Chapter Text
Elias Bouchard wakes up dazed and confused, foggy on how he got here. And where even “here” is. Taking inventory of his body, he feels pressure around both his wrists and ankles, and he realizes for whatever reason he is laying flat on… what? Some kind of metal? Like an operation table, he realizes distantly. The second realization is that he has not bothered to open his eyes but, in his haziness, he feels like something big is missing. Like a limb he relies on heavily, suddenly cut off.
Elias opens his eyes to reach darkness, heavy and suffocating. Beholding is gone, that’s what it is. And why— why can’t he see anything? WHY CAN'T HE SEE? He attempts to reach up to feel whatever is on his face, a cloth of some kind, but his hands are held down.
Elias panics.
Struggling against the restraints— there are surprisingly very few of them— he manages to arch his back and get his head off the table to sit up but his legs and arms remain stuck.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good.” Jon’s voice startles him as Elias jolts away from the breath against his ear. He hears a dark chuckle.
From farther away this time, Jon speaks, “You see, or not I guess, Jonah, your ritual failed. Oh, it was a good try, but you did not take into account Martin coming back from his little trip outside early. It was— well. Very brutal. And bloody. In the end, he managed to save me from your statement but it was harsh, Jonah. Martin and I realized we may not be able to escape you, but we can certainly injure you beyond repair. So we drugged you, not sure if you remember, and dragged you down here, into the tunnels. That blindfold you have on is a Dark artifact by the way, so don’t even bother trying to contact your Watcher.” Jon whispered, all amusement gone, back into his ear, “I want to make you feel exactly what you put me through.”
Despite the detached manner he puts up when running the Institute, deep down, Jonah was a scared man. He did everything to avoid death and, while it didn’t sound like they were going to kill him, the pain forthcoming was enough to make him shake.
“Fourteen fears, fourteen marks, let’s see how long it takes to get you screaming.” He struggles once again against the bonds in place, this time babbling, “Jon listen—“ and “Jon, please.”
“Begging, already hmm?” Jon replies, laughter laced through his voice. Jon lets this continue for a few minutes, before cutting Elias off, “As fun as it is to watch you struggle, I have people waiting.” Footsteps walk away from him and he has no idea how long it is before they return. He hates this, beat by his own bloody Archivist! Jon was supposed to be submissive, to be just the right balance between tough and docile. Oh Lord, how did he even get here? Elias almost had it, he was so close! The ritual, everything was working perfectly and if it weren’t for that damn wildcard Martin Blackwood, he would be ruling over the world! It all seemed like a dream now, waiting in the damp underground, blindfolded and restrained.
The footsteps return, this time with company. Lots and lots of company. Only one pair bothers to get close to him right now, Jon’s most likely. He is proven correct by a simple word in his ear.
“One,” Jon counts and he hears a jar being opened and then— he screams. Worms, slimy and disgusting crawl over and into his legs, burrowing with their sharp teeth into his flesh. They map out ant hills in his body, carving out more and more of his legs, popping back up to the surface and then making new holes in his skin.
“First mark?” Jon comments, “I’m disappointed.” It earns a soft chuckle from the crowd.
Elias feels blood pouring out of him through the holes, vaguely aware of the blood loss and lightheaded-ness through the pain. His upper half twists and turns, attempting to get away from the worms already in him. The parts of his legs unrestrained jerk this way and that, trying to fling them away to no avail. Finally, a CO2 tank is released, letting the gas cut off the oxygen keeping the worms alive. They die inside him, the worm carcasses unmoving from their latest hole.
“Two.” Another person walks towards him, fast and eager.
“I’ve been waiting to do this since the day you hired me.” A hand pushes his torso down on the table, feeling around his organs and stabbing a knife into the in between.
“Remember, nothing important, Melanie.”
“Shut up.”
The little slaughter remaining in her guide her hands, bringing the knife up and slamming down, until Elias is left covered in his own blood. A splatter hits his face and he gags. More than five stab wounds— he lost count after that— litter his upper body. He grits his teeth and prepares for more but none comes. Not that his torment is over, of course, but that the mark has sufficiently seeped into his soul.
“Three” A warm hand touches his shoulder, the pressure feels nice yet firm holding him down. The peace lasts only for a second, the hand suddenly getting hotter, and hotter until another scream rips its way out of Elias’s throat. The burn spreads underneath the first layer of skin, boiling the blood underneath. Broils form on his skin as the hand pushes him down into the table, sinking the hand into his body to form a branded handprint. A few tears gather in the corners of his eyes, and shame bubbles up in the pit of his stomach.
“Four” The restraints are taken off and Elias flops over the side of the table, hitting dirt and rocks. The pain from all over makes it hard to stand, but he has not survived 200 years without a little pain. No one stops him from limping away out of the room. It is odd, but Elias is simply thankful for the relief of escape. It almost seems possible that someone was nice and decided he had suffered enough. A gut feeling told him otherwise, telling him to run and not to be caught.
The Hunt has begun.
He shuffles away on pure adrenaline, not fast at all, but just enough to keep him moving. His legs ache with holes riddled throughout as he drags his feet to keep going, to find some sort of escape from Jon’s torment. Elias starts sweating after five minutes, the amount of effort he is having to put into each step draining his energy. It doesn’t take long before the hunter catches up to him. She tackles him, biting down with her large maw into his other shoulder. She latches on, sharp canines digging inside and then starts moving with him in her mouth. Blood stains the dirts beneath him, sharp rocks digging into his wounds as he is dragged back into the starting room. He claws the floor, attempting to stop her, but the hunter remains undeterred.
She stops after a while, and Jon’s voice echoes back into his ear, “Back already?”
She lets him go to reply, “What do you want me to do with him?”
Daisy. Of course Daisy is the hunter.
“Helen?” Jon calls out into the room and Elias hears a shriek of a reply. A migraine begins to form already. Daisy picks him back up by the same shoulder she bit into, this time slightly more gentle since the Hunt passed, like a disgruntled kitten in the jaws of their mother. He groans, the sound reverberating into Daisy’s mouth, as he is pulled once again through the tunnels into, what he can only assume is the Spiral’s domain.
“Ooh! This is a treat!” Helen comments seeing Elias’s bloody body be carried into her hallways.
“Five” He hears Jon say before a feeling of dizziness overtakes him and suddenly he is puking on the technicolor floor.
“Ew. You’re cleaning that.” Helen cringes away from her own hallways until he is finally left alone, static screaming preventing any further thoughts from entering his brain. Elias curls up on the floor and, as much as he is not proud of it, tears stream down his bloodied face.
…
Time passes, Elias can't keep track of it, especially not in the Spiral’s hallways, when he hears the creak of a door opening. He points his face in the general direction of the sound, mimicking being able to see. Stupid blindfold. The knot was too tight and expertly tied for him to have any leverage against the thing, and who knows what kind of supernatural magic was also affecting it. Someone grabs him by the arm and yanks him out of the domain.
“Archivist— Jon, I—” A shoe collides with his stomach, causing Elias to whimper in pain.
“I don’t want to hear it out of you.” He replies harshly, no remorse coloring his voice. Jonah doesn’t want to die, he did everything to prevent it, yet he cannot live like this, tortured by his Archivist.
Elias is pulled up by the scruff of his neck; the hand touching him feels like a sawdust-filled beanbag. A Stranger. How long has Jon had this plan, to have all these avatars actively go out of their way to mark him?
“Six”
The Stranger interlocks his hands with its and the audience around them clap. He’s so tired. Elias rests his head on the shoulder of the Stranger and allows himself to be pushed around. His feet drag, he can’t keep himself upright anymore and now solely relies on the other to keep him in a somewhat standing position.
The dance is stilted, all things considered. There are random pauses and segments that go too quickly for it to be properly appreciated, and segments too slow that they become boring. Blood pours onto the ground from wounds that were barely scabbed over and now open again at the agitation. There is no music, no sway to the air; the room stilled completely once the dance started. It makes his head swim. They slow to a stop, Elias panting hard while the Stranger lets him go to bow. He falls to the ground, body almost having fully given up on keeping him alive. The applause starts up again, it can’t have been that good but the other avatars seem pleased. Whether that’s with his suffering or the actual dance itself, it is unclear.
“Thank you, Sarah, that was beautiful.”
“Always a pleasure.”
Towards Elias now, Jon comments, “God, you’re pathetic” as he lifts him up for another mark. All things considered, the Stranger was not the worst one, a trophy that had to go to the worms, yet it was his breaking point. Passing out in the process, he lets himself give in to a few hours of nothingness.
“Seven” is the last thing he hears.
…
Coming to, Elias is cramped and warm. He shifts under the pressure, dirt raining down from above to cover in the space he no longer occupies. Buried. Like the holes in his legs, the Buried works in ant hills, caves swirling with tunnels to nowhere and only one exit. He can’t see, feeling in front of him to find out where this specific tunnel goes, which ends up leading to a dead end. Turning around proves to be very difficult and very painful. His wounds are pounded into the ground, tiny rocks pushing their way into his body through the various different holes and stab wounds. Both his shoulders burn as it rubs against the floor, pouring blood into the dirt. He almost passes out once again but by some miracle he remains conscious, which may just be the Buried tormenting him longer. He squeezes his eyes shut behind the blindfold, body a minefield exploding and mind reeling in the pain. Sweat drips from Elias’s forehead, a cold shiver passing over him. Like a puzzle piece slotting into place, he manages to turn and face the other way from the dead end and begins to rips up his nail beds crawling forward. Dirt and grime infect his various wounds, his hands start to bleed as they are repeatedly torn up, and he keeps getting hotter with every passing movement. Elias stops every few minutes to catch his breath, the strain from the crawling causing him to black out. Every time, he is returned to this hell. Days, months, years? How long has he even been down here? His memory slowly starts to fade away underneath the pressure of layers upon layers of dirt. His hands feel every bump, every scratch, every grain, making up for what he cannot see. They feel every wooden board— wait. Wooden board? He pushes up on the thing, strength fading, before popping the lid open.
“Took you long enough, we’ve been waiting here for hours.” Jon.
Elias gasps in relief, taking in the air of the tunnels, free from the confined cage. He coughs up dirt as his lungs clear themselves and begin to breathe again. It comes fast and short, making up for the time he spent suffocating.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of air soon enough. Eight.” Coming from Jon, it is a barbed promise, intended to be executed soon enough. Soon enough comes and Elias is falling— falling— falling— there is too much air, too much space, too much of everything all at once— He spent so much time carving out a space for himself in that coffin that this feels like all too much space, like there wasn’t meant to be this much space. His breathing comes up short, this time for a different reason. His body becomes lighter and lighter, like air, blood spewing out of his open wounds to fill the space. Humans would be dead by now from blood loss; he is not human and hasn’t been for centuries. The amount of loss is still concerning and he feels lightheaded and faded. The ground hits him sooner than he expects which knocks the little air he managed to collect in his lungs out. His body is no worse than normal, for he has always been laying on the ground but now he is no longer in the Vast’s domain.
“Archivist, he’ll die if I keep him any longer.” The unnamed Vast avatar timidly says. Elias groans on the ground, too weak to try to escape now.
“Alright, just put him back up on the table.”
The table. No, no, no, no, no, he couldn’t, he can’t, this can’t go on any longer. He whimpers, hoping anyone will take pity on him.
The best he gets is being manhandled back on the operating table. The restraints are put back in place and Elias is too tired to fight it this time.
“Please—” Elias whispers, “don’t.” He doesn’t even know what they are going to do next, but, from experience, it won't be pleasant.
“Nine.” A masculine grunt comes from around him as someone steps forward. He chokes on the hand going into— oh lord, it’s the Flesh— going into his neck. His last sound from the body is a pathetic, whiny thing. The sensation is very unpleasant as his voice box disconnects from the rest of his vocal cords. He tries to scream and nothing comes out. Silence fills the room, the drippy mess of his voice box splattering onto his neck. There is no blood, Jared Hopworth has done his job well.
“Ten”
Eight legs skitter alongside him as the pounding footsteps of Hopworth retreat and his neck is bombarded again, with web covering up the place where Jared’s hand was.
“Hello, Jonah. I hope you don’t take this too personally, but I just couldn’t turn down my favorite Archivist. I’ll make it pretty for you though.”
Annabelle’s spiders cover his neck in web, detailing intricate patterns along the way. Elias is sure it must be beautifully patterned but for some reason he just couldn’t appreciate it. He is too tired of fighting, of trying to claw tooth and nail out of situations, of holding on to life. A strange depression encompasses him. The spiders slip away once they are done as do the rest of the people in the room, all except Jon.
“All done now, I’m sure it's a relief. ‘Why only 10?’ Well, I’m sure you know why but just in case you're a little left in the dark today— heh— I‘ll help you out. Obviously no need for a mark from the Eye, you’re already heavily steeped in Beholding’s business. The blindfold is Dark, which I mentioned previously. You’ve been marked by the End your whole life, whether you realize it or not, the fear really does have its chokehold around you. And finally Barnabus Bennet and Peter Lukas, two of your associates, have you buzzing with the Lonely.” Jon explains, even when Elias isn’t paying much attention and can’t reply back. “I’ll be taking this” Jonah can finally see the room around him, along with Jon towering over his body, holding out the dark artifact, but Beholding is still muted. Still, small blessings. Jon reaches down to pat his head a few times, whispering one last sentence, “Good luck trying to get out,” and then walks away, back into the myriad of tunnels. Elias pulls at the restraints a few more times, his body beaten and bruised to the point where the very weak effort doesn’t even rattle the chains. He lays his head back and closes his eyes to be greeted by a dreamless sleep.