actually a good question,” rasped a new voice. It was painfully weak - nothing but a hoarse whisper, barely loud enough to be heard - more breath than voice, really. Gunpowder Tim cleared his throat and stood a bit taller when all eyes turned to him.

Jonny shrugged. “Not much, really. Found my gun, took an unexpected and rather unwelcome nap, got attacked, shot something. Then you lot burst in and I shot some more things. Story ends.”

Martin sighed sharply, clearly getting annoyed. “That doesn’t explain anything, Jon! Th-”

“Shut up, all of you!”

Surprisingly, they all shut up and turned their attention to Melanie. She was stood by the stairwell with her head cocked to one side, as if listening to something.

“Do you all hear that? It sounds like...is there a band playing?”

Technically there was only half a band playing, and even that was a generous assessment, but the archival staff had no way of knowing that. What they did know was that, once they all shut up and started listening, they could indeed hear the muted strains of a violin, a glockenspiel, and a trumpet playing a bright march. It was a somewhat unorthodox arrangement, but they seemed to be making it work - especially when joined abruptly by the percussion section, which sounded very much like a cannon being fired.

Jonny scowled. “Oh great, the rest of the party is catching up.”

And indeed they were - but they weren’t the only ones. The four of them came to this second realisation rather quickly when a handful of figures came swarming down the stairs.

Earlier than current events, but definitely later than others, in an unspecified part of the Magnus Institute…

The Toy Soldier was having a jolly good time.

It happily flourished its weapon, swinging it around to skewer the creature before it. The weapon it held looked very much like a rifle affixed with a bayonet might, if it had been cobbled together in an abandoned RadioShack 2.0 from a couple centuries in the future by an amateur who had only heard of such a thing. It certainly wasn’t the most powerful or efficient weapon, but it did look rather dashing with the Toy Soldier’s uniform.

With a burst of oddly iridescent gunpowder and smoke, the rifle fired and tore apart the disturbingly elaborate rib cage of the creature caught on its blade. With a slick, meaty sound, the thing slid limply off the blood-stained steel and slumped to the floor.

Looking around, the Toy Soldier could spot only corpses. Victory! All hostile forces had been defeated. With a cheery smile, it proceeded past the gory mess and down the first hall it spotted. The others would surely follow behind at their own pace.

“Now where was it we put him again?” the Soldier mused as it wandered. The others had been more involved in this whole affair than it had, and it could only loosely remember the plan. It was only here at all because Baron Marius and Ivy had been in the neighbourhood when they received word that something had gone wrong with their prank, and they’d stopped by the wax museum to say hello to the Soldier and ask if it wanted to come with them to check it out. Rehearsals with the Circus had been kind of strange lately, what with everyone caught up in preparing for some special show that they wouldn’t properly explain - the Toy Soldier had tried asking a few times and only gotten cryptic answers and laughter in response - and things were usually quite exciting when Jonny made a mess, so the Soldier had happily left the spooky Ringmaster behind and hopped on board with its crewmates. And now here it was!

It hummed an upbeat tune as it meandered through hallways, looking for something useful. There wasn’t much around except for lots of books and desks and offices. Maybe it should have waited for the others after all; surely one of them could have given it directions?

Oh, dash it all! It seemed to be properly lost now. Perhaps it would wait here a tick until someone else caught up. The others might be a while; last it had seen, the Baron had been busily taking notes for Raphaella on the strange misshapen creatures, and Ivy had wandered off when she saw a sign for the library.

Maybe Gunpowder Tim would turn up! Ivy had said he had been closest when they’d all gotten the alert, so he had gone ahead to check it out while they landed. Surely he must be around here somewhere as well?

Perhaps it should try making some noise, so someone could find it and offer directions.

Unprecedented in-chapter return to the present scene, as if this were actually making an attempt at being a linear narrative…

Now, narratively it would probably make sense for the ensuing scuffle to be a dramatic, action-packed combat scene. And, all things considered, such a scene would probably be quite fun to write - it would provide plenty of opportunity to explore all sorts of character moments. Perhaps it could be used to delve further into Jonny’s current state, post-identity crisis. Or it could assess how Martin is processing everything. We could hear from Melanie, who is probably having to work quite hard to reign in the Slaughter in the face of such a violent, combat prone crew. Maybe we could even hear from Gunpowder Tim for a change! Frankly, this combat scene could easily be expanded into its own chapter, drawn out for maximum dramatic effect and loaded with character vignettes. This is, after all, the conclusion of the unexpected and vaguely explained siege on the Archives that provided such an ideal context for Jonny to rediscover himself. It would make sense for it to be dramatic.

The truth of the matter, however, was that the melee was over embarrassingly quickly.

Melanie reached out almost instinctively to pull the knife from Gunpowder Tim’s still bleeding chest, and went to work. Jonny grinned a dangerous, feral grin and happily took aim. Tim conjured, seemingly from nowhere, an impressively convoluted weapon: it looked rather like a Gatling gun had been dismantled and pieced it back together mid-battle in a laser tag arena by an enthusiastic sci-fi prop designer with particularly tacky tastes. It also looked much too large to be held aloft so easily, but Tim didn’t seem bothered. Martin clutched his fire extinguisher and tried his best to stay out of their way.

It was a disappointing turnout for the other side. These must have been the last few stragglers after their stronger ranks had been defeated, either by Jonny or whatever forces were continuing to cause a ruckus upstairs - and who had, by then, swapped from the lively march to an oddly jazzy neofolk ballad.

It came to a halt when all three combatants finished off their targets and turned in unison to the last standing creature. There was a beat of silence as they all paused to assess. Several bodies populated the floor now, all increasingly misshapen. They might have been people once, but were barely recognisable as such. Each seemed to have undergone some horrific transformation that left them with disturbing configurations of various limbs and joints and muscles - like a collection of toys disassembled by a clumsy child and pieced back together at random with no regard for proper form or function.

No one moved for several seconds. Even the remaining creature simply stared back at them, eyes bright and angry. It seemed all too aware that it was now caught in checkmate and its remaining breaths were numbered. Everyone simply stood with weapons poised, caught up in the strangely compelling tension of the moment, waiting to see who would strike first.

It was Martin who broke the silence. “What--what even are they? What do they want?”

“I don’t think this is exactly the time for questions, Martin,” hissed Melanie. Her unblinking gaze never moved from the creature, nor did her white-knuckled grip on the knife loosen.

“Actually, I’d say this is the perfect time for questions.” With one hand, Jonny grabbed the fire extinguisher from Martin - who seemed to briefly consider resisting, but released it without fuss - and, stepping forward surprisingly quickly, swung the canister round the head of the remaining creature. As it toppled to the floor with a guttural shout, he set a foot firmly on its...chest? to keep it down, and aimed his pistol right between its eyes. “Let’s see if I’ve still got it.”

He cleared his throat somewhat dramatically, and when he began speaking again, his voice carried a heavier - and much more familiar - tone. “Statement of...who fucking cares, regarding I don’t give a damn. Wh̕y ̨are y̴ou̕ herę?”

The being writhed and recoiled, cursing furiously. “I don’t answer to you, Archivist,” it seethed, with a voice like metal and scratching and pain.

Jonny leaned harder on the foot keeping it down, scarcely even blinking as he poured the full force of his will into his words.

“I think you’ll find that you do now. Te̴ll m̢e̷ what y̷ou̵ ̡are.”

It spat at him, jaw tight with the effort of resisting. It shuddered and convulsed for a disturbingly long moment, displaying an impressive resilience in the face of the Compulsion. Eventually, with a final thrash and a strangled cry, its eyes rolled back into its skull and it went limp. Jonny stepped back, breathing hard.

“Well isn’t that fascinating,” he mused. The corner of his mouth curled up into a smile. It was not a friendly expression. “Seems my time stuck here might have been worth something after all.”

“Care to share with the class?” Melanie snapped impatiently. In shifting her attention to Jonny, she had not relaxed her battle-ready stance. Her fingers tightened further around the knife. “Did it actually tell you anything, or did you just spook it to death?”

“Oh, they were just some of the Flesh’s lot,” Jonny answered a little distractedly. He stared at the remains on the floor, contemplating something. “They were concerned about how busy we’d been, worried we might come after them. Thought we might even be putting together our own ritual, or something. That was the last of them.”

He met the eyes of Gunpowder Tim, who was brushing off the sleeves of his jacket. Tim’s weapon was now gone as mysteriously as it had appeared.

“That’s not what I’m interested in learning right now, though. I’d like to know a little bit more about how I’ve spent years here on this fucking planet playing at being human. So, Gunpowder Tim. Ho̵w di͘d y̧o̢u ͜m̶anage i͘t̸?̸”

The same faint, gravelly whisper they’d heard earlier was all that came out the first time Tim opened his mouth to respond. He doubled over in a frankly concerning coughing fit for a long moment, but by the time he straightened back up his coughing had grown to a loud, healthy volume and his attempts to answer Jonny were more successful, if still a bit gruff.

“Wasn’t all that complicated, when we got down to it. Just a nifty bit of tech we found in that intergalactic black market a few systems back.” He coughed lightly and cleared his throat. “You’d been a right arse lately and we didn’t have anything better on, so we figured we’d try it out.”

Tim’s eyes widened a bit when the words began to fall easily from his lips. His jaw snapped shut with a click, and he narrowed dark eyes at a smug Jonny. He pursed his lips and tried - in vain - to contain the dialogue that was continuing to spill out. Through clenched teeth, he went on anyway.

“It took a bit of tinkering, to get it to work the way we wanted. It was inspired by this one old tale we’d heard about some aliens who could do a similar thing as an emergency defense. They stored their memories and power in an external device, something small that they always kept with them. In the story we heard, he hid his identity in an old fob watch. Then he was basically human, and could hide from whatever might be looking for him. All it took was for him to open the watch and he got it all back. We couldn’t find much precedent for it being done to someone, but figured we could work it out. Called in a few favours, disregarded some safety protocols, and waited ‘til you got properly drunk enough for Scuzz to knick your gun.

“It wasn’t even that hard, in the end. We ended up on a particularly dull planet that happened to have an excellent selection of especially soporific alcohol. There was a whole culture around the stuff, built right into a lot of their history. If you’d bothered to pay attention to literally anything before hitting the bar, this probably wouldn’t have gone off so well. But you were too busy throwing a fit because it was a peaceful planetary system with nothing really interesting on, and you were bored. We didn’t even plan all that out - just got lucky. By the end of the night you were completely out of it, and it was easy to set up the gadget and get you back on the ship.

“We did consider leaving you there, initially, but it wouldn’t have been very exciting to give you a nice, peaceful time out. Ironic, sure, but that humour only lasts so long, and we were feeling a bit vindictive. So we took off and found the nastiest planet in the next galaxy over. Set you up with a job that we thought might be exciting - although I think it was mostly Ivy’s idea - and all kicked back for a bit of a vacation. Ivy managed to convince Marius to go on some research trip, something about this planet having an ‘entertaining history of misguided medicine?’ Toy Soldier fell in with some cult or something, I don’t know. Last I heard it was performing with a circus. Dunno about Ashes or Raphaella, but I think Brian’s off the grid in Africa. I had a few adventures of my own, but about a year or two back I decided to check in and see if you were up to anything interesting. Imagine my surprise when I find you up to your eyes in esoteric horror politics. I’ve been watching on and off ever since, because its funny to see you stumbling around from one near-death experience to the next. Like an idiot.”

With that, Tim’s monologue came to an end. He glared at Jonny, who leaned back looking satisfied. Jonny took in a deep, contented breath, let it out slowly, and smiled sharply.

“I just have one question left, then. How come I didn’t find this sooner? You lot weren’t exactly subtle in hiding it, I should have--oh, I see. Perception filter. Clever enough, I suppose, but really kills the fun.”

“Yeah, we grabbed the idea off that one bloke we ran into a while back - the one with the blue box. Thought it would be funny to hide the thing right in plain sight. You shouldn’t have found it until we wanted you to. Then again, we weren’t exactly expecting you to hook up with an eldritch eyeball.”

“Well, then, you should’ve been more careful where you left me. This job’s got unconventional perks.”

Elsewhere in the Institute, at a time continuing to approach the present but still slightly offset by a matter of minutes - until, of course, it isn’t…

The Toy Soldier shouted a joyful battle cry and lit the fuse on the cannon. The cannon responded with a cheerful explosion of sound and ammunition. The window before it shattered outward, joining a growing line of empty window frames along the hallway.

No one appeared. It began loading another cannonball and took aim at the next window. Before it could light the fuse again, it was insistently shhh!’d by someone.

It turned round to see Ivy stood in a nearby doorway, holding a precariously balanced armful of books with increasingly elaborate, gothic binding. She looked pointedly at the Soldier and pursed her lips.

“These walls are not constructed of sufficient material to adequately disguise the volume of a cannon being fired in such a small space, and some of us are trying to read,” she said, brandishing her stack of tomes. “Is there a purpose to your destruction of this property?”

“Sorry,” the Soldier said, snapping a salute. Ivy didn’t officially outrank it, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Ivy sighed. “No matter. Have you found Jonny yet? If my calculations are correct, he should have had time to regain his memories and overcome the worst of the ensuing identity crisis. I predict we have about four minutes and twenty-seven seconds before he does something stu-”

A faint gunshot was heard from deeper in the institute. Ivy sighed again.

“I do so hate being inaccurate. It seems I was four minutes and twenty-six seconds off. Let’s go.”

The Toy Soldier happily fell in line behind her as she strode down the hall. After a couple turns and a brief detour through a few offices - more specifically, their bookshelves - they found Marius sat on a chair amidst a pile of defeated creatures, absently fiddling with his violin.

“Oh there you are! Almost thought I’d lost you too!” he greeted cheerfully. “Have you found him yet?”

“Not yet, although I have determined that he is not on this floor. Analysing the prior auditory input from that gunshot a moment ago, I would guess that he is on a lower level of this facility. Perhaps we should try the stairs.”

“We certainly could do that, but frankly I don’t fancy entering a room that contains both Jonny and a loaded gun when he’s clearly already worked up. What do you say we wait him out for a bit? Maybe he can blow off some steam taking out the rest of these fascinating critters, and then he’ll come find us when he’s ready.”

Ivy considered for a moment. “That would present the possibility of a thirty-four percent reduction in hostility when he does find us, and chances of lethal injury will be decreased from eighty-four percent to seventy-nine. That is an acceptable plan.”

“Oh! And we could play so he’ll know where to find us when he’s ready to go!” the Toy Soldier suggested, pulling out their glockenspiel. Ivy nodded and set down her books so she could set up her trumpet. Marius cheered and played a bright reel while they set up.

Officially precedented in-chapter return to the present scene, establishing a much more linear bent to this chapter than previous ones…

“You know what? Why the hell not! Alien pirates and undead people. That might not actually be the most insane thing I’ve heard in the last year. So is this is it, then? Assuming we accept all this, that you’re really not the human person we all thought, then this isn’t even your planet. You could just fuck off back to space now. I mean, there’s nothing really keeping you here, is there?”

Jonny blinked, obviously taken aback. “To be entirely honest, I hadn’t really thought about it. Been a bit busy. I suppose you’re right, though. Not much reason to hang around now...” He spoke the words slowly, as if testing them out, and trailed off towards the end.

“Wh- but, no! Jon, you can’t just leave!” Martin struggled to find words for the panic blossoming in his chest at the thought. Some of it was practical concern: simply put, Jon was the one with the best access to information about the supernatural threats they faced, who also cared enough to try to stop them. They’d be doomed without him.

He stared beseechingly at Jonny. “You’re our best chance at dealing with all the Powers, and the rituals, and everything. A-and I--we need you here.”

Jonny and Gunpowder Tim shared a look. Something silent passed between the two of them, a wordless debate, but they seemed to reach an agreement and turned back to the others.

“Alright, yeah. I suppose we can hang around for a bit to see this one out, maybe have a little fun along the way. And besides, I have to properly thank Elias for all the hell he’s put me through. Not to mention the rest of the band.”

“And hey, maybe this time the local planetary system won’t be consumed by an unknowable cosmic horror on our way out!”

Jonny laughed as he strolled towards the stairs, charting a course for Elias’s office. Gun in hand.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. The night’s still young.”

Meanwhile…

Elias opened his eyes.

He leaned forward to prop his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers, glowering ineffectually at the door across the room. Really, he looked properly villainous - it was a shame there was no one around to be intimidated.

For several opaque seconds, he scarcely breathed as he contemplated everything he had just Seen occurring in the Archive below.

This certainly….complicated things.