bakerstreet | sunday funday.

I want to replace them with ones that are easier to control. To find victims who would be beholden and willing to submit.

[It's a thought that he's been thinking of for what feels like millennia. Have they been walking for millennia? He leans into Elias's touch like a cat being petted. What had the cat's name been.

There had been a cat once.]

I've already replaced the Corruption with someone easier to control. The only other matter is the other thirteen.

[Walking down the hallways feels like coming home.]

If Basira keeps on her track to us then all we'd have to do is collar her and the hunt in her.

Unless you have other designs?

[Is there a hint of challenge to that? Maybe.]

[Millennias were interchangeable with seconds, weren’t they?

Jonah’s finger had swept under Jon’s eye before they separated. Control. Hm.]

Your own sentiments are clouding your thoughts; the detective is willful and will go against what you say. She’s not in your pocket, Jon. She has the hunt, but not the desire.

[There was a small laughing, the eye on the back of his neck staring at the archivist.]

Would you give the Lonely to Martin?

[The thing about being seen is, it makes you question. Did some part of him even then and now in the seat of his and his master's power want to die? Or at least want to save the world?

He did want to give the Lonely to Martin but that would put him too close to him. He had wanted it unconsciously. Or had he?

The turmoil isn't worth it but he's grateful to the eye and to the watcher for seeing it.]

No. He's too close to me.

[To the man I was.]

A victim, then.

[If not an avatar, what else was there? Oh, sure, there was that blind spot – the place where Jon had disappeared to where Elias could not See him – but was that enough? Would that stop Martin from coming after the only person he had ever truly loved?

Pity.

Elias stopped walking, turning so he could face the archivist. Stare at him. Stare through him.]

You have a choice you need to make with him. It’s such a shame you can’t compel him back to his domain.

[But for a man who can make avatars, what were his limitations now, anyway?]

[At the word victim Jon bristles. Only rather than bristling - quietly keeping things to himself the eyes that are his constant company blink.

He could remake Martin. Make him braver and capable of the lonely. He could remake Basira.]

The watcher needs adherents.

And the Watcher will have them.

[Still so easy to put the thoughts in the air, the string to grab and follow. Endless time and power had changed nothing.

He leaned a little closer for a second, three words on his lips-]

Won’t it, Jon?

[-and then he was moving back down the hallway again, heading towards the Archives.]

[Jon sheds his skin.

It's a sudden involuntary motion ever so slightly but he is simply a creature of eyes and tentacles and living breathing knowing. Leaving it behind is a new experience but when he is beside Elias and speaks he sounds inhuman.

That same scratch scratch tape recorder noise.]

I want to see it like this.

[And he is beautiful in the madness. Too many eyes and limbs that should not belong. Looking at him was like trying to understand something at the farther edges of the periphery, unable to turn his head. Darkness and color and sounds that would wreck the human experience.

But Elias wasn’t human.

There was a piece of him that wanted to drown in the truth of what Jon was. Wanted to view it from all angles and take it in. Wanted to shed his own self and embrace the crown that begged to be shown.

But he enjoyed his body. He enjoyed it.

The distorted voice cut through him, even as he reached up into the mass of the archivist and touched a tentacle with a proud level of reverence.]

Of course.

[And then he turned and let him the rest of the way there, opening the door.]

Will you ever leave this room?

[Can silence be a millennia? The twisting monster creature no longer cares because he is a millennia. He is eternity, a thousand watching eyes. Why does he need Elias? why does he need anything?

Because there are things that only he can show you. It hurts because a human voice no longer seems to matter.

Such a king of ruined reality. The only one who could truly understand him. He turns an eye to Martin and watches him suffer.]

Why would I? WhEn TheRe ArE thinGs to see hErE? Will you

I have a different vantage point.

[He hadn’t come down here, after all. Not after Jon said those fateful words in a tiny safehouse nestled sweetly on Scotland soil. This was not Jonah’s place, had never meant to be his position of power; he reigned at the top.

This was Jon’s home. The home of the Archivist. An Archive within an archive.

How captivating it was. Jon was. Ruined and fallen. Broken open for the rotten center to reach out and infect the rest of the delectable fruit. Jonah could smell the monster of him.

This time, when Jonah reached for him, there were green eyes with slitted pupils in his palms.]

Would you rather I stay with you?

[Jonah wouldn’t, of course; there was something bitterly tantalizing about someone actually wanting him to stay and walking away all the same.

For a second, he thought of Peter. And then it was gone.]

YoU woNt In tHe EnD you kNow ThAt.

[The Jon-thing, the archivist, spreads it's tentacles and stretches through the archives. Eyes embedded in darkness and swirling mythos crawling through the work that Jonah Magnus built to their mutual patron. To their God.

He was made by the man studying him. It's for the best.

A million eyes focus on Elias.]

I caNt see tHe ReaSon to LeAvE hoWevER

[He is the spiral's smile. He is the corruption's hive mind.]

WhY woUld yoU leaVE me?

[Elias saw no smile, but he could feel it, like a dozen beetles in his head. This was everything and nothing, the result of Being Seen and Being The Watcher. He was more fear than man.

It was not safe here, he knew that. It was not safe with Jon, with what he had become, and he feared a compulsion dripped from a magnetic tape mouth would pull him into the darkness to drown among old tales of horror when there were so many better ones, purer ones out there.

Jonah worried for his own power.

His hands curled into fists, hiding the rolling eyes in the palms.]

I am not leaving you, Jon; I am giving you time to become reacquainted with your archives while I tend to matters upstairs. You deserve uninterrupted privacy while you work.

My ArcHivEs.

[Somewhere Martin screams. Elias that was, Jonah that is and the king of all things can probably see it. Probably see him running into the arms of the lonely and the web.

The tentacled thing surrounded by eyes hovers there for eternity.]

mY ArChives My aRchives MiNe! YoU're DaMn RiGHT!

[After everything.

After Everything. Everything!

Can eternity look heartbroken? Jon is dead - or at least dead physically. Even if he could return to his wholly physical form the tentacled thing dissolves into a being covered in eyes - neck, throat, cheeks, chin. All glow, pupil-less and white save for his human eyes.]

You're damn right they're MiNe. FinAllY. MiNe.

iVE loSt EveryThing because of ThEm!

[Turning away he gestures.]

DoNt thInk I wonT see if YoU leAve.

[There was almost a joke in there, the mention of the inability to escape without being seen by a creature made solely of eyes. Jonah stared at them, at their light, before the frown took his lips.

He could feel Martin’s scream in his head. His bones. It was music, and the last call to a dead monster. The Lonely would be happy, even if it wasn’t a Lukas. Wasn’t a Blackwood close enough?

Jonah’s chin raised, defiant, as he stood his ground. No steps forward, no steps back. He would not follow. Not yet.]

Might I remind you who is king, archivist?

[Another eye, one spreading across his throat, opened and looked at the monster.]

I do not take orders from subjects.

[That eye. That eye.

The archive stares back defiantly and Jon is still replaying Martin's scream. His gaze remains fixed on Jonah Magnus. That eye. That terrible eye and the knowledge that things would be laughing.]

...A good king protects his people.

[He sniffs. Martin.]

...Or at least makes it easier for them to do their JoB.

I never claimed to be a good king, Jon.

[There were no history books to sing his praises. There were no subjects willing to overthrow this monarchy. There was no lineage to create, maintain, a legacy in births and blood.

There was just someone to sit on the throne and usher in a new world.

There was just a king who longed to watch his subjects scream.

There was just power and immortality. ]

You left your assistant behind, and I will not be your new one.

[Jon Sims that was somehow managed to avoid Star Wars - which is ironic since he would have identified in that moment with one Anakin-Skywalker that was only unlike with Anakin he could not muster up the strength to care.

It's hard to maintain this human form.

The universe sighs with defeat as Jon extends himself beyond that human form again back into the eldritch monstrosity that he had become.]

MArTin WiLL comE and TrY to DesTroy us.

[Jonah preferred the human shape, even if it was a lie. There was a feeling of power he had over the other when it was in use, a reminder of when he lorded over Jon as his boss.

The words did not surprise him; of course Martin would come. Backed with the Lonely. Backed with the Web. Backed with the detective and whatever other avatars Jon hadn’t destroyed yet. But that wasn’t important.

What was important was-]

Will you let him?

ThiS is mY plAcE.

[The spiral twists through him and he remembers Helen. Looking down at Elias he slumps.]

What must we Do tO dEfEnd it?

Why, Jon.

[There was a bitter, humorous laugh under his breath. The eyes in his hands, in his throat, rolled in their sockets before snapping to the indescribable form.]

You have been doing it all along. You very well know how to destroy an avatar.

NoT oNe gaIning allies like Us. BuT its All the SaMe iN thE enD i SupPose.

[Tentacles twist and swirl.]

If I WiSh To LeAve I wiLL noT be sTopped.

[The eyes might look a little fearful at that. Defiant. One part of the other man strokes the wall around him leaving smears of fear behind him.]

KiNg or No KinG

[Cute, the orders, the demand. Jonah felt his lips curl, the eye on his neck twitching, snapping to where the wall was ruined, before snapping back to the mass where the voice slithered from. ]

Where would you want to go? Don’t you have everything you could possibly want here?

[Outside was raw threats. Dangerous shows in dangerous lands. Here, here was safe.]

[Yes...it is comfortable. Here Jon Sims can see everything. Through the watchers in the windows, through the cameras, through every other domain. Through everything.

It is relaxing to face their fear. To taste it.]

No I suPPosE noT I aM jusT...

[He has no mouth but he is still frowning for a moment.

I wAnT moRe FeAr

[Hungry.

That still was not the correct word. Unfulfilled.]

You are not satisfied.

[But there was no well, no place at the bottom. No stomach to fill but a void, a vast that would take it all and more. There was no end. No completion.

There was just that need for more, shown in every statement he had made since the world ended.]

You can have it in these walls. But outside-

They will try to hunt you. To put you out of a misery you no longer feel.

MaRtiN and ThE otHers.

[Other avatars. Other beings. Those who might topple the eye. It would come. Even if he couldn't see the future a millennia of knowledge said it would come. But.

The pile of eyes and limbs swims closer.]

Will you protect me?

sunday funday.

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