Chapter Text
Jon was restless, which was ironic since this was the first place he'd been able to rest since... since whenever. Upton House was nice, but it wasn’t good for him. As soon as he and Martin had gotten close, he had realized that he would probably be cut off from the Eye once he was inside. Now that they were inside, he could tell he had been correct. When his powers had first started to get strong, it had been overwhelming and scary to have all of that knowledge all of the time, but now that it was gone? He missed it, and the lack was starting to get to him. The food and the sleep satisfied his body's needs, but the rest of him could only last so long here. He wasn’t sure what to do.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Not wanting to wake Martin, but not being able to sleep any more, Jon decided to explore the house. He quietly slipped through the door and out into the long hallway. He knew the house was large, but the only rooms he and Martin had seen yet were their bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen. The only other room on this floor was Salesa’s room, and he didn’t feel the need to see that . There was a staircase at the end of the hall, so that’s where Jon headed. The wood of the steps creaked gently beneath his feet. Pushing open the door at the top of the stairs, he stopped short. Instead of another hallway like he had expected, there was a small room covered floor to ceiling in display shelves.
The space felt charged with energy. He’d been to Artifact Storage a few times, and this had a similar aura. Each shelf held a different item. Curious, and not a little apprehensive, he scanned the shelves looking for anything interesting. The first thing to catch his eye was an old camera. That must be the camera Salesa was talking about, he realized. Moving on, he continued his inventory of the room. Then he noticed a book. The only one in the entire room. He approached the shelf that held it. His experiences with Leitners had taught him a healthy respect for books. However, something told him that within this house, the fact that the powers were neutralized by the camera meant that neither the book nor anything else here could harm him at the moment. At least, the book was probably safe to handle. Flipping open the cover, he found exactly what he thought he would: a sticker proudly proclaiming FROM THE LIBRARY OF JURGEN LEITNER.
He snapped the book shut. Harmless or no, he would not read any further. He shoved it in his pocket for later. The book was fairly small and his pockets were thankfully spacious. He could figure out exactly what it did later. But he had some other questions, too. Most pressing at the moment, why was it here? Surely, if it was here, it must be important somehow. And if it was important, it must be valuable to either Salesa or Annabelle. He did not trust Mikaele Salesa one bit, and he trusted Annabelle far, far less. So, what harm could a little leverage do? Even if it didn’t come to that, once they were out of here he could figure out how to use it. It was a bloody Leitner, who knew what it could do? Maybe… maybe it would even have powers that could help them somehow.
As he was running these thoughts through his mind, a sudden wave of dizziness washed over him and he stumbled. Almost simultaneously, he heard Martin’s voice from the base of the staircase. “Jon? Jon, where did you go?”
Stumbling forward, Jon managed to open the door and practically fell into Martin’s arms on the other side. Somehow, they managed to get back down the stairs without falling, Martin holding him close the whole time.
“Jon, what happened?” Martin’s voice was full of concern.
“I’m… sorry, Martin. I-I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. What happened just now? Why did you almost pass out?”
“It’s… this place. That camera Salesa talked about. I’m cut off from the Eye here.” He sighed and looked down. “I know you’re happy here, and you deserve a chance to rest… but I can’t stay here much longer.”
…
“Martin, listen to me. You need to be careful. We’re about to enter your… domain.” Jon’s voice trailed away. His heart stuttered. Martin was gone. Needing to check but not wanting to pry, Jon reached out for Martin. He was safe. He was okay. Well, as okay as he could be considering the circumstances. Having confirmed there was no immediate need for concern, Jon pulled back and left Martin to it. He deserved his privacy here.
They were three domains out from Upton House. It had taken him a while to get back on his metaphorical feet, and although he had been feeling better for a bit now, there was still something bothering him. Something he had forgotten about. What could it be? His memories of their time at Upton House were vague and dreamlike. There had been a lot of sleeping, and he remembered talking to Salesa about a camera. A camera… in a room… oh .
Oh fuck .
It was so obvious. He mentally kicked himself for forgetting something this important. The mysterious Leitner with UNKNOWN DESTRUCTIVE POTENTIAL was still in his pocket. Just… sitting there. Waiting.
Resisting the urge to take it out and check on it, Jon Thought about it. And then, in an instant, he Knew. He Knew what the book was, what it could do. And everything changed.
In a daze, Jon wandered towards the place he estimated Martin would emerge. As much as he missed Martin, he hoped it would be a while before he returned. There were some things he needed to sort out. Namely, the things he had Known about the book in his pocket.
The book’s title was Once Upon A Time . Kind of on the nose, but whatever. The point was what it could do. If read wrong, it could whisk the reader away to some random time and leave them only the slimmest chance of getting back, or it could trap them in the void beyond the concept of time. Neither of these options particularly appealed to Jon, but that didn’t matter because he Knew how to read it right . The number of the page you turned to was the number of years you would travel. To go forward in time, you read left to right top to bottom. To go back, the opposite. To avoid getting stuck in the aforementioned void beyond the concept of time, you just had to read the whole page. If you stopped in the middle, or left out even one word, boom. Or whoosh. Or something. Done correctly, the book travels with the reader to their chosen time. To bring people along, they simply had to touch the book as well. (Though they must be careful not to read any of it, or to interrupt the reader. Void beyond the concept of time.) Jon wasn’t exactly sure how time worked in this new universe, but his best guess was that they would be taken back to October 18, the day all of this had started. Well, one way to find out.
After what seemed like an eternity, Martin sort of appeared out of the fog. He looked sad and tired, and he was staring into the distance in that way you do when you aren’t actually seeing anything. He probably wanted to talk about what he’d just experienced, and Jon felt awful for not taking the time to help him process the whole domain thing, but the book was too important to wait any longer.
“Martin, look at me. I have something to tell you.” Jon was failing at keeping his voice steady. He was shaking all over as he reached for Martin’s hand.
At the sound of Jon’s voice, Martin finally turned. “Jon, a-are you alright?” There was obvious worry in his voice. Jon took a deep breath and composed himself.
“My apologies, Martin. I have made a discovery.”
“What… kind of discovery?” Still concerned, but with a more pronounced note of apprehension now. Jon couldn’t repress a kind of strained laugh.
“I can fix this. I know how.”
Martin froze. “Y-you mean–”
“Yes. I think.” Another deep breath. “Let me explain. You remember when you found me at the top of the stairs? Did you see any of the room behind me?”
There was a flash of irritation in Martin’s eyes. “Not really. I was more focused on the fact that you were literally unconscious in my arms .”
“Sorry about that. Anyway, it was some sort of artifact storage room. The camera was there, along with who knows how much else. Salesa traded… cursed? Supernatural? Whatever. He traded items with powers. But because he used to work for Leitner, he never worked with books. So why did he have this?” Jon reached into his pocket and produced the tiny tome.
Jumping back in alarm, Martin let out an exclamation of dismay. “Christ, Jon, is that–”
“A Leitner. That lets you time travel.”
A moment of complete silence. The whole world seemed frozen, leaving nothing but the two of them and the book that could change it all.
“Why didn’t you mention this before?!”
“I… forgot.”
“Forgot? What the bloody hell, Jon?”
“I mean… I was still pretty disoriented from Upton House, I guess? I didn’t really get back to full strength until after that creepy hospital. And then after that it just slipped my mind. I didn't try to find out what it did until now.”
Martin put his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair. This was a lot. “So what do we do? How do we use it?”
“I read it. You just touch the book. Be sure not to look at the page.”
“...What happens if I look at the page.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“........I’ll just close my eyes then.”
Martin, indeed with his eyes closed, reached out and touched the back cover. Taking a deep breath, Jon turned to page 3 and began to read.
Jon was slow to regain awareness. It took him a while to become fully conscious, and even longer to register his surroundings. There was a book clenched tightly in his hand. Then all of a sudden, everything came rushing back. He gasped and nearly passed out again, but there were arms around him. Warm, strong, comforting arms. Martin’s arms. Jon choked back a sob as he realized it had worked. The tears turned to a hysterical laugh and soon he was shaking, crying and laughing all at the same time. “Martin,” he managed to get out. “Martin, it worked. We did it.”
Martin touched his cheek gently, cupping his face and turning it so they were looking right at each other. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.” He paused. “Jon, where– and when – are we?”
“It’s October 18, 2015. And we seem to be in…” He looked around. “Daisy’s safehouse.”
“Ohhh…”
“My guess is that time sort of froze after…”
“Yeah.”
Jon took a deep breath before continuing. “Yes. So the book took us three years back in time from when time was last functional, and we ended up in Daisy’s cottage because that’s where we were then too.”
“I… I guess that makes sense? In a… well, in a magic book kind of way.” Martin paused. “Well… now that we’re here, what do we do? What should we do? What even can we do?”
Jon was bone-weary. He was exhausted in all the ways it’s possible to be exhausted, and then some. Physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, etc etc etc. He knew Martin must be the same, if not worse.
“I think… we sleep. We can talk when we wake up. But I need to sleep.”
Martin nodded. “I hope I don’t have nightmares.” He said it as if he was trying to make a joke, but deep down they both knew it wasn’t. And they both knew, too, that it was a vain hope.