[He's been meeting Agnes for coffee daily since she'd made the offer. Every day from 2 to 3 PM. That's their schedule. Agnes is always there before him or extremely punctual, so it's a little odd when he get there and she's not at their usual table.]
[It's probably his paranoia. He's always paranoid. She's going to text him any moment that she'd just been in the shower and lost track of the time. If she even takes showers. Something like that. Anything like that.
Jon gets up and heads to her apartment in the Down, but no one answers there. He goes back to the Institute on the off chance, then to the cafe, then he really starts to panic. It's been almost three hours now.]
I'm looking for you. I'll find you, I promise. Respond when you can. I'm contacting Lilith.
[Jon will be waiting for a solid 24 hours before he gets a response. If she'd been in any correct state of mind, she could have even made it for the next day's coffee. But when she's deposited back in front of her assigned apartment, she just stands outside for a long time, stuck in her own head. Eventually, she pulls out her phone and discovers the messages. Uncharacteristically, she calls him.]
[She sounds...strange. Not emotional, exactly, but somehow unlike herself. Off in the way that you can just tell. Agnes walks quickly, an exceptional pace considering the length of her legs, and it isn't all that long before she arrives.
Of course, for someone as anxious as Jon, it probably feels like a whole lot longer. If his office door is closed, for once she doesn't knock. But once she's there...no words come out. Agnes stares straight ahead, expression haunted. How does one even begin?]
[He's standing up from his desk as she enters. Even without her knocking, he'd known she'd arrived, that she was coming. His assistants had found it irritating, that Knowing, even if it isn't something he can control. What he can control is moving around the desk to stop just in front of Agnes.
Does she want to be touched? He doesn't think he'd want to be if their roles were reversed. Or maybe he would? Someone to hold him against everything awful.]
I made coffee. Do you want to hold it?
[It was something to do with his hands while he'd waited. Coffee for her, tea for himself. There are a pair of cute mugs sitting on his desk holding the drinks.]
[He motions her toward a chair, then, very gently, takes one of her arms to lead her the few steps to the chair. Once she's sat down, Jon will place the coffee in her hands. He desperately wants to ask what happened.]
[Agnes flinches--but it's subtle, the tension gone just as fast as it comes, and she sits, coiling her gloved hands around the mug as its given, holding it close to her body.]
I would like to know, if it isn't too much trouble, if you could recommend a place for me to stay temporarily. It would be unwise of me to return to my assigned lodgings.
[It's strange, the way she talks. Not the stoic detachment, as is her usual way of things, the way she'd known to be for so long, but...if he didn't know better, it would almost seem like nothing is really wrong. Like nothing happened. But of course something happened. Something horrible.]
[He feels the flinch because he's watching out for it. Her mannerisms are also incredibly disturbing, in spite of how much more human they are. Maybe that's the problem.]
I can get you a place. Maybe- I can ask Alessandro if you could stay in his house just for a little bit while we look for something better. You should have a better place to live, anyway.
[Jon stands there, fretting.]
Can you talk about what happened to you?
[He applies a bit of his power, hoping to give her the opportunity to answer honestly if there's something blocking her.]
Agnes, I'm going to use my powers to ask you a question. I'm hoping I can... I hope they can break through whatever this is to get an honest answer. [His eyes crackle with static for a moment.] Do you want me to remove what they've done to you? Do you want me to try to strip all of this away so you're yourself again? It will hurt.
[Agnes looks ill, nauseated agony ripping through her stoicism, and she coils forward, a protective cocoon around the steaming mug of coffee in her lap.]
[Agnes whines softly. This isn't a question she wants to answer. It's a question she'd fight very, very hard to avoid. She'd slap him across the face with a burning hand to take it back. But she's too vulnerable to do these things, to think of these things. Never been drugged, before. Never expected it was possible.
They squash down her defiance like she's an ant.]
I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid of losing control. I'm afraid of what I do to people and what I'll continue to do to people. I'm afraid that if I'm not who I've made myself become, a cultivation of decades of solitude and contemplation, I will destroy countless lives. I'll become who I was as a child. I will burn everyone, and everything, as penance for my discontent. I'm afraid of my anger. I've always been angry. I'm still angry, I just know how to hide it better. I'm afraid that one day, in one moment, I'll be overcome, and in an instant everything will be ash, and I'll be alone.
[Many of them are things Jon, himself fears. And like that, he snaps back. Fear of losing control. His eyes widen slightly, the human ones, anyway. More have opened up across his body, crowding within his scars, still others are simply floating in the air around him, watching her.
The Archivist can't call them back, as it were, but he can refocus on the task at hand.]
Do you want me to remove what they've done to you? Answer me, Agnes.
[No? Yes? She doesn't know. She doesn't know. Her body and her mind are fighting against two very separate, very distinct urges. But in the end, only one of those is really her. So though it comes out through gritted teeth, a pain in and of itself to answer, he gets exactly what he may have expected.]
[The Archivist nods, whether she sees it or not.] I'm sorry.
[The number of eyes in the room seems to multiply until they're filling Jon's office. Everything else fades away and he Watches her, stares into her and Sees the film of drugs and conditioning coating her mind like some hideous, sickly honey. The sensation of it tries to crawl along his limbs, spread into him, but the Archivist pushes it away, shoves his metaphorical hands into her head and begins to claw.
It's likely to feel like the worse headache Agnes has ever experienced coupled with whatever personal horror there is as bits and pieces of her mind are cleaned, exposed and revealed under the haze. And the Eye watches all around, pierces Agnes as she is both cleansed and ruined. There is nothing delicate in what the Archivist does. If he knew how to use his powers better, perhaps this could be done more cleanly. As it is, Jon hardly knows what he's doing. He clutches at the things obscuring Agnes, pulls and pulls and digs through the mire, searching for all the horrible things that the Realignment drugs covered over.
To anyone watching from the outside, the Archivist is a mass of eyes now, not even a mouth, just crackling static, eyes, and what passes for a vaguely human outline.]
[Over the device, Crowley hears Agnes' voice and something static and unearthly, a familiar sort of unpleasantness, when he's been on the receiving end of the Archivist's abilities. There's no guesswork in this, he goes straight to the Institute, straight to Jon's office, caring very little for any promises he made.
He doesn't give himself time to deal with being confronted by the image that the Archivist makes. The thing still has a throat, so Crowley can grab it with a clawed hand, slamming Jon back into the wall with a decent amount of force.]
[The pain is a level that Agnes has never experienced before. Her mind would go blank from it, if it weren’t for the memories. They accost her like the cultists, loud and demanding and forcing her to look at them. What does she do, when she’s given an order, an expectation?
Children full of spiders. She frees them. No more victims. A house, burning. A body, hanging.
These are things that she chose. Agnes, the lightless flame. Fire.
It hurts. Her back flayed, her nails ripped from her fingertips, her eyes pried wide, wide, wider.
As she relives these things, she looks up. But she doesn’t see them, because her eyes are burning, darkly flamed caverns. Pits of hell. Her hair is fire. Her skin is blackening at the edges. She opens her mouth and the sound is crackling. The floor around her erupts.]
[The Archivist has no mouth to cry out. Not at the moment, anyway. Eyes stare at Crowley, bulge and shift around his grip as Jon finishes his work, rips off the last of the film, and then sags. He's a person again, but one still covered in eyes. The room is filled with them. And there is a hand at his throat that Jon grips and struggles with, panicked. He doesn't know what Crowley's doing here, what's going on.]
Stop! She's-
[Agnes is exploding. Jon cries out as the light and the heat combine in a blinding shockwave. The scream doesn't last long because the pillar of flame sucks all the oxygen in the room toward it. Papers scatter, burn, vanish, and it is agony for the Archivist. The eyes in the room are burned away--not all of them, but more than a few--and Jon's fairly convinced he really is about to die, here in this little basement office with the physical embodiment of raw destruction and fire.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
un: thearchivist; text (1/?)
Are you okay?
I've ordered your regular.
(2/?)
Agnes?
(3/4)
Agnes, I'd really like for you to respond to this.
Please?
(4/4)
Jon gets up and heads to her apartment in the Down, but no one answers there. He goes back to the Institute on the off chance, then to the cafe, then he really starts to panic. It's been almost three hours now.]
I'm looking for you.
I'll find you, I promise.
Respond when you can.
I'm contacting Lilith.
THE NEXT DAY...
Where are you right now?
no subject
The Institute. Where do you need me to meet you?
no subject
[She sounds...strange. Not emotional, exactly, but somehow unlike herself. Off in the way that you can just tell. Agnes walks quickly, an exceptional pace considering the length of her legs, and it isn't all that long before she arrives.
Of course, for someone as anxious as Jon, it probably feels like a whole lot longer. If his office door is closed, for once she doesn't knock. But once she's there...no words come out. Agnes stares straight ahead, expression haunted. How does one even begin?]
no subject
Does she want to be touched? He doesn't think he'd want to be if their roles were reversed. Or maybe he would? Someone to hold him against everything awful.]
I made coffee. Do you want to hold it?
[It was something to do with his hands while he'd waited. Coffee for her, tea for himself. There are a pair of cute mugs sitting on his desk holding the drinks.]
no subject
[But she just stands there, staring ahead, staring at nothing, really. Her gaze is glassy.]
Is it alright if I sit down?
no subject
[He motions her toward a chair, then, very gently, takes one of her arms to lead her the few steps to the chair. Once she's sat down, Jon will place the coffee in her hands. He desperately wants to ask what happened.]
Do you want me to- what do you want me to do?
no subject
I would like to know, if it isn't too much trouble, if you could recommend a place for me to stay temporarily. It would be unwise of me to return to my assigned lodgings.
[It's strange, the way she talks. Not the stoic detachment, as is her usual way of things, the way she'd known to be for so long, but...if he didn't know better, it would almost seem like nothing is really wrong. Like nothing happened. But of course something happened. Something horrible.]
no subject
I can get you a place. Maybe- I can ask Alessandro if you could stay in his house just for a little bit while we look for something better. You should have a better place to live, anyway.
[Jon stands there, fretting.]
Can you talk about what happened to you?
[He applies a bit of his power, hoping to give her the opportunity to answer honestly if there's something blocking her.]
no subject
[Her grip tightens on the mug, just slightly.]
Yes, I can. What would you like to know? Would you prefer that I start at the beginning? How can I best be of service?
no subject
[Jon half-recoils from that because no. It's like it had been with Dorian. That disturbing twisting of the mind, like the Web's got hold of her.]
I don't- you don't need to serve me. Ever. Did they give you some sort of drugs?
no subject
[A rotten submissive, indeed.]
I've never experienced a feeling of illness before. It's peculiar.
no subject
Agnes, I'm going to use my powers to ask you a question. I'm hoping I can... I hope they can break through whatever this is to get an honest answer. [His eyes crackle with static for a moment.] Do you want me to remove what they've done to you? Do you want me to try to strip all of this away so you're yourself again? It will hurt.
no subject
It isn't pain that I'm afraid of.
no subject
What are you afraid of, Agnes Montague?
no subject
They squash down her defiance like she's an ant.]
I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid of losing control. I'm afraid of what I do to people and what I'll continue to do to people. I'm afraid that if I'm not who I've made myself become, a cultivation of decades of solitude and contemplation, I will destroy countless lives. I'll become who I was as a child. I will burn everyone, and everything, as penance for my discontent. I'm afraid of my anger. I've always been angry. I'm still angry, I just know how to hide it better. I'm afraid that one day, in one moment, I'll be overcome, and in an instant everything will be ash, and I'll be alone.
no subject
The Archivist can't call them back, as it were, but he can refocus on the task at hand.]
Do you want me to remove what they've done to you? Answer me, Agnes.
no subject
Do whatever you have to.
cw: eye horror, body horror, tryptophobia
[The number of eyes in the room seems to multiply until they're filling Jon's office. Everything else fades away and he Watches her, stares into her and Sees the film of drugs and conditioning coating her mind like some hideous, sickly honey. The sensation of it tries to crawl along his limbs, spread into him, but the Archivist pushes it away, shoves his metaphorical hands into her head and begins to claw.
It's likely to feel like the worse headache Agnes has ever experienced coupled with whatever personal horror there is as bits and pieces of her mind are cleaned, exposed and revealed under the haze. And the Eye watches all around, pierces Agnes as she is both cleansed and ruined. There is nothing delicate in what the Archivist does. If he knew how to use his powers better, perhaps this could be done more cleanly. As it is, Jon hardly knows what he's doing. He clutches at the things obscuring Agnes, pulls and pulls and digs through the mire, searching for all the horrible things that the Realignment drugs covered over.
To anyone watching from the outside, the Archivist is a mass of eyes now, not even a mouth, just crackling static, eyes, and what passes for a vaguely human outline.]
((art credit))
no subject
He doesn't give himself time to deal with being confronted by the image that the Archivist makes. The thing still has a throat, so Crowley can grab it with a clawed hand, slamming Jon back into the wall with a decent amount of force.]
Let her go.
Cw varied horror
Children full of spiders. She frees them. No more victims.
A house, burning. A body, hanging.
These are things that she chose. Agnes, the lightless flame. Fire.
It hurts. Her back flayed, her nails ripped from her fingertips, her eyes pried wide, wide, wider.
As she relives these things, she looks up. But she doesn’t see them, because her eyes are burning, darkly flamed caverns. Pits of hell. Her hair is fire. Her skin is blackening at the edges. She opens her mouth and the sound is crackling. The floor around her erupts.]
just horror all the way down here
Stop! She's-
[Agnes is exploding. Jon cries out as the light and the heat combine in a blinding shockwave. The scream doesn't last long because the pillar of flame sucks all the oxygen in the room toward it. Papers scatter, burn, vanish, and it is agony for the Archivist. The eyes in the room are burned away--not all of them, but more than a few--and Jon's fairly convinced he really is about to die, here in this little basement office with the physical embodiment of raw destruction and fire.
Not even he could survive that. Probably.]
its the horror adventure hour
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)