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Johan never really expected that he'd become anything special.
Never really considered that he'd become anything at all, really.
So he's not really sure how to reconcile those thoughts with the fact that he just found something huge living at the bottom of the lake; especially since that something just saved his life.
Johan is choking up water on the shore of the lake, sprawled out in the mud, trying and failing to get his limbs out from under him. He struggles to breathe around the actions of gagging and vomiting up lake water, and something that feels too thick to be water at all.
He had jumped in the lake and held himself under, and something else had pulled him out.
Johan tries to think through the haze of oxygen deprivation, trying to make sense of what he'd seen. Because it doesn't make any sense; Johan is pretty sure that he'd seen stars under there.
He spends a couple more minutes there, sprawled out on his back and breathing, regaining his bearings, and the moment he's confident in his ability to stand, he heads straight back into the lake.
To his own surprise, he's not going in to make a second attempt. His thoughts are consumed by curiosity. He wants a second look, to determine what it is, or if it had really been there at all.
Sure enough, as he swims out and plunges back under the water, there it is.
Now that he's looking for it, it's easier to parse out what he's seeing. A massive jellyfish, looking almost cramped in the lake, pulsing with the image of a galaxy.
As Johan stares at it in shock, one of its oral arms reaches out and wraps around his middle, and hauls him out of the water. Johan gets the distinct feeling from somewhere that he's being chided.
He gets deposited back onto the mud gently, and the arm retreats back under the surface.
Johan stands there, and tries to figure out what's going on.
He debates giving it a third shot, but he doesn't think the jelly would appreciate the intrusion.
The sun is starting to set, and Johan realizes that his mom is going to be expecting him home soon.
He gives the lake one last look before turning around and heading back to town, wondering about just what the hell he's supposed to do now.
He doesn't tell anyone about what he's found.
For one thing, Johan doesn't want to have to explain what he'd been doing out there in the lake. It's not exactly known for being a good place for casual swims, and Johan had barely been able to explain away his damp clothes without mentioning it. Explaining the lake wouldn't be nearly as easy.
(He had been intentionally not thinking about his mom when he'd walked out there. He knows that she would probably be better off later on, if he was gone, but thinking about admitting any of this to any degree makes him feel inexplicably guilty. He has no intention of ever speaking about it to anyone.)
But for another thing, he's curious.
He'd scoured the library as soon as he could, looking for all the books on jellyfish that he'd already read, and then the few that he hadn't, and then all the books he could find that featured aquatic creatures of any sort, and for all his searching, he couldn't find a single entry about a creature that remotely resembled what he had found.
It's possible that he's the first one to come across one of those things.
If that's the case, then he wants to investigate it more before he even thinks about mentioning it to anyone else.
He doesn't know what it is, but he doesn't want anything to happen to it before he can figure it out.
Roughly a week passes before Johan is able to sneak back out to the lake.
He'd given up trying to unearth any information on it, but hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. The only reason he'd waited so long before going back was because he wanted to make sure that no one else would follow him out there.
He doesn't know what it wants, but it doesn't seem dangerous. He supposes that there's always a possibility that it will turn out to be violent and carnivorous. Worst case scenario is that Johan dies, which is almost like a win-win if he's being honest, because if it eats him, then it's almost like it's not even his fault that he died.
But considering the fact that it'd saved his life once, and then tried a second time, Johan doesn't think there's a high probability of that happening.
He wades out into the lake, and takes a deep breath before ducking under the water.
For a second, he doesn't see anything, and he wonders if he had made the whole thing up, but his eyes adjust to the weirdly dark water and there it is, looking just as awe-inspiring as it had the previous time.
As he looks at it, one of its tentacles wraps around him again, and wildly Johan thinks 'Stop'. He's never going to get a chance to investigate the thing if it just keeps hauling him out of the water every time he gets in.
And he gets it, because the water is its space and Johan is intruding, and maybe it thinks its helping, but he's just so curious.
And to Johan's surprise, the arm halts. Johan waits, and after a moment, instead of pushing him out, the jellyfish pulls him closer.
It's even more incredible up close. Johan doesn't think before he reaches out a hand and touches its softly glowing bell. He's half expecting it to get pissed, but it vibrates gently under his palm, patiently tolerating the touch. It feels just like a normal jellyfish, despite the fact that it's clearly unlike any other species anyone has encountered before.
Johan becomes aware of a building pressure in his chest, and withdraws his hand. Wonders if there's some way to make the thing release him long enough to let him get air without it dropping him all the way off at the edge of the lake.
One of its tentacles comes up, and Johan watches its approach with a mildly removed interest.
The tentacle presses itself against Johan's temple. He's braced for the sting, because Jellyfish are covered with cnidae that activate when they come into contact with the chemicals found on skin, but he's in no way prepared for what actually happens.
Instead of a stinging pain caused by discharging nematocysts, Johan's mind caves to make way for an influx of information that does not belong to him. It's shocking and it hurts and he opens his mouth to scream despite being under water and his vision whites out and-
-he comes back to himself on the bank of the lake, caught in the now familiar sensation of emptying his lungs of fluid.
A Voidfish. The thing in the lake is called a Voidfish.
Johan forces himself to his feet and staggers home, not sure how he feels about that interaction at all.
Someone is pulling on Johan's hair and he's doing his best to ignore it.
"He's just fucking stupid is the problem." A cluster of laughs follows the statement. There is no one else around who would intervene.
Johan grits his teeth and doesn't respond. "If you ignore them, they'll get bored and go away." The problem is that these guys don't ever seem to get bored. But Johan does know that responding will only make the situation worse. Running probably won't help either. He doesn't look up from his book.
"Honestly, I'm surprised he hasn't killed himself yet."
The taste of lake water is thick in his mouth. He tries not to think about it.
He tries not to think about it, he tries not to think about it, he tries not to think about it.
He feels like he still can't breathe.
"Aw, I think we're upsetting him," someone says, reaching out and grabbing one of Johan's pressed back ears and tugging on it. He can't quite strangle the noise of pain before it escapes. "Aww, I think we are."
Johan's breath hitches in his chest. They tug on his ear again, harsher this time, and Johan stands without thinking, wrenching his ear out of the boy's grip and raising a hand to press against the sore appendage. When he glances up at them, he can see the mixture of anger and excitement that comes from finally getting a reaction out of him.
One of them lunges at him threateningly, and Johan reacts instinctively, and winds up flinging his book at the kid's face.
It hits with a solid thud and falls to the floor heavily. After a second, a few drops of blood follow it down to land on the cover.
Johan doesn't have to look at their faces to know that he's done for.
There's a moment that passes in stunned silence, where everyone tries to figure out if what just happened had actually happened.
Johan takes advantage of it, and takes off.
He's not particularly fast, but he has the advantage of knowing ways to sneak around the town. The group of boys definitely give chase, throwing insults and slurs at Johan's back, but they get bored eventually, and leave with promises of getting back later.
"You can't hide forever," they tell him.
Johan goes to the lake.
He'll probably wind up waiting out here fr a while, so now is as good a time as any to test out what he's been working on for the past few days; a makeshift raft, hopefully sturdy enough to allow Johan to get close to the Voidfish without having to fret about things like exhaustion or oxygen deprivation.
It's clumsy, but it does work, and Johan slowly makes his way out to the middle of the lake.
As he gets closer, he can see and feel the Voidfish's tendrils investigating the raft curiously, but it doesn't jostle it too hard or flip him over, so Johan counts the whole thing as a success.
"Today was bullshit," Johan mutters, after giving the Voidfish the usual cursory examination (a lot of it is based on guesswork, but there are some conditions that are easy to spot that probably have to be shared between this and a regular jellyfish, like making sure that the oral arms are all intact and that there are no holes or tears in the bell).
He's not actually expecting any kind of response, but to his surprise, the Voidfish pokes the top of its bell out of the water. To hear him better?
"Can you hear me?" Johan asks aloud. Jellyfish aren't typically known for being able to hear.
This is not a typical jellyfish though.
The Voidfish blinks its light once; Johan takes this to mean 'yes'. He makes a mental note of it: the Voidfish apparently has auditory and telepathic abilities.
"Huh," Johan mumbles, and then goes on. "Well, there's a group of kids around town who never leave me alone. Usually I ignore it, but I kind of messed up today. I threw a book at one of them, hit them in the face. I got away today, but they're definitely going to beat the shit out of me tomorrow."
The Voidfish pulses, Johan doesn't actually know what that's supposed to mean, so he chooses to interpret it as a show of encouragement.
"So yeah, if I don't come back for the next few days, it's because I'm stuck at home again." Johan shrugs, "I'll try to be back as soon as I can though."
The Voidfish pokes the bottom of the raft and nearly capsizes him. Johan hurries to regain his balance, and then huffs out a laugh. "Jerk," he mutters.
The Voidfish flashes at him brilliantly.
Johan has been very careful today despite knowing that it won't do him any good.
The weird thing is that nothing has happened yet.
He keeps looking over his shoulder and flinching at sudden noises, but no one really pays him any special attention. He hasn't even heard any of the boys at all today. The longer time passes without incident, the more on edge Johan feels. At this point, he almost wants it to happen, just so that he can get it over with.
He'd wonder if that was their intention, but he doesn't think they're actually smart enough to pull off a psychological tactic like this.
So he's really not sure what to make of it at all.
He's in the middle of re-shelving a book when he catches sight of them out of the corner of his eye.
He freezes instinctively, and watches them carefully. One of them sees him, points him out, and is dismissed by the rest of the group.
They make faces at him as they pass, but don't seem particularly interested in him today.
Johan is so confused that he doesn't even know what to do with himself, but he's not about to start asking questions.
Once he has the free time, he makes a beeline for the lake. No one would think to go to the lake, so if they were waiting, they're going to have a hard time trying to find him now. Plus, he'd told the Voidfish that he might not be able to make it, but since he can, he figures that it's best to avoid stressing the creature out.
"It's the weirdest thing," he tells it, as they both float gently on the surface of the lake, "I mean, it isn't like they bother with me every day, but I would have thought that they definitely would have done something today."
The Voidfish pulses and twirls a bit in the water.
"Yeah," Johan says, "Bizarre. But I'll take it."
"Johan, wake up."
It's like, noon on a Saturday, and Johan cannot figure out what could be so important that his mom has bothered to come all the way to his room to wake him up personally.
"What?" he asks finally, heaving himself up and wiping his eyes tiredly.
When he can finally see clearly, he's welcomed by the sight of his mom standing next to his bed, a decently sized box in her hands.
"Happy birthday, kiddo," she says, and holds it out to him.
Johan is still largely asleep, so it takes him a moment to recall that yes, today is his thirteenth birthday.
He takes the box, and opens it cautiously, and his jaw nearly drops in response to what he finds.
"Holy shit," he mumbles, carefully reaching in to pull out a violin. It's a little run down, but it's a solid instrument; definitely high quality, and, apparently, his.
He looks up to stare at his mom in disbelief, "Can we even afford this?"
She shakes her head at him, a slightly exasperated look on her face. "I wouldn't have bought it if we couldn't." She smiles hesitantly, "Do you like it?"
"It's incredible," he tells her, his gaze falling back to the instrument as he runs his fingers along the grain of the body reverently.
"Good," she says, ruffling his hair. Johan quietly thanks the Voidfish for dunking him in the lake the day prior so that he hadn't been able to forget bathing. "Make sure that you practice, alright? Don't let it go to waste." ;
"Yes ma'am."
"You can hear me over there, right?" Johan calls, and the Voidfish blinks once in response.
He doesn't want to go out on the water and risk accidentally falling in and water logging the violin, but he also wants to make sure that there's someone around to hear him practice (he doesn't want his mom to hear until he's certain he can do it right).
"She got it for me for my birthday," he tells the jelly as he makes sure that the instrument is in tune, "I've been looking into maybe getting one for a while, but I definitely wasn't expecting her to get one for me." He makes a face, "I've read a lot, but I've never actually played; I'm not too good at it yet."
So far, his biggest challenge has been with handling the bow. He knows all the notes and finger placements, but he keeps pressing either too hard or too light on the strings, and messing everything up.
Transitioning between notes is still a little clumsy, but as long as he plays slow, you can't really tell. With this song, he's actually been doing pretty well, up until about halfway through when he accidentally presses too hard, and causes the instrument to screech in protest.
The Voidfish flashes and then ducks under the water. Johan gets the distinct feeling that he's being teased.
"It's not that bad," he says in protest, unhooking the violin from under his chin. "I'm a beginner."
The Voidfish reemerges, and then waves a few tentacles encouragingly.
"Jerk," Johan mutters, but places the violin back under his chin, and continues playing.
"Johan, I've got a question for you."
"Yes?" He glances up from the papers he's been sorting to meet the eyes of one of his older neighbors, Mr. Golya.
"You're good with music, yes?" The older man asks, staring down at the half-elf with narrowed eyes.
"Yeah?" Johan replies slowly, not quite sure where this conversation could be going.
"Hm." Golya says, then straightens. "I've got a friend over at the university, he works as a professor there. He's been looking for an assistant to help him with transcribing sheet music. Do you think you might be up for it?"
Johan doesn't even have to think about the offer at all, "Yes," he says automatically. Getting over to the university every day will be a pain, but he could use the money and the experience.
"Good," Golya nods, "I'll let him know, and I'll be back to pass along the information to you."
"Thank you so much, sir," Johan says, standing up to shake the man's hand.
Between this and the fact that the local kids are finally starting to leave him alone, shit's finally starting to look up a bit.
"Hey there, Johan, what are you doing here?"
Johan frowns. "I placed an order here yesterday?"
The woman behind the counter frowns back at him. "I'm pretty sure that I'd remember if you placed an order," she says, "but let me go check the book."
This isn't exactly going to plan, but sometimes shit happens, and Johan can be pretty flexible. Unfortunately, things just really aren't trying to go his way today, which figures.
"No, you're not in here, sweetie. Would you like to place an order?" Johan very distinctly remembers placing the order yesterday. He sighs a bit, then goes ahead and places the same one again. It's not necessarily a time sensitive thing, and shit happens, so he's not about to make a big deal out of it.
Up until the same thing happens the next day.
'At least,'Johan thinks sullenly as he places the order for the third damn time, 'I don't have to pay the money until I actually get what I've ordered.'
The way things are going though, he's not ever going to actually wind up paying.
Don't get him wrong, Johan loves the new job, but holy shit is he exhausted.
He's sitting at the edge of the lake, dead tired and heavy, wondering if he'll even be able to swim out without accidentally drowning himself.
The Voidfish decides to step in, reaching out with its ribbon-like tentacle to pick him up and drag him out.
Johan's wondering if it's just planning on holding him the whole time when it pokes its bell out of the water and deposits him on top of itself.
Johan curls in on himself. It's weird, but not uncomfortable, being up here.
"I should be happy," he mumbles, reaching up to bury his face in his hands, "I've got a violin, I'm actually good at it, I have a decent job, no one is beating the shit out of me anymore," he sighs, "I should be happy."
He gazes down inside the Voidfish, at the spiral galaxy that seems infinite despite being contained, and rubs his fingers against the slippery surface of the Voidfish's epidermis. "Maybe they were right about me," he mutters, "Maybe I am broken."
The Voidfish blinks at him indignantly, and slips under the lake just enough for the water to start lapping at Johan's fingers before resurfacing again.
Johan tries to laugh, but can't. "Okay," he says anyway, "Thanks."
He falls asleep there, lulled by the gently contractions of the Voidfish in the water.
"Just where did you get this?"
Johan is not quite running at full mental capacity, and has no idea what the hell is happening.
His mom is standing at the door to his room, his violin case in hand. He tries to think of why she'd have it, and remembers that he'd left it in the kitchen after work in his haste to get down to the lake.
"Uhm," he says uncertainly, wondering if this is maybe some kind of weird joke, "You gave it to me?"
"What are you talking about?" She looks kind of pissed. Johan is missing something here, he has to be.
"For my thirteenth birthday? Like, actual months ago."
Her confused expression is a mirror of his own.
"Are you like, feeling okay?" he asks, wondering if he should maybe be concerned.
"Fine," she says, but she doesn't sound certain.
Johan isn't either.
"It's like she just completely forgot," Johan says, sitting on the small boat he'd finally been able to afford. "She didn't press it anymore, but I don't think she actually remembers buying it. Should I be worried?"
The Voidfish, predictably, doesn't say anything, but it sinks under the water a bit. If Johan didn't know better, he'd say that it almost looked guilty.
"You feeling okay?" he asks, reaching out under the water to press a hand against the bell, "Don't tell me I have to be worried about you too."
It's hard not to feel concerned when he doesn't get a response, but he really hopes it's just an off day. There's only so many things Johan can handle at a time; something being wrong with his friend and his family are not things he can handle simultaneously.
Still, he can't shake the feeling that things are about to go to shit.
"Sir, I don't want to be rude, but I think you forgot to pay me again."
Maurois glances up from the sheet music he's been perusing to glare at Johan. "What are you talking about?" he demands gruffly.
This is not the first time this has happened, but Johan is definitely getting tired of it. He sighs a bit.
"You forgot to pay me," Johan repeats. Depending on the day, sometimes that's enough; but judging by the way Maurois' glare deepens, today is not one of those days.
"I don't know what you're talking about. You don't work for me."
"I've worked here for like, eight months." Johan tells him, "I can even show you on the pay roll; I'm Johan and I help transcribe sheet music."
Maurois looks him over suspiciously, but does take out the book to skim it over. If anything, this only makes his expression darken as he does so.
"You're not in here."
"Yes, I am. I'm right-" Johan breaks off, staring blankly down at the paper in front of him. His name isn't there, there's nothing but an odd blank line where he's usually listed.
This is new.
"You're not," Maurois reiterates angrily. "Now get out of my office before I call security."
"I guess I don't have a job anymore either," Johan says, fiddling around with his violin idly on the beach. "Maybe it was some crazy indirect way of firing me." Maurois always had been a bit eccentric, it wouldn't necessarily be the weirdest thing the dwarf had done in the months that Johan had worked there.
Still, it's an unsettling trend that Johan has started to notice. His mom with the violin, and some other more inconsequential things; people forgetting orders that he's placed, or recent conversations that they've had.
Johan doesn't quite know what to make of it. He wonders if it's possible that they're all trying to pull some kind of prank on him. It seems unlikely, considering it's been months since anything like that has happened. And because it'd be a pretty random shitty thing for an entire town to get in on.
Maybe it's his fault. Too nondescript, too tired to make an impression, too monotone for people to care to listen.
It's kind of shitty and inconvenient, but hell, maybe they're better off not remembering him. If Johan were them, he wouldn't necessarily want to remember him either.
Johan comes home one day to find his mom throwing out pages upon pages of his music.
"Hey, what are you doing?" He asks, swooping in to rescue the pieces. They're not the best, maybe, but it's still kind of shitty to just throw them all away. He's only just started putting his own compositions together, of course he's not an expert yet.
"Someone's just left them all over the back room," she replies, her voice pitched towards disbelief, "It's incredibly rude."
"They're mine," Johan protests, "I mean, I'll clean it up, but you only had to say so."
She pauses in what she's doing to look at him in confusion, "What do you mean they're yours?" she asks.
There's a sinking feeling in his chest as he fishes out the remaining sheets, "They're mine. I'm sorry my room was messy." He tries to keep his voice as steady and clear as possible, sometimes that helps.
"Don't be silly," his mom says, looking at him in a bemused sort of way that Johan hates, "You don't play music."
"This is starting to get out of hand," Johan says from where he's perched atop the Voidfish's bell. It's maybe not the healthiest place to sit, but it's comfortable, and the Voidfish doesn't actually seem to have any problems with it. "It's been almost like a year now, right? How did she forget that I played music?"
He's gotten good too, he knows it. He's even played for her a few times. It doesn't make any sense for her to have forgotten completely. Johan has no idea what the hell is going on, or what he's supposed to do about all this.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" He asks aloud. What if it gets worse? What if he goes home one day and she won't even let him in the house because she doesn't recognize him? The way things are going, it wouldn't surprise him, and that's terrifying.
He's interrupted in his thoughts by the sound of a man saying, "Holy fucking shit."
Johan's head jerks upwards and he catches sight of three people he doesn't recognize standing at the lake's edge; two men and a woman.
Fuck.
All this time without ever getting caught out and there's finally someone here, and it's at what is possibly the worst time ever.
Johan freezes, unsure of what to do. They can undoubtedly see the Voidfish, and Johan is not in a good position nor is he well equipped to be defending the Voidfish from three adults much bigger than him.
Fuck. What is he supposed to do?
"Excuse me," the woman calls out, and Johan tenses further, "I don't suppose you could help us?"
What the actual shit is he supposed to do?
The Voidfish makes a decision for him. While he sits there in a panic, the Voidfish reaches up, grabs him, and goes to deposit him on shore. 'No, come On," Johan thinks frantically, but the Voidfish is unmoved. It drops him off and then just leaves him there, alone with three strangers.
They stare at him in shock. He stares back with just as much anxiety.
"Uhm," he says finally, "What do you need?"
It takes a second for her to respond. "You've made contact with it?"
Johan crosses his arms defensively, "It's my friend," he mutters, and then flushes. That's probably weird, to be friends with a jellyfish.
It's true though.
She blinks in surprise, then shakes herself off and holds out her hand. "My name is Lucretia," she tells him as he shakes her hand reluctantly, "I am the Director of an organization called the Bureau of Balance, and, with your permission," -one of the men behind her starts to protest, but she quiets him before continuing- "With your permission, we would like to take the Voidfish with us."
The man doesn't look too happy, but Johan is more fixated on something else.
"You know what it is?" He asks incredulously, peering up at her through his bangs.
She nods. "Yes, we know what it is. They're quite rare, but they have abilities that could be vital to our cause."
"What abilities?" Johan asks, glancing over his shoulder at the jelly, still peeking up out of the water. It blinks at him encouragingly. He tries to think back, but can't come up with any abilities that particularly stand out.
"It eats information."
Johan startles around to look at her. It eats information? That doesn't make any kind of sense, but, at the same time, it explains everything.
Fuck, people have been forgetting him.
It had been guilt that one afternoon.
What the shit.
"You're welcome to take some time to think it over," Lucretia says, startling him out of his thoughts.
"Are you going to hurt it?" He asks, despite the fact that he's still reeling. He has to make sure of that before this goes any further.
"Gracious, no. It being alive and well would be necessary for what we could use it for."
Johan looks back over the lake, at the Voidfish, who's retreated back under the water slightly. He thinks over the past year and a half. He thinks about his mom, and the townspeople, and the job that he'd had but lost.
"Could I come with it?" he asks finally, looking back at the adults.
For once, she doesn't look surprised.
"You could," she says, "though I would like to talk to you, and your guardian, about what that might entail."
Johan bites his lip. Shrugs. "It might not matter," he says, trying to sound casual about it, "I've been talking to it a lot, after all."
Johan's mom doesn't protest much, and if he's being honest, it wouldn't have mattered much to him if she had.
After he reminds her that he is almost fourteen- practically an adult- and makes it clear that he's made up his mind, she agrees, albeit reluctantly.
So Johan packs up what meager belongings he has, and gets ready to leave with a bunch of strangers to do a job he's been given no explanation for.
Somehow, it doesn't feel like the shitty decision it sounds like.
Johan can't tell if the Director is being condescending or sincere.
She comes to him for information about the Voidfish. He doesn't understand why, considering the fact that she had known more about the Voidfish than him when she'd shown up, but she insists.
"You have the most hands on experience out of all of us put together," she says, "It makes sense for you to give your input on these types of decisions."
So Johan thinks over what he knows and offers the best suggestions he can for the layout of the chamber. Few, dim lights, because they're not necessary. A large tank size, with a circular shape to prevent the Voidfish from getting caught in corners. The lake didn't have any especially strong currents in it, but he suggests that the tank be set up to have them anyway. A strong water filter to cut down on the frequency of having to clean the water in the tank.
His suggestions are a split between what he has observed, and what he knows about normal jellyfish, because, despite his original intentions, he'd never actually spent much time looking into the physical characteristic of the Voidfish.
But he does know how to interpret its body language and pulses of light, and so when the tank and the room are completed, Johan knows that the Voidfish is content where it is. He hadn't fucked anything up, which is a nice occurance.
He winds up spending most of his time there as well. He was given his own room, but hasn't been given any other job, and doesn't really know anyone else on the base (they'd all introduced themselves, Avi and Leon and Maureen and a handful of others, but they know each other better than they know him, and Johan doesn't want to become a bother), so there's not much else for him to do.
Not that he's complaining. The dim lights and background sound of the water filter benefits him as much as the Voidfish, and it's a quiet secluded place for him to practice.
He'll never get anywhere with his music, not since no one will remember him, but that's not going to stop him from playing.
(Most of the time anyway)
It's nice, if isolated, until one day when he's interrupted in his playing by the sound of someone sniffling.
He looks up to see the Director standing in the doorway, her hand covering her mouth as she blinks tearfully at him.
"Fuck," he mutters, nearly dropping his violin as he fumbles with it anxiously. "Are you, uh, are you okay?"
She sniffs again and visibly pulls herself together. "I'm fine," she tells him, dropping her hand away from her face to wave off his concern. "It's just, you're quite good. You could have gone big places someday."
Johan is still grappling with the fact that apparently he's so good at playing that he made someone cry, and doesn't actually know what to say. He winds up just standing there in a stunned awkward silence until she leaves, and then he turns to the Voidfish as asks, "What the shit?"
The next day, he wakes up and finds a brand fucking new violin in a case on the desk he'd hauled into the Voidfish's chamber.
He's almost afraid to touch it, but when he does, god does it sound incredible.
The Bureau keeps growing. More people coming in and out every day, and the base becoming more complex to accommodate the changes.
Johan mostly stays where he is.
He doesn't stop. He keeps going. Watching out for and maintaining the Voidfish, becoming the best at violin, and picking up new instruments every time he goes planet side with the portion of his paycheck that he keeps.
He plays more for other people, and he's not always the best at conversation, but not everyone minds.
It's a little weird, to have a family again, but he doesn't mind it. Especially since he doesn't have to worry about them forgetting him.
Maybe it does suck sometimes to be stuck on a moon where no one on the planet will remember your name, but, Johan's been to enough Rites of Remembrance to know that the people on the moon will remember him once he's gone.
It's not a lot, but sometimes, you just need "enough".
This is enough.