Archive of Our Own

Admittedly, Peter Lukas isn't the worst person to have a conversation with. He always gets straight to the point, doesn't feel the need to make needless small talk, and never overstays his welcome. He's also got a certain amount of social tact that Martin hadn't expected him to have, but, in retrospect, is no doubt an effect of his wealthy upbringing.

However, this does not mean that he's good company. It's just, as far as these things go, Martin could have to deal with much worse.

Still, over time, Peter's company, no matter how sparse it actually ends up being, grates on Martin in a way no one else has ever managed before. His patience is much, much thinner these days, and it's only a matter of time before Martin finally reaches his limit.

Today in particular, has been a rough day. He's been doing his own work as well as Peter's for the entire week, and, considering the huge pile of paperwork he still has to do, he's probably going to spend most of Friday night here.

Martin slinks into his chair, turns up the music playing on his headphones, and continues to work, trying to ignore the slowly growing headache from the too bright neons of his office.

Suddenly, his headphones pop with a familiar static, and Martin takes them off to look behind him as Peter Lukas pops into existence. 

Peter looks at him for a second, tilting his head slightly. Any amount of silence with Peter is intense, but this one in particular is cut by the low sound of the cheery pop music Martin has been listening to.

Peter speaks first, "Oh, Martin, I didn't know you listened to Ee dee em ."

Martin blinks, trying to decipher the word Peter has just said, "What?"

"You're young, you should know this." Peter pauses, before repeating, " Ee Dee Em ." This time putting more emphasis on each separate syllable. The sounds still don't make any sense to Martin, and he shoots Peter a pointed look. At this, Peter elaborates, "Electronic dance music?"

Oh. Oh . He's been saying EDM , which, to Peter's credit, is an actual thing. But, as Martin takes in the words properly, they don't become any less baffling than they were initially. He's listening to Beyoncé for God's sake.

"Do you even know what that is?" Martin asks, the disbelief obvious in his voice.

"Of course I do," Peter smiles, a hollow and empty smile, the same as always, "It's all I listen to these days."

And in that moment, Martin realizes he has to make a choice. He can go on with his work, maybe finish before two in the morning, but have to ignore Peter's comments and just accept that yes, maybe, Beyoncé is actually electronic dance music . Or, he can turn his chair around properly and face Peter, and attempt the gruelling task of explaining to an old rich white man that, no, actually, he most definitely does not "only listen to EDM these days."

Martin manages to spend fifteen minutes of arguing, in what is literally his longest conversation with the man, before giving up on the entire thing. There's just no arguing with a man who thinks his opinion is so unambiguously correct that he won't even give Martin's phone, open on the Wikipedia pages for ‘Beyoncé’, ‘EDM’, and ‘Synthesizer’ respectively, a glance.

Martin sighs, and turns back towards his desk, putting his phone away, "Okay, whatever Peter. I, uh, I need to," Martin starts frantically looking at his desk, searching for something to do, something that will either make Peter leave or allow him to leave. Finally, he spots a small slip of green paper, a receipt from artifact storage, tucked neatly under a pile of papers. He pulls it out from underneath the papers, careful not to make any of his piles of paperwork fall over, and waves it in Peter's face, "I need to go claim this from artifact storage before they shut down for the weekend."

Peter looks down at him, unimpressed, "There's still an hour before they lock up, I'm sure you have time to talk about EDM some more."

Martin frowns, "What? Why do you-" he cuts himself off, shifting his face into one his stiff "customer service" smiles, "It's a very large and heavy object. Now, go away Peter."

Finally, his ears fill with static, and Martin looks away for a second. As he gets up from his desk, green paper in hand, Martin looks back at the spot Peter was standing in, which is, unsurprisingly and thankfully, empty.

Getting to artifact storage all the way from Martin's new office is somehow more of a pain than getting to artifact storage from the archives is, and that trip was already pretty painful. The excuse that's always been given to Martin for the inconveniently placed entrance to artifact storage is that it's to keep the place isolated from the rest of the institute due to the dangerous nature of the objects kept there, but, at this point, Martin's pretty sure it was just Elias’ way to make people too annoyed to actually bother going there.

The corridors on his way there - and there are many of them - are totally empty. It isn't surprising, it is late on a Friday, and most people have left by now. It's entirely likely that, even if he weren't currently working directly underneath an avatar of the Lonely, he wouldn't have met anyone on his way there.

Still, Martin finds himself wishing that he would pass by someone while making his way down to artifact storage. Maybe even someone who loves making small talk, like Meredith from accounting or Trevor from research, just to be sure that Peter isn't lurking right behind him the entire time. 

It doesn't happen, of course, he's not lucky enough to just stumble into people in the hallways of the institute anymore. Instead, he walks to his destination, silently hoping that the feeling of being watched slowly crawling along his back is from the Beholding and not from Peter being a creep.

The door to artifact storage is large, heavily reinforced, and covered in various caution signs that range from an official looking sign about fire hazards to crudely handwritten signs saying things like "LIBRARIANS KEEP OUT!"

Martin presses the buzzer near the door and it rings a few times before a familiar voice Martin can't place immediately answers, "Hello, how can I help you tonight?"

"Yes, uh, hi." Martin's surprised that someone actually answers him for once. It feels like he hasn't spoken to anyone other than Peter for weeks, "It's Martin Blackwood, archival, no, assistant to Peter Lukas. I need to request an item," Martin looks at the paper in his hand and swears under his breath, "I don't know what it is, Elias wrote up the slip."

The person on the other end laughs, and Martin hears the buzzing sound that follows the door opening. He steps inside and is greeted by Samantha, a muscular woman with short hair that he used to make scones for every month or so.

She nods at him and takes the slip of paper from his hands when he passes it to her. She takes one look at it and shakes her head, "I've never been able to read the old guy's handwriting, only Jones ever managed it. Can it wait until Monday?"

Martin sighs, "Yeah, it can wait until next month if you need it to. I just needed to get away from Peter."

Samantha smiles, "I take it stuff hasn't been easy since, well," she motions vaguely at Martin, "you know."

Martin wants to laugh, tell her that no , of course stuff hasn't been easy since literally half the archive staff died, but he's pretty sure that's not what the regular employees were told about the events. So instead, Martin just sighs again, passing a hand through his hair, "It's been fine. The new boss is just, God, he's just the worst."

"Peter Lukas, right?" Samantha says while filing away the paper in one of the drawers in the reception area. Martin nods silently and Samantha scoffs, "I don't think that guy has even come check out artifact storage since he started."

Martin rolls his eyes, of course he hasn't. Martin doubts he's visited any department other than the archives and Elias' old office.

"Consider yourself lucky. He's just," Martin breathes out audibly and passes a hand across his face, "Well, let's just say that he makes me wish I could go back to my stoner days."

Samantha laughs, and Martin finds it in him to laugh along softly, "You know, if you want to get stoned, we do have a couple of bongs in here."

Martin stops short, Samantha doesn't sound like she's joking, "Seriously?"

Samantha smiles, and motions for Martin to follow him into artifact storage proper, "Yeah, of course we do. Let me show you."

Artifact storage is much more organized than the archives are, a fact that surprises Martin. There are huge shelves containing multitudes of different boxes with neatly placed labels, bright yellow caution tape around the more ‘active’ artifacts, and different coloured lines painted along the floor delineate different sections.

Samantha shows him around briefly, as they start making their way almost to the other end of artifact storage. 

She points out a relatively large area filled with various pieces of mismatched furniture, some looking older than the institute itself while others being obviously from Ikea, "This is our ‘furniture that doesn't set you on fire’ section. And that," Samantha points toward another area filled with furniture, this time surrounded by a very obvious red line on the floor, "is our ‘furniture that sets you on fire’ section."

To Martin's horror, both sections are almost the same size, with the latter probably containing a couple more chairs.

"What does the furniture that doesn't set you on fire do?" Martin asks.

"Oh, you know, random bullshit mostly." Samantha steps into the section and pulls up an old armchair, "This thing gives you intense vertigo when you sit in it." She points out a small modern looking lamp, "That makes people in the same room as it feel like they're being spied on." She takes a few more steps into the section, beckoning Martin closer, and shows him an ornate looking wooden desk, complete with extremely detailed carvings of skulls and other bones along the sides, "Do you want to know what this one does?"

The bones on the sides of it immediately remind Martin of the Flesh, though a desk seems too organized and neat for what the Flesh usually does. Maybe the End? Skulls are pretty symbolic of death after all. "Sure, what does it do?"

"It just gives off kind of creepy vibes."

Martin laughs again, a genuine laugh of surprise. He continues to follow Samantha through storage, taking a quick look at their extensive cursed jewelry collection. All of it is laid out in a glass case, not unlike what you would see in a museum, if said museum had decided to stuff every single piece of jewelry they could get their hands on in one case.

The display is divided into three sections, one surrounded by light blue, the other by a darker green, and the final one by bright red. 

"That's where we put the stuff that's just kind of weird," Samantha says, pointing out the blue section, "This is for the stuff that's a bit more dangerous but still ultimately harmless," she continues, pointing at the green section. Samantha smiles slightly, "And the last one is the 'jewelry that sets you on fire' section."

Martin's heart drops, seeing how full the section is, "Really? Again?"

Samantha laughs, her smile growing much wider, "No, I'm messing with you. It's just the 'physically harmful or deadly' section. It's not fire specific in this case."

They continue their way through artifact storage, mostly passing more mundane looking shelves filled with cardboard and metal boxes. 

They pass by two cages that Samantha barely glances at, but, as Martin takes a closer look, they're definitely filled with two blobs of living meat.

Martin stops Samantha, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, "Hey, Sam, what are those?"

Samantha glances at the cages and smiles, "Oh, those are my puppies!" she answers, unhelpfully. At Martin's blank look, she elaborates, "They're these two living masses of organic matter that we gathered a few years ago. Elias used to send us scraps from butcher shops to feed them, but now he's gone so I just give them McDonald's every other day." As she speaks, one of the puppies slams itself into one of its cage walls, the sound of metal loud in the otherwise silent room. 

"I'd love to show them off some more," she says, ushering Martin away, "but we should leave them alone. They're not due to be fed until Saturday, and they get a little rowdy when they're hungry."

Martin nods, and they walk away, leaving the living mounds of flesh behind. About a minute’s walk later, Samantha stops both of them in front of a tall cabinet, this one with actual doors on it.

"Here we are!" she says, opening it easily. Inside, Martin can see four shelves filled with differently sized padded cases. She reaches for one on the top shelf and hands it to Martin. Then, she takes the other two cases on the top shelf, "Come on, let's find a table and I'll show you what we've got."

The nearest table, as it turns out, is in the break room. It's larger than the break room in the archives, with a much more comfortable couch, and a microwave that seems to actually work. There's a bulletin board on the far left wall, filled with brightly coloured papers reminding people of new dangerous artifacts and of important dates.

Samantha places her cases on the table, and Martin follows suit. Quietly, she slowly goes about opening each of them and, sure enough, each of them contains a different bong. 

The first one is simple, made entirely out of transparent glass.

"This one," Samantha says, a wide smile on her face, "literally makes you high. You just start kind of floating away until you hit the ceiling. We use it when we need to clean stuff out of the ceiling. Just make sure you're underneath something soft when it fades because you fall fast and hard onto the ground."

Huh, the Vast then. Maybe some kind of joke on Elias from the Fairchilds.

"What about the other ones?" he asks. This one sounds fun, but he's a little bit reluctant to use an artifact from a power he's not familiar with.

The next one is a large thing, pitch black and very heavy. 

Samantha points to it, reluctant to touch even just touch it, "This one does set people on fire. So I can't say I really recommend it."

The last one isn't as big as the other ones, and it takes Martin a few seconds to see anything beyond the ugly colours of it. It's painted in seemingly various strokes of garish yellow, green, pink. But, as he looks closer, Martin realizes that it's actually meant to be somewhat dragon-shaped. Then, Martin notices that, instead of empty ceramic eyes a bong like this really ought to have, there are instead two hazel, very human eyes that move around, drinking in their new surroundings.

Ugh, of course Beholding has an evil bong . Couldn't let the Fairchilds and the Vast keep all the glory.

Samantha takes it in her hands, picking it up and inspecting it slowly, "I don't really know what this one does if I'm honest."

"None of you have ever tried it?" Martin asks, a bit confused. Sure, some of the artifacts are obviously too dangerous to try, but a weird bong with human eyes is hardly the most dangerous thing in here that the staff have tried out "just to see".

"No," she answers, "Elias marked it as off-limits, though he never gave it an actual danger rating. That usually wouldn't stop us, but when we got to trying stuff out, the bong right before set the guy on fire, so we decided to stick to the glass one."

"Huh, that's interesting," Martin says, looking from Samantha to the bong in her hands. If Elias banned it for seemingly no reason, and with the dragon so obviously connected to Beholding, well, it really can't be that dangerous.

Samantha shoots him a look before he can even ask to use it, "Personally, I wouldn't try it, but, if you want to, go for it." After a pause, she adds, "As long as you fill out a report of its effects afterwards, or let us see your autopsy report afterwards." 

What the hell, it'll be a break from doing Peter's paperwork, "Sure. I just need some weed. I don't have any on me right now." Though, now that he thinks about it, maybe some of Tim's is still taped to the underside of his second drawer. The thought bitters immediately in his mouth. He really doesn't want to start going through Tim's desk right now, or ever.

Samantha waves a hand, and starts heading for one of the cupboards above the sink, "No worries, we'll just take some of Jones'." 

Sure enough, she pulls out a small plastic bag of weed from the cupboard easily enough. 

"He won't like it," Samantha continues, "But he forgot to take the toys out of my puppies' Happy Meals last month, and they were sick for the rest of the week, so he'll just have to deal."

Martin takes the weed Samantha's handing him, and then the bong.

"Uh, where should I?" he asks, looking awkwardly around the breakroom.

"Well, I have to close up soon, so probably not here. And you really shouldn't take this outside of the institute..." she says, looking around as well, "Can you go to the archives? I know Tim," she flinches a bit when she says the name even though Martin knows he hasn't reacted to it at all, "used to cool off there sometimes. Before he passed, obviously."

Martin isn't too keen on going to the archives, what with Melanie and Basira still working there and all, as well as Jon still showing up every now and then, but, honestly, the opportunity for a nice break is so close right now, he's ready to risk bumping into them. Besides, with the way things have been going lately, they'll probably leave as soon as he enters the room, not even taking a second to glance at whatever he's holding in his hands.

Martin nods and puts the dragon back in its case to make it easier and less conspicuous to carry. He doesn't wait for Samantha to finish closing up before leaving, only offering a short goodbye before starting to make his way to the archives.

As soon as he's alone in the corridors again, he's filled with a sense of relief he really wishes wasn't present. The fatigue and dread that builds up so easily in his bones when he talks to people now finally has a chance to fade away. By the time he makes it to archives, thankfully entirely empty, he almost feels like himself again. Well, how he's been lately anyway.

Martin sets himself up in their break room, on their smaller, less comfortable couch, takes out the weed and the bong, and gets to it, ignoring the eyes that are still moving around almost frantically.

The buzz he gets feels like the best thing to ever happen in Martin's entire life. It's a slow kind of thing, that crawls up his spine and back down to his toes.

He's so caught up in it, that he has no idea how long it takes him to finally notice the voice talking to him.

It's a low kind of voice, just on the edge of familiar, faint at first, but quickly growing in volume with every passing word, until it feels as if the person speaking is properly in the room with Martin, "Hey! Hey! Hey! What's up, dude?"

Martin looks around the dimly lit room, trying to take in his surroundings and not really managing to, looking for Peter lurking somewhere. Predictably, there's no one but him in the room.

"Peter?" He knows it's not Peter's voice, it's younger and deeper and less slimy, but maybe he found an app on his phone to change his voice or something since he's so connected to the younger generation with his "EDM" and "synthesizers".

"Peter," he repeats, "Can you at least have the decency to appear when you want to talk to me?"

"Who's Peter?" the voice asks, and Martin's finally able to tell that it's coming from somewhere very, very close to him, "Look, I just want to talk. Like, a chill talk I mean. Nothing serious." Martin looks directly around him, and spots the dragon bong on the floor,  its eye staring directly at Martin, "I think it's been literally over two decades since I've had the chance to interact with people, and, let me tell you, it's just about the worst thing that can happen to a guy."

Its eyes are still as human as ever, the haunted bong apparently not even having the decency to make its eyes more demonic or scary, and they stare directly back into Martin's own eyes, piercing but not as intensely as he'd expect from an artifact of the Beholding.

Curious, but still trying to be careful, Martin leans down to pick up the dragon. He almost falls on his face as he does it, but he eventually manages to pick up the bong and lay back down on the too small sofa, placing it lightly on his chest, and inspecting it, "What the hell is this? I don't understand how a talking dragon bong is supposed to inst-” he stops himself before finishing the word, knowing he won’t be able to say it, “put fear into people? Do you like haunt my dreams forever after this or something?"

"Well, I don't know about any of that," the bong answers, and suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation hits, and a smile forms across Martin's face as he tries to hold back his laughter about this frankly ridiculous situation, "I just know that I used to be a human being, and now I'm not. Obviously, I'm not," the dragon laughs, dry and tired, "So, how about we don't talk about any of that, and just chill out you and me. Handsome guy who gets high at work, and haunted dragon bong."

Martin feels his cheeks flush at being called handsome, but doesn't otherwise acknowledge the compliment, "Okay, alright. This is fine. Don't you want to be saved or something?"

"No, honestly, I think I'm good. Whatever's left of my body has to be long dead by now, and I rather like being still alive, even if it does suck."

"Hmm," Martin considers the dragon's words while laying himself completely back down on the couch, "That's fair, I suppose."

They sit in silence what feels like about ten minutes but is probably a lot less, Martin can't really tell right now, until the dragon speaks again, "So, can I get your name or something, handsome?"

Martin squints at the dragon, wanting to believe him about being trapped as a bong, but remembering in the corner of his mind old folk stories about telling demons, or fairies, or ghosts, Martin's not sure which, your full name and then just being royally screwed over.

"Why don't you tell me yours first?" he asks, still squinting at the dragon.

"This is embarrassing, but I don't really remember it. I think it might be related to the trauma of being turned into an object." The dragon exhales, or at least it sounds like he does, and his eyes start looking around, clearly thinking.

Martin considers the situation again. What the hell, he's probably just gotten a really intense weird trip because this is actually a Spiral bong or something. Or the weed Samantha gave him has been tainted by all the extremely dangerous artifacts right next to it. Either way, he might as well forget old folk tales and just tell this poor dragon whatever he wants.

"I'm Martin," he answers, a smile curling on his lips despite himself.

"Oh, that's a very cute name." There's another moment of silence, this one longer than before by Martin's estimate, "I think my name started with an 'E'." the dragon says when he finally breaks the silence.

Martin frowns, a strange, probably false, idea popping to mind. He knows it can't be true, it's too dumb to be true, but it doesn't hurt anyone to at least ask, " 'E' like in Eye?"

"No," the dragon answers, a tone of annoyance clear in his voice, "The letter 'E' like in evil or something."

"Alright, um, well," Martin slowly gets up to reach for his water bottle, feeling how dry his mouth is all of a sudden, "Want to list off names that I know that start with 'E' to see if any of them ring a bell?"

The dragon shifts on top of Martin as he sits up properly to chug what's left of his water, "Sure, I think it might help."

"Alright, let's see, " Martin closes his eyes, trying to come up with names that start with the letter 'E', "How about Evo, or Edwin, or Elliott, or," There's a pause between each name as Martin gives the dragon the time to tell him if Martin found it. As the last name comes to his mind, Martin starts laughing again, knowing how ridiculous it would be if this dragon, this random artifact from storage, were named this, "How about Elias?"

The response is immediate, "Holy shit. Yeah! I think that's it actually."

The answer takes Martin by surprise, and he needs to take a few deep breaths before being able to speak, "Really? That's so weird."

"Is it?"

"It's the name of the head of the institute now," Martin pauses before quickly adding, "Well, the guy who used to run the institute, until a few months ago."

"Oh wow," Elias says, and Martin notices that his eyes are fixed on his again, "I guess that is weird."

"Yeah," Martin says, sobering up an unfortunate amount at the thought of his bastard of an ex-boss, "He's in prison now though, we got him on murder. Fuck, Elias Bouchard, what a bastard of a man."

Elias makes a questioning sound before staying silent for at least two minutes, "Uh, I think that's my name."

Martin laughs nervously, the feeling settling into his stomach, as he feels he starts being able to place the voice coming from the bong, "What?"

"That's my name. Before all this I mean. I was Elias Bouchard."

The cadence of the voice is all wrong, and it's a voice much younger than it should be if it is Elias . Besides, There's no world in which the Elias Martin knows would ever talk like this. His words are too loose, not precise enough. It's the kind of voice that reveals too much, tells you exactly what kind of person this Elias is. Not bothering to plan more than three words ahead, just a bit slow, and, most damningly, definitely very, very high. Still, Martin starts to spot the similarities in their voices, the actual tone and weight behind them feeling identical.

Martin passes a hand through his hair, pulling at it, trying to sober up as much as possible. It doesn't do much beyond really make him wish he hadn't smoked at all today. How long has it been since this started? Ten? Fifteen minutes? No, it has to be more, he's just messed up right now.

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, trying not to panic. It's probably a coincidence, it's not like evil boss Elias can be the same guy as dragon bong Elias. "Do you know anything about how you ended up like this? Or, uh, or what you used to look like?"

"I think..." Elias trails off before laughing bitterly, "I remember being called up to James Wright's office, and then I woke up like this."

Alright. Definitely suspicious. Definitely very bad.

"And what did you look like?" Martin presses Elias on, wishing suddenly that he had Jon's abilities, just for this one thing.

He feels his heart drop to the pit of his stomach when Elias, the bong, starts describing what Martin can imagine being a younger version of Elias, the head of the institute. 

It can't possibly be true though.

Immediately, Martin start looking around for a tape recorder, maybe even turned on, documenting this whole thing. The things are basically littered by the dozens in every room of the archives these days, so there has to be one ITAL somewhere in the break room. Except, obviously, there isn't one, for this one time where Martin makes a discovery that’s actually important, a discovery that can change things. He considers getting up into the archives and looking for one, but something tells him that it'll be a while until one shows up for him.

Instead, Martin reaches for his phone. He doesn't know who to call at first, hesitating between calling Jon, who might suddenly know something about this and calling literally anyone else. He hesitates for a few long seconds, before finally settling on calling Jon.

The phone rings one, way too loud for the tension that's growing within Martin and in the room, and Elias asks, "What's that?"

"This?" Martin waves his phone as it rings a second time. "Oh, right, you haven't been around. It's a cellphone. Just, like, it's a phone you can carry around with you."

"Oh, neat." he says before continuing a second later, "Why are you calling someone right now?"

Oh, wait. "Haven't I told you what I think happened to you?" Everything's started to move too fast all of a sudden, and Martin's finding it hard to keep up. He'd wanted to explain it to Elias, he deserves to know first after all, but somewhere between choosing to call Jon or not and... whatever he was doing before he'd forgotten about that.

Elias makes a noise, "No, you haven't."

Martin puts the phone down, call almost immediately forgotten, "Well, okay. Here we go. I think that James Wright either put something else in your body to replace him after he died or maybe he put himself in your body so that no one would need to replace him. Because he is really obviously you. I mean, not you , but he's your body right now, you know?" His phone makes a different beeping sound, telling Martin that he's just reached Jon's voicemail. He pauses for a second, unsure of whether to continue or start over from the beginning, ultimately deciding to continue. He'll just call Jon again once he's done, "So, that guy's, the guy in your body, whoever he is, is in jail now. I figure that saving you is actually totally possible because your body's right there. So, we just need to get ourselves a solid plan, and everything's perfect for everyone. Mostly you."

"And you have a plan?" Martin glances at Elias and sees that his eyes, still staring at him, are wide and filled with an emotion that wasn't there before. Hope. Oh, fuck.

Martin rubs his eyes and groans, wishing that he was sober and able to think properly right now. He knows that he shouldn't give this guy hope, he's obviously not thinking straight. Despite that objective fact, he really feels like he can make a good plan right now, and the words tumble out of his mouth before he can think them through, "No, I don't have a plan, but we can make one." His phone makes another noise, indicating that his message to Jon has ended automatically, "Wait, I'm just going to call Jon again, he'll be better help, and then we'll go over everything we know and make a plan."

The phone rings until it reaches voicemail again. As soon as the automated message beeps, Martin starts talking, scared to run out of time like he did with the first message, "Okay, Jon, Jonathan, I have this, uh, this thing ." He can't say bong, Jon would judge him too harshly, "And I think it's Elias? Not the Elias we know, I would never want to help that guy, I just think that the Elias we know,"

"Evil Elias?" Elias suggests from where he's placed.

"Evil Elias," Martin repeats into the voicemail he's leaving for Jon, "I think evil Elias stole his body or something, and I have what's left of the original Elias' consciousness here, in this item . Anyway, please call me back when you hear this, I need you right now, we're making a plan to help save this poor guy, and, maybe, hopefully, take down evil Elias for good. Okay, that's all of it. Bye. Call me back."

As soon as Martin's hung up the phone, they start going over everything they know about the situation.

They figure out that Elias still probably has his eyes in the dragon, and not in his body. Meaning that evil Elias, who still obviously has eyes, has replaced Elias' by someone else's.

They also know that evil Elias is in prison right now. this means that he's not easily accessible, especially not by a guy high off his ass and a mostly inanimate bong. There's also the fact that evil Elias could undoubtedly see them coming, which makes things a lot more difficult.

The final thing they realize is that, in spite of all this talk of plans, neither Martin nor Elias have any idea how to get Elias back into his body. They do settle on accepting that evil Elias probably does, they just need to pry the information out of him.

Finally, they formulate a plan.

"Okay, what about this," Martin says, once he thinks he's finally made all the pieces fit, "We're going to go to the prison evil Elias is in. Me, you, and Jon. I'm going because I'm the only person who can hear you. You're going because it's your body. Jon is coming because we need him to use his freaky Eye powers to get info out of people. We're going to get to Elias," Martin will admit that this part is fuzzy, but he's sure they can figure it out on the fly, "Then, Jon is going to compel evil Elias to answer his questions. He wasn't able to do it before, but he was still human back then, so I'm sure he'll be able to now. We'll do whatever ritual or murder is required to get you back in your body, and bam!" Martin claps his hand, flinching at how loud the sound is, "You've got your body back, we have one less evil boss to worry about. Everything ends well."

"Alright, seems like a solid plan," Elias says, sounding a lot more joyful than he was earlier.

Martin reaches for his phone again, wanting to call Jon to tell him to call him back right now because they have a plan. Of course, Jon hasn't tried calling him since his voicemails, but he's probably just sleeping right now or something, Martin should be getting a call back in a few hours at most.

He calls Jon again, reaching his voicemail for the third time that night, "Okay, so, we made a plan. We're going to need you to go to prison with us and compel evil Elias into telling us how to reverse whatever he's done to Elias. Then, we'll do whatever evil Elias says will fix this thing, and everyone will be happy. Alright, that's it, call me back as soon as possible please."

Martin lays back down on the couch, suddenly realizing how heavy he feels. His eyes start to close on their own, and Martin tries to keep them open. He doesn't want to sleep right now, he wants to wait for Jon so they can save Elias. But, as the high starts to properly fade, his eyes fall closed, and he's unwittingly fallen asleep.

When Martin wakes up hours later, he's still alone in the darkened break room. It takes a second for him to remember what's happened, and even what he does remember is foggy and feels like a bad mix between a fever dream and a bad trip.

He remembers a bong, and Elias, and, oh fuck, calling Jon .

Martin starts by looking around the room, looking for the bong, deciding that he'll wait a few more minutes before checking his phone. Predictably, because nothing in Martin's life can go right these days, it's nowhere to be seen, having vanished into thin air.

He sits back down on the couch and checks his phone. Over twenty texts and ten missed calls from Jon. 

Damn it.

Martin closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths before getting up and starting to head out of the archives.

He'll deal with this mess later. Right now, he just really needs a cup of coffee to help things start making sense again.