Chapter Text
Jon was lying slumped over his desk, stewing in his own misery, when he heard a door creak open.
Something wasn’t right about the sound of it.
Sure enough, when he managed to raise his head and look at his office door, it was still closed.
Dammit. What did she want from him?
“What,” he said in a tone that had been intended to be a scathing deadpan but came out far too rough and broken to achieve that effect.
“Huh,” said a voice that definitely didn’t belong to Helen but was nonetheless oddly familiar. “You weren’t kidding.”
“The others should be here in a moment.” That was Helen.
Others? What—
A gust of wind rushed through the office, and two figures appeared in the middle of what space there was. One was a woman Jon knew he recognized but couldn’t quite place—on the tall side, white, heavyset, with dark brown hair secured in two French braids and a cheerful expression. She was an avatar, Jon could feel it— when did that happen? —and, unsurprisingly given that fact, she had a statement. Which knowledge Jon immediately and vehemently forced himself to ignore.
The other was... Mike Fairchild?
What the hell?
“Hey, Harriet,” said the familiar voice from behind Jon. “You showed up after all.”
For some reason, the Eye only then bothered to tell Jon that this was Harriet Fairchild, the Vast avatar and longtime member of the Fairchild family who’d shown up at the end of Jon’s encounter with Mike to fend off Daisy. The one who’d called Mike her brother.
It still wasn’t saying anything about the identity of the other party to this conversation.
Harriet smiled slightly. “Yeah, well, between you and my annoying little brother here—”
Mike elbowed her in the ribs, though there was clearly no malice behind it.
“—I was successfully persuaded.” Harriet elbowed Mike back, more of an affectionate gesture than anything.
“Glad to hear it,” that strangely familiar voice continued. “Looks like we’re gonna need all the help we can get.” The tone carried a sort of amused incredulity that Jon was sure beyond a doubt was directed at him.
Jon pushed down his indignation at... whatever this was, and focused on placing the voice, which might help him determine what the hell was happening here and would at least give him something to do other than worry about it.
The voice sounded male, as far as Jon could tell. It belonged to an avatar—even without seeing him, Jon could sense that much—and his inability to identify it was starting to really bother him. He’d heard it before, he knew he had...
Helen and the mystery man walked around the desk to place themselves in Jon’s line of sight, and Jon was briefly even more confused. The man was tall, Black, with bright white locs tied back behind his head. His eyes had a chronically tired sort of set to them, and his expression of mild unconcern suggested he’d seen far too much for whatever was happening at the moment to remotely faze him—which, given that he seemed to have arrived here via Helen’s corridors, was really quite impressive.
More relevantly, Jon didn’t recognize him at all. He didn’t even look familiar.
Wait—
Jon could think of one person currently alive (for a given definition of the word) whose voice he’d heard but whom he’d never seen.
A quick mental cross-reference of statements gave Jon enough confidence to verbalize his guess.
“Oliver Banks?” he asked.
The man—Oliver—smiled. “So you do remember me. I’m not sure if I was hoping you would or wouldn’t, honestly. Either way, I’m glad my statement helped—”
“I have a question about that, actually,” said Jon before he could stop himself.
Mike smirked. “Still got some self-preservation.”
Jon thought that was a bit rich, coming from someone who’d spent years of his life seeking out and experimenting with Leitners and then jumped off a tower, but elected not to say anything to that effect.
“Go right ahead,” said Oliver, ignoring Mike’s interjection.
“How did you get back from Point Nemo?” asked Jon, feeling the compulsion roll out even as he halfheartedly tried to hold it back. “I mean, even if you came back to life instantly, most people don’t seem to move very far from where their bodies were, and you were as far from land as it’s possible to be. Even with”—Jon swallowed—“our abilities... How long would it take to swim that far? Is it even possible?”
Oliver looked over at Harriet with an exasperated but fond expression and gestured towards her. “This one brought me back to shore.” He laughed. “Took her own sweet time about it, but—”
“Oh, c’mon,” said Harriet with an answering smile. “It’s not every day someone ends up facing that sort of distance without even needing any help getting there.”
“Oh, I get it, I do. But three days?” Oliver’s voice had the warmth of well-worn banter that had long since evolved into an inside joke.
“You’re lucky I didn’t fish you out and then put you back,” Harriet replied lightly. “Psychology of hope’s a funny thing. I could’ve gotten quite a bit more out of you—”
“And I appreciate it, but three days was still more than enough.” Oliver turned back to Jon. “As for the rest of your questions, I don’t know how long it would take to swim that far, but I’m fairly certain that even most of our kind would give up and either die for good or just... drift... well before they managed it. I certainly would’ve.”
Jon tried not to let the relief washing over him at the answered question and mini-statement become too obvious. It was barely anything—scraps, really—but he was desperate enough that even the slightest hint of satiation felt ridiculously good.
Meanwhile, Oliver had shifted his upper body to look at Helen. “So, we’re still waiting on Karolina?”
“Presumably.” Helen moved in a way that might’ve been intended to be a shrug.
“Karolina Górka?” Jon frowned. He’d taken her statement ages ago, and, thinking back on it, he was fairly certain she’d been an avatar of the Buried at the time but hadn’t known it yet. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?”
He took care not to direct the question. He didn’t know if it was safe to compel anyone else. Even in his own Archives, his own space, he was badly outnumbered and seriously underfed. If the avatars surrounding him decided he was a threat... even if they hadn’t initially been intending to harm him, it might not matter.
“Patience, Archivist,” Helen chided in a truly obnoxious singsong. “We’ll tell you when everyone’s here.”
Karolina, apparently, took that as her cue to emerge from the floor like a swimmer breaking the surface of water. She stopped when the floor was approximately at her waist level. “Hi. Sorry I’m late, there’s construction work going on under some of the roads near here. Could someone give me a hand up?”
Harriet, who was the closest, grabbed Karolina’s raised hand and pulled her up until her feet had cleared the floor. A layer of dust instantly coated the area around her, and Jon silently lamented the cleaning he’d have to do once she left to keep his coworkers from knowing anyone had been here. That wouldn’t go well for anyone, he was sure.
Not that whatever the five avatars currently standing in a semicircle in front of his desk were up to was likely to go particularly well for him, either.
“It’s funny being back here,” Karolina mused, looking around the office. “Last time—” She broke off as her eye fell on Jon. “Oh, shit,” she muttered, sounding grimly impressed. “Helen was right. You look awful.”
What Jon felt at that wasn’t exactly betrayal. Betrayal required trust, and Jon had never trusted Helen, not really.
Still, he couldn’t deny the flash of hurt that shot through him at the words. “Are you just here to—to make fun of me, then?”
Helen smiled faintly. “Would you believe me if I said we were here to help you?”
Jon blinked. That made even less sense than the idea that they were treating him as some sort of zoo animal. “Probably not,” he finally managed. “Are you?”
Helen tilted her head to the side, seeming to consider her reply. “That depends on you.”
Jon took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “Will someone without a constitutional allergy to straight answers please just tell me what’s going on?”
As the compulsion burst out of him, Jon found his gaze settling on Oliver. He wasn’t entirely sure why—maybe because Oliver had helped him before, and unlike Helen the essence of his being didn’t prohibit him from actually explaining himself—but it didn’t matter.
The result was the same.
“Helen showed up at my flat four days ago,” Oliver said in the cadence that meant the arrangement of the words wasn’t entirely his own. “She asked me if I remembered you. When I told her I did, she said you were being badly mistreated by some humans who worked in your Archive. She said you still thought of yourself as one of them, and felt some obligation to protect them, even though they were treating you like some kind of wild animal—keeping you trapped in your office, starving you, trying to convince you the hunger was some kind of addiction, that it would go away if you ignored it long enough.” Oliver scoffed, shaking his head. “Threatening to kill you if you stepped out of line even once. And then she asked me if I would help her convince you to leave. I agreed. Reached out to a few friends, asked if they’d help. Most of them thought it was a ridiculous idea, but Karolina was glad to help if she could—said you were pretty decent to her when she came in to give her statement a couple weeks after her change—and Harriet remembered that you and Mike had met and said she’d ask him about it. Two days after that, Harriet told me she’d gotten Mike on board, and that he’d asked her if she’d help as well—thought it might come in handy to have someone you hadn’t taken a statement from, in case you worried you were somehow mind-controlling us or something. Or in case you were, no judgment here.” Oliver shrugged. “Karolina and I talked to Harriet then, too. Told her we’d all appreciate it if she’d help out with this. She asked why, and I said...” He looked away, seemingly lost in memory.
Jon didn’t pray to the Eye. It wasn’t a god, and he wasn’t going to give it anything more than he had to.
Right now, that fact wasn’t stopping him from silently pleading with his entire being that Oliver would give him a statement, or something like one at any rate.
Please, just a little. Enough to make it bearable. Please.
Oliver took a deep breath, and Jon could have cried from relief as he sensed that he was getting his wish. “Right after I changed, when Harriet got me back on land, she asked me if I had somewhere to go, if I knew what I needed to do. I didn’t understand, at that point, why she was acting the way she was. Why she suddenly seemed concerned about me, after everything. I didn’t trust it, so I told her I was fine. She gave me a phone number, said to call if I needed help and she’d see what she could do. And then I... drifted. For a year and a half. I figured out how to feed pretty quickly, but other than that I didn’t have much contact with anyone. Until this past February.” Oliver smiled faintly. “For months before that I’d been dreaming about you. Seeing you half-alive and half-dead, unable to move in either direction. It felt like a splinter in my mind. Some faint but perceptible wrongness, ignorable during the day, but always there. I tried to leave it be. Wasn’t my business. But eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I found you, and I fed you, and I told you what I knew. I left before you woke up, but... talking to someone again, even if they couldn’t talk back, reminded me how much I honestly missed it. I thought about Harriet, those conversations we’d had in the middle of the South Pacific, her offer of help once she’d brought me to shore. I wished I could tell her I appreciated it, that I understood now why she’d acted the way she had. And then... I realized I could. I found the scrap of paper with her number, got my hands on a mobile phone, and called her later that day. And from then on, I wasn’t alone. Harriet introduced me to others like us—her family, her friends, some others she didn’t know well but thought I might get on with. That’s how I met Karolina—she was still pretty new, and Harriet thought it might be good for both of us to talk to someone else who was still learning the ropes. Harriet went out of her way to help me, and I’m incredibly grateful to her—and I probably never would’ve reached out to her in the first place if I hadn’t gone in to talk to you.” His smile widened. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but you turned my life around. This is me returning the favor.”
“Thank you,” Jon said quietly, trying to convince himself it was for Oliver’s attempt to repay what he apparently saw as a debt and not for the way his story had dampened Jon’s hunger to the point where he could think. “And… I’m sorry.”
Oliver frowned. “For what?”
“Compelling you.”
Oliver shrugged. “No problem. Really, I would’ve been shocked if you hadn’t compelled any of us. No one here expects you to hold back when you’re this hungry. Even if you physically could, that wouldn’t be fair.”
Jon wanted so badly to believe him. He felt the familiar excuses coming back to the surface of his mind—he needed it, he’d die without it and it wasn’t fair to ask him to stay in his office and die a slow, painful death. Paper statements were only prolonging his suffering. He hadn’t asked to be this way, hadn’t wanted to be reliant on the misery of others, but the fact remained that he was, and he couldn’t be blamed for following an instinct as basic and powerful as the need to survive, could he? (He absolutely could.) Even aside from that, he couldn’t do his job if he didn’t keep his strength up, couldn’t protect his people (and fuck, when did he start thinking of them as his?) or save the world if and when he needed to (because the world apparently needed saving a lot) or anything else, really. Without taking live statements, he was useless.
It was all excuses, of course. Basira had made it clear that she thought Daisy was pretty useless without the Hunt, after all, but that was still better than giving in to it. If Jon had a choice between his own life and the safety of innocent people, it was obvious what he ought to do. Just because he didn’t want it to be true didn’t mean it wasn’t.
That didn’t make it any easier.
Oliver was talking again, and Jon found his attention pulled back to the words.
“—some point earlier today,” Oliver was saying, “I’m not really sure when, but anyway, Helen showed up at my flat again and told me she’d bring me to your office if I didn’t mind a somewhat roundabout journey.” He shot Helen a mildly annoyed look, then turned back to Jon. “And now here I am.”
“So…” Jon was still struggling to process everything he’d been told, although his clearer mind from Oliver’s ‘statement’ definitely helped. “What is this, some kind of… intervention?”
“If you like,” said Helen.
Jon glared at her. He’d had more than enough of ‘interventions’ lately. Really, he just wanted to be left to make his own decisions for five minutes—although he understood, at least, why his coworkers didn’t feel they could let him. This was just insulting. “And if I don’t?”
He’d been looking at Helen, but it was Oliver who answered.
“Then we’ll leave,” he said casually. “It’s your life, and your right to make your own bad decisions. If you listen to everything we have to say, if you ask all your questions, give us all your objections and let us counter them, and you still want to stay, we’ll leave. But as the person who helped bring you back from limbo, I am asking you as a personal favor to hear us out.”
Really, Jon couldn’t argue with that, especially without revealing how horribly tempting he found their offer. How uncertain his resolve had become, how afraid he was that, if he let himself genuinely consider the possibility, he’d give in.
How doubtful he was that his gut reaction to that notion was actually fear.
He did have one instant and major objection, though. One that would almost certainly shut the whole thing down before it began. “Even if I wanted to go with you, I can’t leave the Archives for very long. I’m tied to this place; it’s a part of me, and I’m a part of it.”
Helen grinned, mouth spreading out just a little too wide. “You think this is the only Archive in the world, Jon?”
“You…” Jon blinked. “Are you saying I could… transfer?”
“You could,” said Harriet with a shrug. “I’m sure somewhere has a vacancy, and language wouldn’t be a problem. But really, what’s to stop you from starting your own?”
“What?” Jon stared at her like… actually, he might’ve stared less incredulously if she’d grown another head. “You’re saying… You think I could build my own Archives. From the ground up.”
“It’s been done before,” said Harriet. “Every Archive that exists now had to start somewhere.” She shrugged. “Might be good for you, honestly. Even aside from getting you out of here. Think of it as… fledging. Breaking ties with the Archive that made you, striking out on your own.”
“I’ve been on my own plenty,” Jon muttered sharply.
“We know,” said Karolina from where she’d been standing, mostly silent, at the end of the semicircle. “But you don’t have to be. Do you know what everyone in this room has in common?”
Jon frowned. He’d taken a statement from Karolina, Mike, and Oliver, but not Harriet. The previous... the previous humanoid form of the Distortion and Helen Richardson had both given him a statement, but Helen hadn’t in her current form, which meant... something. Jon shook his head; that wasn’t it. “Um... You’re all avatars, but that’s pretty obvious... You all agreed to participate in this intervention, whatever it is... What else?”
Karolina smiled. “We all think you could be someone interesting if you were allowed to be. Worth having around, worth getting to know, maybe worth befriending.” She laughed, probably at his dubious expression. “Serving a Power doesn’t rule out having friends.” She gestured around at the group. “We all want to find out who Jon the Archivist could be if he wasn’t brainwashed into thinking you have to be human to be a person. We all think the way you’re being treated is unfair. And we all care about you—not just who you could be, either. You, here, now. Like it or not, you’re one of us, and a lot of us in this room have been pretty close to where you are.” She giggled faintly. “Although I don’t think anyone else here ever let it get this bad.”
Jon glared weakly at her, but couldn’t bring himself to argue.
“Anyway. We’ve talked about it, and we’ve agreed to help you get set up wherever you decide to put down roots. We’ll do what we can to make things go more smoothly for you until you’re on your feet, and anyone who wants to can keep hanging out with you even past that.” Karolina looked Jon directly in the eye, which Jon knew was something of an accomplishment for most people. “Jon. Wouldn’t it be nice to have friends again? To know there are people who genuinely want you around, who see you as a person and not as a threat to be managed or contained?”
Jon closed his eyes for a moment, before looking back up at Karolina, then around at all the others.
For a moment, he imagined letting his power, aching from its cramped position inside him, explode out of his mouth. He imagined shaping the words, flinging them at each visitor in turn— why should I trust you? Are you telling the truth? What do you really want from me?
That would be a terrible idea.
Jon deliberately looked down at his desk and took a deep breath. “I need to know if you’re telling the truth,” he said. “I’d like to ask. Using the Eye. So I know you mean whatever you say.”
“Fair enough,” said Harriet, then turned so she was addressing the group. “Who’s gonna take one for the team?”
“Not it,” Helen chimed immediately.
“Hey, I already took my turn,” said Oliver.
“I’ll do it.” That was Mike. “I didn’t mind it, actually. Last time. It was... it was kind of fun. All those words just... showing up.” He looked over at Jon and smiled. “Ask away.”
The words were out almost before Jon was aware of forming them. “Why did you come here?”
Mike was still smiling when the compulsion took effect.
“You know,” he said, “the first time we met, I thought you were being incredibly rude. I mean, asking all those prying questions the first time you meet someone? Who does that?” He shook his head. “It’s part of why I dropped you—figured you kinda deserved it, and as a bonus, it might teach you some manners. Wasn’t entirely for me, either—I wouldn’t have said much for your chances if you’d run into someone worse than me and started behaving like that. You may have been rude, but you at least seemed sincere, and you were new to the whole idea of Powers, and clearly in over your head, and I guess I felt a bit sorry for you. Mostly it was just fun, though.”
Well, at least Jon could be fairly certain the compulsion was working.
“But I was thinking about it, and I realized I wasn’t being fair. You’re an Archivist, asking prying questions is just what you do. Might as well ask a bird not to fly.”
Jon did his best to completely ignore any and all information the Eye saw fit to give him about the over sixty currently existing species of flightless bird.
“More than that, you never had anyone teach you how to behave around your own kind. That on its own would be fine—most of us learn to navigate our new lives on our own. It’s tradition, and it helps make sure no one pushes people new to their Power too far in one direction or another before they have a chance to figure out for themselves what draws them. But... from what I’ve heard about the Magnus Institute, I have a feeling you got the worst of both worlds.”
You could say that, Jon would’ve interjected if he’d been physically capable of interrupting Mike’s story.
As it was, he just listened as Mike went on.
“When Harriet told me what Helen told her about what’s been going on with you, she pretty much confirmed that,” he was saying. “This whole time, you’re stuck with a prickhead boss who won’t tell you anything but still manages to get you so twisted up in knots you barely know your own mind anymore. Then your change goes wrong and you get stuck halfway for six months. Prickhead boss goes to prison—good on you if you had a hand in that, by the way—you wake up, things should’ve gotten better. Instead you end up surrounded by humans who hate you and everything you are, and you’re still trying to act like one of them. Still trying to protect them.” Mike made a wry face. “It’s pathetic, but it’s also genuinely kind of sad. I guess I’m here because I know what it’s like to be alone. I haven’t been for a while, not since I became a Fairchild, but I remember how it felt, and if I can help someone else out of a situation like that, I’m gonna try. And it’s like Karolina said—I want to meet the person you could be. I think we might get along.” He laughed. “You might not have noticed, but given the opportunity, I am a colossal nerd. Ask my sister if you don’t believe me.”
Harriet nodded emphatically.
“And hey,” Mike continued. “I get it. When you’ve spent years believing you’re the only person you can count on, the idea of letting yourself trust or rely on anyone else seems...” He laughed. “Well, it seems flat-out stupid. So I don’t expect you to believe me, not right away. But for what it’s worth, I am absolutely certain that if I wasn’t a Fairchild, if I hadn’t made the choice to let those people in, I wouldn’t be here right now. Not sure which time would’ve done it, but they’ve gotten me out of more tight spots than I can count.” He looked over at Harriet with that same faint smile. “It’s not so bad, having people in your corner.”
Harriet rolled her eyes, but couldn’t entirely conceal the smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. “Sap.”
“You can’t hold that against me,” said Mike in a faux indignant tone. “I’m not in control of my words right now.” He paused and tilted his head slightly to the side, as though considering. “Actually, now I am. So, that’s a wrap on the oversharing.” He turned to Jon. “Does that answer your question?”
“Yes,” said Jon, still trying to sort out everything he’d just heard. “Yes, it does. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Mike was once again smiling lightly. “Anything else?”
“No,” said Jon quietly. “I believe you, I—I think you’re genuinely trying to help me. But that doesn’t mean I can just... it doesn’t mean I should...” He broke off with a frustrated cry and pressed his hands to his face, rubbing at his temples.
“Oh, Jon,” Helen chimed in. “Be honest with yourself. If you keep up this ridiculous charade, what do you think is going to happen?” She shook her head and spoke in a pointed tone. “Do you really think you can hold out forever?”
Jon looked away. He didn’t want to admit it, but... he knew the answer. “No.”
“Then why do you insist on torturing yourself like this, when you know that in the end it won’t matter?” Helen’s voice was about as close to gentle as Jon suspected it was capable of going.
Jon took a deep breath, unnecessary though it was. “I can’t hold out forever,” he said quietly. “But maybe, if I hold out long enough... I can die before I hurt anyone else.” He shuddered. “If it’s actually fatal. Not feeding. Honestly, I—” He swallowed hard. “I’m kind of hoping it is.”
No one said anything in response to that.
Finally, Karolina walked over to Jon’s desk and came around to stand beside his chair.
“Would you like a hug?” she asked gently. “I give really good hugs.”
Jon forced a smile. “I would imagine. But I don’t—”
“Do you not like hugs?” Karolina asked. “If you genuinely don’t like them, that’s fine, just tell me so. But if you somehow think you don’t deserve anything good, or some such bullshit—”
Jon clenched his hands into fists. Screw it.
“I can’t trust how I feel,” he said, barely above a whisper. “These days, anything that feels good, anything I want, I assume it’s the Eye yanking my chain and I don’t trust it. I know most avatars—most people like us—come to enjoy feeding our patrons, so... I figure if I’m miserable, at least I know I’m doing something right.”
Karolina shook her head. “No. Get up.” She grasped Jon’s arm, gently but firmly, and pulled until he took the hint and got to his feet.
“You see why I want to eat them all?” said Helen as Jon swayed on his feet, kept from collapsing by Karolina’s sturdy grip. “I wouldn’t recommend it, this one”—she gestured to Jon—“thinks they’re part of his sphere, might hold a grudge. Personally, though? I hope he changes his mind.”
Alarm surged through Jon at the thought of Helen changing her mind about not harming his coworkers, regardless of his wishes—or, for that matter, anyone else in this room doing the same.
“It’s not… they’re doing their best,” he protested. “Melanie had a cursed bullet embedded in her leg for over a year, that was really messing with her head for a while, and she's still recovering. Basira thought Daisy was dead the whole time I was in a coma, and… once I woke up, I think her grief sort of… settled… on the fact that I’d made it out and Daisy hadn’t. Daisy, she spent eight months in a fear domain that wasn’t hers, and now she’s hungrier than I am—she hasn’t been feeding the Hunt at all. I… can’t imagine. Martin…” Jon laughed once, humorlessly. “I’m pretty sure he’s actually working on saving the world, so I can’t complain there.” He shook his head. “Can’t complain anywhere, really. They’re all just… trying to do what they think is right.”
Karolina once again looked directly into Jon’s eyes, raising one eyebrow as she did so. “You done?”
Jon nodded, and Karolina promptly pulled him into a firm embrace.
She was right. She gave very good hugs.
Slowly, Jon raised his arms to return the hug, tentatively at first, then squeezing like his life depended on it.
“All that patience and understanding you were just applying to your archival staff,” Karolina said softly, clearly mindful of her mouth’s proximity to his ear. “What makes you think you don’t deserve to apply it to yourself as well?”
“I’m not...” Jon struggled to put his immediate feeling of animosity towards that suggestion into words that made sense. “The others aren’t... they’re not actively hurting people.”
“They’re hurting you,” Karolina replied. “You count as a person. So that’s not true.”
“Maybe, but... hurting me isn’t the point. They just want to protect the people I’d feed on if I was allowed.”
Karolina sighed in exasperation and pulled back to an arms’ length, keeping her hands on his upper arms. It should’ve been strange at best, condescending at worst.
Instead, Jon was surprised at how grounding it was.
“Hurting people isn’t the point for you, either, is it?” Karolina said. “You do what you do because you need it to live. I don’t care what bullshit ideas about addiction they planted in your head, everyone here can vouch for the fact that feeding is an actual, immutable, physical necessity for people like us. And wouldn’t—” She broke off, apparently deciding to try a different tack. “But you know that, I think. You said Daisy hasn’t been feeding her Power at all? How’s she doing?” Her expression made it clear she already knew.
Jon answered her anyway.
“She’s so thin,” he whispered. “God, she’s so thin. And... quiet. Placid, almost. Sometimes it seems like there’s barely anything left of her. Like she’s being... eaten away from the inside out.” He shuddered. “She’s made up her mind that she’d rather die than let the Hunt back in. I respect that. But...” He looked down and away, shame at his own weakness heating his face. “I don’t want that to happen to me. I know it’s—it’s what I should do but—”
Karolina shook her head, a sympathetic half-smile painting itself across her face. “No, that’s good. It’s not wrong to want to live, Jon. You’ve as much right to exist as anyone.”
Jon shook his head. “But if my existence comes at the cost of tens, or—or hundreds of people’s—”
Karolina looked like she was about to say something else, but she never got the chance.
“Leave it,” Helen interjected. “He can do this all day. You’ll never convince him that way.”
Karolina squeezed Jon’s arms, then stepped back to join the others.
Helen came closer to Jon’s desk until they were standing on opposite sides, face to face, about as close as they could get without leaning forward, given the desk between them.
“Jon,” she said. “You know what your options are here. And you know you’re not going to let yourself die.”
“How can you know that?” Jon knew he sounded defensive, but, honestly, he felt a bit defensive as well.
“Because if that was really what you wanted, you’d’ve offed yourself already.”
Jon felt another wild, bitter laugh escape his throat. “How? I can’t even cut my own finger off without it healing.”
From the expressions of some of the others present in the room, the fact that he’d tried that was news to them.
Helen made that shrug-like motion Jon had seen a few times. “You could’ve asked me to kill you. I probably would’ve said no, but—”
“Probably?”
Helen smirked. “The point is, it was an option. One you would’ve thought of if you’d been actually trying.”
Jon wanted to argue the point, but knew perfectly well he couldn’t.
She was right, dammit.
From her smug expression—Helen’s expressions could be difficult to read, but Jon was familiar enough with them to know smug when he saw it—she clearly knew she was winning.
A moment later, the smug had partially faded out, replaced by irritation.
She turned back to the others. “Could someone spell out for our dear Archivist exactly what his options are right now? Or later?”
Jon put his face in his hands. He could see, vaguely, what Helen was implying.
He wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge it to himself.
After a moment of silence, Harriet spoke up.
“I’m aware I don’t know you,” said Harriet. “But I’m coming up on thirty years since my change, and I’ve seen a lot of young avatars—that’s the word you use?”
Jon looked up and nodded.
“I’ve seen a lot of young avatars try to fight what they are.” Harriet’s face softened. “Look. I know you don’t want to hear this. But it’s not a fight anyone wins.”
Jon looked back down at his desk.
“Right now, I think you have two options, and they’re not the ones you’ve been assuming. Option one, you come with us right now. The misery ends here. We help you get set up, and you start learning what your new life can be—seven months late, sure, but better late than never.”
Jon pressed his fingertips into his temples. “And option two?”
Harriet made a face, one Jon didn’t know her well enough to interpret, but that definitely wasn’t good. “Option two, you keep going the way you’re going until you hit your breaking point. Which you will. Everyone has one. So you suffer a bit longer, and then you go back to feeding all the same—but probably without enough control to make sure you don’t end up feeding on your coworkers. The ones you’re so anxious to protect?” Harriet shrugged. “They’re the closest meal. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
Jon winced violently, which was probably answer enough.
“It’s like Helen said. Now or later. And it’ll be much, much more pleasant if you make the choice while you still can.”
Jon squeezed his eyes shut.
Took a deep breath. In. Out.
The last he’d ever take as the person he’d been.
But that wasn’t right, was it. The person he’d been had taken his last breath over a year ago. The person he was now... breathing was only habit, really.
What he was now had a different set of basic needs, and it was time to stop pretending he was strong enough to deny them.
One more breath, for old times’ sake.
In. Out.
“Fine.”
He didn’t look up, didn’t listen for acknowledgement. Just allowed the weight of his decision to settle over him.
Somehow, it felt more like a burden he’d been carrying for ages had finally slipped from his shoulders.
He opened his eyes, kept them looking down.
There was dirt on his clothes from Karolina’s hug. They’d been disgusting enough already that it really didn’t matter.
He looked up.
Everyone in the room was smiling at him.
No one spoke, and Jon realized they were waiting for him to initiate whatever came next.
“What now?” Appropriate, maybe, to begin with a question.
Helen looked over at the others. “What time is it?”
“Two thirty-seven,” said Mike as he checked his phone, then smiled sideways. “P.M.”
Helen turned back to Jon and grinned, wider than he’d ever seen.
It didn’t bother him, somehow. Improbable shapes and odd textures, sharp hands and echoing laughter, capricious doors and shifting corridors, nebulous words and meandering conversations... it was just how she was. Just Helen.
Maybe someday, everything he was, everything he’d tried so hard not to be could be just Jon.
Maybe to her, it already was.
“In that case,” said Helen lightly as she walked towards a door that hadn’t been in the wall a moment ago and pulled it open to reveal the currently green—no, the currently purple—whatever. To reveal the corridors beyond. “Come along, Archivist. We’re taking you out to lunch.”