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Jon is already seated at the visitors table when Elias is brought in. They chain him to the table like an animal; a mad man prone to fits of violence.
Ridiculous.
Elias watches Jon shoot the guard a bewildered look when the chain is carded through a metal ring on the table, locking Elias to it. “Is that necessary?” Jon asks, like a gossipmonger begging for scandalous morsels.
The guard shrugs. Despite this extra security apparently needed to keep Jon safe, the guard leaves after cinching the manacles shut. Elias turns his wrists in the handcuffs. They’re too tight. He wonders where this pettiness is coming from, when he’s been nothing but cordial.
Jon looks at Elias, smug.
A cocky expression considering Jon’s own state. Elias could just as easily throw one back.
Elias stares back and sees nothing but missed opportunities.
A gold mine run dry.
Pale and wan, almost aesthetically so; a leather jacket, some nail polish, and he could slide seamlessly into a Grifter’s Bone rehearsal.
A useless waste of the time and money Elias has sunk into him.
His anger rises and he looks away from Jon’s prying eyes, down at his hands, not wanting Jon to see him bristle. He’d thought his temper had cooled by now, that he could speak privately to his archivist, calm and even-headed.
His archivist and his former Archivist, muddying Jon’s official institute contract.
There’s a buzz in the air around Jon, the stench of death hanging between them. Elias wonders if anyone else has noticed this new emergence for the calamity it is, or if it has been chalked up to the slow recuperation after a sixth month coma. None of Jon’s co-workers have proper experience with the fears, their flavors or essence. Daisy, perhaps, could scent out the difference between an avatar of Beholding and an avatar of the End skulking cagily through the institute, but Elias imagines it might be hard to ask her, miles inside the coffin.
The hunger in Jon’s eyes is a look Elias has seen on him before, as is the slow realization of why his hunger is ever growing while food provides no sustenance.
Or, in this instance, why the statements he’s been tearing through have offered no relief. The familiar pins and needles prickling beneath his skin, that is nevertheless alien for how unlike Beholding the craving is.
Elias looks up when he’s able to meet Jon’s gaze coolly. The conflicted look of fear bleeding through Jon’s hostility goes some way into pacifying him.
Jon doesn’t speak so Elias begins. “Hello, Jon. Always a pleasure to see you. I must say, I’m flattered you thought to visit. All things considered,” he says, spreading his hands in a gesture of welcome, the chains connecting his wrists to the table clink loudly in the small room.
“Flattered? Then why have you refused my calls?”
Heh.
A different type of stubbornness.
But there came a point when Elias had to admit there was no reason to keep his distance.
He was being petty.
Elias caved to Jon’s increasingly frequent calls and now, looking at him, he understands Jon’s desperation. The hunger in Jon’s eyes; the obvious catalyst that drove this meeting.
How long has it been since Jon fed? Four weeks? Surely not. There must have been detours, intentional or otherwise, throughout the hospital.
“I’ve been busy,” Elias says.
Jon laughs, a cynical sound, but not one of disbelief. “Yeah, I— I guess I put a wrench in your plans?”
Elias stares at him, not wanting to make an example of taunting jeers spoken in misery but sorely tempted.
He could stand up and storm off, force Jon to beg for whatever it is he’s come here for and, judging by Jon‘s huff of frustration, they both know it.
That’ll suffice.
Jon cuts to the chase, bursting to rip a necessary conversation off like a band aide and get on with his life. “You know why I’m here.”
“No,” Elias says. He’s been too self-absorbed to think about Jon, the person, this past month. “Would you like that I guess?”
Jon shrugs. “Have at it.”
“You’re wondering if I’ve found your replacement, yet.”
“Is that a threat?” Jon asks, before immediately answering his own question, “never mind. Of course it is.”
“My staff seem to be dropping like flies… One by one, you all fall prey to—“
“I’m not prey!” Jon interrupts, scorn hardening his features.
Elias thinks Jon’s ire is just as consuming as his own, but where Elias can temper his with experience, a history of battles lost and back to the drawing board, Jon can only negotiate his with uncertainty and fear.
A fear Elias is happy to exacerbate.
“Ah. I see. You want me to lie to you. Tell you everything will be okay and that you made the right choice. …you didn’t. We both know you thoroughly disrupted my plans,” Elias says, smiling through his anger. “And if that was your goal, congratulations. I admit defeat.” If only for now. But patience is a game Elias long mastered and starting from square one is… but it’s not a hardship. “But I never would have asked you to sink to the lows the End will force upon you.”
Jon swallows, nervously. In Elias' periphery, he sees Jon's hand on the table, sliding slowly near. He doesn't think Jon's noticed. Action born of instinct? Jon’s new, hitherto unknown ability could be touch based. Or perhaps it's the training wheels Terminus has given its new avatar, until Jon is able to stand on his own two feet and devour at a glance.
Elias wonders what he'll look like after his first kill.
He hopes it hurts.
"This is funny to you?” Jon asks and Elias realizes his lips have curved into a smile. “I save the world and this is the thanks I get?"
"Or the comeuppance."
"The hell, Elias?!"
"Only thinking aloud."
"Think something useful."
Elias shrugs. “Such as?”
“Oliver Banks.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m looking for Oliver Banks.”
“Why?” Elias asks. A five second search with Beholding’s eyes reveals Oliver’s whereabouts easily enough, but he doesn’t see how that will help Jon in any way.
Jon scowls. “Do you know where he is or not?”
“It was a sincere question, Jon. How many statements have you read? Including his own? You already know everything Mr. Banks could tell you, even if he were inclined to repeat himself which… well, considering the speed with which he left you, I doubt he’s much in the mood.”
“Tell me where he is,” Jon demands, as though he’s still an Archivist, able to force the truth.
“You want me to invade the privacy of someone not wishing to be found?” Elias clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, tsking. He doesn’t miss the flash of disappointment that crosses Jon’s face as Elias continues past his imaginary compulsion. The impotent frustration. “You’d have thought different when it was Daisy on my doorstep, demanding your location.”
“This is different.”
“How so?”
“I don’t want to kill him,” Jon snaps, yanking his hand angrily off the table. Shame. No one could have blamed Elias if he lashed out in self defense, but he rather thinks twisting Jon’s mind without provocation won’t be a good look for him. “For Christ’s sake, Elias, I just— I need to talk to him.”
Elias stares at Jon for a long moment, and then he stares at Jon. The spiraling panic he’s felt since he woke up hungry and could find no way to satiate it, starving just a little more each day. The bewilderment that Jon’s choice to end it all, to die in the repeating nightmare of the Eye, somehow led to the End swooping in like a vulture and swallowing him whole.
Jon’s longing for the archives and the Archives, so close yet worlds away.
His pathetic need to not being alone; waking up only to find his friends missing, dead, hateful or avoiding him.
But most of all, Elias scrutinizes the unique draw Jon feels to the happy, smiling faces he passes on the street. So in tune with their energetic vivacity that he can almost feel their hearts beating in time with his own, hear each breath from yards away filling their lungs with life. But instead of joy, reveling in the melody of life, Jon longs to hear their last exhale rattle of death, the slow stutter of the heart muscle tired and defeated.
Jon wants to reach out and drain the people around him like a vampire might, sucking out their souls until they’re empty and gone. He wants to end them, without malice or cruelty. Jon wants to be their last cold embrace, the coming end that waits for all and cannot be ignored.
Elias can admit it pulls a few rusty heartstrings.
Jon isn’t solely responsible for the abrupt turn of events. Elias knows that if Jon had been given time to consider his choices he would have chosen to be Elias’ pawn rather than the End’s puppet.
The devil he knows.
The devil who never asked him to kill.
It’s not Jon, not really, and Elias knows exactly where to lay the blame.
Elias sighs, intertwines his fingers on the table and leans forward. “What is it you would ask him?”
Jon eyes search his for answers to questions he doesn’t want to voice.
He’s still an Archivist at heart, if not in power.
At length Jon shakes his head. “This was a mistake,” he says under his breath, like a private pep-talk he’s giving himself. Cute. “Listening to you,” Jon continues, louder for Elias’ benefit, “is always a mistake.”
The chains connecting Elias’ wrists rattle when he spreads his hands in a careless gesture of disagreement. “You think Mr. Banks’ lived experiences trumps my personal ability to access centuries of knowledge?” he asks, grimacing somewhat at the depersonalized roboticness of it.
“I trust him, not you.”
Elias shrugs. “If the Spider is so keen to derail my plans I see no reason to respect its own.”
“The Spider?”
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t— I don’t know. I didn’t think about…” he’s thinking about it now though, and Elias can see the wheels spinning, the awareness of just how many Powers are puppeteering strings, including his own. “How do I stop it? How do I go back?”
“What’s done is done.”
“I don’t believe that. To become an avatar you have to want it. You have to choose it.”
“I was under the impression you had done so. You welcomed it in, and it accepted.”
“I welcomed an end to Beholding; to the Archivist.”
“And it gave you what you wanted. Out of curiosity… what have you given it in return?”
“Have I killed anyone, you mean?”
Elias nods.
“No. I don’t plan to end up in here, with you.”
It’s not so bad, really. Perhaps not pleasant, but plenty to watch. And Watch. He’s even had the pleasure of assisting on a homicide case; finding forensics, which was… fun.
Jon scrubs his hands over his face. “There has to be a way to undo it.”
Elias’ chains clink as raises hands in a shrug “What is your plan, Jon? To go through all the powers until you find your favorite?”
Jon winces; he’d already found his favorite and he’d thrown it away in an effort to do what was right.
Elias softens his eyes sympathetically. “A change in loyalty is uncommon, but not unheard of. …nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.”
“But?”
Elias shakes his head. If Jon can go back, Elias doesn’t know the way.
Jon waits a moment for further elaboration, scowling when Elias says nothing. “That’s it?” he asks, incredulously. “That’s all you have to say? I’m the personification of death, statement ends?” Jon pushes his chair back, rising angrily to his feet. “Useless,” he snaps. “Enjoy your life sentence, Elias. You earned it.” He turns on his heel, storming to the exit.
Elias waits until his hand is raised above the call button, ready to alert the guards to unlock the door, before he says, “I know where Peter Lukas is.”
Jon pauses, turning to look at Elias as though he’s grown a second head. “What?”
“Rather, I can tell you where he is, will be, and how to get to him.”
Jon shakes his head, bemused. “Alright?”
“Do you have a better idea as to satisfying your new master? I can promise you, Oliver Banks won’t have a workaround.”
Elias sees the moment the light bulb goes off in Jon’s head and he realizes what Elias is saying.
Jon lowers his hand and turns to face him, equal parts frustrated and curious. “But that… doesn’t make sense. You put him in charge. Why would you—“ another moment of dawning realization. “So,” he says, flatly. “Now that I’m awake, he’s not useful anymore?”
Elias shrugs. “Now that you’re not the Archivist.”
Jon visibly recoils from the criticism, but what’s to argue?
“Is it so very surprising that I might want my institute back?”
As much as Jon is starting from square one, so is Elias. There might be an ace up his sleeve, but the cards are, nevertheless, on the table. With Jon no longer the Archivist, Elias is left with an institute in shambles, utterly incapable of functioning cohesively and the architect of that disaster is sitting in his executive chair.
“What use is it to you, in jail?”
“That’s my concern.”
“You think I’m going to be your attack dog now that Daisy is… now that she’s missing?” Jon asks, warily.
“No. …well, in some ways, yes.”
Jon bristles, angrily. “What’s to stop me feeding you to the End?” he hisses.
Elias tips his head to side with a flat expression. If Jon hasn’t learned by now that Elias’ survival skills far out pace his own, then…
Case in point: “And how will you save your friends, if you kill me? I am the one holding their contracts—”
“—hostage.”
“Is that the sort of attitude you want to begin negotiations with?”
“Negoti—I’m not going to pick off your loose ends, Elias. I won’t become like you.”
“Like me?”
“Evil.”
Elias chuckles. “It’s only evil because you don’t like me. But it wasn’t evil when Basira killed Maxwell Rayner, it wasn’t evil when Gertrude killed Daniel Rawlings, or Daisy Mike Crew, and it certainly wasn’t evil when Tim killed Nikola Orsinov.”
“You’re twisting the facts. Again.”
“I’m twisting your words,” Elias counters. “Not the facts. If the act of murder is what defines a villain, then…” Elias spreads his hands in a helpless gesture. “But why don’t you ask the researchers on the third floor what they think? …because you can’t. No one can. Peter saw to that.”
“That’s… that’s not—“
“Tell you what, you go and have a nice chat with Martin and see how you feel afterwards. That is, if you can pull him out of the Lonely long enough to.”
Jon, it appears, has nothing to say to that.
“The very idea,” Elias says, lowly, leaning closer towards Jon, “that you think Lukas’ life is worth more than your own is, quite frankly, nauseating.” Jon stares silently at him, either at a loss for words or biting them back. “Appease the End, sustain yourself, and save the hundreds he will sacrifice in the future, given the opportunity.”
Elias watches Jon’s eyes begin to glaze at the provocative justification, but his brow slowly creases. “I can’t,” he says, softly. Fearful, almost apologetic. “I can’t kill someone, Elias. I don’t know how.”
Elias waves his hand dismissively. “It’s remarkably easy, if you have the stomach for it. Instinct will take care of the rest.” And Elias knows Jon is well acquainted with the devouring compulsion of the Fears. “And if anything should go wrong…” Elias spreads his hands in the spirit of cooperation, “I make a much better ally than you might suppose.”
“You want to be my ally? Now?” Jon asks, eyes narrowed. “After everything you’ve done, you think I’d trust you to— to have my back?”
“How can you not? You know well as most that I have many connections in our corner of the world. They must be getting something from me, in return.”
“You have just as many burned bridges as allies, Elias.”
Elias has to concede that point. He opens his mouth to reply but Jon takes a tentative step away from the door and back to the table.
Jon asks, “is Daisy alive?”
Elias’ lips twitch in a grin. “Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in the Buried’s Coffin.”
Jon’s eyes widen in surprise. “Alive? Are you sure?”
“I cannot see inside the Buried, but I would be surprised if it devoured her swiftly.”
Jon flinches.
“Where is it?”
“Where indeed.”
Jon bites his lip, looking back at the exit before he grips the back of the chair, hands tight around the metal frame. “If I fail…”
“Really, Jon, show some confidence—“
“If I fail,” Jon talks over him, “you’ll tell Basira.” Elias raises his eyebrow in question, prompting Jon to elaborate, “tell her where Daisy is and how to save her.”
Fascinating to see and avatar of the End taking risks on a reflexive death wish. “Very well, I will. And you won’t. Peter is powerful, but easily decoyed.”
Jon scoffs, scanning his eyes over the small prison room pointedly. “Unlike yourself?”
Elias smiles tightly. “Worry about Terminus, Jon,” he says, giving Jon a sweeping look before adding, “and once it is done, for god’s sake go home and clean yourself up. You look like death; it paints a very unflattering picture.”
“Once it’s done,” Jon counters, “we’ll talk about Jude Perry.”
“Pardon?”
Slowly, as though the obstacle is Elias’ hearing, Jon repeats, “we’ll talk about Jude’s whereabouts.”
“…yes. I suppose we will.”