kayakking | (no subject)

I know you did.

[He takes a seat at the little island.]

But I don't think you've met Daisy yet... Her partner. So... Hm.

[Even as a living Archive, there's still a lot to sort through. Jonah takes a moment, figuring out where to start.]

Right. So. Police got the CCTV cleared up to prove I didn't kill Gertrude. Eeeexcept Elias actually cleaned it up and hid his own involvement there. Basira was ...relieved of her position and Daisy brought me the rest of Gertrude's tapes. Hated me from the word 'go'.

After that, I destroyed the table. Released Not-Sa.... The. Not-Them. Chased me down into the tunnels and I met Leitner himself. Had been hiding out down there for years. Brought him back to my office, got his statement, it was... Overwhelming? Having the Entities laid out like that. And. [He looks a bit...Frustrated. At himself, more than anything.] I went out to have a smoke. Came back and he'd been beaten to death in my office while I was gone. So I ran.

That... would definitely ring you for a prime suspect.

[He.. knew what that was like. Staying, waiting it out, being innocent certainly didn't help anything be kinder or less dangerous.]

I mean, good riddance but... God. The timing of it... He must have been waiting.

Perhaps. You were convinced I did it for a while.

[He watches Tim, wonders how much of that he should go into... No. Tim asked what Jonah had gone through. Stick to that, no bother with detours.]

I ended up crashing at Georgie's for a while. I periodically received a few statements, hand delivered. Didn't realize until later it was Elias because he knew where I was. All of them pointed me towards the Stranger and their ritual. Eventually, I... Went looking for Jude Perry. One of the Lightless Flame, um. Desolation. I took her statement, and in turn she...

[He holds up his burned hand.]

Asked me to shake her hand.

[He doesn't know her. Not yet.

But he knows what that would mean. He knows what the fire wants. and sucks in a quiet breath.]

... Right.

[.. From the man who hadn't hesitated in the rubble of the Stranger's ritual...]

So he sends you to get fucked up.

[He nods, rubbing at that discolored, disfigured scar of his hand. It's still odd, fitting his ring over it.]

Quite a bit.

I wondered what I'm supposed to feed to the Beholding, she sends me to Michael Crew. He... wasn't happy to be found. A few minutes with him and I- God, it was like I was in free fall for hours. Couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. He let me go, thankfully without destroying my lungs completely.

As I was leaving him, though... Daisy showed up. Beat Michael unconscious and took us both to-

[His voice catches a bit, squeezing his hand.]

What she called her 'special place'. Middle of the woods. ...Shot Michael to death. Was planning to kill me.

[His eyes are cast down to the table, but one hand reaches to his neck, touching at the edge of the scar there.]

Basira found us. Stopped her. Had me start digging Michael's grave.

[These were details that Algric didn't have - couldn't have known. His breath catches on the main story but explodes out at the end.]

Jesus Christ.

[That was. Absolute nightmare scenario.]

She's a lunatic.

[For all the horribleness of this, Jonah... doesn't agree. He doesn't nod or anything, even as his hand covers the scar on his throat entirely. Not wanting it to be seen.]

She tracks down beings like me. Like Michael Crew. All of us. She's, um. Aligned with the Hunt. The chase is what she thrives on.

...

And, just a brief detour here... probably will be highly interested in us in the future?

...If she isn't already, yes.

Good to know.

I'll.... I'll handle her, if she comes knocking.

[Jonah rubs a hand down his face. Lets out a heavy breath.]

We went back to the Institute. Confronted Elias in front of all of you - first time you'd all seen me since I ran. Elias admitted to killing Gertrude and Leitner. Said he hadn't wanted Leitner to tell me too much too soon. He had some kind of blackmail on Daisy and took Basira as an employee as collateral. I think by then Melanie had started working with us as well.

All in all, he. Welcomed me back to work but refused to tell me anything more solid of what was going on. After looking into things a little more, I decided to head to the Breekon and Hope depot in Newcastle, I wanted more information about the Stranger and the Unknowing.

Daisy and I found Sarah Baldwin- from um. One of the missing persons from Old Fishmarket Close and who worked with Melanie later? Told us a bit about the taxidermy shop that was a place of power for them. Ran from us as soon as she realized we didn't have the gorilla skin they needed.

[God. It all goes a bit pear-shaped from there. He rubs at his eyes.]

Nikola found me, said after I 'attacked' Sarah Baldwin, it wanted to talk to me. Threatened me and left. ...A couple weeks later, Breekon and Hope found me, told me Nikola changed their mind and they took me.

[You know... he's not going to ask what 'handle her' entails. The offer of help if he needed it stays on the tip of his tongue... and is swallowed shortly after at the next stretch of this bitter, terrifying story.

Tim is very still at Nikola.]

Taken...

[He nods. Keeping eyes glued to the table and. Finally reaching for that beer to sip at.]

Took me. To that museum.

[He just... Sighs.]

Said they'd gotten impatient waiting for me to find the skin to steal, so they decided to just. Use mine. Kept me for a month prepping me for it, had horrible skin so they wanted me... refreshed. Moisturized, the whole thing.

I didn't realize how long it'd been, but after a while Michael, the- the Distortion, turned up. Said he was there to kill me because he didn't the Circus to win but didn't want the Archive to win either.

[Jonah's quiet for a long moment, staring into the area in front of him. Remembering.... He'd been ready that moment, hadn't he?]

The options were let Michael kill me his way, or scream, alert the Circus, and my death be more painful. I. Agreed to his way. Watched him conjure one of his doors and was ready to step through, but it was... locked. Helen Richardson picked that exact moment to take over. She became the Distortion and brought me back to the Institute because she... liked me.

You know. [He holds the can in one hand, just looking at it.] The most infuriating part of all of that was Elias never even told any of you what happened to me.

Edited (forgot... a word...) 2021-01-09 00:26 (UTC)

[He just... just numbly cracks his own and drinks it without tasting it at all. It's something to do. An occupation of his hands as he just... processes detail after detail.]

What? He just... Let us think... what?

...I think that I was investigating a lead or something, Not too sure, I was... Very angry at the time.

Yeah? I. I get that.

What happened when we found out?

Mm.

[He thinks back, remembering as best he can.]

Melanie was angry I was gone so long without word. Apologized once she realized what happened. Martin was worried of course. Basira and Daisy... hard to read.

And me? I mean, I don't care how pissed I was at the time, hearing you were taken by the Circus..

[He's... eerily quiet for a long, long moment.]

No one told you. So you... didn't really care. I didn't see you again until weeks after.

[You know, he'd been TOLD that he goes off the rails. That Tim and Jon just violently hated each other.

But not even being informed.]

Shit.

Yeah. It... It was bad.

[He lets that sit a moment. Gets his breath because those were bad times.]

After that, I followed Gertrude's footsteps to get more information about the Unknowing . A short trip to Beijing. That led me to America, and I was being followed. A cop that turned out to be... Something else. And... Trevor Herbert and Julia Montauk were following it. So they took me to lure it out and kill it.

[He sighs. A bit of respite, and a little honest sadness.]

Stayed with them a short bit. Let me use a book they had to see if I could get more information. It was... Mary Keay's book. And the last page was Gerry. Um. Gerard, the. The goth that turned up in so many statements. Told me everything. About the powers, the rituals and how they work. And then asked me to take his page with me to destroy it.

Which... Means Trevor and Julia hated me after they found out but that didn't happen until after I was back in London. Made a plan for you, me, Basira, and Daisy to go into the Unknowing and destroy it with Gertrude's stash, while Martin and provided a distraction for Elias and Melanie got the police to take him.

[These are so many details that had been skipped in the previous tellings. Some for good reason - he had been so overwhelmed by many of the larger beats and revelations that none of this would have sunk in even if they had been relayed.

Others omitted, likely, due to how intensely private they were... And Algric is good, at least, at stepping softly around privacy.

He drinks more of his beer, staring into the can. It sloshes in a mildly interesting way as he tips it back and forth until-]

... Got him arrested?!

Yes. We had him confessing to both murders on tape and with Martin distracting him, he didn't see the police coming. That was how Peter came to work at the Institute.

I-

[Sighs.]

For the Unknowing, Basira made it out on her own. Daisy was thrown into the Buried. Into the- the coffin. It leads there. You were... And I was in the hospital apparently dead or comatose or something for six months.

After I woke up, I was... Different. Basira didn't trust anyone because she'd had to do it on her own. And resented me a bit since I made it out and not Daisy. Melanie absolutely hated me and only part of that was the ghost bullet in her leg infecting her. Martin was... If I even saw him for a few minutes, he was distant and trying to get away from me.

Breekon showed up with the coffin. Angry that Daisy had killed Hope and wanted to have revenge. I.. Extracted his statement. He said Daisy was still alive.

After I realized Daisy was in the coffin, I. I resolved to save at least one person. So I. I realized I could get out if I had an anchor. Tried to um. Make one myself.

[He nervously rubs at his fingers. Phantom pain of constantly trying to cut one off over and over again.]

Melanie told me Jarod Hopworth of the Flesh was trapped in the tunnels. So I... Went to him. Had him remove one of my ribs, and traded another for a statement and his freedom.

And... Then I went in.

[And then he died.

He followed the Martin becoming distant, he heard enough about the Lonely... the others... well. He knew the others, sort of. In that passing, friendly way. Melanie in the sort of 'Yeah, Jon's a bit of an arse' camaraderie post statement and Basira in the warily pleasant way most people are with cops.

The last is just. Just a long stare.

There's no words here. He's still looking for those.]

[At the silence, Jonah hesitates. Wonders what Tim is thinking but doesn't pry.]

It... It's a lot, I know. It never really stopped.