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Jon is no Hunt Avatar. He isn't entirely sure how to interpret his own instincts for finding from the Beholding unless they truly overwhelm him. For becoming an Avatar of forbidden knowledge, he feels woefully left in the dark, much of the time.
But today, he feels a calling and manages to recognize it. His walk to his flat from his tube stop somehow results in his feet taking him several blocks the wrong way, and by the time he looks up and registers the gathering shadows as not being the ones right outside his home, he realizes he's…he's following something. He doesn't know what, but he stands still and tries to listen for it
For several minutes, he hears nothing. Frustrated, he starts walking again, and he finds that he wants to walk…right, apparently. Up an alley. Usually he'd hesitate, and he still peers up along it nervously, but he continues following the instinct.
It leads to the backdoor of a place that he can't recognize fully as either the back of a pub or a dilapidated flat. The single step up to the door is sagging and waterlogged, despite there being no nearby puddles. Jon is pretty sure it hasn't rained in days.
His hand is on the doorknob before he's fully gathered himself for the act of breaking and entering, but it turns out it isn't locked. Something still keeps him from calling out 'hello' as he enters, though.
He's in what looks like it was perhaps once a kitchen, with an oven and sink in one corner and counters along two walls. The fridge somehow seems too big to fight in the space, or maybe it's that the walls aren't big enough to accommodate it.
He recoils when he looks up at the ceiling. It's sagging much like the singular back stair, oppressive and wet.
Jon should leave. But now he Knows there is something here, something dangerous, and he can't walk away.
He can't say he's surprised when he gets to what must have once been a living room and sees an anachronistic treasure chest sitting in the center, in place of a coffee table. His shoes squelch on the water-logged carpet as he approaches. He ought to know better than to draw near, should either leave it be or at best, perhaps call the Institute and have Artifact Storage send a team to collect it. But much like how his feet guided him here like he's now some kind of inhuman dowsing rod, Jon Knows that…
Something is in that box that doesn't belong there. And he wants to get it out, before anyone else can come to claim what's inside. What it is, though, he's having trouble focusing on. Something to help combat the Rituals, or even Elias himself? Is that why the Eye will guide him but not share the full picture?
There's no key anywhere nearby, but he reaches out for the lock regardless to test it. He grips it, jiggles the metal.
Something inside bangs against the lid.
Jon picks himself up off the floor seconds later with another gasp, staggering back. The knocking continues, frantic and loud, and there is now a muffled, gurgling noise joining it. It's not right to call it screaming, because that would imply that whoever is making it sounds like they have air with which to scream.
Jon is shaking when he returns from the kitchen with a knife. It's poor leverage for trying to do anything to the lock, though, and he doesn't actually know how to pick one. Can he learn? He tries staring at it and thinking very, very hard about picking locks and only gets a headache in response.
The knocking is fading away, less frequent each moment now. Jon is so scared that it's hard to force his voice out of his throat, but something compels him to reach out and bang on the lid in return. "I don't know if this is actually a good idea," he says, trying to shout past the fear. "But I'm going to open this. Just– just hang on. W-whoever this is."
He ends up finding a hammer in a densely-packed, collapsing closet. That works much better on the rusted lock. It snaps off and lands on the soggy carpet with a wet noise, more like a piece of meat than metal. Jon shudders and then pries the interlaid metal clasp apart, braces himself, and shoves the lid back.
He stares down. Blinks. "Mike?!"
Mike Crew is curled – no, crushed – into a position that doesn't look possible in order to fit inside the chest. His head doesn't move, but his eyes do, tracking right over to Jon immediately. His arms are both in front of him, hands curled and pressed up against the wooden panel of the chest. Pink blossoms around him, like ethereal ribbons through air.
It takes Jon several seconds to process that it's because the chest is filled to the brim with water, and that the pink streaked through it is blood. From what he can tell, the blood is from Mike's knuckles, which are raw and bruised. There are bloodstains on the wood right against his hands – it must be from knocking.
"Jesus…Jesus Christ," Jon says. Mike looks at him, eyes intelligent and awake, but his movements are slow. Exhausted, pained. He's being forced to bend over himself at such an angle that Jon isn't sure his spine isn't broken – would that even have killed Mike? "I thought you were– But Daisy, I-I saw her–"
Mike's mouth opens, but no noise comes out this time, nor do any bubbles. But Jon can watch the word 'Archivist?' form on his lips, can see the sickening mixture of terror and disbelief in Mike's face.
Jon isn't sure what to think, but in an instant, he knows he can't leave Mike in this. Unsure what else to do, Jon grabs the front of the chest and yanks on it as hard as he can. It only barely budges, but Jon just plants himself more firmly and uses his entire body weight on his next try. This time, it falls forward.
The wave of water that comes out is entirely disproportionate to the size of the chest. Jon splutters and gasps, choking on salty, grimy water that tries to snake into his lungs as if it has its own mind, as if all it has ever wanted to do is sink deep inside of every part of him and weigh him down. Just as he's starting to catch his breath and feels air hitting the back of his throat again, something grabs his ankles.
Jon screams and his initial instinct is to kick, which is met with the sluggish sound of a groan. He's already looked down to see what's grabbed him, and once again finds himself gasping, "Mike?" He's not entirely happy to be seeing a Vast Avatar wrapping himself around his ankles, and now beginning to reach up his soaked khakis as if intending to literally climb Jon to break the surface of the water, but also all at once he understands what Mike is trying to do.
Jon would never usually be strong enough to lift someone on his own, not even someone as small as Mike, but he's expecting it to be easier with the water all around them. But the water instead seems to suction the other man down towards the earth, and Jon grunts with effort before staggering forward.
"Damn. Okay, well…" He sucks in a breath of air and then bends down, into the water that has impossibly already filled the room to his waist. He grabs for Mike in return, and Mike is so frantic and violent in his movements that it ought to be hurting Jon – the way Mike claws at him, grasping, eyes wild and mouth open even though Jon knows there can't be room for any air in his lungs, just heavy burning seawater.
But Mike's movements are slow despite his clear terror and desperation. Jon has a hard time corralling their limbs into a combination that lets him hook Mike under his arms and stand back up, but somehow sheer luck and the number of attempts works in his favor.
They break the surface of the water again, and by now it's up to Jon's chest. He gasps for air. Mike makes an awful, struggling noise while clawing onto Jon's shirt so as to not fall back into the water. Jon shifts his grip to more tightly hang onto him in return, uncertain about everything going on but very determined to not watch this man die in front of him for a second time.
Mike finally makes a noise that sounds like air is entering his lungs, and then immediately slumps over and vomits into the water. It's mostly water that comes out of his mouth, too, clear except for the pink tinging some of it. He keeps heaving until the only thing dripping from his mouth is stringy spittle, and once he's stopped rocking them so violently, Jon remembers he needs to start moving.
The water level's still rising.
"Don't– don't–" Mike rasps, spit and salt water dripping from his lips.
"I won't, I won't," Jon says, even though he's not entirely sure what he's promising. "I'm– we're both getting out of here." And somehow, even with Mike sagging against him, Jon starts staggering back the way he came. The apartment seems to be collapsing around them, and the water level rises inside the flat even once they're close enough to the door that Jon can see it hinged open, leading to the normal street beyond.
The entire time, Mike is impossibly heavy and doesn't stop shaking against him. His grip hurts – Jon can feel it carving finger-shaped bruises into his arms – but he doesn't try to shift him off. In fact, when he feels Mike's shivering arms loosen their hold as they pass into the kitchen, Jon just grabs him back more tightly.
It's awkward – he thinks he's gripping Mike underneath his arms, but Mike has one too many elbows digging into his ribs for that to be right – but he doesn't dare let go. It's beyond a conscious choice. Yes, Mike is dangerous, but– but so is Jon. So is almost everyone back at the Archives. Mike never tried to kill him directly, even if he delighted in tormenting him, but Jon can admit that… Well. Now that he knows he needs statements to survive, it's hard to see Mike sending him into the Vast while giving him a Statement as anything other than a…a shared meal, he supposes.
The doorway to the outside is the hardest part yet. It's like a wall, even though Jon can see that it's wide open; the water stopped by nothing at all on the threshold. He grits his teeth and strains forward. Mike's head shifts against his shoulder, sluggish but seemingly still aware, because then Mike kicks out a leg and leverages it against the counter and pushes, too, his shoulders digging into Jon's ribs.
They finally press outward with a wet plopping noise, and the water rushes out all at once as if a force field let it go. Jon collapses to the ground and Mike falls with him, and for several long moments the only sound is water slowly trickling away and the two of them gasping.
Then Mike starts coughing, terrible retching noises that sound wet and keep producing more clear fluid. Jon takes an experimental full breath and doesn't feel any more water in his own lungs, so he starts trying to roll over onto his side. Mike is quite literally on top of him, though, and as soon as Jon starts trying to brace a shaky hand on the pavement so he can start sitting up, Mike – flails.
"Mike, what are you–" Mike grapples for him so violently Jon thinks he's trying to strangle him for a moment, until he realizes Mike is still wheezing incoherently and his hands only grab at Jon's soaked clothes, not his neck.
"Don't put me back, don't you dare put me back–"
Jon's heart was already thundering away in panic, but now it gives a little twinge of sympathy that he also can't stop. "Mike, you're out of the– whatever the hell that artifact was. I don't see it anywhere. It's–" Jon has finally managed to sit up, but as soon as he moves Mike climbs him the way he'd tried to while he was still underwater. It's a desperate, clinging thing, and he keeps gasping like he either can't breathe, or hasn't processed that he can.
"I'm not putting anyone in that thing." Jon is woefully underprepared for every single part of this, but he can at least state facts. "We're out of the flat with that artifact," he repeats. Mike shivers violently against him, and has ended up with his hands on Jon's shoulders, collapsed against him while sitting up as tall as he can – Mike's temple is against the top of Jon's head, as if his instinct is to be as high above any potentially-rising water level as possible. "It's– we're both breathing air right now."
Jon swallows. Mike doesn't speak, but his fingers are slowly loosening their death grip on him. Jon can't guess if it's because he's exhausted or because he's calming down. A little quieter, remembering his own fear while he'd approached that chest and then tried to drag them both out, he adds, "The Buried didn't kill either of us, today."
Mike makes a final, horrible coughing noise and then spits. His voice is wavering when he finally uses it. "Why were you…" He takes several seconds to pant before continuing. "Why were you there? Did you…"
"If you're asking me if I set that up, the answer is definitely not." Jon is starting to shiver, too – it's mid-October, not freezing, but far too chilly to be sitting on cold pavement while soaking wet. "And as for why I showed up, I… I don't know. The Eye, it just…showed me where you were."
Mike's making a new noise - his teeth are chattering, Jon thinks. His breath finally sounds dry, but it's whistling out of him painfully. "Bit weird."
"Yeah." Jon tries to plant a hand behind himself, but Mike is too heavy to try standing up with. "Can you… Mike, I promise you're not going back in that– that thing, but we can't stay here."
Mike does not let go. Mike, in fact, suddenly grips Jon's shoulders harder and tenses against him in a way that feels both threatening and a little heart-wrenching.
"Mike, I can't stand up with you on top of me."
Mike's shivering gets worse.
"For Christ's sake– Mike, we'll both freeze to death if we don't go somewhere else."
"You will." Mike says through gritted teeth, words shaking strangely as he shivers. "The cold can't kill me."
"Well, if I'm dead, I won't be able to drag you out of that chest again if anything happens." Jon hisses, and that's what sees Mike finally, slowly, uncurling from him. He moves stiffly and as if it's painful which…given the position he was in when Jon found him, may very well be the case. "Look, just… Here. Can you, uh. Can you stand?"
Mike is now sitting on his arse on the pavement, looking not entirely unlike a half-drowned blond rat. "Dunno." He gets up halfway from kneeling before he loses his balance. Jon catches him under the arms again, his own legs shaky and weak.
"I don't know if they'll let us in a cab like this." Jon says. Helping to hold up Mike is miserable not just because it's exhausting, but because the man feels like ice. He radiates cold, and Jon's shivering immediately gets worse even though he doesn't shrug him off.
Mike drags unsuccessfully at his trouser pocket with fingers that barely bend because of the cold for several moments before sighing, aggravated. "Just bribe them. Use my credit card, if I still have it. My wallet might still be in my back pocket. Grab it for me."
"...Seriously?"
Mike just stares at him, looking halfway between aggravated and nauseous, so Jon does as he's told and reaches in for him.
He does, thankfully, have his wallet on him. And the cab driver is very unamused, but he accepts Jon's promise of double fare with a sigh and after handing them a trash bag to lay over the backseat. Mike's irritated suspicion of everything around them dissolves back into staring out the window and shivering, and Jon keeps their shoulders touching even though Mike seems to leach the heat right out of him.
***
Jon autopilots them to his flat – it didn't even occur to him to ask for Mike's address, even though every single aspect of this is the worst idea he's ever had. An Avatar that once attacked him is now inside his home.
Mike crosses the threshold with him and then immediately collapses against the counter, however, so it's hard to see him as a threat. He looks thin, Jon realizes, even compared to before. How long was he…?
The Eye opens, eager to Know, so Jon shakes his head and takes off his soaking wet jacket to hang by the door. It drips water onto the floor. "I'll, um. I'll g-get us both clothes. You should sit down." Mike looks over at him, expression blank, and then slumps down from the counter onto the floor. "...I was thinking at the table, but that's…right, okay, I'll be right back."
Mike says nothing, and Jon rushes off to his bedroom.
He re-emerges minutes later, hair still wet but having toweled off and changed. In his arms he has another towel and pajamas that looked like they had the best chance of fitting someone even slimmer and shorter than himself. Mike is, of course, not in the kitchen when Jon comes skidding back into it.
"Fuck," he says passionately, and turns to start searching for the rogue, half-dead Avatar he's invited into his flat.
"What are you doing?" Jon drops the entire pile he was carrying in favor of lunging forward when he finds him. Mike is currently halfway out of the window in his living room, having apparently dragged himself onto the back of the couch to reach it more easily. "If you need to leave, you can just– use the door!"
Mike is loose-limbed in his grip at first, until Jon tries to let him go in order to get the towel and clothes off the floor. Then the man grabs him, and this time his strength seems to suddenly be back. Jon instinctively freezes and looks back at him, his own hands re-finding their grip on Mike's shoulders.
"Jon." Mike starts, panting for breath. "I was in there for…" He fades off, quiet and clearly suddenly unable to remember specifics. Jon can practically hear him thinking, and the moment he wants to help, he can't keep the Eye from Knowing any more.
"...Three months," Jon says. Horror sinks more deeply into him. Mike's– Mike's killed people, but that's not…that's still not right. It doesn't mean it would have been any less terrifying, surrounded by the opposite of everything you gave yourself over to. The antithesis of what saved you. Mike's fear settles down around Jon's bones.
Mike doesn't reprimand him for Looking, if he even realizes Jon has. "I'm… I'm not…." He gives a greater shudder than the last time, and then all of the sudden Jon feels the tiniest flickerings of vertigo on top of the breathless ache from being crushed so recently. "You just…helped me, so I'm trying not to hurt you." Mike manages, suddenly somber. "But if I don't find a different meal, I will."
"Oh." Right. Mike is weak right now, and likely starving. The simple fact that he apparently hadn't had oxygen in three months didn't kill him, but going without – without his version of Statements likely will.
Jon hesitates. He listens to Mike gripping his drenched shirt tighter, the way water droplets get slowly wrung out of it while the man he just rescued seemingly tries to resist every impulse to feed on him.
"I-if you feed, you'll…you'll heal?"
"Dunno. Think so, it worked once before." Mike's voice is starting to sound foggy, far-off. "I guess you might know better than me."
"Oh? What, is that how you…you survived after Daisy?" There's a swooping sensation in Jon's stomach, as if he tripped while climbing down the stairs, timed exactly with Mike closing his eyes in exhaustion. "Right, we can talk about that later. Um." This is…objectively terrible. Jon stares down at the ragged, still soaked man currently collapsed back against his couch. The window is still open, and the cold breeze makes the goosebumps along Jon's arms worse.
"So I need to, what… Go out and pick a random person to sacrifice to you?"
Mike frowns up at him. "What do you eat?" He challenges, but then his eyes shut again and Jon feels that dropping sensation in his abdomen, a brief pull before it recedes. "God, are you always…always like this…?" When Mike's eyes next open, they zero in on the window like he's guided by more than just sight. Mike starts slowly rolling over, clearly intent on just jumping out so he can go hunt.
"Wait." Jon grabs his shoulder. He takes a deep breath, and then he sits down next to Mike on the couch. "Just– just take me."
Mike is back to shivering, but it doesn't look like it's just from the cold, this time. The sense of vertigo begins climbing up Jon's throat, but he can still see his surroundings. He isn't falling yet. Somehow, Mike is showcasing the kind of control that Jon struggles to keep over himself when the hunger gets bad. Three months… "You sure? It…shouldn't kill you, but you didn't seem like a fan."
"I'm sure. Better me than someone else. I'm already Marked by the Vast anyway, after our first time."
Mike eyes him. For a moment, there is just an intelligent curiosity in his stare, a sort of wonder that Jon hadn't expected to ever see from him.
And then his eyes, already blue, seem to fade into the color of the sky at midday. The world around Jon doesn't melt away so much as it never even existed in a way that mattered. The last thing Jon can see with any clarity before he's endlessly falling, through a sky so big he can't even measure his passing with clouds, is the sight of Mike finally sighing with relief.
***
When Jon wakes up, it's with a jolt. His throat hurts – was he screaming? His entire body is sore, but he's pretty sure that is from the unexpected exercise of running through chest-deep water and then carrying someone two-thirds his weight back to his–
Jon sits straight up with a gasp. "Mike?" He calls. Was that real, did that all actually happen? He reaches up to touch his hair and see if it's still wet.
"About time you're waking up." Jon lets out a noise that he'd deny is a scream as he turns around. Mike is sitting on the floor, against the wall opposite him. Jon now realizes he's sitting on the couch in his living room still. It looks like he was sleeping on it – there's even a blanket from his bed stretched out over him. "Considering you weren't even the one trapped in a box for months."
"I-I-I–" Jon takes a few seconds to look over everything one more time. Mike closed the window and must have turned up the heat, too, which is bad for Jon's electric bill but fantastic for combating the bone-deep chill he'd been struggling against since getting nearly drowned earlier. "You… Are you alright, then?"
The surprise on Mike's face is unfiltered. "...Yeah." He says after an awkward pause. "You uh, you weren't the best meal, funnily enough, but I made it work."
"What's that mean?"
Mike shrugs. Jon realizes he's got a mug in his hands – the 'WORLD'S SECOND-BEST BOSS' mug Tim had bought him when he'd been promoted, and which Jon had brought home from work once they'd started fighting – and is curled over it. Apparently he's made himself very much at home. "Not everyone's scared enough of heights for it to be completely nourishing. It actually kinda felt like you were relieved. I mean, you were still trying to scream, and you panicked a bit when I tried out showing you the ground for a moment, but…" He waves a hand as if to indicate the apparent lack of haute cuisine involved in feeding from Jon.
"...Huh." Jon experimentally rolls his neck - sore from sleeping on the couch, but not terrible. He drags the blanket up a little higher against himself now that he's sitting and it's fallen down. "I do remember it being a bit of a relief. A-after almost drowning in the Buried with you. All that empty space, it was almost…nice."
"That so." Mike is watching him with an expression Jon can't parse. He might be happy, might look reverent…might look hungry.
Jon shifts uncomfortably and casts his gaze to the side, which is when he sees there's a mug on the coffee table in front of himself. It's still steaming. "Oh, is this…?"
"For you, yeah. I'm not rude enough to make myself one without offering you any."
"Even while I'm napping off the effects of being an IV drip for the Vast?"
Mike looks like he smiles, but it's hard to tell from behind the mug. "Something like that, yeah. And this isn't even my house."
'"Well…thank you." Considering the kinds of interactions Jon's had just this past week, being made tea after being fed from is not even in the top ten worst experiences. The tea's still hot enough to bridge the final gap between himself and finally feeling warm again, too.
It's quiet, after that. Jon gets through about half his mug before he can't keep from commenting on anything else. "You're…comfortable on the floor?"
Mike shrugs. "No."
Jon tries valiantly not to spit out his tea. "Then– why are you there?"
"You were taking up the whole couch, after you passed out." Mike says, and he doesn't really say it in a friendly way, but he doesn't sound irritated, either. Like it's just a fact, and it made sense to seat himself on the floor so Jon could have the entire couch.
Jon isn't sure how to process that. Or anything that's happened today. "...Well, I'm only using half of it now."
Mike narrows his eyes at him, but he doesn't argue. After a few seconds he just shrugs again and then stands up, walks right over, and sits himself into the farthest possible corner of the couch. But he also then reaches over and helps himself to an edge of the blanket Jon's got, as well, so Jon can't really say he thinks he was mistaken in offering. "Kind of thought you'd kick me out once you got over feeling guilty. Or whatever possessed you to grab me out of that thing."
Jon sighs heavily. "Yeah. Me too."
"Hmm." Mike keeps watching him. After a very long pause – during which Jon does his level best to just let him stare instead of snapping at him to stop – Mike finally licks his lips and says, "Thanks."
"Oh." Jon smiles for a moment. "Right. You're…you're welcome, Mike."
Mike nods thoughtfully. "Once I'm recovered a bit more, I'll give you another statement. As repayment. That seems fair."
"Oh!" Jon actually feels a little thrill hit him. "That would be… I'd really appreciate that, Mike. Thank you. I-it's not easy to find willing… Well. I'm sure you know how hard it is."
"Not really. I just take whoever's most interesting." Mike says, oblique enough that Jon winces. "But yeah. You can have…how I survived your wolf of a cop trying to kill me. How's that sound?"
"I'd love that." Jon says, and if he were any less exhausted, he might be worried about how eager he feels.