Chapter Text
The king of the jungle
Was asleep in his car
When your chances fall in your lap like that
You've got to recognize them for what they really are
Nobody in this house
Wants to own up to the truth
I crawl in shotgun and reach into his mouth
And grab hold of one long, sharp tooth
And hold on
For dear life, I hold on
Well, of course he wakes up
His paw hits the horn
I am going to regret
The day that I was born
And then Mom rushes out to the driveway
My sister too
Everyone's screaming
I am dreaming of you
I hold on
For dear life, I hold on
And my arms get sore
And my palms start to sweat
And the tears roll down my face
'Till my cheeks are hot and red and soaking wet
In come the cops
They blowtorch the doors
I start wailing
The lion roars
There's no good way to end this
Anyone can see
There's this great big you
And little old me
And we hold on
For dear life, we hold on
We hold on
-The Lion's Teeth
-------
Jon ripped Gerard’s page out, quickly, trying to silence the sound of the removal.
“Thank you.” Gerard said.
“Well, you’ve probably killed me.”
“Dying isn’t so bad, it’s staying dead that sucks.”
“Well, these nuggets of wisdom are certainly worth it.”
“Relax, they won’t notice.”
Jon pulled his lighter out of the back pocket of his beaten jacket. Flicked it on with one smooth motion of his thumb. The fire sat at the tip of the lighter, conical and nearly perfect. Idealized reds and oranges, casting Jon’s fingers in warm light too soft for an assisted suicide. It was a gentleness Jon neither asked for nor deserved.
“So,” Gerard asked, prying Jon’s eyes from the flame, “You’ve obviously got questions.”
Jon nodded, “Many, but…”
“But?”
“Where do I even begin?” Jon chuckled, pained and short.
They both faded into silence, wishing the lighter cracked or popped.
“What was Gertrude, in the end?” He spit out, rushed and fast in a way they both thought impossible under the leaden silence that blanketed the moment prior.
“What do you mean?”
“Did- did she need statements? Did she Know without thinking, like it was boring into her skull?” Jon stilled for a moment, but before silence could rake its hands over them, he spoke up again, “Was she a monster?”
Gerard didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” Jon filled in, “I- that was rushed. We should- I should just burn your page now, not drag it out.”
Jon sucked in a breath as he held the page above the flame. The slightest twitch of his hand, and Gerard Keay would burn.
All the knowledge he has, lost, obliterated in the wind, a part of his heart whispered. Jon crushes the little voice, the whisper of everything he is trying not to be, the monster he is trying not to become.
The hunters- Julia and Trevor, they were still people, were out. They’d be gone for a while, Jon and Gerard both knew it. This burning, this release, this escape, this death was the only thing that would end Gerard’s suffering. It would hurt, Jon would suffer, but he would burn the page. They both knew it.
Gerard floats above the page, and lets out a slow breath, unsteady and tired. He understands that this is his end. The end he has wanted and waited for so long. No more entities, no more apocalypses, no more Archivist.
“Stop.” Gerard knew he was going to regret this, “Don’t burn it. I’ll help you stop the Unknowing, then you burn my page.”
Jon’s eyes shot up to meet Gerard’s, “Why?”
Gerard didn’t answer, instead saying, “We’ll need to get out of here without Julia or Treavor noticing us”
“H-how? Wait, I’m serious about the change of heart.”
“Look, they’re out right now, if we run soon we could get a good lead on them. They’re hunters so we're unlikely to completely lose them, but we’ll need the ground if we want any chance of escaping.”
“Wha- I- well, alright, I suppose.”
-------
Jon gathered all his clothes into a bundle, using a flannel to tie up his things and grabbed an old map from the back of the van.
He just needed to get out, get far enough away to lose Julia and Treavor. He’d never been the most athletic, but the hunters should be far enough away he could make a break for it.
He slid out of the van, flinching at a twig as it snapped underfoot. Jon swore he heard footsteps. Still, he resisted the urge to run, instead choosing to walk, trying to save as much stamina as he could. He took a moment to adjust his hold on the makeshift bag and to dig out Gerard’s page, clutching it in the opposite hand.
-------
Jon swore he heard footsteps.
He’d only been walking for a few minutes, it couldn’t have been long. His nerves began to shake, sweat beading on the back of his neck. The forest was just the same as it was next to the van. Same towering trees, same dense underbrush.
Same distant, but ever approaching footsteps.
Jon broke out into a sprint, the forest blurring as he surged forward.
The footsteps grew louder, each one like thunder. Jon realized just how badly he had messed up, how he might now die here, challenging a creature of the Hunt to a race.
In seconds, Trevor revealed himself. He was mere feet behind Jon, legs that were inhumanly powerful pushing him forward, ever forward, towards his prey
Jon stumbled and dropped his makeshift bag, spilling its guts across the forest floor.
Trevor dropped to a crouch, muscles tensing, ready to pounce. Jon stumbled backwards, nearly getting caught on a branch. His hand tightened around Gerard’s page.
In a flash, Trevor sprung, colliding with Jon and sending them sprawling to the floor. Jon’s head slammed against the forest floor as Trevor’s nails bit into Jon’s skin, digging and tearing at flesh and skin. His breath was toxic, hot and damp on Jon’s face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Trevor barked out, tone like nails on a chalkboard.
Jon stuttered for barely a second before Trevor grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him into the ground, his head ringing and vision swimming.
“Destroying our monster manual, trashing our van, running off.” With every thing he listed, Trevor lifted Jon and slammed his skull into the forest floor. “I’m going to kill you. We’re going to kill you and make you suffer for the shit you pulled.”
Jon groaned, the weight of the world collapsing on his shoulders. Years of terror and suffering and fear pressing his chest down, the emotional weight combining with Trevor’s to make breathing a struggle.
He bared her teeth and pulled Jon up by his collar, dragging him across the ground, filling his hair with sticks and scraping his skin against the dirt.
“Why?” Jon asked, croaking out to no one. Why was he here, why was he going to be killed, why was he being trapped in this hell, why was this his life? Was it his fault? Did he deserve to be here?
Trevor grunted, stopping for a moment to pull Jon up to eye level. “What did you say?”
Jon shaked, “I-I”
“What did you say!” He shouted.
“I said why!”
In an instant, Trevor dropped Jon, his lips began to thrash, trying to articulate answers he could not know. He clutched his throat, spitting syllables and hacking up words. Jon scrambled backwards, clutching Gerard’s page to his chest. Trevor dropped to his knees, pounding the ground.
Jon pushed himself further backwards, away from Trevor’s thrashing body. Trevor’s head snapped up, and Jon saw the terror in his eyes, raw and pure. He threw himself at Jon, falling short and slumping to the ground.
Shoving himself off the ground, Jon took a second to look at Trevor’s still form before darting off into the woods.
Jon ran as fast as he could, pushing his legs until his muscles screamed and his breath came in gasps. Jon saw the hunter’s van behind a few trees. He glanced around and when he failed to see Julia around, he made a break for the van.
He slammed the door closed behind him, realizing quickly that the keys, thank God, were left in the ignition. He scrambled to twist the key and floored the gas pedal.
The car took off like a shot, Jon only barely avoided slamming into a tree as they headed off. In the rearview mirror, he could see Julia, shouting as the van flew across the forest floor.
Jon looked around, panicked, trying to find a road or landmark he could use to navigate before he heard what was unmistakably a gunshot behind him. His head whipped around, only to see the hole that Julia had just shot into the van. Shit, he thought, she’s armed.
“Oh shit, she’s armed.”
Jon screamed and flailed, whipping around to see Gerard’s apparition sitting in the seat next to him.
“Wha-!?”
“Drive, Jon!”
Jon’s hands gripped the steering wheel again. He twisted, throwing the van to the left as Julia unloaded three more shots into the car.
“There, Jon, in the distance, I think it's a road!” Gerard exclaimed, pointing a ghostly hand towards the vague suggestion of a road.
The van burst onto the road, nearly colliding with another car. Jon spun the wheel as the other car’s horn screamed at them. Jon righted the car, and shot down the road, trying to escape Julia.
-------
“Jon.”
Jon’s hands held tight on the wheel.
“Jon.”
The windows shook, the glass trembling as the van crossed rough roads.
“Jon.”
The leather seats were worn and cracked, comfortable in a way that evoked the memory of the people who wore the leather down. Jon had killed one of those people.
“Jon.”
Jon had killed a man.
“Jon!”
Jon startled, snapping to Gerard for a second before his eyes laser focused on the road again.
“Y-yes?”
“You’re driving on the wrong side of the road.”
Jon shook his head, realizing he was driving on the left side of the road.
“Oh, thank you.” Jon said, quickly righting the error, silently thanking that there was no one else on the road.
-------
The speedometer hit ninety before Gerard spoke up. “I really didn’t take you for the speeding type.”
Jon’s eyes didn’t leave the road, “This is insane.”
“I agree, I read you as sweater vests, tea, and going at least five miles below the speed limit.”
“I killed a man, Gerard!” Fear and panic creeping into Jon’s tone.
Jon’s breath rattled with the steady thump of tires across the road.
“I killed a man, and evil gods are real, and I’m becoming something inhuman, and the world is ending! The world is going to end if we don’t stop it.” Jon’s head hit the steering wheel, and he pressed the pedal into the floor, grinding his foot into it, feeling the van jump under him. “Two years ago my biggest problem was trying to talk my landlord into letting me get a cat.”
Jon lifted his head and let it hit the back of the headrest, eyes closed. Gerard kept his eyes on the road. They both knew how easy it would be for Jon to keep his foot pressed to the gas, to accelerate until the shitty old van couldn't go any faster, to keep eyes screwed shut, to keep going until the road swerved. Jon could slam into a tree going one hundred twenty something miles per hour and be done. No more guilt, no more Entities, no more Unknowing.
“Cops will still give you a ticket for going, fuck, ninety eight in a sixty.” Gerard said.
Jon laughed, loud and pained, and did what seemed impossible, peeling his foot off the acceleration, letting the car come to a stop. He looked at Gerard as laughter, wet and anxious, bubbled from the back of his throat and rolled across his tongue. Gerard looked back at Jon, and saw the fear-pain-grief-awe-inevitability of it all in his eyes, and found a similar laugh boiling in himself.
They might have sat there for five minutes, or it may have been hours, sharing their twin tragedies. Grief and agony and fear and hopelessness. The world was so massive, so terrifying, and neither of them had anything, anything but the other person in this car. Two ships without moorings, tied to nothing but each other and left adrift in a sprawling storm.
Hysterical laughter was quickly mixed with heavying, messy sobs. They dissolved into a mess of fat tears and snot, of loud cries and choked giggles.
“So,” Jon said, wiping his eyes between heaving laughter, “do you think the cops will give us trouble for stopping on the side of the road?”
“I haven’t seen any cops, no anyone else, for miles. But still, you should prepare an excuse for why you have a ghost in the car.”
“I have a ghost in the car. Good Lord, I have a fucking ghost in the car.”
Jon tried to start the car several times, getting barely a few feet before breaking down into crying-laughing again, eyes too full of tears to see the road.
-------
Jon looked sick as they barrelled down the road.
“So,” Gerard said, looking at the trees that were only marginally less green than the Archivist next to him, “What is the plan?”
“Plan?” Jon responded, shoulders hunched and knuckles white.
“Yeah, don’t you have some big Archivist plan? How we’re going to get Julia off our trail? How we’re going to get back to London? How we’re supposed to end the Unknowing?”
“I thought you knew how to do-” Jon stammered “to do all of that!”
The van was eerily silent as both Jon and Gerard realized that neither of them knew what they were doing. That for all the statements and stories Jon had heard, Gerard Keay was a man, a falibal man, not the guru, not the all knowledgeable hero. For all Gerard remembered of his predecessor, all the great deeds and averted apocalypses, Jon was a man, a man who was nothing like the stoic Gertrude Robbinson.
“Well,” Jon started, before stumbling to a stop.
“Well indeed,” Gerard agreed. “We need to get to an airport first right?”
“Yes,” Jon quickly agreed, “They mentioned they can’t board planes so we just need to get to our flight and we’ll be out.”
“Good, there should be an airport right in Chicago, it’s a half hour drive.”
Jon pursed his lips and scrunched up his nose as if he had eaten a lemon.
“Yes, well, you see…”
“Oh God.”
“I don’t, well, have any money for another plane ticket.”
“You only need the one. I’ll just be in my page.”
“No, I mean, I don’t have the money to buy any new plane tickets. I only have the one, the two way ticket I used to get here.”
“And you don’t have any Institute funds to use?”
“No, well, Elias had us take on some budget cuts and, well, Library needed some new shelves that were quite expensive, and Artifact Storage needed several new hired after the latest incident and-”
“So we really have to drive all the way to, where did you come in?”
“BWI.”
“Where?”
“Baltimore.”
“Drive all the way to Baltimore, to catch the only flight available, to get away from the, I cannot stress this enough, the murderous, supernatural woman trailing us, in order to get back to London where we have to stop an army of evil clowns from ending the world?”
Jon’s shoulders slumped, feeling the weight of everything collapse onto his back.
“Yes.”
“Alright” Gerard responded.
“Alright?”
“Alright, bring it on! Let’s do this. I’ve always wanted to go on a murder roadtrip. Thelma and Louise style.”
The side of his mouth sprung up into an almost smile.
“Alright.”