2023-04-05 0:39:08 ¶ ●

Jon re-ends the world. Destroys most of it, really, after he consumes the entities/becomes them/Becomes. Then he rebuilds. He intends to make the people he cares for happy, which includes himself, so he does not bring Peter Lukas back. Martin’s mother does not get sick, and she is good enough. Mary Keay unexpectedly dies during the birth of her son, and Eric Delano raises him. Michael Shelley and Helen Richardson remain themselves, untwisted. He makes many changes, but mostly keeps things the same.

As for himself, he creates a hidden place. Hidden from ordinary eyes, anyways; he can See everything now.

This place he creates is a field, and a forest, with a river in it. It’s nice. He relaxes, Knowing nothing will sneak up on him, Knowing nothing unexpected will ever happen again. He Knows everything, and everything is as it should be.

Well.

There is one problem, he thinks, curled up on his ‘bed’, a mostly flat area of the cave he deigns as his home, covered in created furs and blankets and long scrawls of paper that he summons when he sleeps and cannot suppress the instinct to write down everything.

He has no anchors. This has rendered him some sort of beast-thing, solid to the touch but rendered out of infinitely dark ink, all fur, antlers, strong paws and sharp claws and fangs, and Eyes like storms and fires and death and webs, on him and around him. One night (one of the 3.675 hours of sleep he has gotten since he reincarnated himself), he was startled awake by a sudden sound, and had opened every Eye he had, giving himself a painful migraine for what was just a branch falling from a tree during high winds.

There are very few solutions to this problem. Martin is not the Martin he knew, and besides he does not want to drag him into this. Nobody on this Earth has been touched by the Fears, and if he can help it, nobody ever will be. Passive fear of being watched and spiders and death is more than enough for him. He would love a statement, but nobody alive remembers enough to give him one.

Of course, there is always Jonah.

Jon has Known since he began reshaping the world that Jonah would not be bested by his efforts to remove the memories of the apocalypse. Besides, he much prefers a world without Jonah in it (and when the parts of himself that are very firmly Beholding and Archives tell him this is a Lie, he vehemently refuses it.)

Although, for all he’d done to Jon, he also Knows that Jonah would be the only one who could truly understand him.

Those are his second and third problems with finding someone he used to know and asking them to help him. They would never understand; and they would not be Jonah. They wouldn’t be the Pupil, the Heart - arguably Jon’s Heart now that he’s also the Eye. That thought in particular both calms him and furthers the storm in his mind.

He Knows he needs an anchor, much as he tries to deny it. He doesn’t know how to handle this much power, and every day he grows more unstable, his internal Archive growing disorganised and himself unstable. Jonah - even if Jon only talks to him once, to gain this information, even if Jon kills him again after - Jonah is the only one who can tell him. Jonah made him, even if he didn’t make him this. Jonah is the only one.

Ultimately he/the Eye/the Archive lasts a month and a half without him.

On the edges of the forest he situates a cabin. He doesn’t care about how there is electricity or running water or heating; he orders it to be so, and it is.

Then he presses into his/the Eye’s memory and Looks for Jonah. Every single scrap he can find, coalescing it into a concept, and turning this concept into a mindscape, and he/the Flesh creates a body for this mindscape, and he puts the concept/mindscape/body/Jonah in the living room, lying on the sofa, and he waits. Observes.

Jonah (and it is Jonah, Jon made sure to give him his original body) is asleep, at first. This is fine. Jon can tell the body he/the Flesh made is alive. Heart beats. Breathing, rhythmic, calm. Muscle twitch, reflexive. Neuron fires once, twice, millions, as the concept/mindscape/Jonah settles into his new body, becomes familiar. Chemical flickers, transports. Anxious, confused, groggy. Awake. Hands, arms, tense, sitting up. Jonah blinks, and rubs his eyes, and says “Jon?”

Jon doesn’t stop Looking, because he doesn’t see a reason to, but he stands and begins to make his way towards the cottage before remembering that he can simply Lie to the world, tell it he is already there, and make that True. He stands on his hind legs, uncomfortable, pushes open the front door, pun in that.

Jonah startles. Confused, curious at his Archive’s new form, anxious, did he die, did Jon kill him?

“Yes.” Jon says from a tape recorder on the table. There is no point clarifying Jonah’s question; they both Know.

Jonah attempts to push into his mind. Jon stops him, effortless. He does not explain that there is far too much information for him to handle, far too much information for Jon, does not explain that he needs Jonah’s help. Jonah doesn’t ask. Jon approaches him.

Chemical fire. Sympathetic nervous system activates, fight or flight, as Jonah notices Jon’s teeth. Jon smiles, although it mostly looks like he/the Hunt is baring his teeth, ready for a fight. Muscles tense. Heartrate increases. Breathing speeds up. Jon does not stop approaching. Jonah does not ask him to; he wants to, Jon Knows this without even trying, but he does not.

Jon climbs onto the sofa and carefully places his head on Jonah’s lap. Mostly soft fabric against his cheek. The Heart blinks a little, surprise, confusion. Chemical response; endorphin release, feels like fondness. Likens Jon to a cat. Jon laughs; Jonah is “privately” amused. Jonah moves his hand down to pet him.

The moment they make skin on skin contact Jon’s mind goes completely silent. He doesn’t know how Jonah’s done that, and isn’t sure he needs to right now.

“Oh,” he says, from the tape recorder still. And then “oh,” again, quieter, now that he has the space to feel relief, feel the migraine he didn’t realise he had fading.

There is no more rapid information intake, no more constant attempts to discard useless information and primarily failing due to his purpose/existence as the Archive/the Beholding. Jon does not Notice the way he begins purring, the way his tail begins flicking in a happy way, the way Jonah is even more fond of him for all of these things. He observes them, independent from his nature as the Archive, and catalogues them easily. He sighs, relaxes. Jonah kisses him on the forehead and it’s so soft, so affectionate, that Jon doesn’t even notice that that’s what he did, simply cataloguing it away with everything else until a couple seconds after the fact. He frowns, a little.

“You need to relax, Jon. It’s okay. You’ve done very well for us.”

It is so nice to be told that. Jon whines in the back of his throat. Something feels painful. His stomach? He briefly checks but no, his body is fine. Jonah laughs, and wipes away Jon’s unnoticed tears, not necessarily joy or sadness, just emotion. Then, almost polite in the way he sticks to the edges of Jon’s frayed and tired mind/Archive, informs him that his tears look like streams of stars.

Jon shifts so that he can bury his face into Jonah’s chest. He catalogues it all; the way the fabric feels against his face, the way that Jonah smells, the way his hands run through Jon’s fur, the way Jonah smiles, the way that Jonah presses their foreheads together so that he can give full clarity to the Knowledge that Jonah is so, so proud of him. Jon sobs.

“I killed you,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse with tears and static.

“I know.” Jonah says, and there is fear in that, and Jon takes it without really thinking. Jonah seems happy about it, though. “But you brought me back.”

“I-” Jon doesn’t want to admit it. He really doesn’t. Jonah doesn’t make him say it, either, doesn’t Look in Jon’s internal Archive for it. He just waits. “I needed you.”

“Why?” Jonah says, quiet and gentle. It’s not cruel, not asked to push Jon, and it soothes Jon’s tears. Jonah genuinely doesn’t understand why Jon would need him, now that Jon is Truly all powerful. It is a rare moment, and Jon takes a moment to Archive it properly.

“You’re the only one who understands me. The-” Jon takes a deep breath, not wanting to start crying again. “Nobody I knew, before, would’ve wanted me, like this. But, you…”

Jonah doesn’t say anything. He just keeps petting Jon, and it is quiet, a cool balm to his exhausted mind after the storm that was Knowing everything. Jon closes his eyes, and his Eyes, and finally, finally falls asleep.

(When Jon wakes up, he is in bed. He opens some Eyes and finds Jonah in the kitchen, making breakfast, humming a song Jon could identify but doesn’t. When he checks his Archives for any pertinent information from his dreams, he instead finds some well filed Information, detailing how, exactly, he should get used to Seeing everything, and some hypotheses on how, if he intends to, to return to his human form.

“Thank you.” he says from a tape recorder spawned onto the kitchen side. Jonah smiles.

“I love you too, Jon,” all gentle and fond. Jon doesn’t bother examining what it means that Jonah has responded with that, as though there’s any need, as though they don’t both already Know, as though Jon won’t keep ignoring it and Jonah won’t keep making him confront it. He just closes his Eyes and goes back to sleep.)