Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The agreement has only been in place for a handful of years, but the Web has already established an annual gala to celebrate the alliance of all participating avatars. Annabelle Cane takes great delight in her duties as hostess, and in the tense social microcosm formed by getting a throng of non-humans and semi-humans together in one room. Jon attends as the de facto spokesperson of the Beholding, upholding his role in the agreement, though for the most part he stands by the wall with a plate of bougie snacks and glass of wine, people-watching.

There's a young man trailing behind Peter Lucas, a novelty that immediately draws Jon's attention. His auburn hair is streaked in the pure white of the Lonely. His whole demeanor is mottled with it, in turns colorful and colorless. The Lonely, despite being one of the quieter torments, has a flair for certain dramatics. The Lonely draws a not-insignificant amount of artists, ones who are more aware than most that connection to other people gives life meaning and will, therefore, appreciate and loathe the heavy metaphor of a life in the Lonely literally draining one of their color.

Of course, by the time the Lonely has fully taken one over, they aren't likely to care, but the process of Becoming an avatar feeds one's patron as much as any other encounter. Jon remembers his frantic paranoia during his own process of Becoming, his relentless hoarding of knowledge and secrets, driven mad with the opposing fears that he'd be brought to ruin if he didn't have the information to stop it, and that the information he uncovered would be what ruined him. What he is now isn't free of its torments, but it's a sight better than the growing pains.

What are the growing pains for one aligned with the Lonely?

It's unusual that Peter even bothered to show up at one of these things, and even more unusual that he brought along a guest. Idle curiosity grows into a familiar urge and his mind buzzes with Knowledge, pouring in from the ocean available to him as a reflex more than anything else. He shuts the door on it before he gets caught up in the wave, but enough got through for him to learn the basics about Peter's guest.

His name is Martin Blackwood. The Lucases aren't responsible for his turn to the Lonely, but they found him anyway when he was scared, confused and unaware of what was happening to him, as many Avatars are at first. The Lucases do love their little dynasty, so Peter collected him up to be properly groomed and integrated into the family. It's not the first time he's done this, but it is the first time he's tried it with someone like Martin. His connection to the Web complicates his relationship with the Lonely, but Peter is not overly worried. He should be.

The Web may not engage in much healthy interaction with people, but it does rely on that interaction, those connections. Someone touched by both the Lonely and the Web has the potential to be very volatile and very dangerous. He's likely to implode spectacularly and take out anything stupid enough to have gotten too close.

Martin looks around the room with a demeanor of withdrawn anxiety. It makes sense; he's new to this world. Jon is very eager to Watch him emerge, and, when the time comes, rip himself apart.

Oliver Banks touches him lightly on the arm, breaking Jon from his thoughts. He must have gotten a little more caught up in the Knowledge than he thought. Amused and a little reproachful, Oliver asks, "Chewing on anyone interesting, Jon?"

The other avatars get precious about him Knowing things about them, even if it is one of the least horrific things anyone in this room is capable of. At least he's not trying to fill anyone with insects or boil the fat in their bodies. He's tried telling them that most of them really aren't as interesting as they seem to think they are, but this only seems to make them more insistent that he keep his Eyes to himself.

He does tend to keep them to himself at these gatherings as a courtesy— a gesture of goodwill to maintain the non-hostile arrangements and allyships amongst avatars along the British Isles and all that. It's better than the open warfare of years past, and new threats in the form of the Fearless and upstart avatars chock full of doomed idealism mean it's smarter to play nice with the like-minded. They all serve different faces of the same god, at the end of the day.

"Maybe," Jon answers, taking a sip of his wine and humming in satisfaction. The Web may be one of the powers that offends his sensibilities the most, but this gala of theirs consistently has the best food and drink of all the events Jon is compelled to attend for the sake of making nice. "Are you?"

Oliver snorts. "At this place? I'm the most interesting one here."

"Really?" The corners of Jon's mouth twitch in mirth. "Including Annabelle?"

She glides arm-in-arm with the uncanny Sarah Baldwin in a blood red gown, etched with tiny black and white spiders that seem to move as she does. Jon doesn't know much about historical fashion and he doesn't particularly care to Know either, but he's sure the gown is vintage design, much the same as the rest of her wardrobe. Sarah wears a leather jacket over a simple dark blue dress. They look perfectly at ease in the opulence of Annabelle's ballroom, the wooden floors glistening and the intricate, arching walls rising into a high domed ceiling from which hangs what has to be the most elaborate chandelier Jon's ever seen.

"Please," Oliver sighs. "Her dress is the most interesting thing about her. Smug manipulators are so... basic. Arachnophobia, too. Is there any fear more common than the fear of spiders?"

"Death." Pain, too, but that won't make Oliver's eyebrows twitch in poorly-concealed indignation. "Everyone fears death."

"Mundane, I meant." Oliver flashes his teeth in the mockery of a grin.

"Is the fear of death not mundane?" He sips his wine faux-casually, keeping on a pleasant smile.

"Death is profound. Spiders are not." Oliver sniffs and sticks up his nose. Their ruse only lasts a few more seconds before they're both breaking into undignified giggles, turning toward the wall and covering their mouths to avoid drawing attention. Still, they draw a few odd looks. "You make an excellent aristocrat, Jon. You've really nailed the petty sniping."

"Mh, you're lucky Annabelle wasn't close enough to hear that little comment about her being basic," Jon returns. Oliver waves his hand dismissively.

"Ah, I'm sure she's got the whole place crawling with little spies that'll tell her regardless. Worst she'll do is manipulate me into some kind of embarrassing situation. Predictable."

Jon huffs a laugh. "You're really goading her now."

"She's not nearly fragile enough to rise to the bait. She's very secure in who she is and she doesn't need my approval."

"Are you backtracking because you're starting to imagine what kinds of embarrassing situations she might lure you into?"

"You can't prove anything." Oliver grins, a real one this time, and turns back to the gala with a deep, put-upon sigh. "I have to talk with Sarah."

Jon winces. "Trouble with the Stranger?"

"Just some light stalking." He rolls his eyes, sharing a commiserating look with Jon. "I believe I've drawn the attention of a vigilante type."

"A vigilante tied to the Stranger?" Jon shakes his head in disbelief. "That's a new one. Strangers usually revel in becoming the monsters others think they are."

"Is that a hint of sympathy I hear, Jonathan Sims, avatar of the Eye, for your diametric opposite, the Stranger?" Oliver widens his eyes dramatically. "How are you not falling apart at the seams?"

"I don't have seams."

"Not yet." Oliver's teasing look fades as he turns back at Sarah. "And anyway, the Stranger doesn't just go after people who feel othered by society. It's also the fear of the absurd. That life is absurd, and so is death. That we'll never understand anything about this world because it's just fundamentally incomprehensible. And the fear of taxidermy, too, I guess." Across the room, Sarah lifts a gloved hand to her mouth with a yawn. The glove is a dark leather that is almost certainly made from human skin. And, now that he thinks of it, it's likely her jacket is, too. Disgusting. "People who embrace the absurd make excellent Stranger avatars."

"Sure," Jon sighs. In all honesty, he has found himself sympathetic to some of those swallowed by the Stranger, but the entity itself is... Jon hates it for what it's taken from him. More specifically, he hates the Not-Them and Nikola Orsinov, but they're both dead and Jon can't help his lingering resentment. "You think it's one of Sarah's?"

"No, the Anglerfish's vessels always stay in line." Oliver smirks wryly. "But the Stranger has to clean up its messes just like the rest of us."

Jon makes a face of agreement. It's part of the terms of the arrangement they have with the other avatars they're aligned with; problems are dealt with in-house. Oliver has had his fair share to deal with. There was a woman just a few months ago who gained the power to kill people in their dreams, inflicting her victims with such severe mortal terror that they'd die from the stress. Jon has heard the saying that dying in a dream means you die in real life, and he supposes that's where her inspiration came from. She came after Jon a few times after discovering him through the nightmares of someone he Watched, but never succeeded in killing him.

Oliver found her when she was awake, in deep denial that anything she did in the dreams was real. His attempts to explain what was happening and ease her transformation only made her angry, and after that she appeared in the dreams of several other avatars, including visiting Jon many more times. It was quite the nuisance. She only succeeded in killing a fledgling Spiral avatar, not nearly strong enough for any of the rest of them, but it was enough that Oliver was called upon to put an End to her.

Avatars of the Eye tend to like causing trouble just to Watch the fallout, so Jon has also been called on a few times to deal with a number of agitators. Sometimes they agree to operate under the terms the rest of them do, but other times the Knowledge of the truth of the world makes them impassioned and irrational. They'll try to 'tell the world' and other such nonsense until they realize no one will listen, and then start attacking all the avatars they manage to Know of, as those resistant to Becoming are want to do.

It's a shame, but the terror of Becoming is the point, and not everyone is fit to survive it.

"Be careful," Jon urges. "With her and with your stalker." He'd hate to lose another friend to the Stranger. It would be very hard not to take it personally. He might have to take up the mantle of eradicating all its extensions into the world if that happens. Let it starve for a while as penance.

"Don't worry about me. I'm a survivor," Oliver jokes. "I'm just gonna pop over and then I'm out of here. Don't try eating anyone who can eat you back, alright, Jon?"

Jon smiles, rolling his eyes fondly at Oliver's retreating back. He'll keep an Eye on Oliver until the situation is dealt with. It might get Oliver cross with him, but he'd rather that than let his friend get killed due to his own inattention.

Finishing his glass of wine, Jon considers making his own exit. Some fledgling Slaughter avatars are getting exceptionally drunk in the corner and he's curious to See how that situation pans out, but he's getting tired and he's not eager to linger in Web territory longer he has to, neutral ground for the night or not.

"Hello, Archivist," Peter Lucas grins, appearing from nowhere beside Jon like the cheap magician he is. Martin is a half-step behind him, trying to make his studious avoidance of eye contact look natural. This close, Jon can make out the splatter of freckles on his skin, covering his face and down his neck, disappearing below the collar of his suit. Feeling Jon's Gaze on him, though, he's compelled to return it. His eyes are startlingly green, the color brought out by the washed-out look of the rest of him. It's telling, Jon thinks with no small amount of delight, that his eyes haven't been affected by the drain of the Lonely. "You're looking well."

"Something I can do for you, Lucas?" Jon sighs. He glances down at his empty wine glass, feeling suddenly bereft.

"Right to the point! I do that love that in a man." Jon resists the urge to wrinkle his nose in disgust. He knows more than he ever wanted to know about what Peter likes in a man. "Our dear Jonah is doing wonderfully, by the way."

If being effectively neutralized as a threat and hiding away somewhere in whatever isolated corner Peter put him in to lick his wounds can be considered 'wonderfully'. Maybe he's finally taken up a hobby that doesn't include being a slimy bastard. "I didn't ask."

"Oh, but you wanted to know, didn't you? It's part of your whole," Peter gestures vaguely at Jon, "gimmick, isn't it? Wanting to know everything?"

"Not everything. Was that all?"

"Actually," Peter drawls, "I was hoping for a little favor."

"In what world would I do a favor for you?" Jon asks, genuinely curious.

"For one in return! I just need a bit of information, and in exchange," Peter reaches back, placing a hand on Martin's shoulder and drawing him forward. "You'll get yourself a statement."

Jon raises an eyebrow. Peter maintains his usual jovial mask, while Martin looks increasingly like he'd rather be anywhere but here. His eyes flicker between Jon and the floor. It puts Jon on edge, but at the same time, his curiosity is piqued."You're offering up one of your own people to me?"

"Well, he's not quite one of us yet, is he?" Peter smiles like it's a joke. "He'll learn to block you out of his dreams eventually."

It's ruthless, but it isn't as if that's a surprise coming from Peter Lucas. Jon gets the feeling that Martin is being punished for something, and it is through this punishment that Peter thinks he'll bring Martin to heel. Jon is aching to Watch how it backfires on him, but Martin's dual connections makes him hesitant to get involved. Best to Watch from afar, in this case.  At least for now.

Still, he's curious, so he plays along. "What kind of information are you after?"

"That's the best part!" Peter breaks out into a grin. "The information I want and the statement you'll gather are one and the same."

Ah. Peter's pet project is keeping secrets and he's hoping that by drawing them out, it'll purge Martin of his connection to the Web. With no cards to hold close to his chest, his means of manipulation would be null. Or, so Peter thinks. Jon is well aware that someone doesn't need to have secrets to be an effective manipulator. In fact, Peter assuming that side of Martin will be neutralized will make Martin all the more dangerous, particularly to Peter himself.

Martin has been docile this entire time. Perhaps it is simply the Lonely aspects of himself, uncomfortable in such an open and crowded social setting. Perhaps his loyalty to Peter after he took him in is strong enough to not resist his command. He's hardly a full avatar, so it's also entirely possible that Martin is just scared enough to do whatever Peter says.

His bright green eyes stand out starkly while Jon considers him. For a brief second, Martin flashes him a small smile. It lights up his face in a way no full Lonely avatar could ever manage, and conveys the amusement of a shared secret.

"You know what?" Jon says. "Why not. Let's go somewhere more private."

Chapter Text

ARCHIVIST

What, in particular, do you want me to Ask about?

PETER LUCAS

His connection to the Web.

ARCHIVIST

That's all?

PETER LUCAS

It will be enough.

ARCHIVIST

Sure. Are you ready?

MARTIN

Yes.

ARCHIVIST

Okay then. Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding his

connection to the Web. Statement begins.

MARTIN

Making friends hasn't exactly been hard for me. I get along with people well enough, but it's always a little uncomfortable. I have this nagging sense of being an intruder, and that I need to make up for it. I need to file down and chip away at myself to better fit into other people's spaces. It's exhausting, but it's better than— I always thought it was better than the alternative.

I didn't feel like that with Ben. That's what a best friend is, I suppose. Someone who it's just easy to be around. We were only nine when we met, but I knew it was something special. He wasn't, uh, he wasn't my first crush, but he was the first one I was honest with myself about. I told him I was gay when we were eleven, and I thought I was going to lose him, but I didn't. Uh, anyway, he meant a lot to me, and I've never— I've never felt so comfortable around another person since.

Ben was a big arachnophobe. That's how we met, you know? Me saving him from a spider. I actually like spiders. Most of them are harmless, and they're very helpful at keeping other kinds of insects from bothering us. Some of them are even kind of cute. You know the ones you can see a bit of fur on?

But Ben hated them. Froze up every time he saw one, even crying a couple times if one got too close. He'd ask me to kill them, but I never did. I just took them somewhere he couldn't see and let them go. I thought it wouldn't make any difference. I thought it was fine that I let him think I was killing them. I don't know why I didn't just tell him.

We both had home lives we didn't really like talking about, so we never went to each other's houses. I got the sense that his parents got on him a lot about being more like his older brother. He took it pretty hard. His brother— Will, was his name, Will Bird— was smart, well-liked. Naturally charismatic, with a whole rotating schedule of extracurriculars he excelled at. Ben and I were each other's only real friends, and we spent our after school hours in the library or wandering around the less populated areas of London.

It scares me a little, thinking about that now. I don't know how long it would have taken my mum to notice if I'd gone missing.

There was that study done a while ago, that people who are afraid of spiders are more likely to find them. It meant to say that we just notice the things that scare us more often than things that don't, but some people took it to mean the subjects were literally manifesting spiders with their fear. I can't believe they were... pretty much right.

Ben was like that. He found spiders everywhere we would go, and I would always promise I would take it away and kill it. He was just so relieved every time I told him it was dead.

I tried to help him get over his fear a few times, but after he threw up when watching me let one crawl on my hand, I figured it was a lost cause. I still wasn't going to kill them when they hadn't even done anything wrong. It's not their fault people find them disgusting.

It was fine until we got to Year 7. I'd just come out to him that summer, and was over the moon that he still wanted to be friends with me. I wasn't about to tell anyone else, but it was fine, because Ben was really the only one I cared about.

I got to school that first day, and he was acting... off. Of course, I jumped to the immediate conclusion that he'd changed his mind and decided he didn't want anything to do with me, but that didn't end up being it. It was his parents. They were upset with him. He wasn't meeting their expectations, and he was old enough now that they weren't going to let him off as easily anymore.

At the time, I thought it was just the stress, but his phobia got worse. So much worse. He found spiders all over the place, multiple times a day, and was always looking around for more. He'd have me check his back or in his hair for spiders, because he would swear he could feel them on him. Sometimes he was right, but I tried to hide those ones from him because I knew how much it upset him that one had been touching him. It took hours, sometimes, to calm him down.

I didn't think how many spiders we encountered was odd. Our school wasn't the most hygienic of places and walking around the quiet parts of London, you're bound to encounter quite a few. I did notice we were finding more and more as time went on, but I dismissed it as Ben's paranoia getting worse.

And it got... really bad. I started researching all this psychology stuff. First I looked into arachnophobia, to see if it had ever gotten this bad for anyone else, and fell down a rabbit hole of OCD and psychosis. Really freaked myself out with all kinds of worst-case scenarios. I didn't know what to do. It just kept getting worse, and I was so scared he would get himself hurt. He needed help, but I didn't know how to get it to him.

I don't think he ever relaxed. I don't think he even slept anymore, those last few months. I couldn't think of anything to do to help, except stay with him and take care of the spiders for him whenever I could. My research led me to a lot of nightmarish stories about mentally ill people being locked away and abused, and I didn't want that for Ben, so I didn't tell anyone. Probably, I should have, but I was a kid, and adults weren't always reliable allies in my experience.

Ben started getting angry. At his parents, at first, for trying to make him what they wanted him to be, and his brother. Will got... cruel. He'd always picked on Ben for his phobia, but then he started shoving him into walls, calling him terrible names. He got a tarantula and dropped it down Ben's shirt, once, in front of a lot of other kids. That was a bad day. Ben talked about getting back at him, but I don't think he ever did. I think he was too scared.

Then Ben got angry with me. He figured out I wasn't killing the spiders and felt... betrayed. He started giving me these looks whenever he found a spider around. Like I was bringing them out on purpose, or something.

He really snapped after I pulled one out of his hair and... wasn't able to hide it. He said I was just pretending to be his friend so that me and the spiders could scare him. I was hurt, and confused, but he was really upset, so I just got the spider away from him and then tried to calm him down. He was sobbing, curled up in a corner of the school library. He looked so exhausted and scared.

I sat there with him for a while and hugged him. I promised I wasn't trying to scare him. He said he knew that, and that he was sorry for saying it. I asked if maybe his parents might do something if he talked to them. Whatever was going on with him, it went beyond just the spiders, and he needed help.

He just... laughed. He laughed until he was sobbing again. I felt so useless. All I wanted was to be able to protect him, but nothing I did was enough. Eventually, he stopped crying, and said he needed to get home.

That was the last time I saw him.

When he missed school for a whole week, I went to his house. I'd never been inside before, but I'd walked him home enough times to know where it was. His dad answered when I knocked on the door. He looked a lot like Will. They had the same charming smile. He greeted me by name, and asked if I was there for Ben. I said I was, and that I was worried after he'd missed so much school. I brought all the schoolwork he missed so he wouldn't fall too far behind.

Mr. Bird said I was a very thoughtful kid, but that Ben wasn't going to be returning to school anymore. They sent him away to private school, something more specialized for his needs. "The Mother has big plans for Ben," he said. I remember because I found it so weird he'd referred to Ben's mother that way. I know what he meant now, of course, and what he meant when he said "I get the sense Mother has big plans for you, too," but I thought he just had a weird way of saying he thought my mum must be proud of me.

I left. I thought Mr. Bird was weird, sure, but I was so devastated by the news of Ben that I didn't care. I didn't even get to say goodbye. I still don't know what happened to him.

That's how the Web took notice of me. My connection to it only got stronger as I got older, like being pulled along by the hand down a certain path. I don't know what's at the end of it. I don't know if I could step off it, even if I wanted to.

ARCHIVIST

Thank you, Martin.

PETER LUCAS

The Web got its hooks in you early. The Lonely still had you first.

MARTIN

...I know. It's always been part of me.

ARCHIVIST

Statement ends.

Peter takes Martin away, a smug glow about him. Leave it to someone raised on the Lonely to have such a fundamental disconnect between how he thinks people work and how they actually work. Being removed from people makes it easy to view them as two-dimensional, with simple motives and desires that can be easily exploited and catered to. The inevitable hamartia of anyone tied with the Lonely, but for Peter in particular, it seems.

Martin meets Jon's eyes and nods once before they're gone, disappeared into the Lonely.

Chapter Text

His phone rings, waking him somewhere around four in the morning. Hunched over the desk in his home office, his face is mashed against the pile of statements he'd been pouring over less than an hour before, crumpling some of the papers. Raising himself up with a groan, he clumsily sweeps them into a semi-organized stack then paws around the edge of his desk for his phone.

He picks it up and hits answer on autopilot, but his mouth hasn't quite caught up with being awake and he only manages a delayed grunt into the receiver.

"Sarah Baldwin is a rotting pile of useless rubbish," Oliver says, out of breath. Jon is immediately alert. "'I'll take care of it,' she tells me. This is not 'taken care of'!" Focusing his attention on Oliver, Jon Sees him duck behind a shadowed building, phone to his ear, and peer around the corner behind himself. The presence of the Stranger advances slowly on him from the dark. "Oh, piss off, Jon, you know I hate it when you do that! Don't think I haven't been feeling you Watching me."

"It's faster than having you tell me where you are," Jon defends. He stands, straightening his clothes and digging out his house keys from pocket. "I can be there in ten minutes."

"Fine. Then we can both go kick down Sarah's door and find out just why the hell I'm having to call you to come rescue me when she said she'd 'take care of it'." The mocking in his voice rises in pitch. Oliver does not fear his own death, but he does hate the idea of dying in a stupid or unnecessary manner. "God, but talking to that woman is like pulling teeth. I can't believe she's going to make me tell her off. It's going to be terrible."

"Yes, she did botch one of the few responsibilities she's been tasked with carrying out since the agreement," Jon sighs. "I'm out the door. You should keep moving, though. Your pursuer is getting uncomfortably close."

The moon isn't quite full but it's bright enough to give light to shapes of the buildings and the lines of the streets. Lamp poles dot the more traveled paths with pale orange light. It's enough to see by, but Jon is grateful he doesn't have to rely solely on his physical eyes to navigate.

Oliver curses under his breath and steps back onto the streets. "Fine. Fine. I give you permission to See me until I'm in the clear, but don't think we aren't going to have words about you doing it without my permission for the past week! The last thing I need when I'm being stalked is another stalker."

"In my defense," Jon says, turning a corner through a blind alley that would cut his time to Oliver's new destination by a few seconds. "You were being stalked by a Stranger avatar and Sarah Baldwin was in charge of 'taking care of it'. And I knew you wouldn't give me permission if I asked."

"Fair point about Sarah, but Jon, if you think a friend would object to you doing something, that's usually a good reason to not do it to them."

"Usually. Turn left, I'm almost at you. Also, you might want to go a little faster."

"Christ," Oliver mutters. "Jon, if I die, I want you to kill Sarah and incite another pointless civil war to emphasize how pointless my death was. I will be remembered as the Franz Ferdinand of the Fear avatars."

Jon chuckles, honing in on Oliver and his pursuer. The pursuer pulls at his senses, like a blurry image that the Eye thinks it can squint into focus. This is not an unprecedented feeling when dealing with the Stranger, but something about it feels... off. A ring of familiarity where there should be none.

He quickens his steps, intercepting Oliver on his path and pulling him out of the street and into a narrow passage. There's a ladder up the side of the left building that Jon hastily shoves Oliver at it.

He turns to face the pursuer, Oliver's feet clanging dully up the rungs and then scuffling on the gritty rooftop. The position will allow Oliver to get a good enough view of whoever's coming. Stranger avatars are notoriously hard to get a read on, but Oliver only needs one good look at the Death that awaits this one to call upon his own power. Jon's whole purpose is to get a good Look at things, and a fledgeling avatar is not protected from that, not even one with the power of the Stranger. He can hold it in place long enough for Oliver to be able to take care of it himself, and then he'll be able to lord it over Sarah to his own benefit.

Someone shambles in front of the entrance of the passage. The ring of familiarity gets louder, a distracting juxtaposition against the press of the Stranger. Jon presses back, his skin tingling with the weight of thousands of eyes as he seeks to Know the thing before him.

The Knowledge hits like the wall of a tsunami and he recoils back. Oliver calls his name, but he barely notices it over the roaring in his ears.

The Stranger avatar steps closer, one side of his face breaching the ring of light from a nearby lamp post.

"Tim?" Jon gasps.

Tim flinches back as if struck. "No. No, I'm not.... I'm not anyone."

Jon almost takes a step forward, but thinks better of it. This has to be some trick of the Stranger. This isn't Tim, this is just some monster wearing his face.

Jon watched Tim die. He watched him fall apart after Sasha's death, watched his descent into single-minded rage that eclipsed and erased everything else Tim used to be. His final victory over the Circus, his revenge for Danny and for Sasha, ended the only way that Tim would allow; with his own terrible, grinning death.

But Jon Knows it's not as simple as that. This is not Tim, but it's not just his face, either, and doesn't that just make it all that much more horrendous?

"Oh, Tim," Jon breathes, his chest aching with renewed grief.

"Don't call me that," Tim hisses. "It hurts. It all hurts."

"I know," Jon says, and laughs humorlessly. "I know it does. What are you doing here?" It takes gargantuan effort to ask and not Ask, and the tingling on his skin takes on a sharp, painful quality, pressure building in his head focused right behind his eyes.

"What is anyone doing?" Tim laughs, and it's fractured, three different laughs frankensteined together.

"Jon," Oliver warns from above. "What are you doing?"

"I know him." He's my friend, Jon wants to add, but the words die on his tongue. There was never a moment where Jon didn't consider Tim his friend. Even in the midst of his Becoming, drowning in paranoia with Jonah pulling his strings and messing with his head, Jon couldn't help but care about him and Sasha. It made the thought of their potential deception all the more excruciating. But in the end, Tim didn't want anything to do with Jon. Hell, Tim probably hoped his destruction of the Circus would take care of Jon as well.

Jon doesn't hold it against him. They were all going through a lot, thanks to Jonah and the war. Now, Jon has the chance at reconciliation. God, there was little else he thought about after the dust settled and the grief of losing both Tim and Sasha caught up with him. What he wouldn't give for a chance to go back and do right by them.

It's not possible to go back. but it is possible to help Tim now.

"Not anymore, you don't," Oliver argues, laced with the reasonable urgency of an attempt to talk someone out of doing something stupid. It's a tone Jon should probably hear more of these days, but, well, it's not likely it'll make much of a difference. "You told me about Tim. Tim died."

"So did I. So did you." Jon doesn't take his Eyes off Tim. Partially because his Gaze holds Tim in place, and partially because he still can't believe what he's seeing. "We're still the same people."

"It's different for the Stranger."

"Not that different," Jon insists mutinously. Then, against his better judgment, he takes a step forward, then another, until he's just outside arm's reach.

"Jon!" Oliver calls sharply, but Jon ignores him.

Tim watches him advance with inscrutable intensity. Before his death, Tim hated Jon. But before that, they were friends. Sort of. They were friends insofar as Jon allowed himself to have friends, and because Tim was stubbornly, relentlessly friendly. Until he wasn't.

What parts of Tim still linger here, in his state of Becoming?

"Do you remember me?" Jon asks. His head throbs, and he absently rubs at his arms in a vain attempt to rid them of the pins and needles.

Hands and face twitching, Tim doesn't answer.

The pressure in Jon's head gets to be too much, and he has to Ask, "Why are you following Oliver?"

The answer springs from Tim's mouth. "He feels like death, and I'm supposed to be dead." Discontent twists his face.

"You want him to kill you?" Jon Asks, surprised. That fades fast as he remembers Tim's dogged pursuit of his own demise in the months leading up to the destruction of the Circus.

Tim twitches again, this time spreading over his body like a spastic wave. "I don't know," he whispers. "I don't know."

"Sense of self is not one of the Stranger's strong suits," Oliver says pointedly from above. "He doesn't know what he wants from one moment to the next. He's dangerous."

"It's just growing pains," Jon dismisses. "He'll settle in better once he Becomes."

Tim holds his head and groans, something between pain and irritation. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes, Jon, are we going to kill him?" Oliver asks, tone blistering in a way that means he already knows the answer. As much as Oliver hates the idea of dying in a stupid way, he hates it just as much for those he cares about. It's a shame he allowed himself to be friends with Jon, then.

"Obviously we're not going to kill him!" Jon snaps. "I've got him, Oliver, trust me." Still caught in Jon's Gaze, Tim won't be going anywhere until Jon releases him. He's too weak to fight his way out because it's too early in his Becoming, and because it's obvious Tim hasn't fed in a while. Maybe not since the first time. If Jon lets him go now, there's a high chance he won't survive, and that's not acceptable. But... if he asks, if Tim demands Jon let him go again...

Well, he'll do his best to cede to his wishes, but there's no guarantee.

With no small amount of trembling, Jon holds out his hand.  "Tim, come on. I can help you."

Tim flinches back again, blinking rapidly like he's looking into a glaring light, his hands pressing tighter to the sides of his head. "...Jon?"

"Yes! Yes, it's me." Encouraged, Jon takes another step forward. Tim's eyes snap to Jon's outstretched hand, but he doesn't move to take it. "You know me."

"I don't know anything," The words sound like they ache.

"Well, I do, Tim," Jon says. Tim convulses in place, neither drawing closer nor able to retreat away, but he doesn't demand to be released. It's a good sign. "I know who you are. I know what's happening to you. It's going to hurt, but it will get better, I promise. Just come with me."

"This is a really bad idea," Oliver says, tired and resigned. "In case I didn't make that clear before."

"Yeah. I'm full of those." Jon takes another, hesitant step forward, close enough that if he extended his arm the full way, he could brush his fingers over Tim's shoulder. The impulse to do so is strong. Jon Knows he's real but, god, he'd love to confirm with his own hands that he's here, solid, and alive. "Tim?"

"Stop," Tim pleads. "I'll go with you, just stop... don't call me that."

"Okay. Deal."

A long moment of quiet, in which Jon scarcely dares to breathe. Tim closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, then opens them again. Finally, he releases his hold on his head and takes Jon's offered hand.

Chapter Text

The dream is expected. He gathers new ones all the time, and he's lost count of how many he's collected in total. The nature of dreams and the Fears' disregard for time means he's still able to visit each and every one, every time he falls asleep, regardless of how long he does.

It used to be torture. Every plea, every look of burning hatred, every cry of resigned terror would drive home how much of a monster he is. It's easier now. They're just dreams, after all. There are worse things.

His newest dream with Martin is about what he would have predicted, if he were inclined to predict these things, but what he doesn't expect is Martin's demeanor in the midst of it. There's a boy, around twelve, lying on the ratty carpet of a school library, and he's weeping as a thick blanket of thousands of small, black spiders crawl over his entire body. He doesn't move, apparently frozen in fear, but he begs for Martin to save him. Martin kneels beside him, cradling one of his hands in both of his own. The spiders crawl over the space the two of them are connected, one or two traveling down Martin's arms, but he pays them no mind.

"He's so young," Martin murmurs. A rueful smile plays on his lips. "It's strange. He always seemed so much older than me, even when he was afraid. Growing up as he did, knowing the truth about the world, must have aged his soul." Martin turns his gaze to Jon, smile fading. "Is he this age because it's how I remember him, or is it because he..."

Martin's chin drops to his chest, and his grip on Ben's hand tightens. The fear and helplessness from his statement floods Jon's senses, feeding him once again. It's an unusual flavor for Jon to experience, the novelty of it making it all the sweeter. The Web feeds on the fear of being controlled, and the helplessness in the face of it, but it's not always so overt as puppet and puppeteer.

The helplessness of childhood is not usually orchestrated into a nightmare by conscious, malicious choice, but it is a simple fact that children do not control their lives, and that this fact is made easily horrifying in the right circumstances. This kind of helplessness can be extended to adults by making evident the illusion of their choices and their freedom, and how the direction of their lives is at all times dictated by outside forces regardless of what pre-lain paths they may choose to take.

"I suppose you can't answer," Martin says, looking over Jon with a searching look. He can't bear to keep looking at Ben. "You don't have a mouth. I wonder, is this what you really look like? All eyes?" One corner of his mouth quirks up. In response, Ben makes a low, pained sound, drawing Martin's attention back and dashing away his faint amusement.

Helplessness in the face of suffering is particularly potent. The fear, the guilt, the frustration— there's nothing to be done but to hold a terrified child's hand and hope the forces that control the world do something to stop it. Knowing they won't.

Martin tries brushing the spiders away from Ben's face, cringing when this only results in more spiders swarming the area. Ben's cries increase in frequency.

In the back of his mind, where Jon's consciousness functions more like his waking self, he Knows that the real Benjamin Bird is still alive, and no longer in contact with the rest of his family. They are, of course, Web avatars, and tried to raise their sons to be the same. The older took to it well, but the younger did not. Unfortunately for Ben, he'd been so entrenched in the Web his entire life that his only choices were to let it consume him, or to let it in, so in the end, he still became exactly what his parents wanted him to be.

Jon doesn't know if this information would be a comfort to Martin. Maybe, being tied to the Web himself, it would. Maybe Martin would be happy to know his childhood friend is alive. Or maybe it would just hurt. In any case, Jon doubts he'll have the opportunity to tell Martin in the near future.

Two hands on his arm shake him awake, jerking him back and forth, disorienting and irritating him in equal parts. He blinks his groggy eyes open, shrugging out of the grip of his assailant. It's Tim. It wouldn't be anyone else, Jon lived alone until his spontaneous decision to get himself a fledgling avatar as a roommate.

"Jon!" Tim whispers urgently. "Jon, watch!"

Squinting, Jon lifts his head from his pillow. Did he actually manage to drag himself to bed? He doesn't remember, but he must have.

Tim flicks on the bedside lamp, his eyes gleaming with manic excitement. "Watch," he repeats, and his face changes.

Jon blinks a few times, assuming it's the soft light combined with his fatigue, but Tim's face doesn't reorient. It's still Tim's face, Jon Knows it is, but it's hard to recognize him as such, like if he was looking at Tim through clouded glass. Except that it isn't clouded or blurry, it's just unrecognizable, creating an uncomfortable itch in the back of his mind. "Huh," he says, and pushes himself up fully in bed, legs dangling off the edge. "Did you just learn how to do that?"

Tim's face focuses back. "No. I stopped trying to make it make sense, so it's easy now."

That doesn't make sense to Jon, but Tim seems happy enough about it. "Are you hungry?"

"Normal hungry or spooky hungry? Yes to both. We should make waffles." Tim perks up at his own suggestion, then immediately deflates. "Wait, do you have a waffle maker?"

Yes, but it hasn't been used in... ever. "There's a box in the pantry, under the can shelves. It's in there."

Tim scampers out of the room, leaving Jon to get himself together for the day. He needs a shower.

The scalding water rains down on him, warming him down to his bones and easing away the stiffness of sleep. Georgie used to tease him about how hot he liked his showers, poking his skin once he got out and then recoiling and hissing like it burned. But, then she'd want to cuddle, pushing herself flush against his heated skin. "Like clothes out of a dryer," she'd sigh. It was nice. Should he call her? No, that's insane.

He gets to work conditioning his long hair, something he rarely bothers doing, but he's feeling indulgent. Having Tim around has been odd, dredging up a lot of old feelings about the way things have gone, and it's been impossible to start addressing them when Tim fluctuates personalities at unpredictable intervals. This morning was manic and a little childish, but last night had been churlish and distant. There's hints, here and there, of the Tim Jon knew, both the friendly, playful one and the hateful, rage-filled one. Sometimes he doesn't even know where he is, and whether or not he recognizes Jon at any given time is a toss up. He's tried attacking Jon a few times, but he's never tried to leave, which Jon hopes is a good sign.

Whoever Tim is at the end of this, Jon will be here for him.

He towels himself off and runs a comb through his hair, throwing together a set of at-home clothes and going downstairs to meet Tim who, hopefully, will not have burned down his kitchen due to a sudden-onset fugue state or the quick snap of a hot temper.

There's a pile of waffles on the table, too many for two people to conceivably eat, and the counter around the waffle-maker is crowded with add-ins of fruit and chocolate and even gumdrops. When the hell did they even get gumdrops?

Tim's attention is fully held by the waffle-maker. The light on top turns from red to green, so he flips the pan over to take out the finished waffle with a pair of tongs. This one appears to be a mix of chopped strawberries and chocolate.

"...I guess we're eating waffles all day?" Jon quips. Jumping at the sound of his voice, Tim drops the waffle. It lands half on the counter, then teeters off onto the floor. Tim watches this with a sad, vacant expression, then looks over at the pile of waffles, then at Jon.

"Ah," he says. His eyes clear a little, losing that far-away sheen. He clears his throat and rubs the palm of his hand over his forehead. "I think I thought I was making them for... more people. Sorry."

"It's fine," Jon assures. "It's natural to feel more scattered when you're hungry."

Tim tries to smile, but only manages to make the corner of his mouth spasm. "I guess it's good I made so many waffles, then."

"...Not that kind of hungry."

"I know."

They eat in silence. Not companionable, but not quite awkward either. Tim doesn't seem in the mood for talk, and Jon is willing to follow his lead and not push. The topic of feeding has put Tim on edge this morning, and Jon would love to delve into why, both to satisfy the Eye and because he wants to help ease his friend through this as best as he can. But if Tim wants to talk about it, he'll bring it up himself. Trying to get him to talk before he's ready would be counterproductive.

The doorbell rings, an obnoxious little chime that Jon doesn't hear often enough to remember to get it changed. At the sound of it, Tim shoots upright in alarm. The Knowledge of who's on the other side pops into Jon's head.

"I suppose that means you're not expecting anyone either?" It's supposed to be a joke to ease Tim's mind, but it falls flat. Tim's mouth twists. "It's fine. It's Sarah Baldwin. Do you remember her?"

He nods, the tension not easing from his posture. "What does she want now?"

"Probably to try to cover her— What do you mean, 'now'?"

Tim shifts in discomfort. "I don't know. It's hard to— She found me before you did, I think."

"Did she." Jon drums his fingers on the table. "Interesting. Excuse me for a moment."

He pushes to his feet and makes his way to the front door, hoping that Tim stays put. It's one thing if Sarah left Tim to his own devices due to incompetence, but deliberately abandoning him during a vulnerable moment, while he was suspected to have murderous intent toward another avatar? That's just unacceptable.

Sarah waits at the bottom of his front steps, scuffing the toe of her combat boot against the concrete. Her hands are stuffed into the pockets of her jacket, which looks to be the same one she wore to Annabelle's gala, a smoldering cigarette hangs loosely from her lips. Jon steps out onto the top step and closes the door behind him.

Usually, Jon is not much taller than Sarah, but the three steps give him a height advantage that he takes full advantage of in his glower. "Ms. Baldwin. How can I help you?"

Sarah lazily draws the cigarette from her mouth, blowing out a puff of smoke. "He's here, then?"

For a moment, Jon considers lying just to be spiteful, but that risks drawing out this interaction longer than he has the patience for. "Yes, he's here. In my house. Which I brought him to because, you, apparently, couldn't be bothered to do anything about him yourself. He doesn't even know who he is right now, and you just left him to wander London, chasing after his own death? I know neither you nor your patron are known for your warm hospitality, but a little loyalty to your own people is the bare minimum of expectation, even for you."

Sarah takes a long drag of her cigarette. "I recognized him as one of yours, from before. Figured you'd get to him when it suited you."

Confusion bleeds into bewilderment which bleeds into incredulity. "Wh— If you knew who he was, why didn't you just tell me?"

Sarah crooks an eyebrow.

"No, you're right, I know why." Jon rolls his eyes. "Thank you, Ms. Baldwin. Will that be all?"

She pulls her other hand out of her pocket, a slip of paper held between two fingers that she holds out to Jon. "For him," is all the explanation she feels the need to provide. It's enough, because Jon already Knows what's on it, so he curtly plucks it from her hand.

"Goodbye, then," he sighs, and returns inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Tim is still at the table when Jon enters the kitchen, poking moodily at the remains of his waffles. "What'd she want, then?"

"To smooth my ruffled feathers," Jon says flatly, "since she managed to annoy me enough that I considered doing something about it. And for this."

He holds out the slip of paper to Tim, who looks at it like it might bite him.

"It's her number." Jon sets it on the table rather than wait for Tim to take it. "I believe this is her way of inviting you to reach out if you need anything."

"Oh." Tim takes the paper gingerly between his fingertips, then shoves it into his own pocket. "Thanks, I think."

Jon nods once and retakes his seat. His blueberry waffles are a little cold now, but he's not overly fussed about it.

"Jon." Tim frowns pensively. "Does this technically make you my wingman?"

Sputtering, Jon doesn't know whether to laugh or if Tim is genuinely asking, which would make laughing a very bad idea. "Uh, well, I'm not— I really don't think— I would not recommend, er, pursuing Sarah in that manner."

Tim snorts, his mouth twitching in a small smile. Jon sighs, grinning wryly back.

Chapter Text

There's an extra door in the sitting room. Jon makes a distracted note of this, following to the heels of an agitated Tim. The bedrooms and Jon's office are a mess after Tim went through and turned them upside down in a heated frenzy, ignoring Jon's pleas to slow down and talk to him. He's been twitchy and spaced out all day; a consequence of putting off feeding, despite Jon's best efforts.

Jon has an inkling about where this reticence toward feeding came from, but it's not something quickly resolved and Tim needs to feed soon.

Tim has fed twice since Jon took him in, once with uncomfortable, desperate mania and once with perfunctory disconnect. The method of his feeding is fascinating, and not one Jon has seen often from the Stranger. Mannequins and taxidermy and the Circus are what Jon associates with the Stranger, but Tim takes a different approach.

There are things people take for granted every day. Most people are aware of this, and some even take the time to appreciate that they have a home or a loving family or a meal in front of them or whatever other little blessing they might have, but almost none of them think to be grateful that if they drop something, it will always fall. That people won't simply disappear, even from history and memory. That the ground under their feet won't disappear from under them at any moment.

This is the kind of fear the Tim instills in his victims, and Jon finds it morbidly satisfying. Perhaps because being uncertain is such a foreign concept to him now. It only takes a touch, skin-to-skin, and Tim is able to exert his influence.

The timing differed from Tim's first victim to the second. The first crumbled almost immediately under the terror, looking up into the sky and waiting for the sun to fall and strike the Earth, overcome with the realization that it was only by blind faith that she trusted physics to remain consistent. Tim fed from this fear with dangerous glee, and Jon was too focused on keeping him safely corralled while out and about that he didn't take much time to appreciate Tim's work.

The second was a slower burn, though only by a few hours, but it gave Jon more insight into how Tim's relationship to the Stranger functioned. The young man, named Rohan Miller, was planted with the idea that he didn't know any of the people around him, and even more distressingly, he couldn't be sure if they were the imposters, or if he was. Did the sudden emotional disconnect mean that they had changed, or that he had? What if the real Rohan was gone, and he was just the thing that took his place?

Tim is obviously working through some things, and maybe even regrets inflicting that specific fear on his second victim. It's counterproductive, but guilt and self-punishment through starvation are par for the course for many, if not most, fledgling avatars.

The destruction of Jon's house is not. "Please, just take a breath for a moment."

"Where— Where's—" Tim halts in the middle of the sitting room, letting out a long, frustrated growl. Casting about, his gaze skitters over Jon, then hones back in on him with intense, murderous scrutiny. "Where are you hiding—" A shuddering breath wracks his body. He takes a menacing step forward, prompting Jon to backpedal and place the sofa between them for the limited protection it provides.

"Woah, hey, there's no need for that!" While Jon would really like to not get punched or tackled or manhandled by a furious Tim, he's hesitant to use his Gaze on him again. He Knows how uncomfortable it is for Tim, and it would only serve to enrage him further.

This would be a lot easier if Tim would just spit out what it is he's after, but a glance into his mind makes it clear that Tim doesn't even know. He's just got a feeling that there's something he's missing, and that feeling is connected to a lot of buried anger targeted right at Jon.

He swallows at the building fire gleaming in Tim's eyes, and for a moment they're back in the Circus, detonator in Tim's palm, hurtling toward the dreaded end.

When Jon woke up after the destruction of the Circus— courtesy of Oliver— and Tim was dead, and Sasha was dead, the only thing he could think about was how he Knew where Jonah was and that he was tired of being a pawn in a war he didn't believe in.

The extra door opens. Helen steps through, effectively drawing Tim's attention away from Jon. "Hello, Archivist, Archivist's friend," she lilts. "Am I interrupting?"

"You," Tim bites.

Jon heaves a beleaguered sigh. "Why are you in my house?"

"Can't a friend pop in on another friend just for a chat?" Helen's face moves in something like a smile, the edges swimming like vapor. Jon doesn't dignify her question with a verbal response, allowing his expression to speak for itself. "Fine," she sighs. "There's a situation that needs your attention."

"I'm a little busy right now, Helen, can it wait?" Jon glances pointedly at Tim. It's then that he takes notice of Tim's rigid posture. Concerned, Jon turns to face him fully, reaching out on instinct before thinking better of it.

Frozen anguish paints Tim's face, his eyes glazed over. The shine of tear tracks are just barely visible on his cheeks, and as Jon watches, another tear falls from Tim's unblinking eyes. "S—" he croaks. "Sasha." Slowly, he turns to Jon, more tears brimming in his eyes. "I forgot her again."

A lump lodges firmly in Jon's throat, preventing him from speaking. It's just as well. He doesn't know what he would have said.

"Sasha?" Helen taps her chin. Or, near where her chin would be if looking at her wasn't a headache. "Ah! The other one of Magnus's little experiments. That whole debacle just did not go his way, did it, Jon?" She grins, far too wide with far too many teeth.

Tim braces himself on the arm of the sofa, sinking down onto the cushions. "How... long has it been?"

Swallowing roughly, Jon makes his way around the other side of the sofa, sitting on the opposite end from Tim. He doubts Tim would welcome him any closer. "Sasha died six years ago. It was about a year after that you took out the Circus and the Not-Them. I—" I'm sorry.

Tim weakly shakes his head, wrapping his arms around his middle.

"Oh, what's death if not a stepping stone to something greater?" Helen cuts in. "No need to be so sentimental about it."

A hot flash of anger pulses in Jon. "Excuse us for grieving."

"It is rather inconvenient."

"Good lord, what is wrong with you today?" While he knows Helen is not above the cruel dismissal of other people's feelings, Jon really thought he and Helen were on better terms than that. Maybe that was his mistake. He can never be sure what the Distortion really thinks of him. "You know what? Forget it. Just tell me what you want and leave."

"No can do. Micheal Crew has called for a summit." Helen makes a showman's gesture to her door. "They're all waiting on you."

That's unusual. They have scheduled summits at the end of every month. Whatever it is, could Micheal not have put it off for another two weeks? Self-important arse.

"Just go," Tim says dully. Then, with a self-deprecating scoff, "You know me. I'll be fine in an hour. Won't even remember I was upset. Or why."

"That's the spirit!" says Helen. "Out with the old, in with the new. Ready then, Jon?"

The anger gets hotter. "No! I'm not going, so you can just leave."

Helen flinches. "Ouch. Watch the Glare, would you? I'm only trying to help you."

"It's fine, Jon, just—" Tim tries, but the tremor in his voice only serves to sharpen Jon's fury into a fine point. He vaults to his feet, fists at his sides, rounding on Helen.

"Trying to help me? " he spits. "Help me abandon my friend after he's just remembered someone he cared about is dead so I can go play nice with you lot? Between you and Sarah, I'm really starting to understand why our predecessors wanted to kill each other so badly!"

"For someone who's supposedly the embodiment of knowledge, you are really fucking obtuse, Jon." Helen rolls her eyes. They swirl around in interlocking circles. "But sure, why don't you both just sit here and wallow and not think about how the guy who literally blew himself up in front of you is still alive, but the woman who neither of you actually saw die is definitely, for sure, actually dead."

The breath is knocked from Jon's lungs with such force that he stumbles back a half-step.

Before he can blink, Tim is up and charging for Helen, grabbing her shirt(?) in both hands, teeth bared. "I remember why seeing you made my stomach turn," he growls. "We stumble through this world blind, and you delight in confusing us further. Twisting Deceit, how dare you use her death for your own amusement?"

"Oh, I don't need to deceive you. What fun would that be, when the right truth can send you spiraling all the same?" Helen plucks Tim's hands from her form. He shouts in pain, yanking his hands away and holding them against his chest. They both bleed from multiple short, deep cuts. "And I don't appreciate being touched."

"I don't appreciate being jerked around!" Tim snarls. Despite the wounds on his hands, he looks ready to lunge for her again.

"That's enough," Jon bites, with more authority than he really feels given that he can still hear his heart pounding in his ears. "There's a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen. Go get it."

Tim shoots a sharp, seething look at him. "I'm not—"

"Just do what I ask before you get yourself hurt again." The words come out more acidic than he intends. He takes a deep breath and softens his voice. "It'll only take a moment."

With a resentful sneer, Tim spins and stomps from the room, still cradling his hands to his chest.

Once he's out of earshot, Jon turns a withering look on Helen. "You didn't need to hurt him."

"He didn't need to accost me," she quips. "Is your ire really the only thanks I get for bringing you such good news?"

"...She's really alive?" Jon breathes. He tries to reach out and Know this for sure, but hits a wall that sends his interior Vision spinning. He doesn't want to think about what this means.

"As alive as you and I."

As an avatar, then. A stony, solemn weight rests on Jon's chest, and it's through gritted teeth that he Asks, "And how long have you known?"

Helen twitches and distorts under his compulsion, resisting his demand for a straight answer more because it goes counter to her nature than out of any real desire to withhold the information, though Jon does sense her faint reluctance. "Since the beginning."

Despite himself, and everything he knows about the Distortion, he's hurt by this revelation. It's with a sense of loss and defeat that he asks, "How could you not tell me?"

"We were at war, Jon," she says. "Then after that, well. It was very touch and go for her, and I didn't want to get your hopes up only for your poorly-repaired spirit to be crushed again."

"Helen." Jon covers his face with his hands, aghast. Suspicion is quick to follow. Helen was too quick to give a simple and direct answer. The only reason for her to do that was if she was using half-truths. "What else?"

"Isn't it enough you know she's alive?" Helen sighs. "Honestly. You and your need to Know everything. It's a wonder we still—"

"What. Else?"

This time, Helen puts effort into resisting, pushing back against the force of his compulsion. In a battle of wills between the two of them, it's unclear who would come out the victor. Shaking off the initial wave, Helen prevents him from pressing harder by saying, "I believe that's better left for her to explain."

That's right. If Sasha has been alive all this time... why hasn't she made herself known? Was she trapped in a fugue state, like Tim? Or was her absence more deliberate?

If Helen has known about Sasha since the beginning, it stands to reason that Sasha was taken in by the Spiral. Is that why? Is Sasha so aligned with her patron that she allowed Jon, allowed Tim, to believe she was dead as a matter of feeding on that deception?

While his memories of Sasha are clouded by the influence of the Not-Them, his final confrontation with Jonah afforded him certain benefits, one being the ability to resist the mechanisms of the Stranger on his own mind, given enough focus. He'll still picture the Not-Them in the place of Sasha on instinct, but he can draw up her true appearance within a few minutes after.

What he remembers of the real Sasha doesn't translate well to someone who would allow people to grieve for her unnecessarily. He can't say there was much warmth between them in those final days, but Sasha wasn't spiteful or callous. Even if Becoming altered her enough to make her indifferent to Jon, surely she would at least try to make contact with Tim?

How much did she know? Did she know about the Circus? Did she also believe Tim died that day?  Or did she know, this whole time, that parts of him made it out?

He needs to know. And he needs to know from Sasha.

"Fine," Jon concedes. "But we're not done."

"Of course we aren't," Helen sighs, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Ready to go, then?"

Tim marches back in, his hands wrapped, a sullen and stubborn air about him. "If you're going to Sasha, I'm coming, too."

Closing his eyes for a moment, Jon rallies himself for the incoming argument. "That's not a good idea."

"I don't care," Tim bites. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. It must hurt, but the pain doesn't appear to register. "I have to... Nothing has made sense," he grits. "Nothing at all. Nothing except for this."

"It's been too long since you fed. It's dangerous for you to—"

"Jon, if you don't take me with you, I will go out on my own, and more than likely I will forget why or how or even who I am when I do. Who knows what I'll run into if I do that?"

Damn. Jon has really been taking Tim's willingness to stay put for granted. "You need to feed first."

"Deal."

The lack of hesitation startles Jon. After days of Tim dragging his feet on the issue, he expected at least a little resistance. If this is what it takes to get Tim to take care of himself, Jon isn't going to fight him on it. Jon turns to Helen, crooking a questioning brow.

She hums impatiently. "Yes, fine, pit stop to feed the tyke. Are you satisfied? I am so very glad it's not this much of a pain to get anyone else to go through my door. I hope you appreciate the effort I expend on your behalf."

Jon ignores her. "Stay close to me," he instructs Tim. "The Distortion can be disorienting even when she's not trying to eat you."

Tim grunts in response. Without hope of a more reassuring answer, Jon sighs and steps through the door.

Chapter Text

Tim does not waste time in finding himself a victim. Helen drops them in the back of a crowded Tesco, allowing them to slip in unnoticed by the browsing masses. All avatars have a certain sense of who is most susceptible to their influence, so Tim bypasses many of the closest people in favor of an exhausted young woman a few aisles away, staring blankly at the nutrition facts on the back of a box of pasta.

Her name is Vivian Hall, Jon Knows, and she's already on the verge of a nervous break thanks to a combination of demanding coursework for her Mathematics degree and an emotionally overtaxing job at a mid-range boutique. Her degree has a focus on probability and statistics, and though the research she's been assigned is eating away at the time she might use to eat well or sleep, she still finds comfort in the easy categories it allows her to place her life into. Life is predictable, measurable, countable, and exceptions and outliers only exist to prove the rule.

Tim taps her on the arm, as if to draw her attention, her sleeves short enough to allow for skin-to-skin contact. She startles, an apologetic smile rising on her face out of habit, and she steps back, assuming that she was blocking Tim from the shelves.

Smiling back, Tim makes no move to grab anything. Vivian stares at him for a beat too long to be polite. It's an effect of that feature-blurring trick of Tim's, and it works to create that itch of strangeness in her mind, like she's looking at something not-quite-right, but she can't put her finger on why.

This makes it easier for Tim's influence to worm its way into her mind. Something like dizziness washes over her, but she doesn't stumble or feel unsteady. She grips the box of pasta she never placed back, blinking around the feeling.

Jon is so caught up in Watching Vivian that he doesn't notice Tim returning. "Let's go, then," he says, startling Jon out of his reverie.

"You don't want to stay longer?" Jon frowns. "Are you sure that was enough?"

Tim rolls his eyes. "Obviously. She'll be questioning her faith in probability and the predictability of others for a while until, I expect, she realizes that all events are equally improbable. The world is an open field and getting struck by lightning is just as mundane as not."

A slow breakdown like that will be much more sustaining in the long run than the flash-in-the-pan terror Tim employed before. It's a sign of Tim's coming evolution. Instead of the expected relief, dread pools in Jon's stomach. Obviously he wants Tim to survive Becoming, but once he does, once he fully embraces and controls his Stranger aspects, he won't need Jon anymore. The history that looms between them won't stand to be ignored forever.

"Great," Helen says, loud and high-pitched and falsely chipper, startling Jon from his thoughts. "We're done here, then."

Jon had to agree to let Helen chauffeur him to the summit of the other avatars before she would 1ake them to Sasha, something he tried to argue (honestly, would the whole alliance crumble around them if he missed one meeting?) but Helen insisted.

She swings her door open, Tim going through before Jon can take the lead. Despite her perceived impatience, Jon doesn't trust Helen not to screw around with them, so he's quick on Tim's heels, keeping him in his Sight.

What must it be like, going through life believing nothing is certain, that there's no method or meaning behind anything? Profoundly confusing, if anything can be inferred from Tim's shifting state of mind. It's certainly not a mindset humans were meant to function under.

The corridors wind and twist in the usual unintuitive fashion, wrapping around on itself until trying to keep his bearings is nothing but an exercise in frustration. He can always Know the way, but Helen doesn't like it when he does that and he doesn't want to get on her bad side at the moment.

Tim barrels ahead of him, shoving through the final door with not a second spared for hesitation. Jon follows behind him, entering a familiar room full of avatars that are not Sasha James. How is he meant to care about this when he knows she's out there?

The conference room, part of a building owned by the Vast's own Micheal Crew, is fitted with an obligatory round table, the exterior wall made entirely of glass with an impossible view of an endless sky. All the other spokespeople of the Dread Powers are seated around the table, Howard Wakely of the Buried sitting, predictably, furthest from the window. Oliver raises a curious eyebrow at him, eyes flicking between Helen and Tim. Sarah nods once at Tim, then goes back to staring out into the blue void, a vaguely bored look on her face.

"Thank you for your swift and prompt arrival, Archivist," Mike says, voice dripping with saccharine sarcasm. "I hope you don't mind, but we've started without you."

"Yes, fine," Jon sighs, taking a seat between Alexandra of the Spiral and—

Huh.

It's Martin Blackwood. The air about him is different. Cooler, and leaving a strange tingling feeling over Jon's skin. His hair is streaked with more white than before, but unlike what's expected for a full avatar of the Lonely, much of his original color remains. Sensing his stare, Martin turns and gives Jon a slow smile. Jon recognizes it from his dreams. Martin always made a point to smile at Jon at the start of every night, though he didn't try to talk to him anymore after that first time.

One of his eyes is bright green, the other slate grey, the pupil ran through with thousands of gossamer silver threads.

Looking around the table, Peter Lucas is conspicuously absent, meaning Martin is here as a full avatar to represent the Lonely.

Fascinating. A successful dual avatar hasn't been seen since Song Zhao of the Dark and the End in 1723, and those fears are not nearly as opposed as the Lonely and the Web. Jon will have draw how the process worked out of Martin at some point. Even now, the balancing act between his two natures must be agony.

On Martin's other side sits Annabelle Cane, who flashes a wink at Jon. "You were saying, Mike?" she prompts.

Micheal clears his throat with one last pointed glare at Jon. "Yes, as I was saying; multiple attacks on our more vulnerable members leads me to believe that someone out there is organizing against us. Trying to cull our numbers, as it were, sticking to the weak until they gain the strength to come after the powerful. That would be us."

"The young ones get themselves killed often," Jane Prentiss of the Corruption rasps. The worms that share her flesh join in her voice. "What evidence do you have that this is more than that?"

"Yes, I did assume my word would not be enough," Micheal says, to his obvious distaste. Whether it is aimed at Jane or at the idea that the rest of them do not unthinkingly accept whatever he says is unclear. In Jon's opinion, it's both. "So I conducted a little experiment with one of the new Vast fledglings."

A shift of condemnation sweeps the room. Fledgling avatars may die often, even by the hands of the people in this room should the situation call for it, but deliberately getting one killed for no good reason is enough to get Micheal removed from his position as spokesman of the Vast. That is to say, everyone in this room is preparing to kill him where he stands unless he has a proper defense for himself.

"Re-lax," he sighs. "She's still alive. I was watching the whole time. Do you want to know what it is I saw, or do you want to rake me over the coals?"

"Forgive us for being cautious," Annabelle soothes, ever the narcissist-whisperer. "I'm sure you remember that the frivolous expenditure of our young ones' lives is the reason we all stand here today in place of our predecessors. What honor could we claim if we found it acceptable to do the same now that we are the ones in power?"

"I completely agree, dear Annabelle. If I didn't, why would I be spending my time looking into these deaths?" Micheal smooths a hand over his hair and leans forward, placing his elbows on the table. "The Fearless are organizing against us. We need to stamp them out now, before it's too late to stop them."

"Well, now I really am going to need to see some evidence," Alexandra says, tracing her finger idly over the tabletop in the shape of a circle. The wood grain follows her movements, twisting out in small rivulets almost like a vapor. "The Fearless don't bother us. They know they can't properly gauge how much of a threat we are to them, so they stay clear. What would change that?"

"My assumption would be that the force behind them is not Fearless. It may even be one of us. An avatar, I mean, not one of us at this table. Although," Mikael's eyes stray over to Annabelle and Martin, prompting everyone else's gaze to follow, "I haven't completely ruled it out. I don't know what sparked the Fearless into taking action against us, but the important thing is that they have."

He pulls a small remote out of his pocket, aiming it at a television mounted on the only wall not made of glass. "I documented my experiment with Jean, of course. See for yourselves." The screen flickers to life, showing a video of a young woman with wispy blonde hair sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind whips at her hair and her baggy shirt. The angle the video is taken is from beyond the edge of the cliff, over the crashing ocean waves, presumably by Micheal himself.

Two figures approach Jean from the left, as if taking a casual stroll by the precipice. Jean glances toward the camera, shifting just slightly as the figures come closer. It's two women, both in sundresses covered in light jackets to protect against the ocean wind. They saunter up beside her. One of them says something, but the sound is drowned out by the wind and ocean.

After a few more exchanges, Jean tenses noticeably, the wind picking up to match. One of the women laughs, then pulls something from the pocket of her jacket. It looks... like a jar of mud.

Jean throws herself at both of them, gripping them by the front of their clothes and pulling them toward the cliff's edge with superhuman strength. Neither woman appears particularly concerned, even as Jean dangles the one with the jar dangerously off-balance over the roaring ocean below.

One hand holding the jar and the other holding onto Jean's wrist, the woman simply grins and lets go, allowing Jean to be the only thing keeping her from falling to her death, and unscrews the jar.

The mud erupts out like a genie, or a demon as may be more appropriate, swarming Jean and enveloping her entire head. She rears back, releasing both women, and the last thing the video picks up before the camera suddenly drops and falls into the ocean is the second woman catching the one who opened the jar before she falls, pulling her back up to safety while Jean claws uselessly at the cursed mud, suffocating.

"I brought Jean to my domain, where the Buried-touched soil was rendered inert." Micheal turns off the television, placing the remote on the table in front of him. "I posted her at this cliff, where she caught and released three people to spread the word that she was there. Obviously, if someone was out looking for avatars to kill they would pick up the trail, and they did. They even knew enough to manufacture a weapon specialized for an avatar of the Vast."

A frown has been pulling at Jon's face since he saw that jar of mud on the video. He hates to admit it, but Micheal's hunch might be correct.

His gaze drifts over to Tim, who leans against the wall in the corner of the room, near where the door Helen brought them through used to be. Tim has the makings of a very powerful avatar, but until his identity settles, or at least is something Tim has control over, he's in an extremely vulnerable state. Jon will have to take further precautions to ensure his safety.

It's good he didn't skip this meeting, after all. Maybe he should give Helen the benefit of the doubt more often instead of questioning her every motive.

No, no, that's a very bad idea. The second he feels comfortable with her is the second she'll pull the rug from under him. He may not like it, but a relationship with Helen is always going to entail a level of uncertainty. That's who she is.

He blows a breath out between his teeth. "One incident does not prove a conspiracy," Jon says, "but I'm not one to discount the benefits of paranoia. We need to put the fledgling avatars on a tighter leash until this is resolved."

"Agreed," says Oliver, tilting his head toward Jon. "Perhaps you could do a bit of reconnaissance, Archivist? The earlier we know what we're dealing with, the sooner we can put our minds at ease."

But Jon can only shake his head. "I've already tried. I didn't notice until she took out that jar, but I can't Know anything about either of those Fearless women. Not their goals, not if they're working alone or as part of a larger group, not even their names. I couldn't even See that the mud was Buried-aligned until it was already attacking Jean."

Tom Haan of the Flesh levels his unnerving gaze upon him. While Jon's gaze may make someone feel cracked open and exposed, Tom's gaze has the effect of making one feel measured, evaluated, and found lacking. Human flesh has never passed Tom's lips, but his ability to consume people hasn't suffered for it. "If they could create such a targeted attack against one of the Vast," he says, "it does stand to reason that they may have means of hiding themselves from the Eye."

A brief silence passes over the room. The others look calculating, concerned, churning over this information in their minds. The quiet is broken by a low cackle from Amaya Downs of the Slaughter. The large, white, blooming scar over her entire right cheek and down her neck from a close-range blast of a shotgun pulls and darkens with her grin. It's an injury she got after Becoming. She keeps the scar on purpose. "What? Were none of you expecting this to happen? We're monsters, you know. Beasts of violence and fear. Did you really think these little thrones and our little rules put us above it?"

"Yes, I'm sure you'd prefer we just go back to senselessly killing each other," Oliver bites, and Amaya shrugs, unrepentant. Amaya, of course, was the most difficult ally to secure in the time before the agreement; war and death and useless violence are all perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the Slaughter. It was only her predecessor's single-minded focus on the power struggle between the Fears that convinced her. Amaya is a woman of eclectic taste, and the war between the avatars had gone stale.

"That's enough of that," Daisy Tonner of the Hunt says flatly. "We're all here for our own reasons and that isn't going to change any time soon." A gleam shines in her eyes. "I'll get to work tracking the women in the video. Even if they have a way of evading the Hunt, my old police contacts will undoubtedly give me something to go on."

"Perfect," Annabelle says. "The rest of us should make note of all the fledglings with suspicious deaths. There might be a connection there to lead us back to our adversaries."

"Thank you all," Micheal spreads out his hands in a magnanimous gesture, "for having the sense to take this seriously. I'm sincerely glad that my doubts about the outcome of this meeting were unfounded."

"Pleasure as always, Micheal," Jon mutters under his breath. A snort to his left startles him. He glances over, briefly meeting Martin's amused gaze. Martin then startles at Jon's attention, as if he hadn't realized Jon had heard him. Well, that makes two of them, then.

"If that's all, then," Annabelle stands. "Be safe, all of you."

The view outside snaps back into a third-floor view of London, and two doors appear on the back wall; the normal door to leave the building, and Helen's.

Tim pushes off the wall and jerks his head impatiently toward Helen's door. Jon stands to follow, but is stopped by a hand grasping his elbow. "Have you got business with the Distortion, Jon?" Alexandra asks him, her polite smile contrasting with the iron grip on his arm.

He shakes her off, straightening his sleeve pointedly. "I'm sure it doesn't concern you." The lie passes his lips easily enough, he thinks, but the Spiral deals in deception and is not easily deceived itself. Alexandra's smile only widens.

"Where do you think her loyalty will fall? You may be old friends, but our connection runs deeper."

"None of you have any consistent sense of loyalty," he answers. "Least of all Helen. We both have her loyalty, and neither of us do."

"Hm. You'll do well to remember that." Alexandra pats him in on the shoulder as she passes him by. "The Spiral plays tricks with the senses, and you are overly reliant on one." When he turns around, she's no longer in the room, and Helen is waiting beside her open door.

"Shall we?" she asks, and Tim does not bother responding before he steps through. Jon hesitates, just a fraction of a second, and follows.

Chapter Text

Wherever it is that they step out of the Distortion, it is hot. Jon immediately starts sweltering in his button-up-sweater-vest combination. He pulls at his collar uncomfortably, shielding his eyes from the blazing sun above them to get a better look around.

It's a large, open field, the various wild grasses coming up no higher than Jon's ankles. There's a certain itch to this place that Jon is quick to identify; similar to Helen's corridors, it's the feeling of entering the domain of the Spiral. This piece of it must belong to someone else. Someone like Sasha.

The field stretches into the horizon, infinite, and closer inspection of the grassy field reveals an unnatural growth pattern. A fractal, as is typical of the spiral, the grasses growing in triangular shapes that circle around each other, progressively larger the further out they go, and smaller as Jon's gaze follows the pattern inward in a near trace.

A fractal does not have a center, but Jon Knows that the center is where he will find Sasha.

So this is where she's been hiding all this time. Somewhere that does not exist. Is that what she wanted, then? To cease to be without having to cease to be?

Jon is unsurprised that Helen is gone by the time he turns around. The field stretches on in her place.

Tim is locked into the hypnotic draw of the fractal's center, tracing the pattern with his eyes and slowly shuffling over the grass. He'd continue like that into eternity without intervention, chasing after an end that can't exist. Jon places a heavy hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks and startling him enough to look up.

They lock eyes for a moment, then Tim turns back to the infinite pattern. "I can feel it. She's here."

"In a sense." Jon drops his hand to his side.

"Does she know that we're here?"

"Almost definitely."

Tim swallows audibly. "Okay."

Here, so close to their goal, Tim's determination seems to have melted away into nerves. There could be any number of reasons for it, but Jon brushes aside the urge to probe and dissect and takes the first step forward. "This way."

It's a clever little trap she's laid. No, not a trap. She's placed herself in a locked box, only accessible by a very specific key. One who Knows where the center is, and one who can feel his way to it. Sasha could not even leave of her own volition until they came to get her.

Alexandra was right. Jon relies heavily on his Sight to guide him, but in the domain of the Spiral, the eyes are easily deceived. On his own, he would follow the shrinking triangles of the pattern in a straight line to where, logically, the center should be, until his vision swam and disoriented him, turning him in endless circles. Knowing where something is isn't the same as knowing how to reach it, and in this place, that Knowledge is beyond him.

But Tim is not bound by knowledge or logic. His world exists upside-down, and he distrusts certainty. Tim does not Know that this open field is the cloak of a maze, but he can feel the walls all the same, and the same feeling he had that Sasha is close leads him along its twisting paths. He doesn't even realize he's leading the two of them until Jon Knows they've reached the end and he catches Tim by the elbow.

"We're here," Jon tells him, and nods toward the cabin that wasn't there before but always was. "She's waiting for us."

"Right," Tim sighs, equal parts relief and apprehension.

There must be something about them. That's all Sasha can wonder— something about them that marks them out as capable of this twisted metamorphosis. Jonah saw it. Saw it in her, saw it in Tim, and of course he saw it in Jon, but he was already halfway there by the time he joined them.

Is it really just to be Marked by a Fear? Is that all it takes to plant the seed inside them? Or does that just uncover a truth about them otherwise buried?

Jonah promised her answers, but he only brought her into his fold because he saw how much she burned for them. Tim, too. He dangled the truth in front of them, just out of reach, for years, watching them dance closer and closer to the fire, just waiting to see what would become of them. Neither of them even knew about the war until after Jon arrived.

What makes someone choose to be a monster? Sasha thought she wanted to know. Ever since she was fifteen, and her mother's smile twisted more and more until she'd twisted her way into Sasha's mind, she felt she needed to know.

But it had to have started long before. Sasha read somewhere that narcissist parents see their children as mere extensions of their own person, rather than separate entities on their own. If that's the case, it only makes sense that she named Sasha a diminutive of her own name. Alexandra, but smaller. Alexandra, but less.

Had it all gone wrong once her mother made contact with the Spiral, or had Sasha just been living in a pot of slowly warming water, and only noticed once it boiled over?

It doesn't matter. Because Sasha let herself get reeled back in with promises of love and family and everything that would soothe the aching emptiness in her that cracked open the first time she realized her mother didn't really love her. How could she have resisted when her mother promised it would all be different, promised that Sasha was enough for her as she was?

That table stood in front of her, alone in Jonah's basement, hiding away from an attack from the Corruption. Something else came, and it grabbed her, and she knew she was about to die, and then...

A door opened, and the thing that had her released her with a cry that sounded disconcertingly human, and Alexandra pulled her through the door, misty-eyed, apologies on her lips, saying how much it hurt her to think that Sasha was about to die, and that she wasn't going to let past mistakes continue to drive a wedge between them.

Then she twisted and twisted until Sasha was twisting, too, and Sasha left, again, but the damage was already done, again.

Her mother didn't care if she lived or died, but if Sasha was going to belong to any Fear, in life or in death, it would be to the same one Alexandra chose.

Sasha almost let it kill her. If it weren't for Helen... She may be responsible for bringing Alexandra back into her life, but she was never as much her mother's pawn as Alexandra liked to think, and it was Helen that taught Sasha the power of lying to someone who thought they were too smart to be deceived.

This is her escape. A cage of her own making, but free from the twisting curves of her mother's smile while she built up her own strength. Alexandra will not twist Sasha's mind again. If she must be a monster, she will be a monster of her own creation.

"Sasha?" Tim's voice croaks.

The young woman in the middle of the room, sitting in front of an easel, is just like the Sasha of Jon's unaltered memories. Her light brown hair curls around her ears and around the back of her neck. Her large, round glasses perch on the end of her nose, her brown eyes squinting over the tops of their yellow frame at the canvas in front of her, the end of a thin paintbrush between her teeth. Jon remembers that expression from many months working under Jonah Magnus, trying to parse through the evidence of their investigations, and later, trying to predict the next move of the other Fears.

Sasha looks up from her painting, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She gives them a small grin. "Oh, hey. I know you." Her joking tone wavers with emotion.

Jon's breath catches in his throat when he tries to speak.

Tim stumbles forward, a low noise coming from his chest, and he catches himself on Sasha's shoulders, inches from her face. "Sasha."

She drops the paintbrush, yellow paint splattering on the ground between them and cups her hands over his. "Tim."

A shudder goes through Tim's body. "Yeah," he whispers. "It's me." He brings his hands up until he's cupping her face, Sasha still holding onto him. "Are you real?"

"What's real?" Sasha answers. Then they're both giggling, soft and breathless, leaning in until their foreheads touch.

Jon blinks, tearing his eyes away from the intimate display. Were Sasha and Tim ever...? He can't have been that oblivious. But maybe, with Sasha's death— disappearance— they simply hadn't gotten the chance.

"Jon," Sasha says, and Jon looks back up. The two of them have separated now, except for lacing the fingers of one of their hands together. "It's good to see you."

He tries to speak. Clears his throat. Tries again. "You too. It's— It's really good to see you, too."

Chapter Text

The investigation into the Fearless and their connection to the deaths of fledglings runs frustratingly dry. It drives Daisy and all her underlings in the Hunt a little mad. The two Fearless women from the video with Jean don't have any trace in police records, and facial recognition software fails to pull identities out of the distant, pixelated footage. Every one of the fourteen Heads report multiple deaths of fledglings that they suspect the Fearless had a hand in, but the only information they can glean from that is that the Fearless are honing their methods of killing them.

Tim and Sasha are happy enough to keep themselves in Jon's house, out of the streets and away from any potential danger. Sasha is not a fledgling, but she is still new as a full avatar, and the Fearless won't be sticking to fledglings forever. He's already given himself multiple cluster headaches from trying to Know the Fearless's next move and he doesn't think he could stand it if his new-found uselessness ended up being responsible for him losing one of them when he just got them back.

This situation may be driving him a little mad, too.

Sleep hasn't come easily lately. Grogginess blurs his eyes and weighs down his steps on his way to the grocery. They're out of oranges, Sasha's favorite, and her disappointed face when she realized she'd eaten the last of them yesterday propelled Jon out the door in spite of his fatigue.

The lights inside the store are obnoxiously bright and burn his eyes. There's only one cashier manning the checkout at this time of night, casting suspicious and nervous glances over at Jon. It takes Jon a moment to understand why; he's sweaty and washed out, his hair is a little greasy from lack of washing, no doubt his eyes are red from sleep deprivation and irritation, and here he is,  stumbling in at odd hours of the night.

Alright, judgemental cashier man, he'll just get his oranges and get out. Too bad he doesn't have the feel of a statement about him. Jon could use the pick-me-up.

He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his— admittedly, unwashed— trousers and shuffles over to the fresh produce. Two bags of oranges would last longer and make Sasha happier, but then Jon would have to carry both bags all the way back home...

"Jon?"

That's a familiar, if out of place voice. Jon places the bag of oranges he's examining down before turning around. "Hello, Martin."

An easy smile graces Martin's face, chipper and friendly. Jon hates him a little for it. "It's good to see you." It sounds like he's being truthful, but Jon can't imagine why he would be. "Actually, I'm really glad I ran into you. Do you have a moment? Oh, but if you're busy, that's fine!"

He's so... normal. It might be because Jon is tired and a little slow right now, but even the most mellow of avatars have a certain unsettling, menacing air. Martin isn't like that, when he should be the one most like that. Volatile and shattered and hungry, with two patrons to feed, unable to make such normal, non-supernatural appearances in public.

He's stable. If Jon didn't know what he is, couldn't see it written all over him in mottled patches of Lonely draining him of color and the strings of the Web pulling away at him from the inside through his pupil, he'd even be tempted to dismiss Martin as unremarkable. Suspicion creeps up Jon's spine and his defenses rise all at once. The only explanation is that Martin is remarkable at putting up the front of being unremarkable.

It's not a coincidence that Martin found him here.

"Not busy, no," he says carefully. "What is it?"

"You remember Ben." Martin's smile twists mirthlessly. "Any chance you could point me in his direction? It's important."

Relaxing a fraction, Jon turns back to the oranges. If he bags up some of the individuals, he'll be able to pack in more oranges in one bag, but that will mean poking through the pile for the best ones. How long does he want to spend in this store? "I figured the two of you would have connected through your network by now." He caves and starts sifting through the oranges.

Martin doesn't answer for a moment. "He's, uh. Keeping himself off the grid, it seems." Then, "You must really like oranges, if you're coming here at this time of night for them."

Jon blinks down at the orange in his hand, and the slowly filling bag in the other, then up at Martin. "What? No. I can't even stand the smell. They're for someone else. Listen, if your friend doesn't want to be found, it's in my best interest to not get involved. I know better then to get tangled up in the Web."

He places a final orange inside the plastic bag, twisting it closed. Martin catches his sleeve before he can walk away. "Please. I..." Martin stares at the bag of oranges tucked under Jon's arm. "I'm worried. I can't find him and I've already—" he swallows thickly. "I've already failed him once. If he needs help, I need to be there. I need to do something this time."

Well. When he puts it like that.

Sighing, Jon calls upon Beholding, waiting for the information to be plucked neatly from the ocean and presented to him with flourish.

Only that isn't what happens. Jon runs into a very familiar, infuriating wall. His hackles rise, pulling a sneer over his face, and he yanks his sleeve out of Martin's grasp. "Just what on Earth is your old friend doing with the Fearless?"

Martin's face falls, paling under the harsh lights of the produce isles. "So he is with them..." he murmurs.

"You already suspected," Jon surmises. "And now I've all but confirmed it for you, have I?"

"Oh, wipe the righteousness of your face, will you? It was barely even a white lie. You know now, don't you? That was the whole point."

Jon scoffs. "It really shouldn't surprise you that I don't like not knowing all the facts." He rubs a tired hand over his face. "A renegade avatar of the Web would be the one to convince any of the Fearless to take us on."

"That's.. we don't know that's what's happening!" Martin protests. "All we know is that I can't find him and you can't See him. He could be their prisoner, or it could even be completely unrelated!"

"You don't believe that and neither do I." Patience officially running out, Jon chances a glance over at the cashier, the bag under his arm growing heavy. He'll need to get home, ring up one of the others— Daisy would be the best first choice. She'd appreciate a fresh lead, and she should get out on Benjamin Bird's trails before he knows they're onto him. Then Oliver, of course. He's got the most level head over this situation; maybe he'll be able to crack what Benjamin's goal is.

"You can't tell them."

This time, Martin grips Jon's wrist like a vice, unyielding as iron and cold as ice, seeping through the sleeve of Jon's jumper and freezing his skin. His gaze is drawn upward until he meets Martin's eyes, and then he can't look away; that gray eye, so at odds with the bright green of the other, and the infinite, infinite little webs intertwining in his pupil. They go forever, deeper and deeper, weaving together in neat, complex patterns that could take all of time to unravel...

Jon blinks, ripping his gaze away, and just like that, Martin appears to come back to himself, too. He releases Jon's arm like he's the one who's being frost-burned, taking a hasty step back and nearly knocking several bundles of bananas off their display. "I... that wasn't... wow, okay, that was uncalled for. I don't know why I did that. Actually, I do, I really need you not to tell the others about Ben. Please."

Jon pulls up his sleeve and examines the skin around his wrist. The damage is minimal and already repairing itself. "After that little outburst?" His distaste rolls like venom off his tongue. "Why would I do you any favors?"

"Because you know what it's like to want to save someone." Martin shoves a stray curl out of his face. "And... wasn't the whole point of your uprising? You don't want us to kill each other."

"I don't want it, but I'm still willing to when it's necessary. We all are."

"I'm telling you it's not necessary. Wouldn't you want the same if it was someone you cared about? Haven't you done the same?" Martin takes a deep breath, pulling his sleeves down over his hands. "Please. He's just confused. He thinks he doesn't have anyone. All I'm asking for is a chance to show him he's wrong. I can save him. If I can't..."

Martin looks down, clutching bunches of his jumper in his fists.

This is such a bad idea. "Some people don't want to be saved," Jon warns.

His mirthless smile returns. "I know."