[ He makes an amused sound in the back of his throat. ]
While I keep being approached by people who'd like to see for themselves if I'm really all as terrible as all that. It's been decades since I've had such an active social life, I really don't know what to do with myself.
Most people here hardly understand anything from our world. They think fear is something they're beyond, something they can fight against with hard words and harder fists.
[ A soft huff and a shake of his head. ]
As I walk around like a cat in a fishery.
[ Fear all around, and a statements. So. many. statements. Thick enough in some that he feels like he can taste them when he talks to certain people. ]
This is the part, I suppose, where I'm supposed to show my hand by encouraging you to simply to take the statements you want from those reckless enough not to be wary of you. To which you'll respond along the lines of--
[ in a passable, though dramatic impressible of Jon: ] No, Elias. I would never do such a morally incorrect thing. It is important to respect the autonomy of everyone, even those who are begging to be taken advantage of. Our patron be damned!
[ He takes another drag on his cigarette, smiling faintly as he watches Jon's reaction. ]
[ That actually gets a short bark of a laugh and a shake of his head, a long drag of the cigarette, a subtle smile. He stares out at the stars. ]
I didn't drag you up here to be a caricature. I know you're not that... inelegant.
[ He lets the cigarette settle between his lips. ]
A ship full of murderers in a place where death has no meaning. But so so many of them are just... drowning in secrets. Fear. Terrible knowledge. [ He closes his eyes.]
[ Jon won't look away either. There's something here, something to this, and he finds the words flowing out of him like water.
This is the only time, the only place, he could ever give this statement.
And to the only person. ]
Most people who come here come have their world, their view... expanded. Multiple worlds, multiple universes, powers, magic, superheroes, cosmic space adventures... and it's not wrong to say that was true of me as well. I've certainly seen and heard of enough things to make Horatio's head pop clean off if he tried to dream of it, quite frankly, and experienced even more in my time on this ship.
That all happened while I was still... me. Entirely me. Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, of course, still- still that, but not- Not quite the Archivist. I ended up pulled back, forced to live through the Unknowing, through Tim's death and Daisy's disappearance, and when I came back I was- I was different.
Everything was different.
You see, when I first arrived, I knew that there were dozens upon dozens of stories to be heard, to be told, to be observed. That the overlap of worlds and the people from them- why, there was nowhere else where these things could happen, where these events could unfold. I was lucky to meet people from movies I'd seen and books I'd read. It was- there was an air of adventure to all of it, despite everything that makes this place...
Well, this place.
But when I came back, it was- it was like the whole placed had been doused in it. I say 'doused' because it's the only comparison I can make. After all, it's not really a 'scent', is it? But language doesn't have a word for what we can feel, what we Know, for what draws our Eye. It's the sense of it, Knowing that there's a statement somewhere. In a bag or in my office. That's where I used to feel it, all of them collected and neat and tidy in their box.
Now? Now, it was everywhere. Every one. Every person, brave or cowardly, vicious and cruel or soft and sweet. I think- I think that if I really focused, I might be able to tell how- how soaked they are, how thoroughly, but I try not to. It's enough of an invasion as is, the way it's just endlessly in my- my nose, for lack of a better metaphor, in my lungs, sweeter and more intoxicating than any cigarette.
[ A soft huff. ]
I smoke so much more now. I think most people assume it's because I know it can't kill me, that my lungs heal as quickly and easily as the rest of me does, but that's not it. No, I smoke because whether I'm starving myself on written statements or drinking in the living, breathing words of terror from people who care about me, care enough to open a once-more metaphorical vein to feed me...
I can always smell it. Taste it on the air. Feel it around me.
So all these witches and heroes and villains and tyrants... they're fantastic. Fantastical. They're larger than life. But I Know, I Know, just how vulnerable all of that can be, just how much pain and trauma and fear is living inside the hearts that beat aboard this ship, just how much every single one of them is a person. A person with fears. A person with reason for fear. And I'm sure any number of people here know that. I'm sure people have an understanding of that, of course they do.
But none of them Know it the way I do, every minute of every day aboard this ship. Every breath I take. Every heartbeat. And none of them know just where to put their hands, just where to reach in, just how, to pull all of it out. No [ a mirthless laugh ] and they'd be horrified at the very idea. I'm horrified by it. And I've done it, albeit not here. Never here.
It would be easy if it just made me hungry. Or sad. Or angry. Or worried. It would be easy if there was one simple emotion around... all of that. But the closest I've got is a certain kind of loneliness, one that [ that laugh comes back, louder now ] you of all people alleviate.
I'm sure you don't have your powers, not the way you used to. That's how this place keeps from being completely insane. But I can't imagine you don't Know. Some part of you Knows. And I hate that it makes me feel...
[ It feels inevitable to cast his mind back to the moment before his end, high above a ruined world in the place where all suffering and fear were not only visible but condensed into a single point-- a single mind. How broken had the Archivist been there? How deep had his despair spiralled to lead him to the decision he had made? To bring him to the point of accepting that he would live out his existence alone with the Fears in a dead world that he had killed?
He wonders idly if Jon would be quite so willing to share this present moment with him if he had lived through that one. It's unlikely. So he files the thought away, to think on and to ponder how he can use it. For now-- he can indulge the Archivist. He wants to feel less alone? Elias can be seen to empathise with that.
Elias holds his Archivist's gaze for a moment, then turns his head. When he speaks, it's quiet and thoughtful. ]
I still remember the moment that I realised the vast gulf that existed between myself and the others Smirke had gathered.
Oh, we knew a great many things about the Powers; Smirke better than any of us had a talent for parsing out their idiosyncrasies. But one night as I looked around our circle, cigar smoke heavy in the air, letters from contacts around the continent spread about us, eagerly discussion these stories of encounters with the unnatural and the seemingly occult, all of us with our own theories of where these creatures might have come from and what, exactly, it was they wanted from us.... I saw that to them it was simply a puzzle to be solved. A serious puzzle, one impressed on us with a serious and deadly importance-- but at it's core a puzzle. A curiosity. A quirk that our world should have these entities to contend against.
And I knew in that second, right to the core of my being, that they would all succumb to the powers in one way or another. Because they were unwilling or unable to See what I-- what we-- can.
[ It would be too much to seem regretful. Even if Elias can imagine the regret he might feel. Even if he did once feel it. But he lets a sigh escape him, bringing the cigarette to his lips. ]
[ If it were any other place, any other time, he'd say something angry or frustrated or scoff. Instead, he glances over towards Elias, almost companionable, before pausing and drawing on his cigarette. He blows it out again to speak. ]
Was that before or after you knew you'd... you'd succumbed in your own way?
[ There is more he could say on the matter, but he'll refrain. He doesn't often think of how things had been, right at the beginning. If he's going to use it to draw Jon closer, he needs to be sure he does it well. ]
Now. I believe you were going to tell me how Gertrude reacted to learning that, despite her best efforts, we did realise the Watcher's Crown after all.
[ He makes a mildly disgusted noise at the reminder of the ritual's name. And for good reason. Really, Elias? What a name. ]
As if I hadn't just given you a full meal.
[ But the grousing is more bark than bite. He just sighs a little.]
I'm not sure it was properly real for her. She wasn't pleased, obviously, but... I was here and I was working to correct it. That... seemed to be her main focus.
Needed? No. But it was inevitable, once Gertrude died.
[ You couldn't have stopped him.
It's deliberate, this pushing to see how he reacts. This isn't the Archivist who'd climbed the Panopticon to kill him, but neither does Elias know who he is after all these months. ]
And you chose to leave me at the Institute. To take Martin and run in the hopes that somehow the consequences of who I was wouldn't ever reach you.
[ His voice is still calm, flat, collected. Not a threat at all. Just. Pushing.]
Why haven't you blinded me, Archivist? Oh, I know there's every chance that my time here will redeem me, bring me back to the human-adjacent fold. But until that point, I am very much a threat to everyone on this ship. I really don't know how long Tim will hold out, to be honest. I haven't even brought up Sasha to him, yet. I expect that will be a very sensitive matter.
[ Jon doesn't speak for a moment. He smokes and he stares out into the stars and he breathes in the strange air on this strange ship and he listens to Elias Bouchard practically demand to be blinded. ]
Because [ he says with a breath out ] whatever I do to you is just a reason for you to do something else, use some other scheme, cause some other trouble. It's an excuse for you to be cruel, and petty, and small. To make this place, and your time here, about me or Tim or Martin or- or even Sasha.
[ He shakes his head and looks directly at Elias. ]
You're here to learn. You're here... to get better. And if I am to do my job here, I have to believe that's possible. Because I'm sure there are people from all the other worlds that all the other inmates are from who would feel exactly how I do about people I call friends. People I choose to care about and want to see alive again. People I am actively working to bring back to life.
[ A single jump of his shoulders, like a laugh. ]
I'll warn people. Of course I'm going to warn people. So they aren't blind.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
While I keep being approached by people who'd like to see for themselves if I'm really all as terrible as all that. It's been decades since I've had such an active social life, I really don't know what to do with myself.
no subject
[ A soft huff and a shake of his head. ]
As I walk around like a cat in a fishery.
[ Fear all around, and a statements. So. many. statements. Thick enough in some that he feels like he can taste them when he talks to certain people. ]
no subject
[ in a passable, though dramatic impressible of Jon: ] No, Elias. I would never do such a morally incorrect thing. It is important to respect the autonomy of everyone, even those who are begging to be taken advantage of. Our patron be damned!
[ He takes another drag on his cigarette, smiling faintly as he watches Jon's reaction. ]
no subject
I didn't drag you up here to be a caricature. I know you're not that... inelegant.
[ He lets the cigarette settle between his lips. ]
A ship full of murderers in a place where death has no meaning. But so so many of them are just... drowning in secrets. Fear. Terrible knowledge. [ He closes his eyes.]
no subject
That's life, Archivist. Dread Powers or no. Terrible fear, lurking in the hearts of all things that have the audacity to draw breath.
We simply don't have the luxury afforded others to keep our eyes closed to it.
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[ He glances over at Elias again, and he wonders if Elias is playing with him or if he really can't- ]
T-the quantity, the density of it. Smelling out a statement in central London is simple enough, but this is-
This is something else entirely.
[ A soft, mirthless sound. ]
I don't want to describe what it feels like. It all sounds... insulting. Juvenile.
[ And it reminds him of something, but he can't quite figure out what. ]
no subject
Tell me what it feels like.
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This is the only time, the only place, he could ever give this statement.
And to the only person. ]
Most people who come here come have their world, their view... expanded. Multiple worlds, multiple universes, powers, magic, superheroes, cosmic space adventures... and it's not wrong to say that was true of me as well. I've certainly seen and heard of enough things to make Horatio's head pop clean off if he tried to dream of it, quite frankly, and experienced even more in my time on this ship.
That all happened while I was still... me. Entirely me. Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, of course, still- still that, but not- Not quite the Archivist. I ended up pulled back, forced to live through the Unknowing, through Tim's death and Daisy's disappearance, and when I came back I was- I was different.
Everything was different.
You see, when I first arrived, I knew that there were dozens upon dozens of stories to be heard, to be told, to be observed. That the overlap of worlds and the people from them- why, there was nowhere else where these things could happen, where these events could unfold. I was lucky to meet people from movies I'd seen and books I'd read. It was- there was an air of adventure to all of it, despite everything that makes this place...
Well, this place.
But when I came back, it was- it was like the whole placed had been doused in it. I say 'doused' because it's the only comparison I can make. After all, it's not really a 'scent', is it? But language doesn't have a word for what we can feel, what we Know, for what draws our Eye. It's the sense of it, Knowing that there's a statement somewhere. In a bag or in my office. That's where I used to feel it, all of them collected and neat and tidy in their box.
Now? Now, it was everywhere. Every one. Every person, brave or cowardly, vicious and cruel or soft and sweet. I think- I think that if I really focused, I might be able to tell how- how soaked they are, how thoroughly, but I try not to. It's enough of an invasion as is, the way it's just endlessly in my- my nose, for lack of a better metaphor, in my lungs, sweeter and more intoxicating than any cigarette.
[ A soft huff. ]
I smoke so much more now. I think most people assume it's because I know it can't kill me, that my lungs heal as quickly and easily as the rest of me does, but that's not it. No, I smoke because whether I'm starving myself on written statements or drinking in the living, breathing words of terror from people who care about me, care enough to open a once-more metaphorical vein to feed me...
I can always smell it. Taste it on the air. Feel it around me.
So all these witches and heroes and villains and tyrants... they're fantastic. Fantastical. They're larger than life. But I Know, I Know, just how vulnerable all of that can be, just how much pain and trauma and fear is living inside the hearts that beat aboard this ship, just how much every single one of them is a person. A person with fears. A person with reason for fear. And I'm sure any number of people here know that. I'm sure people have an understanding of that, of course they do.
But none of them Know it the way I do, every minute of every day aboard this ship. Every breath I take. Every heartbeat. And none of them know just where to put their hands, just where to reach in, just how, to pull all of it out. No [ a mirthless laugh ] and they'd be horrified at the very idea. I'm horrified by it. And I've done it, albeit not here. Never here.
It would be easy if it just made me hungry. Or sad. Or angry. Or worried. It would be easy if there was one simple emotion around... all of that. But the closest I've got is a certain kind of loneliness, one that [ that laugh comes back, louder now ] you of all people alleviate.
I'm sure you don't have your powers, not the way you used to. That's how this place keeps from being completely insane. But I can't imagine you don't Know. Some part of you Knows. And I hate that it makes me feel...
Less...broken. Less alone.
no subject
He wonders idly if Jon would be quite so willing to share this present moment with him if he had lived through that one. It's unlikely. So he files the thought away, to think on and to ponder how he can use it. For now-- he can indulge the Archivist. He wants to feel less alone? Elias can be seen to empathise with that.
Elias holds his Archivist's gaze for a moment, then turns his head. When he speaks, it's quiet and thoughtful. ]
I still remember the moment that I realised the vast gulf that existed between myself and the others Smirke had gathered.
Oh, we knew a great many things about the Powers; Smirke better than any of us had a talent for parsing out their idiosyncrasies. But one night as I looked around our circle, cigar smoke heavy in the air, letters from contacts around the continent spread about us, eagerly discussion these stories of encounters with the unnatural and the seemingly occult, all of us with our own theories of where these creatures might have come from and what, exactly, it was they wanted from us.... I saw that to them it was simply a puzzle to be solved. A serious puzzle, one impressed on us with a serious and deadly importance-- but at it's core a puzzle. A curiosity. A quirk that our world should have these entities to contend against.
And I knew in that second, right to the core of my being, that they would all succumb to the powers in one way or another. Because they were unwilling or unable to See what I-- what we-- can.
[ It would be too much to seem regretful. Even if Elias can imagine the regret he might feel. Even if he did once feel it. But he lets a sigh escape him, bringing the cigarette to his lips. ]
no subject
Was that before or after you knew you'd... you'd succumbed in your own way?
no subject
[ There is more he could say on the matter, but he'll refrain. He doesn't often think of how things had been, right at the beginning. If he's going to use it to draw Jon closer, he needs to be sure he does it well. ]
Now. I believe you were going to tell me how Gertrude reacted to learning that, despite her best efforts, we did realise the Watcher's Crown after all.
no subject
As if I hadn't just given you a full meal.
[ But the grousing is more bark than bite. He just sighs a little.]
I'm not sure it was properly real for her. She wasn't pleased, obviously, but... I was here and I was working to correct it. That... seemed to be her main focus.
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[ Now he does sound properly nostalgic. ]
no subject
I can appreciate it. I can certainly appreciate it.
[ A stream of smoke. ]
I wonder about what it cost her.
no subject
[ He might not. Jon has always resisted that. ]
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We both gave up our humanity. I just did it literally.
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I'm sorry, am I supposed to buy that you think I'm a 'good' person? Or even a person?
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I think that, even now, you're still not able to see matters clearly enough to do what needs to be done.
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I think you're the last person to speak on 'what needs to be done'. Nothing you did... needed to be done.
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[ You couldn't have stopped him.
It's deliberate, this pushing to see how he reacts. This isn't the Archivist who'd climbed the Panopticon to kill him, but neither does Elias know who he is after all these months. ]
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No, it wasn't. You chose to do it. You chose, once you knew the answer, to pursue it. To execute the plan, to make it a reality.
Nothing was inevitable.
We both know that.
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[ His voice is still calm, flat, collected. Not a threat at all. Just. Pushing.]
Why haven't you blinded me, Archivist? Oh, I know there's every chance that my time here will redeem me, bring me back to the human-adjacent fold. But until that point, I am very much a threat to everyone on this ship. I really don't know how long Tim will hold out, to be honest. I haven't even brought up Sasha to him, yet. I expect that will be a very sensitive matter.
no subject
Because [ he says with a breath out ] whatever I do to you is just a reason for you to do something else, use some other scheme, cause some other trouble. It's an excuse for you to be cruel, and petty, and small. To make this place, and your time here, about me or Tim or Martin or- or even Sasha.
[ He shakes his head and looks directly at Elias. ]
You're here to learn. You're here... to get better. And if I am to do my job here, I have to believe that's possible. Because I'm sure there are people from all the other worlds that all the other inmates are from who would feel exactly how I do about people I call friends. People I choose to care about and want to see alive again. People I am actively working to bring back to life.
[ A single jump of his shoulders, like a laugh. ]
I'll warn people. Of course I'm going to warn people. So they aren't blind.
But that is all.
no subject
But he feels sure he can use that. ]
Well. I suppose we'll have to wait and see if your gamble pays off.
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